001good evening the meeting of the monmo Township Board of Education will come to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice ra may we have a roll call Mr Gorski Mrs kapano here Mr Chella Mrs antelis Mr Braverman here Mr calman here Mr Klein here Mr lirry here Mr Masters here Mr tesler here Mrs Fon here Madam board president you have a quorum thank you in accordance with the provisions of the New Jersey open public meetings law the monen board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted October 7th 2011 one at schools two the
002home News Tribune three the cranberry press and four filed with the clerk of the municipality at this time we will go to number five on the agenda the student board members reports uh good evening um there's still no uh immediate updates for the school so as soon as they come in uh we'll be sure to reward them okay that was nice short and sweet thank you uh this time we will have we will have a presentation on the iPads and I will turn this over to Dr Gorman good evening everybody uh we'd like to make a two-part presentation today and we'd also like to provide you some literature to keep you in the loop um as far as giving you information on how our implementation plan is moving some uh some research that was conducted
003um on usage of mobile technology and its effect on student learning our plan for professional uh for professional learning for our staff members and our long range plan for this year that extends Beyond also um on this paper that was provided at the front um and it'll be on our website as well after tonight there's a link to our new um website that talks specifically about the initiative um it's a pretty powerful learning tool it's being constantly updated Mr Goodall is providing um updated blogs on it uh news releases and current research and articles to um to just give you more of the why and and the how uh towards the initiative at this point I'm really happy to um to introduce uh a New Jersey educator um Bill sang Jr is a science teacher
004at lenpy high school and we provided this bio for you also in paper if you haven't gotten it um he is a crator for advancement of lifelong learning with mobile technology and he happens to be an apple distinguished educator has no connection with apple but apple has a program that distinguishes outstanding Educators throughout the nation and Bill is one of those outstanding Educators that was actually acknowledged and um recognized uh by the by the company um he's going to give you an overview of some of the possibilities as we move forward that um can be done with these mobile devices he should um I'm confident that he's going to wow you um and then uh we wanted to put out the possibilities as we move closer towards next week when our students will actually receive
005their iPads and we'll start and we'll take the next step in this journey towards higher levels of student learning and engagement so Bill thank you for coming thank you everyone it's an honor to be here thank you for inviting me I think I got to just hit this power button and should be good to go might try to talk sure absolutely should I hold [Music] it right so there's a little story I tell my students at the beginning of the year and um anytime I talk or give presentations I hope you humor me for a couple minutes anyway but um there's a uh a little story about one of the greatest Minds arguably that ever lived and involves Einstein and The Story Goes that back in the 1920s or 30s Einstein was being interviewed by
006a newspaper reporter and that reporter happened to um one out of time and he said Mr Einstein could I could I have your phone number your home phone number so that um I could continue this conversation later and um you know this is really kind of like forward kind of thing for him to ask Einstein but Einstein walked over very calmly to the uh to the table proceeded to open up a phone book and looked up e for Einstein found his name in the phone book wrote down his phone number and handed it to the reporter And the reporter was dumbfounded I guess for two reasons because Einstein gave him his home phone number I mean if I had you know asked uh President Obama for his home phone and WR dat and you give
007it to me um but then likewise I think mostly just because Einstein actually had to look up his phone number and so he asked him you know Mr Einstein you have one of the most Brilliant Minds in the history of mankind why don't you know your own phone number and Einstein just replied very very shortly that why would I store information up here that I could just as easily look up here so I take this to heart um you know as as Dr romman so very nicely introduced me I'm a science teacher from Len High School down metap for just outside of Philadelphia about 15 miles and uh these are just some images of my school in my classroom and one of the overarching objectives in my classroom is to teach students to be very
008extremely resourceful so in other words use the tools that are given to them very very appropriately and in a very very ethical kind of fashion so let's face it the students that we have here today my students your students when they get older they're not going to carry a backpack of books around with them to be resourceful they're going to have a mobile device in their pockets or some other kind of device that hasn't been invented yet so we need to teach them how to use tools very responsibly and also in a fashion that's going to benefit them and ensure that they're lifelong uh successful um as you know just Learners and very successful in life regardless so what do what have I been doing um I've been running an iOS pilot program in my
009school I'm actually uh sort of like the black sheep there's nobody else doing it but uh nonetheless there's some really really obvious things that you can do with iOS devices there's Safari on there which means that it opens up the worldwide web which is incredible um all our students have a student email address which makes um communication between teacher and student very very effective very simplistic and it's also incredibly secure and then in terms of like just keeping them on task with a calendar and things like that in terms of assignments it's worked out really really wonderfully and beautifully but these are some of the simple things that we just sort of like take for granted I'm hoping I can show you some more things that are a little bit more exciting um I use
010Google forms almost all the time I'm nearly paperless in my classroom which is tremendous so by adding Google forms to a web page I have Mr sang.com registered and the students just go to that page for whatever the day's activity is I have things on a Blog and just sort of like the Launchpad they just pop in on there and I actually do a lot of my lab activities paperless so with the form I'm able to get them to input data all together and then ultimately what we wind up with are real-time graphs that we can kind of look at and share at the end of the activity so rather than having to like manually enter everything on the paper come back the following day and make this sort of laborious process they can see
011real-time data like instantly which is pretty cool so not bad not bad this is my classroom and what I've really set to do is to get away from me being the front end of of the instruction and instead use the devices to kind of guide the learning and what ultimately we wind up doing is the students actually create their own textbooks so am I out to sort of like drop the textbook entirely kind of um on some level the textbook companies don't like to hear this however my theory is the information's out there if we teach them very very ethical and responsible ways to search the internet how to validate websites how to validate information they can work together to actually create their own content as long as it follows the Core Curriculum standards we're
012in wonderful shape and if they're becoming authors they can add things and make it extremely relevant to themselves so I'm going to show you how I do that but what's really cool about them making their own textbooks is because I got to tell you how jealous I am that you're going to be one to one with iPads because it's phenomenal um they can carry these textbooks around with them they authored the textbooks they made the textbooks their peers made the textbooks I moderate what goes on there and I review it but it's just phenomenal because they know how to talk to each other in ways that I can't even imagine um you know I'm not terribly old you know I'm 40 now but nonetheless I mean my students come and you know they're they're talking
013ways that I really can't necessarily relate to peers can you know sort of articulate things really really well to each other and I think that's what's so incredibly powerful the Epub has um which is one of the export features that we use is phenomenal because it allows students to actually tap on a word once the students have created it and we'll give them a dictionary definition and then they can annotate on the sidelines and write their own notes also too so it's pretty phenomenal it's a really powerful tool what I really really like is the collaborative uh kind of things that we can do with this so if I have a student say doing a drawing this is a really really simple sketch this is just using whiteboard just you know he's just kind of
014doing a drawing of a mountain but it becomes more powerful if I get a group of students to do a group of drawings that relate to a particular sketch that I want them to create so for this sketch we're doing the layers of the atmosphere and each of the students is assigned a specific layer of the atmosphere and they're responsible for coming up with text that is very very uh easy for them to understand and then also creating a drawing so then ultimately after they're all done their drawings we take all the drawings export them in ioto and then ultimately we put them all into one document using pages on a Mac so it's really really cool you can get them all working on that one drawing and then you can import that into their
015own textbooks um I like it a lot the students really like it a lot too because they feel like they're they're actually part of the learning process rather than somebody just delivering it to them um in a in a book or or like a handout this is one of my favorite activities that we do I call it vocabulary which is a combination of phot uh photography and vocabulary and generally I think one of the the biggest challenges I have as an educator is uh literacy my students struggle not with necessarily being able to read but they don't know what the words mean and uh earth science is a very vocab driven class and that's primarily what I teach and so normally what we do is we say okay here's a list of words go look
016them up in the back of the book the iPad and and the iPad Touch has enabled us to use an app called type drawing so what I'm doing in the background is um demonstrating how type drawing works and um students can take an image that they find from the internet in this case we used an image from the USGS website of a geyser and using their fingers they can actually add words on top of the image to Define What that particular word is so the steam is rising up at this is Old Faithful the steam is in up out of there and then I'll change it over so that you can see the word geyser written down at the bottom and then I'll actually add pressure down there with another little bit of red too
017the notion is the idea is is that if they all get together and they each have say one or two words instead of just looking the things up in the back of the book They're creating images that can help them from a visual perspective really understand what these words mean because they're animating them and they're adding uh you know just text on top that really kind of helps with the comprehension um kids love it it's uh really really cool so if we take all these images put them all together they become one master PDF and again that goes back onto the child ofice so they created their own photog glossery phot tabul is what I call it so it it goes on for a little while but you know we can just kind of skip
018through I think I actually have some of the results here so that you can kind of get a better sense for what it looks like so that was where we started and it winds up looking like that with the pressure underneath the steam rising up and and then it's a geyser I mean when students read the word they don't see the image it doesn't necessarily always click um another example here would be you know of wind turbines all right it's really cool to see a static image they can look it up online but when they add the uh the text to it you know the wind kind of going in you can see the electricity coming down the the the main tower and then you know wind turbine and the electricity kind of going out
019along the grid line so it's kind of useful and then likewise uh the concept of uh soil layers and uh leeching and infiltration and minerals kind of being pulled down and then leaching down into the different layers so when we start to add up all these things you can it's it's really cool what else you can do I mean you can add like you know an image of a very famous person and put their whole biography on top of it really it's it's not just applicable to science and that's what I really love about this you could really use this in almost any class so these are just some images my students actually created some of them better than others but nonetheless it's it's really pretty cool what happens as you go through the year
020and they start to refine their skills in this and then they really kind of take it personal to sort of like you know create really really great one for all all their peers to kind of get into so this is a video that I made if we have time I guess we'll show it it's only about three minutes the real world skill is it for them to look something up in the book and then write it down on the paper the real world feel is that they're responsible they know where to find information when they need it and how to validate that information we're putting that right into the hands of the students and saying here you be in charge of your own mind and you go out and find the information validate it and
021make it relevant to you design my classroom to be a collaborative workplace that Fosters creativity and critical thinking there's a Mac Mini every table and each student has an iOS device which serves as a research pod that reports back to the CLE desktop Mac this other app of support is the perfect Collaborative Learning environment by giving them specific roles in Project Style kind of things that we've been doing really uh allow them to shine in a differentiated instruction so let's use an example here a PlayOn every table has one specific play boundary let's just say it's Continental Continental margin the researchers find out what it is about a continental Continental margin makes it different from others they find out specific examples um what sorts of features are built by it then they find images to
022back things up and they are starting to create their own chapters now this is where it gets really cool because they're doing this on the iOS devices and then we're using an applic called ppot and ppot a clipboard manager they find content on the iPod Touch by tapping on the clipboard manager on their iPod it can go directly into a Pages document so the editor will start to kind of filter out the unnecessary bits and pieces and start to pull it together and then when they're finished they have a real document that they created together and we've got six different ones that we can then compile together and have one Master E club that goes back out to them on their devices they've got a chapter that they just created as a class together so
023we don't just limit it to the standardized textbook modes of of delivery it's whatever they want to do use uh Sketchbook X to do their own drawing of it or they can use imotion and actually create a little clation video of a plate Collision the students learn best from themselves there you know I have to you know constantly remind myself that they're not going to understand every word that I say but they understand you know their their creative means of expression so if they're putting that out towards their peers they're going to learn a whole lot more my name is Bill sang and I Empower my students in collaborative environments with iOS devices yes sir I really appreciate your presentation I'm an electrical engineer and I think graphically I can demonstrate that right here but
024I think in order to have an effective presentation you have to have a list of acronyms you are throwing them at us like you're trying to drink water from a fire I do I tend to talk really fast and and very uh a mile a minute I apologize for that no no no I meant that in the sense of quality improvement I'm not trying to be a badass and proo that that's all right I got a hard head I can take it um so to kind of summarize here there's a lot of content being created by the students I mean you know there's PDF files there's you know UBS there's um all kinds of collaborative drawings where do we catch all this um usually I have a um a hard drive that's set up to
025a uh a communal Mac in the room and they have like a Dropbox folder where they can just drop it off and then I can assign one student to sort of like compile all this stuff and then it gets posted on a Blog where I can email at them directly and iBooks is great because it's just sort of like the catch all anything that's getting created by them they can drop into iBooks and since if they are one to one they can carry it around with them so this really becomes their quintessential backpack um it it can open um pretty much any content that you throw at it and it's it's pretty incredibly powerful um I'm G to I keep going I could talk about this all night have more to discuss second part give
026it a quick sort of finish okay sure well let me um let me skip over the maps based investigation this is actually much more of a sort of like teaching kind of thing that can happen with um I'm kind of stuck in this [Music] video and well we're walking through it anyway the notion is is that the teacher can use the iPad as a very very powerful instructional tool um so in this particular instance I showed a video and the video related to some non-point source pollution and what I asked the students to do I actually just videoed it right outside of my house I pulled up the map where I live not really showing them exactly where I live so it's on the iPad but it's also on the screen in the projector in
027the front of the room and um I use an app called doer and there's some similar apps out there called uh air sketch and then there's also one called um um um name is escaping me right now but doser is great because it becomes an interactive whiteboard um so we don't need to necessarily have an interactive whiteboard at the front of the classroom anymore the iPad as I pass it around the students can draw and annotate over top of the notes and then it becomes this really really cool um investigation that they sort of like look into to see where the pollution is coming from so passing around the iPad is incredibly powerful tool um you know if you've got a whole bunch of them in there I think actually that you can connect multiple
028dossary devices to the same desktop at once which is really amazing the students can actually draw up on the screen at the same time that you're presenting anything and in this case they're passing it around and um they uh they're able to kind of really take part in the uh the entire lecture um really really well so what am I seeing in terms of results because everyone always asks this um the students are remarkably much more engaged they know what to do when they come in the class um a lot of people you know are really really concerned about being distracted by the devices because you've got internet right in front of you you've got all these games especially if they're taking them home they can load up all kinds of things it's about classroom
029management if you manage the classroom appropriately and they know what to do exactly when they come in and you've got something for them to do they're going to take off with it and they're going to be really excited to be in the class too um Additionally you know instead of doing this they're doing this they really are they're taking their notes um you know you get a couple kids every now and then doing what they shouldn't be doing but you could argue that about any classroom really you know they're going to be sitting there scribbling or passing notes to one another or doing something else um more focused on the lecture you know instead of me being up there um I'm putting the lecture inside the devices we flip the classroom all the time this
030is something you know that's really big in education now too the notion of actually posting your lectures online having them go home and watch that for homework and then coming back in and just helping them with whatever their homework was so we do that quite often and then uh also you know their their eyes are on the so to speak they're far more responsible and uh I wish I had one of these devices when I was in high school because I think I would have been on time with practically Everything But ultimately ultimately they're far more resourceful and they're using the tools in ways that they really really truly should be so if Einstein had the the benefit of the iPhone at at at one point in time I have no doubt that he would
031have been using the contacts app to give out his uh his phone number instead of uh using that phone book but um I think that's about I I could show you more but I think we're good all right any questions okay great thank you Bill thank you thank you very much for coming I know you did this on your own time and we really appreciate your effort um to come down here and share some of things cool things that you're doing and hopefully maybe we'll partner up with your school and we'll set up some collegial conversations which will be awesome thank you appreciate it um the second quick part of our presentation because of uh some of um the reactions that we've gotten that we want to sort of um give you some more positive
032information there's another handout that gave you information that the district is taking to secure the iPads um Dr Hamilton and myself and Mr Washington met with the police department the other day in a very positive conversation on how we can partner with each other and what I'd like um to do now is um have one of our technicians from the high school John come here and actually give you a quick demonstration on how to use the find my iPad application um and the he'll tell you the key to it is as soon as you know that it's gone let somebody know so we could locate it and and get it back or tell you where it is so I'll turn it over to you John thank you very much hi my name is John I'm
033a workstation specialist here in the high school I'm here to just show you the main features security features that we took in order to keep our iPad secure from the students uh we disabled the features of them allowing them to install applications or download applications as well as uninstalling uh also with to find my iPad app we can locate the iPad no matter where it is as long as online and also we can lock it and we can also swipe it if you have your own personal information on there clear everything out um I'm going to turn on iPad here and what I'm going to do is actually I'm going to log into the website that we use from Apple in order to lock it out uh the students iPad I have here is Michael
034haragan so therefore what I'm going to do is we're going to go in our database and locate where he is and we're going to pull up our website and then once we log into the website we have our I I'll bring it up after so I can show you what the map looks like and once I locate the iPad I go to the student's name and I will be able to lock it once and also I can send the sound to it as well so I'm going to display a message saying that this iPad is uh ler stolen please call the number on the back and have it returned to Monroe Township High School so I'm going to send that and as you can see it pops right up on the iPad as well as
035I can lock it so you need a passcode in order to get into it so no anybody that goes into it they won't be able to steal it um so that's one of the main features and then I'll also show you what it looks like for us when we locate the iPad and that is what it looks like and there we are we're in the corner of Schoolhouse and pville Road and also you can do a hybrid view so we can even get more into detail and see and I'm pretty sure that's a library right there so uh that's pretty much quick overview on how find my iPad works so if uh the iPad comes up stolen or missing please report it right away if you go on to our website uh you scroll all
036the way to the bottom you go to feedback or questions and you can email us and just let us know it's a reported stolen so we can locate it as soon as possible and that's uh pretty much it John quick question is Michael here who's our student in the back Ro Mr goodle Mr hins that's not Mr Aaron that's not Mr Aaron there we we have some students that are very excited about this initiative and want to take a leadership role and have told us the services that they'll provide for us in the learning process and anything else we need to do um regarding this technology um so that's a quick overview and we'll be coming to you every month showcasing and giving you different aspects and bits of this initiative as it grows um
037as we showcase success stories provide data for you and um anything relative based on your input to us and our output to you guys so thank you um is there any questions in regard to the iPads from the members of the Board of Education okay seeing none we'll go to the port public forum if anyone wishes to speak to the agenda please come to the microphone and give your name and address for the record and all other items that are not on the agenda will be saved for the second public forum and this will include any questions that you might have in regard to the iPads Tom notein 15 Nathaniel Street um since the uh closed session is open-ended there's really no way for the public to know how long you'll be in closed session
038with that in mind I want to ask some questions uh pertaining to the iPod because I may not be able to wait until yes you can ask questions in regard to the iPads my concern actually is also if we could actually have a close uh public portion right before the Clos session and then another one after it to address anything that happened in the close session would make more sense I don't think it's fair to the public that we have to wait around open-ended for a public session after the uh closed session Mr ly will save your comments and tell other board business this is a public forum I have a question with regards to the um the iPad or the yeah the iPad um we're all familiar anybody who's worked with apple about jailbreaking
039uh either iPods or iPads um how does that affect the capability to locate an iPad um after it's been stolen um maybe mind know that M Mr Dr Gorman as far as uh as far as jailbreaking the iPad or iPhone or any iOS device uh it is still possible to locate the device um currently the main concern is if the student restores a phone the iPad and clear completely clears it out which that is something that we're working on and I believe there's a new update coming out that will allow us to lock it and disable that and require a password in order to restore it so that is something that we're trying to work on and that's the reason why if once you find that it's missing or or speed right just to as
040soon as you know just please let us know so we can try to locate as soon as possible and actually our conversation with the police is we're going to call you and it might be at odd hours and we said no problem we're there for you but they access and the second the notification on any vandalism and you know when we had that conversation we're talking about the exception and the norm and they even said you know we're talking about 5% and 5% is going to exist on everything and anything um but we're doing the best we can to make sure that the 5% is dissuaded from engaging in that activity yeah I mean I'm I'm all for this I'm just you know we're trying to look for holes in this this system obviously and
041um uh I was this age at 1 point to and uh sometimes it's it's doing things that you're that you're not supposed to be able to do with technology that makes it so enticing um and that that's a concern I'm I also had a question from Mr sang regarding is there any integration with the whiteboards uh one application that I see that would be uh incredible is to actually transmit what's being written on the Whiteboard to the iPads uh in real time so that at the end of the lecture they basically have all the notes on their iPad that they could go home and I see that actually even being more uh productive than even just recording the entire lecture is there any way to integrate the whiteboards currently absolutely actually demonstration talked about that
042interactive whiteboard and um later on as we evolve you're going to see enormous savings We Believe to this so what could have been done on a whiteboard which is an interactive tool can now be done through a simple app and all of these in a very probably free app so yes the answer is 100% yes um and and and the the possibilities from what even Williams said and anyone we've talked to is that um the skies that limit and it's not a cookie cutter it's how the kids and the and the teacher are driving it which will eventually and the professional development they're receiving to create and share that content that's the foundation of it um I mean I realized Monroe is an early adopter of this technology um unfortunately early adopters tend to pave
043the way for the people down the road that did not you know determine to uh be an early adopter um as far as textbooks are concerned uh has that technology uh caught up yet for example I know there's I read Wired Magazine which is a fantastic interactive magazine on the iPad uh that you can click on things and if they're talking about an equation you click on it you can see the equation being solved I Envision that for techbook textbooks down the road are there any textbooks that we're looking at currently that has that interactive feature want me to take that one okay as timing would have it Mr Kaufman and you Tom are not a plant you've not been paid for this endorsement in any ways that I'll admit to okay um we're going
044to be reporting tonight as part of the curriculum update that we're going to be piloting with Pearson this year I believe right uh our first textbook free of charge it's going to be a I'm sorry it's a algebra algebra one series algebra one series textbook that's going to be saving us about $40,000 just for this instance alone uh we would have like to have been able to make it completely free but we actually have to buy the series for the middle school as well so they still because they don't have this yet they still need to have a physical textbook so um we'll report later on some hard numbers but the bottom line is we're going to be seeing the benefit of that this year for this series of textbooks and there's just more to
045come the thing of it is I think I wouldn't want to be a textbook publisher because with the Advent of the ability for students to start being able to generate their own text and be able to come up with this content you know we talk about it all the time math is math is math is math it really hasn't changed and as we're being able to develop a lot of this content whether it's staff-based development or it's student-based development um if if we can't find or we can't negotiate with textbook vendors moving forward to where we're happy with the numbers that they're giving us we really have to start thinking about well what percentage of the stuff do we really need from them anymore because the content is just going to continually grow in addition
046to the materials that we'll have that we have to meet our immediate need like this e textbook for Algebra 1 we got to we got to go there but as the course and the content builds and it's all for as far as our conversations have always been the real money or the buyback to the district and the technology isn't really in the iPads because they have a they have a shelf life of how long they're going to last we're we're really betting the bank in is the content that we're going to be creating that can be reused from class to class year to year and you know who knows maybe at some point in time we have enough information here where you talk about being a you know a Trailblazer if you will where we
047have enough content where we can sell it to other districts so you know we're going to kind of leave this whole doorway open because it is new and revolutionary and um I've always said and they'll nod their head it's it's all really in the content that's where that's where our our our focus is and the iPad is a tool to get us there okay thank you very much we're going I take grave exception you allowed him to speak and you stopped me and I was going to provide very useful information namely that we are under court order from Judge wag as to how we hold closed sessions thank you Mr Larry I need please sorry um could you please elaborate because I'm not talking about the closed session I'm talking about the public forun uh
048before the Clos session and after and we'll we'll take that under advisement but not what he to do with the closed session the Clos session is perfect right thank you anyone else from the public Madam chairman I'd ask leave for the same reason the gentleman before me asked leave I come here to praise one of your employees who did a very uh amazing job in negotiating settlement of a problem that could have led to a disaster my name is Rod cobber I'm the president of the Whittingham homeowners assoc Association I resided 63 West Barrow Lane uh we had a disaster in the making uh when there was a duplication of scheduling for one of the uh for the new venue uh we have a show that's scheduled for the 15th uh uh October uh 17
049I believe and I want to say that had it not been for Mike Gorski uh there would be no show he would have had to cancel it would have been a tremendously expensive thing and Mike must be one hell of a negotiator I didn't do the negotiation with him Ed uh Goldman who's the head of our entertainment program did and he had nothing but praise and I want to pass that Praise on to you Ed can't be here tonight because his wife unfortunately is critically ill um but in any event please uh note in the in your book of life that this guy is one special person Mr Gorski is sitting right over here and I I'm sure he's heard everywhere that you said I saw you stop the clock by the way talking you
050have two minutes left uh I I appreciate the comments but uh they really belong to the entire business office STA and uh the benefits coordinator and the assistant business administrator who all work together to reschedule your event due to the timing problems that uh arose but uh thank you for your kind words and and you know the schools philosophy has always been that the schools belong to the community um they're able to be used and there's policies on that posted to the website and you know we appreciate working with you anyone else from the public hi I'm Marilyn Cashman 35 Nelson Avenue um I have free children in the school system and I do have some questions about the iPads and some other things we were told that we could pay a $49 Insurance fee
051and that if one iPod gets destroyed dropped which I'm I'm sure it will they get that iPad replaced if they break a second one though we're responsible to pay $540 to replace a second iPad I don't want my children to have iPads I have not bought them an iPad I bought them each my older ones have an iPod and they both broke them so they didn't get them replaced I don't understand why it's not my decision whether my child has an iPod or an iPad it will get broken in my house and I'm being told basically $49 insurance for the first one I can't pay the $49 for a second one for insurance and if it gets broken I'm then responsible for $540 or $39 is that correct I believe it's $538 for the for
052a replacement my children don't even want the iPads they prefer to have books we haven't been told what textbooks are going on this what benefit they're going to have from this other than I don't know the teachers are going to have a cloud to communicate with them it's ridiculous information nothing coming home and my kids don't even want this and I'm pretty sure most of the parents in this community feel the same way so why is it that there's an insurance fee for one iPad but if they get a second one they can't pay the insurance fee and get the second one replaced so then it's not Insurance there's no insurance policy that came back to my home saying this is what it covers exactly and my kids don't even want these they would rather
053actually have a book so who's who's who has the right to give my kid an iPad okay I'm going to have Dr Gorman respond to that okay um so totally respect and I hear what you're saying as a parent of an 8-year-old 11-year-old and 13-year-old boy all three of them are boys okay and iPads and iPods lost and misplaced all the time to give you a short answer to what if if you're if you're really if once you see them and you still can't get the past that it's a learning that the benefits of learning which is what our intent is um but what's going to be on it for them I'm going I'm going so um when we were looking at the this initiative it was laptop in a onetoone environment because we see
054in colleges and universities that people get laptops and they use that and they house and they keep all their work on it or they're able to send it somewhere or the iPad the iPad really does anything and everything a laptop can do the beautiful thing about it is it's not there's no moving parts so there's nothing really break the case we've uh we believe is a very secure case um I can go like that and it's still okay even though I don't recommend that be common usage of it worst case scenario is if you go through the replacement and you just don't want to go there to the next level then we can provide you with an option to possibly communicate and talk to us and then your child can pick up check get their
055iPad when they enter the school building and check it out at the end of the day so it stays in the building and you don't have to worry about those things that will cost you possibly $538 the the fee is a protection fee um so we can keep these in the best possible shape so when we refresh and get the newest technology for our kids and um in in two years or three years so the spirit of it is to keep these in the best shape so we could get the next best product for our kids to learn um that's why we want to keep them as good as we can the article I gave you here um if you if you get a chance to just look at it um either written or or
056check out the website it talks about um the fir one of the first quantitative studies a real study that measured if kids are learning if what we're giv them is really making a difference and the thing that they talk about is they are scoring 25% higher on transfer learning test and that's a big deal because higher order thinking the ability to work together the ability to construct knowledge in different contexts are important skills that transfer to the workplace and so the spirit is to make our kids as competitive with every kid in New Jersey to be prepared to go to college whether they go to college or not that's their choice but we want the best and we want to be competitive with every kid out there and the beauty of the iPad is that
057it can individualize the learning for your student so what I'm interested might be a little bit different than what Mr Tesla is interested in and the possibilities like Mr sang produced are just touching the service on on the possibility of learning and teaching having said that my job isn't to convince you and if and and I I know if I'm not convinced and I don't mean to cut you off but I'm going to tell you that for the last 14 years that my daughter's been alive we've all been told keep your kids off the internet keep them off Facebook keep them off Spacebook uh Spa Myspace don't they're not allowed to have their phones at school and yet somebody here decided they can give my child a a computer that they will have at their
058own access I have two computers at my house a laptop and a desktop they're both in my kitchen and living room where I could see them nobody here has the right to give my kid a laptop that she's going to have wherever she goes so then you could take that option that I explained to you and you could refuse it and then what happens with her schoolwork that's on the clouds well she could go from your home to the cloud also it so it's it's accessible through regular internet access yes so she can come home and go on the computer that I can watch her and access her schoolwork her calendar her any textbooks that might end up being on it I know my time's up yes so she doesn't really need the the iPad
059she can do this that's that's not what I said I think there will be uses that are coming all the time that will lend to her doing her own thing with some of the the options in there but there are workarounds for it if if that's what your interest is yeah I don't think anybody has the right to give my child an iPad at all that has internet access and no parental controls at home correct correct okay now you've heard what I have to say absolutely and we welcome it thank you anyone else from the public good evening I'm Renee haer I live at 11 region drive and I took a little bit of exception to the previous comments I'm going to speak from my perspective I haven't taken a poll of all the Monroe
060Township parents but from my perspective this iPad implementation is the most Innovative thing that this district has done in the 20 years that I've lived in the town and the key thing that was mentioned was about content my daughter uh has been and my son has been using textbooks that sometimes are five years old eight years old and the content is constantly evolving so and in many classes she'd have a textbook but she'd be getting handouts you know didto page from other textbooks and as it was said the whole issue of opening the whole wide world web of content to these students makes sense and even if some students don't want to do it now the reality of the situation is in three years or two years or one year when they wind up in
061college they're going to have to be doing the same exact thing my son's a sophomore at a university and he doesn't really buy too many textbooks because everything's online and everything is at you know access through H through Blackboard and through online webinars and he has online courses in college I mean this is the future and to not want to move in that direction because you can't control what people are going to do I mean that's part of the whole learning process is teaching these students how to control what to do and teaching the parents how to do that and so I just wanted to speak up and say from my perspective as a parent and from the small group of people that I interact with we are totally and completely in support of this
062we would like more information about what is going to be on the iPad and how we can kind of control and monitor it but in no way shape or form should be the students be held back um because there's concerns about uh of these things because if if students don't want it then they can use it in the library and they can choose not to take it but uh this is the best thing that that this district has done in a long time and I applaud the effort and I know it's a risky and challenging Endeavor but it's it's a wonderful thing and it will have positive benefits for years to come for our students thank you thank you anyone else from the public okay seeing no one we will go to the approval of
063the minutes for the public Board of Education meeting of July 20th 2011 Motion in a second Mr Kaufman is there a second Mr tesler in the close session no we'll do one at a time uh any questions in regard to the minutes all in favor opposed extensions Mr kleene and Mr Braverman and the approval of the minutes for the closed session meeting of July 20th 2011 motion and second Mo Mr Kaufman and any anyone would like to Second the meeting second Mr master questions all in favor opposed extensions Mr Klein Mr Braverman okay at this time we will go to the superintendent's report recommendations with Dr Hamilton good evening all um before we get into the report just want to share a little information with you um since we last spoke uh Mike gorsky and
064I met with Senator Greenstein this week to present some proposed legislative changes that we believe would help to resolve the tuition matters between Jamesburg and Monroe um we're confident that she would be able to introduce such legislation that would create a win-win situation for both districts and more information on that will be forthcoming we also uh discussed with her our request to get additional assistance and follow up on our previous meeting with the state officials regarding F the changing a funding formula so that Monroe does not continue to get the short end of the stick when it comes to the distribution of state aid and she has granted her commitment to do so and we'll be meeting with her again as a followup to that meeting also want to give the board an update on
065the E4 NJ Grant it's coming along very nicely it involves a lot of work primarily on the part of our district administrators um we do have to commend the committee for getting so much done and such little time and I want to publicly acknowledge and thank mtea um we have initially cross the hurdles that we faced on the onset of this project regarding the collaboration I think we're in a good place U Mr Gorman and I Dr Gorman and I attended the Golf Classic event in Forest Gate last week and later on in Mr gorsky's report you'll be getting um as be asked to accept uh checks that we received as donations for the Sparks program from two different organizations that were present there and lastly as you all know I was presented with the
066distinguished Educators award by the na ACP and I wanted to thank the community so many people called or wrote me to to uh extend their congratulations and I want to give a special thank you to the board for a very impressive full page ad in the journal thank you very much um and moving on to the superintendence report uh the student enrollment date is enclosed and you can see from last year to this year we have an additional 225 students in our district so I continue to draw your attention to that because While most School Districts The numbers are stable or declining because of the housing market it continues to bloom here and Blossom in Monroe our out of District placements um right now we're in a very good place you see we're lower than
067we were last year it is still early in the year this data is subject to change but that information is enclosed for your review the home instruction list is also provided for you along with the fire drills and lock Dr down drills our administrators will be going through a training tomorrow actually on new procedures as it relates to um security procedures that we have to implement and moving on to the Personnel report Madam board president and members of the Board of Education it is recommended by the superintendent that Personnel items a through lost my notes t t be approved by roll call vote some Mr Kaufman and Mr braan are there any comments or questions for the superintendent Mr Masters can you just clarify L um each School each year uh each school is responsible
068for developing a school goals committee um and that is a part of a negotiated item with the mtea these are additional members who have been added to the uh oak tree team anyone else Mr Mr lry looking at the uh enrollment statistics uh we have a serious problem in front of us that uh we're at 1783 this building is rated at 1800 and with good scheduling you can go to 2,000 if we continue to go at 122 students a year we're going to be in deep deep doodo thank you anyone else from the board and we'll have a roll call Mr Gorski Mr Braverman yes Mrs Ferron yes Mr calman Mr Klein yes Mr Larry yes Mr Masters yes Mr tesler yes Mrs K Pono yes madame board president Personnel items a through T passes
069thank you moving on to board action items Madam board president members of the Board of Education it is recommended by the superintendent that board action items a through I be approved by roll call vote Mr Coffman Mr Masters are there any questions for Dr Hamilton Mr Klein I'm ahead of myself no I'm right um I see we already had um one of our high school students to damage the property in the school amounts to $100 uh if not a question that I have that I think I've already answered is I believe in our policy the student is responsible for that $100 that is correct so I would expect that the student or his parents are going to paid $100 that is correct thank you anyone else then we'll have a roll call Mr Gorski Mr
070Braverman yes Mrs Tron yes Mr calman Mr Klein yes Mr Larry yes Mr Masters yes Mr tesler yes M colano yes Madam board president board action items a through I passes that concludes the superintendent's report then we will go on to the business administrative report Mr borski Madame board president and members of the Monro Township Board of Education it is recommended that board action items a through Q be appr approved by consent roll call no moved second Mr Braverman Mr caufman are there any questions from members of the board to Mr Gorski seeing none we will have a roll call Mr Braverman yes Mrs Fon yes Mr calman yes Mr Klein yes Mr Larry yes Mr Masters yes Mr tesler yes Mrs kapano yes Madam board president board action items a through Q passes okay
071thank you very much um next on the agenda board president's report um I'm going to keep mine very short we had a governance committee meeting um members of the Board of Education and a couple of the things that we had talked about um um has to do with the the budget and how we need to the board will be starting a conversation about what we want to see in the budget next year how we want to go about how the development of the budget and I believe we're going to be having a budget advisory committee with members of the public that will get involved in that conversation microphone you want my you need it so the cam hear me sorry um and then the other thing that we had talked about was the we're going
072to be continuing the fight for state aid we're going to be following up on the meetings that were held in July in Trenton and we want to just make sure that our our voices are still heard and we're not going to stop the we're not going to stop uh trying to do what we need to get for the um citizens and the staff and the students of monel so that is the My Board president's report and at this time we will go to committee reports is anyone have a Mr Tesla have a committee report thank you very much um on Monday we had a Personnel committee and the following subjects were discussed uh number one central office reorganization there will be a restructuring of some duties among the central um office staff in order to
073respond to some of the new laws associated with coordination of health benefits and other desk assignments that have changed at a result of growth in the district number two Mike updated the committee on the status of implementation of the new uh health benefits law number three we discussed putting parameters in place to ensure that uh there are appropriate trained staff available when the Performing Arts facilities are used by outside groups number four Dr Hamilton gave us uh an update on the E4 NJ Grant which I believe he just mentioned tonight as well and number five the committee also reviewed a few other Personnel related matters including including a sidebar agreement for the aage coordinators thank you questions for Mr tesler Mr kopman no you must have a committee report I do okay um go ahead
074um the curriculum committee met this evening and uh thanks to Tom uh we'll we'll readdress some of the things we talked about um as we move forward throughout the year years and you know future the uh curricul committee is going to be pushing um the Administration very heavily um to to do and a very effective implementation of the iPad strategy that we've put forward uh in addition to the cost savings that I mentioned earlier with this um high school math program that's going to affect both the high school and the middle school we are aggressively moving forward with things like professional development um obviously security um usage policies and that like uh things of that nature to make sure that um it's it's one thing to have the technology and it's another thing to make
075sure we're using it uh effectively uh the idea here is we need to position as was mentioned by Renee earlier we need to be in a place where we are positioning our students to be competitive when they leave Monroe Township High School regardless of where they go whether they're going into the military whether they're going into college or they're going into the trades uh technology is a platform by which um they are going to not only be very comfortable with but to be able to learn and teach themselves as they move forward uh if you work for any kind of company you know that money for Education pretty much doesn't exist in Industry anymore and if you're looking to uh get ahead in whatever industry you're in uh you either have to pay for it
076yourself or you have to be able to find an electronic way to um to get trained on something that you need to know and the idea here is if we can't generate or purchase the product electronically uh then we're going to be very aggressive in trying to build the content uh as we move forward because uh we just have to it just has to be so um we're staging ourselves in a very good place to be able to do that and grow the pro uh pro project as we move forward um I'm going to pass some of these items over to Jeff um because they're kind of technical they deal with Avid and uh a club that we uh had a presentation tonight um so I don't want to misstate anything um has also to
077do with New Jersey pass um just one other comment uh we did uh go through several uh curriculum items and uh approve these items as well relative to social skills and some of these other courses that were uh part of the agenda this evening so Jeff if you just can be brief on some of these things so people know what's going on okay um okay uh we talked about the new algebra one textbook adoption so the curriculum committee approved that which included a um a free pass at the high school level for one year from Pearson um because of their willingness to partner with us um and realization that we are leading the way with the technology um in definitely the state and and throughout the nation um we spoke Dr Hamilton mentioned um the
078acceptance of um funds he did mention that correct for um spark which is a um fizzed and um Health curriculum that would that a National Organization would like to bring to New Jersey and because um fors gate supports the anakah um Corporation they thought what better place to start than with Monroe Township which was awesome so uh they provided us funds to help us Implement in two of our schools with both spark and first T which first T is a program that helps to introduce golf to children at an early age as a way to increase physical fitness and awareness so we're happy to receive those funds and partner with spark and firsty to move forward and we'll be reporting out um as we move forward in that partnership um there's a club at the
079high school a um Service Learning club that uh two of our teachers presented that was um piloted for a year and now um as per our procedures will be implemented full-time it's the ex anino a Nemo Club um it's a nonprofit Club created last year um and there are 75 students already in that club so we approved that to move forward um the two Avid items were just an overview of the middle school program which is allowing them to receive the related arts um because of the restrictions of the schedule and introducing a stien a small stien for summon to coordinate the tuty which is basically um partnering with universities and colleges to bring in college kids to work with our students which is in line with the Avid model um lastly we talked briefly
080about the New Jersey pass being an effective assessment tool for our children and the bottom line is that it has not been updated since the year 200000 um the company has no intention in updating it to the new standards and the Common Core so it seems to have outlived its life shelf in Monroe Township and respectfully we're not going to continue to administer an assessment that's not relevant to our learning for our children so this is uh this is official notice that we are no longer using that and we will be creating our own assessments to match up with the common core and use that as a barometer for where our kids place as they um move along uh the early primary years and lastly there is about 18 um curriculum documents that were um
081approved and presented to the curriculum committee uh this is a culmination of revision and writing that took place in the summer I think that was semi brief right that's why I didn't do it all right cool that's good so that concludes the curriculum yeah okay anyone else Mr Masters I'll keep it short thanks Jee uh we had a buildings and grounds meeting last night uh I'll go through them if you have any questions uh we denied a request uh to donate a shed uh due to issues possible issues with security uh the business office is fighting additional charges from the move they're vigorous refighting additional charges one installing new lot lighting at Brookside school safety lighting due to some uh concerns they came up when they removed their trailers that there was some dark uh
082parking lots out there uh estimated to cost 25 to 35,000 uh we accepted a donation from Equitable for a TV that's going in the school somewhere I don't know exactly Teachers Lounge um we're still discussing parking at the administration building there's some issues with not enough parking spaces uh we discussed issues with the outside use of building requests and what we're going to do for issues that come up in the future uh hold on we denied a request for lat run Transportation drop offs into private developments uh we discussed Applegarth the uh mold remediation and some of the um minor issues that we're going to be uh taking care of that is on task for to have the mold radiation done by winter recess um and also we discussed graduation this year's graduation we decided
083due to size constraints Logistics and recommendation of the staff that we're going to keep it at the Sun Center the sun that's it's called now PNC Sun Arena Sun Bank Arena and with that I'd like to make a motion if you would yes uh I'd like to make a motion to have the mono Township High School's graduation ceremony on June 22nd 2012 at 3M at the SunBank Center Arena I second it second by Mr lry yes okay any comments or questions from Mr Masters okay then um do we need a roll call on that no no all in favor opposed extensions then High School graduation this year will be held on Friday June 22nd at 3:00 p.m. at the SunBank arena in Trenton is that conclude your report yes I'm sorry yes anyone else have
084a um committee report okay seeing none we'll go to Other Board of Education business is there any member of the board Mr tesler who has a word business thank you um just another resource if uh anybody would like to educate them more about iPads in general if anybody knows me I'm you know big technology geeky type guy um uh there is a podcast a weekly podcast that's available on the Internet or your or your iPad called iPad today if you just Google iPad today you'll be able to find it um they give you just general things and new apps that are going on um every week there was a podcast done uh of this there was an episode of this podcast done in September if you look it up uh which uh is geared toward
085back to school apps um and they mentioned a few uh some interesting ones that you know and when I find things like this I always forward this information to Dr Gorman so it's something that maybe the school interested would be interested in the future um two in particular pertain to uh textbooks there's two competing uh it seems like textbooks I guess publishing glamor um that are uh uh out there one they mentioned in the podcast which is traditional textbooks and uh one which was putting together um interactive textbooks uh the a more uh interactive approach or textbook so that sounded very interesting and something that those two companies were moving forward uh as more uh Publishers and more textbooks get online um they also mentioned a few uh apps one in particular it was called
086algebra touch uh it was a visual visual equations solver where you can uh put in your own equations or actually would teach you through lessons on basic equation solving for algebra uh and um my daughter's ninth grade and when she started she was having a little trouble I actually bought uh that for her for my iPad and she uh has been using it quite often to help her with her homework that was just another example of a useful something useful on the iPad but um just Google iPad today it's one there's a lot of resources out there so if you just want to be more educated and just kind of follow you you don't have to listen to it every week it's a video podcast it works on excuse me it works on your computer
087too it's just another resource to help everybody educate themselves okay okay anyone Mr Klein this is probably going to be the last update on this issue because I'm just I'm just hitting uh concrete walls um to update everybody here they know that I've uh sent Letters Out to the Chief Justice two letters never got an answer I've sent three to four letters to uh Governor Christie I had gotten an answer on the first one I've spoken to him personally at Town Hall meetings but basically both of them seem to have turned their back on Monroe Township when it comes to um getting receiving off fair share and state aid $348 doesn't cover uh we see now this year the population went up 225 students if you take the uh the conversion act that ended August
08831st you have um havan which was turned down and then they came back with a a lesser quantity of family homes at 126 homes that two children per home is 252 and then the zoning board paid asked uh Renaissance properties 130 prc's converting over to family homes that's another 260 so you have 512 potential new students coming into the school uh in my letters especially the last letters I discussed that they're looking at well reasons that we get for not getting off fair share let's hit that first is um we have a large amount of retired residents therefore that not adding to the school population they're adding to your property taxes but what these these imbeciles and there's no other word for them that are sitting in Trenton and the federal government um what they
089don't see is that these adult communities the older ones like a Clearbrook a Renaissance Concordia these were Homes at Concordia that were selling at the prime resales of $300,000 you can go there now and you can purchase them for 108 to $225,000 Renaissance not Renaissance um I'll give you a story anyway down to like 11,000 so what they're saying is they don't look at the the uh the conversion act that the legislature approved to protect the developers they don't look at the new uh developments going on presently in Monroe Township adding families that's one of their excuses another EX excuse they use is the value of our homes well if that is the case then I want them going into Clearbrook uh Rossmore the older communities and say okay those houses are going down in
090price we're entitled to more money whatever excuse they come up with is bogus okay um let me see where else I'm going the HT is that you have elected politicians that we vote for that when they're running they state that they're out there to help us what they're going to do for us and you want to know something they're a bunch of liars they don't do anything for us when you look at the state and you look at the federal government and that's what hurts we are being uh punished for no other reason than stupidity $348 doesn't cover it and I don't even know did we add in the 225 students when we came up at 348 no no okay so now we're getting less than 348 when Oldbridge is getting upwards of $4,000 a
091student okay so I don't know how else you can handle this I've done what I can do they're doing what they can do it's it's all a parents it's the ptas it's the parents this thing should have been acted upon when I started three years ago we're getting nowhere fast and that's the end of that and it'll probably be the last time I speak about it which I know you'll be happy about anyone else from the board data point Mr ly give me theone uh the education business in New Jersey is about a20 billion a year game and about 7.8 billion of that is state aid and they're about 1.2 million students now if you do just simple division turns out per student value should be 6,46 bucks even orbridge which We complain about they're
092getting short changed and you you look at our uh not too far away uh communities of like New Brunswick $116,000 per student per Amoy $116,000 per student and we're sitting at the 348 that Mark's talking about something is rotten that's all I'm going to say and just to add just to add to that Mr that is just a state aid what about what they getting in federal aid you know what we get in federal aid what was it $882,000 or so that's what we get in federal aid where they're getting hundreds of millions of dollars in those other school districts okay anyone else from the board okay at this time we will go into close session be it resolved that the Board of Education of the township of Monroe hereby moves to go to close
093session 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 subjects student matters harassment intimidation and bullying reports and I want to add the superintendent's evaluation the discussion conducted in closed session can be disclosed to the public at such time as the matters have been resolved a motion and a second moved second Mr Kaufman Mr ly all in favor I opposed abstention at this time the board will move into close session okay at this time the board will move back into public session and um Mr Tesla yes uh like to make a motion that the Board of Education give Dr Hamilton a 2% increase for the 201122 school year and a accomplishment of achieving his school goals and to conclude
094his evaluation is there a second second second by list Mr lry any comments or questions if not we will have a roll call Mr Braverman yes Mrs Fon yes Mr calman have to be recused I think it's recused is wife was so noted Mr Klein yes Mr Larry yes Mr Masters yes Mr tesler yes this K Pano yes Madam board president motion passed thank you very much okay at this time we will go back to the public forum anyone from the audience wishing to speak please come to the microphone and state your name and address for the record hi am Kim jobs to Horseshoe Court Monroe um I attended the grounds building Transportation committee meeting last night I have a picture I'd like to show to you that when you denied my children access to
095the bus to be dropped off in appropriate of what the danger now that will lie with my kids being left in the dark so we can leave it up here thank you it's okay that's what the area will look like now kids left also at the meeting you request did that I see U Mr Fe I did go see him and he said that um it's uh the de developer was in compliance with the state coordinates of the rsis res uh residential site Improvement standards when the development was built and he basically told me this is a board of ed issue it's not a Township so um I don't know what else to go from that but in addition I received a letter also from Mr Gorski and I have a couple questions I'd like
096to ask him first being that um you had said that the millstone River Preserve is not um considered a hazardous route so my question is what deems it what deems a hazardous route in this community because based on your pamphlet that I have the safety bus safety pamphlet I'm a little confused so I'd like you to answer that for me [Music] please the state Department of Education um defines hazardous route it is not um entirely specific as it is a subjective decision made by the Board of Education some criteria that goes into it is high speeds of traffic um no sidewalks poor illumination Bridges um a sharp Bend in the road would make a hazardous uh consideration it's not any one of these it's the aggregate of all of them as determined by the school
097district okay but just so you know that your hazardous route here that's deemed from your policies of the Board of Ed the four that you you have is uh no sidewalks speed limits volume of traffic traveling and roadway widths B what on roadway widths widths yes so based on this criteria from what you have in your pamphlet my my development has two of these one being being no sidewalks and the road widths are very narrow they're 22 ft wide so that was a little I'm not really sure the other thing is you say that um in the letter that um the distance from the stop to the door was um State recommended distance of 2 miles for elementary middle school but in here for your transportation cut off it actually reads A a transportation for
098students should be predicted on grade level and the distance a child resides from the school school attended not from a bus stop it's actually from the school's distance where they reside go ahead that's correct that's a bus pamphlet um the items listed there for hazardous route examples are not all inclusive okay um but this is what you give out in our when we get our Transportation Route correct it's an Abridged um so is there additional information that I need to be given so I understand this more more correctly and according to the New Jersey Department of Education a child uh at the high school grade levels 9 to 12 can walk 2.5 miles to school before the school has to provide transportation okay but that is not I'm sorry go ahead they also recommend that
099as a guideline for districts to judge from the bus stop to the home but Mike development has no sidewalks so you're forcing my children to walk in the street and not be able to get off roadways and it's dangerous and they could get hit by a car but I guess that doesn't matter in the aggregate of all of the criteria your route was determined not hazardous last year when it was requested to be reviewed by ingred Rano uh it was it was also evaluated as non-hazardous when Dr Hamilton and I went out a second time last year and it was also deemed nonhazardous this year okay let me ask you this why why why because in the aggregate of those considerations you don't have high-speed traffic flow um I could do you ever see anybody
100drive down my street yes it does happen your street is is a long and very narrow and winding private it's not private it's public sign right on it it says private it's not that does not say private it's an in in cleave private it's a it's a description for the site inside there that the Builder put out there to build it's not private it's public the township will take care of that that road we'll plow that road we'll maintain that road the grass the trees alongside of it so it is not a private road okay again in the aggregate I I still determine that your route is not hazardous according to the definition now the district had accommodated you by taking the pickups and the drop offs to door too for every home in your
101development I agree I appreciate that your request then expanded to lat run Curtis busing the district has a clear policy and practice that we only provide cluster uh late run busing with the exception of basic skills at the elementary school level okay and you're still sticking with that because I am telling you there is areas within my area that that is not possible that cluster busting happens it becomes door Todo because there's locations in those areas like Gravel Hill Federal Road Old Church Road you name it down there that those kids are dropped off in front of their houses because there is no sidewalks and there's nowhere to Cluster children to be dropped off to walk from those locations not the district policy unless if it pertains to basic skills I'm just telling you that
102also this development is unique that it's not like any other place in the district so how can you say that this is based on a districtwide thing when nothing else like this ex exists in this district one final comment it is unique and I share your concerns about hunters possibly being in the area and about no sidewalks and about poor illumination or inadequate illumination that your Builder had provided you with but those are not concerns that the district can bear on our Shoulders by breaking from policy and practice for late run busing we don't have the means and the budget to accommodate that and and what we've what we've asked you to accept is uh consistent all the other parents in the district what I'm trying to at this time um I think the conversation
103would need to be make an appointment to come in and talk to Mr Gorski and Dr Hamilton um you came before the buildings and grounds Committee of the Board of Education last night the committee did not support your request and felt that it warranted no further consideration following our district policies the law of the state and in regard TOA uh lat run courtesy busing so if you feel like you would like to continue the conversation I would suggest that you make an appointment and talk to the transportation department and the superintendent okay can I ask just one last question though because in his letter the last part I wanted to ask is hazardous busing does not apply to late run buses is that correct that's correct so basically you were saying that you would put
104any child at risk at any location that doesn't matter I was legally defining hazardous busing as it relates to Courtesy late run drop offs there is no correlation in courtesy we're still paying for it so it's not like you're doing me a favor like it's free okay thank you for your comments anyone from the bo from the public my name is Maria lepry 61 ashall Avenue um I'm here because uh I'm an afflac representative um And in regards to the chapter 78 law as of all school um Boards of Education have to have an FSA implemented as of January 1 um I have tried to contact the the business administ minator um I understand it is you guys are underst staffed afflac Representatives as a whole can be very annoying and I I understand that
105I've spoken with the the your broker gr Murray Joe Columbo I've spoken with him and he has told me that the reason why I'm not being heard is because afflac is annoying and because of the issues of having a payroll stock given I wanted to make it aware to to the board members that I can implement the FSA at no cost to the Board of Education I'm sure you've been in discussions and got gotten notices from other Brokers and and other people you know other other companies with as in regards to the the cost of the um administration of the fsas um with they have this initial setup fees they have a monthly per um per participant monthly rate as well as a monthly minimum um I as an afflac representative and as a taxpayer
106and a student of a fresh a parent of a freshman student would absorb the cost of the fsas in order to save the Board of Education some money that could be reverted back to our kids um I'm doing this with other school districts in the area I'm working with sponsored schools along with this comes all I carry the administrative burden I do all the the education get all the paperwork signed as in regards to the payroll slot that I was told is an issue payroll Administration would take 5 minutes a month um I would sit down I devel velop all the spreadsheets for the payroll person to input pre-tax post tax I I just um and I would come and sit and do them with the payroll person open the first couple bills online we
107bill in a rear I just don't understand you know I just wanted to come and present the information to the board of education and and you know ask you to please consider allowing me to administer the fsas at no cost along with that I would I would offer the afflac core supplements it's an accident policy a cancer program the employees would volunteer to elect these programs but the other school districts find them very affordable and and I have good enrollments so I just wanted to make you know myself present myself to the Board of Education sorry I'm nervous thank you um I appreciate your solicitation I had never heard from you um personally I never received any correspondence from you what we have had in the past is afflac call our business office literally 10
108times a day different people all the all day long and and um our secretarial staff was very effective in in discontinuing that practice because it was rude and intrusive oh yes I um last night at the building grounds Transportation committee and the finance committee meeting our flex spending plan requirement was addressed by the committee and it has such been satisfied okay um it's being handled it was prepared by our board attorney okay and it's being managed by our insurance carrier and the cost is minimal and it is a professional service okay um contract all right thank you very much for your time thank you anyone else from the public Shel min9 ethaniel Street um page nine 8 n um n o n p there's stiens for uh well one is technology resource position so uh
109that's an additional stien and opr clubs are these after school activities that are being paid for are they within the school day schedule these are after school activities or or yeah after school or beyond the the customary work day okay thank you um let's see page 4 14 item 10 in the bill list a B and C are those all separate costs or is that um in the $12 million for the month of September a is 12 million B is what is that three over three million page 14 and 15 a b and c the list a B and C are those all separate costs are they all separate costs or they are separate bill lists for separate checking accounts from separate referendums or general fund expenditures so a is not the total of the
110others is it there a a is the uh custodial General Bill list that that is um is that the operating cost for the month yes let me reference the total do you want so I'm saying the total is 12,388 164.245 correct for B and C so it's over and above to elaborate on your question uh the 3 million is fund 34 that is the high school referendum um that is the capital projects fund and for the month of September the total of the bills was 3, 372,117 and is that going to be a monthly cost or is that the end of the construction cost um we've talked about this before this is a varying total every month depending on what bills were paid so it is subject to variation okay but it soon that the
111fund will soon be depleted is that correct yes now the the custodial Bill list the first one that you referenc 12 million was a little large this month because it had a um according to our debt service schedule it had a large Debt Service requirement of over $3 million that contributed to it okay um and since the flood uh Irene and it was my understanding that the state requires that some of the children displaced from the flood um are entitled to busing how many of those children have been availed that all of our students that have been displaced have been accounted for and are being transported to our school if they are outside of our community but from the Board of Ed yes ma'am how many of those children um there were 15 in total
112if as I recall and we have seven that are outside of our district the other eight are and we're supplying the busing and transportation we are okay and can I uh ask one more question yes okay the close resolution um again I'm on page 10 item 14 uh does seem to be a little shy of the required resolution um statement that is supposed to be put before you go into the closed resolution so now we hear that after three times that you've been talking about a raise in the uh salary of the superintendent so before that we had no idea and I think under the Clos session resolution it should have been a little bit more documented so I'm going to look into into that and probably have to present something at the next meeting
113uh but the question I have um well this has nothing to do personally with Dr Hamilton it has more to do with costs and um the financial environment in in uh in our country let's say um what was not is there not an intact F fiveyear contract with Dr Hamilton at this time Dr Hamilton's contract in 2010 was extended into 201 15 and the law went into effect after his contract was signed therefore he is grandfathered into um the the laws before the but prior but prior to this was he granted in the in contractually was he granted the um the cap up to the cap every year no he was grandfathered in before the cap and and after the cap his contract states that he will get up to a 2% increase from 2010
114into 2015 so are we this is another 2% in addition to that no this this is the board um had auss to that so you're going to the cap in other words in in in in accordance to his contract okay and is it for this year or for the extent just for this year and every year okay it is just for this year and I I want to uh remember that the first year do Hamilton was here he did not take uh an increase I I believe but has that this negated that increase at this point are we now really sort of paying back that increase that was not gotten the first year that's a very subjective question well how about financially I mean what what was the difference in the the increase that wasn't
115taken the first year based on economic circumstances are you asking for an average of the of the the term sure you no it might have to be something we have to look at look I don't know that economics has changed but and I know that Dr Hamill is doing a wonderful job and I'm grateful for his his his service but it's again it has to do with finances okay thank you thank you anyone else from the public he seeing no one our next scheduled public Board of Education meeting will be held on Wednesday November 16th 2011 7:00 p.m. at the high school is there a motion to adjourn a motion to adjourn second Mr Mr ly Mr Klein all in favor opposed exstension meeting is adjourned