Monroe Township Board of Education 07.25.12 Regular Meeting

001Welcome to our Board of AD meeting please rise or oh salute to the flag thank youge allegiance to flag United States of America to The Republic stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all that one everybody's out a SE that that didn't work oh well in the absence of Cathy calapan who is our board president I'm the acting board president tonight and I'll be presiding over the meeting Mr Gorski can we get roll call please yes sir Mrs K Pano Mr Chella here miss antelis here Mr Braverman here Mr calman here Mr Klein here Mr Larry here Mr Masters here Mr tesler here Mrs Fon here acting board president you have a quorum thank you in accordance with the provisions of the New Jersey open public meetings law the Monro Tantra board

002of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having date time and place thereof posted July 20th 2012 number one at all schools number two at the home News Tribune number three the cranberry press and fil with the clerk of the municipality right now I would like to open up open it up to the public for the public forum uh on regarding uh anything that we have on the agenda and agenda items only for right now we'll have a second Forum where we'll be able to discuss anything that you want to discuss please remember to state your name and and address into the microphone yes we're going to have a public forum now for items on the agenda and then we'll have another public forum uh after we come out of closed

003session and um then items that are not you know that are not restricted to the agenda can be discussed no at the public at the open Forum at the end you can at the end yes thank you anyone no okay well seeing no one I'll move on then to approve of the minutes public Board of Education meeting May 9th second Tellis and Luke hman hello close session session public any oh sorry uh any discussion anybody anything all opposed all in favor I any extensions thank you so noted all right we'll move on closed session public meeting May 9th 2012 so move secondes yes any any commentary anybody have any yeah any any comments any no all in favor all in favor anyone abstention you obain oh no okay okay S I have I'm going to

004read the closed session resolution now we we have a we're going to juggle the agenda a little bit and the reason for that is and and I'm promising you that we're going to be very brief in Clos session but we need to go into Clos session to discuss a couple matters um that were on the agenda we also have removed one item uh that we will be discussing uh in AUST um can I bring up what that is yes that's the uh that's regarding James Burke but we will discuss that at the August meeting but we have a couple matters that we have to discuss uh in close session so we move that up so that we could deal with that and then we'll come back out here and open up but I promise you

005it's going to be it's going to be brief so I'm going to read that read that now be it resolved that the Board of Education of of the township of Monroe hereby moves to go into close session in accordance with the Sunshine Law chapter 231 public laws of 1075 njsa 10 col 4-6 through 10 4-21 to discuss the following subjects pending confidential investigation parent concerns brought to the superintendent's attention earlier today and the discussion conducted in closed session can be disclosed to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists first second than it all those in favor I I oppose extensions no okay thank you not all right we're going to we're going back into session now and I just want to apologize I uh I told you we would be brief that

006was brief for us believe it or not and they they they just went through Robert's Rules of Order with me so I'm going to do much better now going forward so I'm going to move on now to the superintendent report all right on the superintendent report you have the enrollment data which is the uh which really reflects the June the closing out of the school year information regarding student enrollments um you also have the list of our students uh the the programs that house our outof district students and those numbers in addition to those youngsters who are on homebound instruction moving forward we're going to be looking to reduce the number of students who are on homebound instruction with the use of some other sort of media that may be able to provide assistance or

007distance learning opportunities for our students so we're going to be working on on reviewing that um you also have the lockdown and fire drill um fire lockdown and fire drills that were conducted I actually had to submit a statement of insurance which confirms that these two drills have in fact been conducted each um each month in accordance with the law moving on to the superintendent's Personnel report Mr Vice President it is recommended by the superintendent that Personnel items a through BB be approved by roll call vote so moved all those in favor I I objections that was Amy and Tellis and Marvin Braverman second uh I'd like to recuse myself on item BB repeat the item please bb bb Double B Mr calman yes Mr Klein yes Mr ly yes Mr Masters yes Mr T

008yes Mrs Fon yes anelis yes accept items BB so noted okay um Mr rman yes Mr cherella yes u i I think it's important that we note that the high school enrollment is 1,759 students this building is designed for 1,800 students we need to start planning thank you Mr Larry acting board president motion passes thank you all right Mr Vice President moving on to the board action it is recommended by the superintendent that board action items a through M be approved by roll call vote and noting the following changes to letter J it is recommended that additional physical education sections be created for the middle school during the 2012 2013 school year to accommodate anti additional time needed for the Middle School Avid students this period will this period will run before or after school

009and will successfully meet the 150 minute weekly requirements for physical education and health instruction the new language simply changes additional and replaces it with uh zero period replaces zero period and either before and after school is replaced uh replac as 40 minutes I'd also like to well I'll let you consider that second Mr Braverman Mr Mr calman yes Mr Klein yes Mr liry yes Mr Masters yes Mr tesler yes Mrs feron yes Miss anelis yes Mr Braverman yes Kella yes yes I Bo president motion board action items a through M passes and before I conclude my report just one other item should be listed on the agenda is item n like Nancy and I'd like to read this in for your approval it is recommended that the Board of Education approv the the appointment of

010Michael Gorski as the interim District affirmative action officer effective Electro actively from July 1 through July 12th July 1 2012 to June 30th 20 13 in compliance with state requirements currently currently we do not have an affirmative action officer and we need to have one in place to comply with State statutes uh once I meet with the Personnel committee and we restructure the administrative assistant to the superintendent position and those duties will be transferred back move second roll call Mr calman yes Mr F yes Mr lirry yes Mr Masters yes Mr Mr tesler yes Mr Fon yes M antelis yes Mr Braverman yes Mr Kella yes acting board president motion and passes thank you we'll move on now to number eight business administrator's report acting board president and members of the Monro Township Board of

011Education it is recommended that board action items a through P be approved by consent roll call P was handed out additionally as we had a bid opening for financing just yesterday second who's first Mr K L so Mr Mr cman sorry Mr calman yes Mr Klein yes Mr Larry yes Mr Masters I just have a question those school lunches what's the increase on that the school lunch in uh price increases are 10 cents and the reason for the lunch increase is that there are new uh sweeping Federal changes to the school lunch program um actually mandating that the minimum uh rate charged for students be in line with the reimbursement rate for free meals this will uh put us on track to get close to that reimbursement rate by the time this goes into effect

012um and also the new federal guidance lines require that we ex extensively increase the amount of fruits and vegetables that not only that we provide to students in the cafeteria but they're required a take with each meal so the the cost of these additional fruits and vegetables as well as new compliance with the federal um guidelines required us to raise it by 10 cents which was as um as conservative as we could be and yes yes thank you Mr tesler yes Miss Fon yes Miss antelis yes Mr Braverman yes cherella yes acting for president motion passes thank you now I'm going to move on to the board president's report since she's not here I'm going to give an acting board president report um I'd like to add an additional item uh based upon our our

013uh last Clos session prior to the the last meeting where we discussed this but anyway it is recommended that the members of the Monroe Township Board of Education approve and authorize an annual salary for Dr Kenneth R Hamilton superintendent of schools for the 2012 2013 school year of $194,800 [Music] second thank you scary Mr calman stain so noted Mr Klein stain not Mr Larry yes Mr Masters yes Mr tesler yes Miss Fon yes Miss anelis I recuse myself so noted Mr Braverman yes Mr cherella yes acting board president motion passes okay now we'll move on to number 10 committee reports Mr Kaufman sure uh there was a curriculum committee meeting held this evening and we covered a few points um just to give IR uh your personel right uh we discussed a couple of new

014positions that are going to be coming your way basic skills Lead Teacher the tag Lead Teacher went over their um responsibilities and what they're going to be looking to try and do uh throughout the district so they'll be coming your way okay uh we discussed uh some new iBooks that will be coming to the high school next year as part of the iPad init initiative we're going to be looking for a few algebra books a Geometry book um and I think I'm going to turn it over to Jeff to go into a little bit more detail on some of the initiatives we have related to iPads I'm sorry Dr cor okay just um four different pieces number one next year we will be um implementing I books in the area of mathematics in Algebra 1

015Algebra 2 dynamics of geometry geometry and honest geometry um in addition um we are now entering a partnership between Pearson and Monroe to do some quantitative um research some actual research I'm meeting with them on August 20th to see if there's an effect uh of students using digital textbooks versus non-digital textbooks so I will be happy to to report out those um those findings of the meeting that I have on the 2 on the 20th um probably at the 22nd board meeting um in addition um the state of New Jersey Department of Education director Office of the educational technology sent me a um an email today to ask us to be part of a National Database of State Ed Tech information um as it pertains to digital content so we um are going to fill

016out that survey and then lastly um through an analysis this past year we saved um over $ 13,000 in um copies that were made in the high school from last year to this year with the onset of the iPads so it's just a brief update of uh some highlights that have come um through my office in the last uh couple of weeks um in addition Mr cman we approved um um language arts literacy curriculum and math curriculum documents that have been written throughout the summer so far thanks Jeff that concludes a report thank you anyone else yeah he's done yes we had a buildings grounds transport it's quite lengthy so I'm going to kind of bullet it uh it was over at the Apple gar School trailer uh two days ago uh we saw the

017school we took a nice tour it's really coming along the the classrooms that were completed look really nice uh we had an meca update uh the painting started uh the playgrounds underway um move special services over to the Applegarth trailers for now uh the Brookside roof has uh the contract's been awarded and the work has been started over there um the Monroe Township High School construction extras they're noted in um I think the business administrator report um everything's pretty much closed out with that there was two additional charges um roughly 47,000 for Electrical uh the journalism classroom it it the Apple TV stuff there was another one security about 40,000 for that we got two credits though back we got a masonry credit um and a signage credit about 47,000 and an HVAC credit of

018about 21,000 and we worked at a deal to um uh barter some of the cost for the journalism modification um the journalism classroom is pretty much complete the autism room is not ready for the start of school yet but we're going to continue to work on that um the I PM plan review came back very positive we're not using any pesticides anymore we're trying a lot of natural we did use pesticides once for a termite infestation um but that's pretty much it we also discuss Transportation our efficiency rating is Back on top right Mike that's what it was yeah um we talked about the Applegarth busing and um what the plan is for that and we also discussed courtesy busing we looked at a couple of ideas of uh reinstating one run uh or possibly

019having a um an after school uh care for the the kids that are here without without the run so that's it thank you well as part of that committee report one one of the things that the committee wanted to do was to have a discussion with the full board regarding you know um the course we should take um regarding the after school program uh there was there were a couple things on the table one was to create a safety program where the the the children in the schools would uh be supervised supervised by by staff members and and that they would be there would be a safe place for them to wait in order to be picked up um there were there were also some other uh some other things that were uh that were

020that were asked and some other ideas that were thrown around and and finally we we decided to open it up to discussion for the full board because it is very it's a very important topic um and I and I'd like to do that now and and then I have you know I'd like to just say my my piece but Mr tesler thank you Ken um back in the meeting when we first discussed this in in back in January um you know I had an opinion at the meeting and my opinion hasn't changed but I would like to see um at least the first run uh after school uh reinstated um from the middle school and the high school uh if possible that's my first preference my second preference is we need some place for the

021kids to be safe while they're waiting for the parents to get picked up if if the reinstituting the first run isn't possible or there's not enough support for it so we need some place safe where the kids can go and be watched and supervised so some sort of after school Safe Harbor or program that would be second my list so that's just my opinion anyone else Miss Miss analis back when this board started discussing the budget as a whole this item was removed from the budget and I remember the discussion and we said that this was going to happen and we went along with it anyway because we knew the county the state was telling us we were over adequate we looked at various items what's going to happen is if we reinstate this we

022are going to get penalized and soon we're going to get no State funding and while I am sympathetic to the parents I understand this there are many people in this town not just the parents of children and when we have to make a decision the busing makes the most sense otherwise it's going to be the programs we are penalized over and over for being over adequate for those of you who don't know over adequate is everything we give our children outside of the school day I don't think it's fair I've written to I've had correspondence with a member of the community we should be encouraged to be giving our children a well-rounded education but instead we get 5% funding on a $100 million budget and people in this town just can't afford these taxes anymore

023and we're going to have to start looking at a way to reel this stuff in because the state's going to penalize us I don't want children to be unsafe I've uh talked to the uh the board about the safe haven I I think that that's honestly not the greatest idea but the only idea because if we continue on this route of spending we're going to lose every dime of our funding and it's not fair to the taxpayers of mon R Mr Klein thank you Mr an as I've been saying for three years that I'm on a board at least two and a half of those years was to um get the parents active and attempting to get off fair share from the state so I'm going to ask a question I'd love to see the

024turnout we have here probably have 200 people plus kids I wish this is what the turnout was every month but it seems that parents only come out when it affects them otherwise we have 10 people 15 people so I'm going to ask a question that I asked before um this decision on zero period busing and after school busing was made roughly four months ago roughly four months ago by a show of hand how many of you attempted to send a letter to the State Department of Education or the governor complaining that we were forced to cut zero period busing because we're over adequacy show her hands I don't see anybody I see one how many people know about before June we didn't know everybody who's been here young ma'am no I'm not looking to get

025into an argument but this has been said at the meetings no you'll be able when we get to the open section but I have complained about this in the newspapers at every meeting prior to this just on funding it and where Amy misspoke is she said we get 5% okay try less than 3% we're getting $300 a student for 5,900 students you do the mathematics onund $103 million budget Oldbridge has 94 or 9500 students they're rated the same way as we are an FG district and they're getting $5,000 a year per student now to me it seems and I've said it at every meeting and I've been chastised about it by people on the board that I bring up the same thing I don't know what it takes to get Mr Mr tesler do you

026want to I'm sorry I just wouldn't shut up I apologize for that I take offense to that by the way I'm sorry it was an accident anyway I have no idea know what it takes to have the parents get involved and go to the state and say enough is enough I have been in contact with the state supreme court I've been in contact with the governor both by mail and in person I've been in touch with the New Jersey dep Department of Education I'm one person where's all of you I came here tonight to vote to reinstate zero period busing but after seeing that nobody did anything in attempt to help us from the state I cannot vote for it and I'll have to stand with what we did before and vote against it I

027don't want to do it but none of you you're the first ones to come here to complain complain to the state they're forcing us to do it I'm not going to keep paying the the the residents the retired residents are not going to keep paying something has to be done if you're happy the way we are financed by the state and you're not willing to step up other than uh uh Chrissy to write letters then there's nothing I can do to help you and you know I'd be the first one in the world to help us to help you as parents and the kids but if you're not willing to help yourself we can't do it you'll have plenty of time to bring it up when it's the public section thank you Mr K [Music]

028[Applause] when's the last time you came to a meeting okay let me let me just I just have to call everybody order I promise you everyone will be heard and you'll have a you'll you'll all have a chance to answer um are there any other board members that would like to say anything time you see love hear what's the uh do we have to provide legally for the kids you mean in terms of Transportation not even Transportation what we're going to have the kids stay late we have to have a place for them to be what is that what is that because we discussed a little bit about the buildings and grounds Mike prepared a proposal and I'll let him because I know he did the research on that so I'll let Mike respond to

029that Mr Masters would you repeat your question I want to make sure I heard it so if we have after school activities legally what are we mandated to provide for the children in terms of Transportation Andor some sort of safe area for them to stay okay the question was what is the district required to provide as far as supervision or transportation for students who participate in Afterschool activities according to our board attorney there is a minimal duty of care that the district has uh a legal responsibility for supported by case law to make sure that students in general are safeguarded after the events conclude the district is not in any way required to provide transportation services just to have a general safe plan for students um to have a plan to um arrive home safely

030in other words according to our attorney and she elaborated on this you can't just um close the door after the event and that's the end of it um you have to make some minimal effort to provide a duty of care whether that is a notification to parents in time that this will be discontinued so that they can make other arrangements um that would suffice according to our board attorney whether you uh provide a supervision area for students to wait until they're picked up that could be another area for the board to decide okay just one followup if I now what we're talking about now is that just zero period busing or after school busing also you mean the safe haven the the well for what all these parents are here for it there for zero

031period for both okay with the exception of those programs that are required that we understand now um correct me if I'm wrong our savings would be somewhere around 400,000 $450,000 was cut from the budget for the removal of zero period transportation that was [Music] $250,000 the 430 run was $100,000 because that was much more expansive and covered the middle school and the high school and it was $50,000 each between the 515 and the 615 runs for a total of $450,000 that was removed from the budget okay so if we're talking $450,000 my next question would be what can we do to pull money from something else to pay the 450 without adding 450 into the budget so it could be more children per class um what else can we do to save money drop courses

032I mean it's very easy to spend 450 but you want it reinstated why can't we find places we can cut 450,000 and even if it means increasing the the students the student population in the classes to make up for the 450 and then we can reinstate all that elaborate on why we got it can if You' like if you want to I'd oh Mr Kaufman I just have a couple of questions I also voted like everybody else not to have the zero period busing and and take the money out of the budget but one of the things that I don't know if it was ever addressed or we never actually got the information is this is one of the items that puts us over adequacy there are other items that put us over adequacy and

033let's say I don't know it's one of 10 15 20 items I I don't know you guys would know how many there are other things that are make us over adequacy I believe the original Catalyst WI we tried to to look at impacting this particular item was because we were looking at lowering that exposure of being over adequate to be able to get more money from the state one thing we do not know or I haven't been told is if we take out the courtesy busing for for a savings of 4 something, I'm hoping I'm assuming that we're going to get more than $400,000 in state money coming in because otherwise it'd be a wash and it would be ridiculous to cut it my question really is does anybody know or can anybody tell me

034how much money we're going to get because if we're going to get a buck 50 which is what I would see coming from the state right for taking $400,000 off of our budget to remove courtesy busting the math doesn't work no there's there's no way we can begin to project there's no way we can begin to project what state a will be one but the other piece to this is that the school funding formula which has been underfunded by the way uh does not even lend itself to that kind of balance that you just described that would be ideal our efforts to reduce uh our over adequacy spending was to make us more favorable to the state as we tried to get more state aid and we continued that quest uh it's a very difficult

035argument to at least from the finance people at the state department to argue more state aid when we continue to be over adequacy in some of our other areas so this was uh one of several steps that we would need to take long term in order to make us either one viable for an appropriate lawsuit if that turned out to be a good option and based on a meeting yesterday that may not be the best option for us but we can talk about that at another time and two to put us in better alignment with with districts with like spending where we may be able to create a class of school districts who are in similar districts similar circumstances and making us more eligible for that that fight but no there's no indication whatsoever that

036this reduction of our $450,000 being over adequate is going to manifest itself in an additional increase in Aid by $400 let alone $450 one followup to that if I may roughly three months ago I made a motion to look into filing a lawsuit against the State Department of Education for our fair share and funding where do we stand with that we met yesterday we met with um sa schools um board counsel and an attorney who specializes in school funding um there's a recommendation that I'll actually be sharing with the board in writing tomorrow but in essence what we were advised is there are other avenues the the best Avenue for us at this point is to lobby with our legislators to get the districts to fund the school the state to fund the school funding

037formula in fact if the state funded fully funded the school funding formula we would get about $5 million in state aid so they believe that the e e expert opinion of these attorneys was that we would be most likely to be successful in an Endeavor with our community to put pressure on our legislators to put pressure on the powers that be to fully fund the school formula not to change it because that would put us at a disadvantage but to fully fund the current Formula the there is a proposal to change the current funding formula but the argument in that case is there's no evidence that the current funding doesn't formula doesn't work because it hasn't been funded well we're not even getting close to what we should be getting nowhere near and um the

038letter I got back from the uh the head attorney from the state supreme court was the fact that we would have to file a lawsuit uh in the superior court before they can even hear it because what I asked for was a hearing for you and Mike and uh whoever else from the board would be involved John ly to meet with them and plead our case and that was the answer I got and that's why I was emphatic about at least attempting to file a lawsuit what I have found speaking to Chris Christie personally and letters is that they don't give a damn about us I'll be very honest with you this this garbage about having to cut because for over adequacy They Don't Care About Us for one second and that includes Christie and

039he we know him through the family so it's I think the letters I write to him and he gets them are a joke he thinks it's a joke in the meantime he's now cut a deal with George Norcross that's why Sweeny backs him so all that money's going to Camden because of Norcross and we're here begging these parents are here begging for zero period busing and I'd love to approve it where's the money going to come from I'm not trying trying to be a hard noos I don't want these kids having to stand around in school for an extra few hours or have you having to drop them off but what else are you supposed to do and then there's no backing here why don't you get angry and write and complain so it's not

040one letter from me or one letter from Dr Hamilton nobody wants to complain except when we have to make the cut I'm sorry ladies and gentlemen thanks Mr Klein we're going to excuse me sorry you'll have you'll be able to speak in a moment please we we have to keep order I'm going to recognize Mr Gorski now he'd like to say a couple things thank you I I feel it's imperative and I don't want it to get lost in this conversation um the reasons why another reason in addition to what Mr calman raised about the um adequacy relationship to state aid funding and as Dr Hamilton elaborated is is not determined and cannot be calculated in a formula um and to miss anel's point before this cut specifically with late run busing was pressured upon

041the district by the county office Department of Education for the last few years and I mean four to five years there according to Mr John neth executive County business administrator there is great liability for school districts because there is no accountability for the students on the bus and this is something that I've personally felt over the years I don't know the roster that's getting on the bus none has taken God forbid something happens with a bus I can't tell you who was on there who got off and when and uh there is a duty to care that the district has in relation to transportation services to ensure to safeguarding of students and according to Mr neemo uh we're we are not complying with that by offering late run courtesy busing Dr Hamilton and I participa

042every January in a budget efficiency review at the County office every year we discussed lat run courtesy busting and why we Haven an eliminated it yet in in the 1213 budget there was a specific checklist Point does your District still offer late run courtesy busing yes or no this year we checked no and we ra had a rather Pleasant meeting um and let me tell you it's extremely thorough we bring about six inches worth of paper to this meeting and and it's a very strenuous process so I don't I don't want that to get overlooked that if there is a reinstatement of any zero period Transportation busing that this could have a negative effect on future budgets because ultimately our budget each year has always been and will always be approved by the county office

043if we do not get a signature from Dr Samuel Stewart executive county superintendent of schools for the county and John neemo executive County business administrator we can't put out the budget Mr tler no Mr anelis where would we get $450,000 to bring this back um that's a that's a very open open-ended question where would we get the $450,000 to bring this back I will say from a business perspective this has been one of the most strenuous years on the budget that the district has ever had um we took $180,000 Revenue source as the pay toart participate and reverse that out of the budget that had an effect of finding $180,000 by making budget adjustments for important programs that were in there and and reviewing other cost savings to find a a a spot for that

044we are reopening Applegarth school this September we have gone to the 10th degree to ensure every degree of safety cleanliness illumination and invitation to the community has been not overlooked in the opening of that school that has had a dramatic effect on the budget because I can tell you A lot of that was not planned or budgeted for the lease purchase that you've seen as handed out tonight reflects that with playground equipment and some other items to make sure that that school is on parody with other school facilities so where would another $450,000 come from it would take a great review of the budget perhaps some sacrifices in other areas um in order to determine that so what you're saying is there's not $450,000 available for us to bring this back no ma'am and and

045if if we continue to decrease our excess Surplus calculation which carries over to the next budget year that has a constricting effect on future budgets so items that are currently in the budget would not be allowable with a shrunken budget size because you don't have this fund balance rolling over to the subsequent years okay Mr Kaufman yeah one last Point um just for the uh purpose of transparency when the issue came up back I think it was March April time frame parents did express some concerns and we talked about thinking of a couple of different ideas about trying to maybe create some type of self-funded mechanism where people that would want to or could afford to pay for the Transportation uh create some kind of framework or mechanism by which we can fund ourselves both

046busing and other potential things which we could cut in the future relative to this adequacy issue and Mike did uh a lot of extensive research and and went to other districts to compare and and talk to the uh County superintendents to see what kind of options we had there I know a lot of people here may not have heard or seen that on TV so Mike do you want to just touch on some of that because it's important to let everybody know that you know we didn't cut it and then just kind of walk away we're trying to think of other things that can be done to try and retrofit and self-fund it so that while the state may think or the county may think we don't need it that doesn't mean the township people

047here don't feel it's worthy of having so um the district considered some options that were proposed at the budget cycle for a paay to ride for lack of a better term um system where the district would charge residents for um a ride on the late run buses and um there was a couple offsets to that that made it seem less attractive number one was the failure of the pay to participate budget Revenue source to be received in the community um we had very strong resentment of that program and had to refund everybody's money plus the credit card processing charges to the tune of about $10,000 the county office was involved in the discussion about the pay to ride program and it was strongly discouraged for the following reasons number one the district still has that

048liability issue that I mentioned previously you don't know who's on the bus and you have no accountability unlike you do with a regular route where you have a roster and every seat corresponds to a kid um number two you still have to have the same amount of buses the same amount of ins insurance for the buses the same amount of drivers the same amount of State pensions for the drivers and according to the county office it was discouraged because it it does not shrink the Appropriations that the school district is facing enough in order to Merit that and with the insurance and the liability issues it was strongly discouraged according to Mr neemo most of the districts in the county and I I had some statistical numbers on this before have eliminated courtesy busing um

049some still have it but they will be pressured to get rid of it according to Mr neemo and um I had another point but it slipped my mind if I if I may I'd like to just say give my thoughts um and I too was part of the the decision-making process back a few months ago and then and then recently um Mr orski and Dr Hamilton contacted uh our our legal our legal um team and asked them if we were Bound By You Know by by uh any safety concerns or what our legal responsibilities were and and then they came back and said we did have some legal responsibilities to safeguard the children so that kind of changed my way of thinking so in we started to look at some projections and by the district's

050own projections and some of the the projections that we were given at the buildings grounds and transportation committee meeting is that we could see the the uh the amount of kids that would be in the in that after school safety zone for lack of a better term um grow to 300 to 400 children just in the Middle School alone so that is a that's a huge amount of children and so as we were as we were looking at that and discussing that I thought that maybe a better plan would be to Institute or reinstitute a 4301 4:30 Run for the schools which would pretty much eliminate the need for the program at the middle school because those children would all be those three to 400 children would be gone they wouldn't that wouldn't exist anymore

051and then it would alleviate some of the some of the congestion at the high school with regards to that and and then we you know then we could have uh the U the safety program for the remaining kids and um you know it was it was it was that legal concern and that legal obligation that that that changed my mind and made me think that maybe there was a hybrid program where the uh where that one run would cost us about $100,000 plus the implementation of of the safety program at the high school would be anywhere from 10 to 15,000 for that one program yes to extend um a supervision area for students at the high school from uh 4:15 until 6:15 would be approximately $5,000 annually okay so $115,000 which would still give us

052a sizable savings to help us reduce our adequacy and then we'd be able to see what the state comes up with and what they what they give us and if to Mr Kaufman's point if they don't come back with anything then we'll know that that was a it was a feudal gesture and and and then we could figure out what to do from there so that and that's just my opinion yeah just Mr Masters not to kick that horse I guess the legal thing is the sticky Wicked in this I'm trying to use that in a board meeting since I was on the board um and we're getting rid of zero period and the 615 run and what you're proposing is to put in just the 45 or 430 Run 4 430 and only have

053the safe haven that's a bad name for it at the high school for those youngsters um afterwards and what that what Mr cherella is proposing would mean that those youngers they would take a large number of the kids from High School um and they would be on a bus um but those youngsters whose programs or activities extend till 6:15 or sometime between that 4:30 and 6:15 those would be the youngsters who would be in this this uh ceria cafeteria exactly in the supervised Arena correct could we I'd love to hear from the public can we move this discussion till after the I I still have a question um there seems to be some perception out there that we've cut this busing be because we bought the iPads so Mr Gorski can you explain about where

054the money for the iPads came from and why we spent it on them and how we couldn't spend it anywhere else yes um last year the district purchased 2,000 iPads from a plan that was developed with the Monro Township High School construction initially uh 10 years ago when the plan was developed iPads didn't exist of course and it called for some kind of mobile computer device like a laptop computer those specs were put in the plan as best they could be projected at that time Dr Gorman could better um speak as to why the iPad initiative was chosen and how that could better benefit students in this platform but I will say that the Monies to pay for the iPad twos was paid for by Bond referendum money which had been budgeted initially um for

055the purpose of providing technology in this environment and could we could we have used that money for busing you you could not have used the high school bond referendum money for busing no that would have been prohibited thank you question for um Mr yeah Dr Hamilton before we go ahead and decide whether or not we're going to bring back 4:30 or 6:15 do we know based on the activities of the students whether or not you know because it could be sporting where the students are out of district and if a bulk of the students are coming back from athletic events at six o'clock or 630 or 5:30 after the 4:15 I need I need to know where are we going to get the biggest bang for our buck with getting students home is it at

0564:30 or is it later when will the masses 430 okay okay 430 would be your biggest bang for your bucks because with that would mean first of all we eliminate all the issues at the um middle school because all the programs are over by then the youngsters who right now and and Rob Dr um Rob Goodall and I had this conversation along with with Kevin Higgins the vice principle those youngsters who are in those sporting events at the high school who get back at 6:15 6:30 those are generally the youngsters who either have rides whose parents pick them up or they miss that bus anyway and they have to make alternative um options for for pickup Mr tesler yeah to that point I took a quick survey of uh my two older kids um and

057uh spoke to my daughter Rebeca day who's a cheerleader in a high school and she does uh concur that the biggest bang for the buck would be that 430 run in a high school that said most kids um leave on the 4:30 bus either from some sporting event some after school activity or if they stay at school for after school help not all of them but most of them would leave on that on that route and uh and she said also she couldn't really give me any info on a 515 but she said her feeling was and she saw nobody there's hardly anybody on that 615 bus Mr Masters just for full clarification what's the impact with the elementary schools now with the busing over there Jeff you want respond to that in what regard

058how is this going to affect that busing doesn't it's just the zero period which um which was banned in quorus that's it which would be I don't know of any after school events in the elementary schools um besides tag and basic skills those are those are already in good shape MRIs we reinstated how will it be funded um as you know the budget consists of revenues and Appropriations and unlike some of the federal and state agencies that run into difficulty with this ours has to be in Balance every year so so if we are going to now add an appropriation it's going to have to either come from an appropriation that's currently there and has passed budget efficiency reviews by the county and also Administration and the principles to be removed um and it will

059take some analysis but it's it's a zero sum budget something's going to be added something has to be taken out there is no pot of extra money where this could be provided Mr Kaufman uh BAS that's your Revenue Source we didn't calculate it when we did the budget we did it after we did the stuff the bask money is there it will fund it that's a good point is that possible because I'm G to have trouble voting for something if we don't know where it's funded from like Amy was saying and I like this idea but if that's possible that's a good solution but wasn't that money already appropriated into the budget and considered during the budget process bask um was not budgeted into the budget process that came to fruition afterwards however and and

060that's a very good point however you know when you look at everything in its aggregate that has occurred this year and all the the new pressures that we had on the budget the bass contribution is is really it's been consumed already so it's possible that there might have to be Cuts in other areas in order to bring this back yes anyone else Mr tesler is it possible that we can recognize the um uh the revenue or or money to fund the uh program from cost savings on a place instead of cutting any programs that's an excellent opportunity and I love to talk about cost savings um the district has engaged in a CO collaborative purchasing Arrangement where we had uh over $300,000 of savings by collaboratively purchas purchasing supplies through the county that money will

061help to go to offset the pay to participate loss of Revenue um we also this this past meeting we recommended uh to to the finance committee that we change insurance carriers for our Property and Casualty Insurance to a collaborative Insurance Agency run by the state that's going to save $3,000 every Avenue for saving money that I could foresee or that we work collaboratively at our Roundtable meetings between other business administrators has been looked at and and rung out um as best we can anyone else so I guess it would be possible I know we so that's $30,000 from the insurance carrier that is you know wasn't is revenue that we're not going to be spending in the budget that's a fair point that that that $35,000 from the insurance savings um is on unaccounted for

062at this time as so that could go go to offset the $100,000 whatever and there may be other opportunities to do that as well yes I would um I'm going to I'd like to present a motion I'm going to make a motion and I'd like to present a motion to reinstate the 4:30 run and Implement a safe supervised area at the Monro Township High School for the students who are still in activities or programs until they're picked up subject to budget changes to the budget and so yeah subject to budget review and uh changes to the budget good idea I guess uh can I just would like to also U hear from the public first before we vote on anything what the I don't know what we have to do after the public for I

063don't know what the actual okay you can take your motion until after public forum then we will postpone it till after the public forum anyone uh any other committee reports that was a long one L none seeing none we'll move on to number 11 Other Board of Education business did you raise your hand no Oh I thought you rais I'm sorry then uh if we don't have any other board of education business I'm going to open it up to the public let's go please just state your name and address Anthony preso wa a question way uh page 23 F the contract with the Global Spectrum what is that costing us is that on the business administrators report a superintendent report it's on the agenda that's mine um item f is the uh Authority by the

064board for me to enter into um contract negotiations with Global Spectrum for a contract for next year's High School Graduation Services this year um the fee for the use of the facility was I believe it was about 8 to $10,000 I'm going by memory okay uh how many are graduating this this coming year how many how many students will graduate can't we hold that graduation in the beautiful 480 to 475 we have a facility here we could use that that's 10,000 we could save right there I mean what's the purpose of going someplace else when we have the facility here um the the part of we we've actually entertain this um part of the issue that we have with that is uh from the high school administrative Pres administrator's position is that the auditorium if

065we allow the ceremony to take place in the auditorium the students would consume essentially 500 seats that would essentially mean that they would only get one at Best two invitations uh if we have it in the gymnasium there is some concern about uh access to the hire the seats that are higher up on the bleachers and whether or not that would be safe particularly for grandparents and elderly people who would be tending um we are not able to use chairs on the field because of the Astro the the turf that has uh been laid there so we're really kind of limited okay and uh the bid award I uh how much do we sell the iPads for um item I was per iPad yeah yeah item I is for the uh new iPad units and

066the Board of Education authorized the district to sell the 2,000 iPad 2 units and were required by law to put those out to public bid and the bid was designed that they all had to be purchased at once so that we're not left with pieces if they didn't sell we received a high bid in this case of $410,900 plus the bidder is going to had had come already and picked up and taken away the uh units so that comes to about $25 $5 a unit and how much did we pay for them I believe it was $538 unit so we took a big loss there in six months didn't we uh are we going to buy new iPads I know we got the money from the bond and even though we lost that money we're

067still going to have to buy new iPads that's the the reasoning here right so where's that money coming from from you there is a um a new lease purchase that has been engaged in again pursuant to action by the board which is going to take this $410,000 that we've received from the sale of the iPad twos upon bid plus monies that we have recouped from an iare um warranty through Apple that we didn't fully utilize for the term and apply it against the principal on the three-year lease so the first year of the lease we're going to have no Debt Service Serv and the remaining amount would be split between year 2 and year three those monies are to be budgeted for in the general fund that's got close to a million dollars isn't it

068if these original iPads cost us close to 2 million with the with the um inclusion of the monies coming off of the warranty it's about 425,000 a year that will be budgeted for in the general fund we could really use the money right now and maybe to put this iPad thing off and reinstating some of the programs that you're looking to cut would be a good idea thank you Mr Mr Larry uh it should bring to the attention of many people approximately 5 years ago we we had a graduation ceremony on the football field and a cloud sat right on top of our head and we probably got three Ines of rain in less than in an hour and everybody there looked like a bunch of drowned rats thank God we're going to Trenton thank

069you Mr Larry sir [Music] any Robert Road J team Yorkfield Boulevard um on page 24 of the business administrator's report item J with the agreement with Rucker university university of medicine and Dentistry uh my question is is that a costing Monroe anything Dr Gorman do you care to discuss that that's the it's basically student teaching for OT and PT so we've extended a partnership with the university so there are no funds um being extended by us okay thank you um one final thing is in the Sentinel I know you mentioned earlier that you're going to talk about Jamesburg next month but there's article in the Sentinel where the business administrator from Jamesburg had indicated that um you know obviously Jamesburg does not want to pay towards The Debt Service which is substantial money and that

070they're working out a deal so we're going to work toward making that a good option for them them being Monroe can you tell me what that means Mr Gorski yes I just want to begin this um uh statement by saying that Jamesburg has always paid the tuition that they' voted Us in accordance with the terms of the payment according to the a41 a42 calculation and the stress that came about came up as the budget law of 2010 the 2% tax levy increased to Jamesburg budget could not afford them to put the full amount of tuition that they owed Monroe in the budget and a legal agreement was drafted between the districts where that that interest component once the students took um enrollment in the school in September would come due in the 1314 budget year

071the way that's calculated is we take the total interest on The Debt Service for this high school and we and we share it proportionately based upon the enrollment Jamesburg if they're 20% would get 20% of the total interest charge passed to them this is the way the agreement has always worked when they attended the middle school again the first payment of interest comes due in the budget cycle for 1314 which is our next budget J it's foreseeable that Jamesburg is going to have a major cap problem putting that money in there and I had lunch with the new business administrator and we discussed this and we have a scheduled meeting with the county office to further uh go through some options but the the um Jamesburg business administrator did state that Jamesburg would be reaching

072out to Monroe for a waiver of the interest or a um an agreement where some of the interest is waved because the law states that the interest charge may be charged by the receiving District it's not required to be charged it always has been um and that's that's the approach that Jamesburg has has put forth is that due to the budget cap that they having great difficulty fitting $600,000 in a budget their size and would Monroe be willing to wave the charge that's on the August meeting to discuss uh for the full board yes so in other words Jamesburg wants Monroe taxpayers to pick up their share of the interest payments that's a fair statement thank you I hope uh the board does not go along with that thank you H hi my name is

073Katherine Crowley I there was another piece of information somebody wanted um my name and what else oh your address I'm sorry oh I'm sorry 56 Spruce Meadows Drive thank you I have a question I understand that this issue with the over adequacy it doesn't affect just the parents sitting here it affects the retirees and other people that live in his community has this information ever been communicated to them for them to also write into the state because it does affect their tax dollars at work too can I answer that sure oh I'm sorry yeah right I've had letters printed in the home news good take M okay Michelle is she here I've sent letters and had them printed in the home News Tribune and the Sentinal about the funding problem about suggestions as to what

074the residents can do in my community at Regency I speak about it all the time um did I go into other developments no um really what what you needed is you need the people who are involved and the people who are involved are the parents um I'm not trying to put the blame on anybody people know me enough that I call it like it is I don't want to do anything to hurt the residents or to hurt the students and I've said every meeting they would break my chops about it afterwards is whoever came if I saw two new people that came to a meeting I'd go through the whole story again that the only way we can get any movement now they've gotten in touch with Linda Greenstein who I know very well but

075you have a Democrat with a republican uh Governor so she's not going to get the movement that she would um and that's wrong yet when it when it helped chrisy then he went to bed with George Norcross all right well so um I I to be honest I don't think a community of people of our size can tackle the Democrat and Republican issues no it's it's not that it's just notifying them it's it's complaining that you're not you're getting you're getting screwed that's what it comes out Mr I'm sorry your name is again I'm sorry Mr Kaufman wanted to know what other issues were over that caused us to be over inadequate the only thing I heard was this busing I haven't heard any other issues there so I I want to respond to your

076first question we did have a budget steering committee that is and I couldn't couldn't give you the list but it's designed to be representative of um a representative from each of our adult community so that's that's one facet of it in terms of those items that cause us to be over adequate there there are many any that is not required for thorough and efficient so for example uh AP level courses honors level courses they are not required uh the courtesy busing the after school programs Sports programs those are not things that are required by law forra for example um so all of those things are a part of the over adequacy equation does that mean that all the counties in all of New Jersey do not offer Sports programs do not offer any of these

077things AP classes I mean I guess I'm confused about that they may not offer them to the extent that we do but no that does not mean that they're absent those items okay may I Market may have this goad okay just a couple little facts we're an FG middle middle class school district our next door neighbor to the north Oldbridge is an FG middle middle class they get $44 million from the state we get less than3 million and one of the factors that comes in is just we're a new expanding and so therefore we have okay lots of debt all over the place and we're big we're 42 square miles spread all over the countryside and then some of the factors that Mark was talking about the political connections but there is a whole plethora

078of problems and what you're doing is you've got bureaucrats down in Trenton trying to force feed things into a straight jacket and saying 2% and that's it okay I guess I guess my point is is if if you needed me to write a letter I could but I can't write a letter saying please just fund our schools I feel like we need a little bit more documentation than that one point to you brought out Mr kle that I'm sorry just recognizing one point that you brought out that's very very valid is if we're over adequacy because we have sports programs and we have AP programs and we have this and we have that well s does Woodbridge so does Edison so does Oldbridge and they're getting all that money no matter what the state comes

079back with whether it be the governor whether it be the Department of Education or the Supreme Court is they fall back on the formula the formula is flawed and we're taking a beating now we had over 200 more students this past year and I didn't go to work out the mathematics whether when we figured 300 a student if that included the 200 but let's go the other way let's say next year we do not get an increase in state aid and we're roughly at $300 a student today and we add 200 more next year well now we're not getting 300 anymore where are we we're getting much less we that's why I I don't know you have to get angry yet you have to forget about the over adequacy baloney you got to write and

080say wait a minute $300 on a $116,000 years per student that don't cover it from the state and that's what you forget about the over adequacy baloney because that they can throw anything they want they can tell you we have 50% uh retired people that doesn't add to the school yet we had 225 last year right and the way they they tricked themselves is if you had 50% retired people of the 50% let's say at least 50% are on fixed incomes that can afford the increase in property taxes so whatever the state comes up with the State Board of bed is baloney and all I ask is everybody that's here follow up on it write letters be angry load it up at the New Jersey Department of Education load them up with correspondence but I

081thank you for your comments thank you Mr Mr Coffman yeah I I just want to pick up on one thing it has to be it has to be noted here what got us to this place because that's also an issue that's not being talked about here what got us to this place is several years of defeated budgets so forgetting about places that you could write letters to forgetting about you know maybe work jobs I don't know maybe you don't have time to write letters right maybe you have lives kids stuff that you know and you think everything is going along you don't hear anything everything's going along at the schools but we had many years of defeated budgets that came before this and every year that we have a defeated budget we have to take

082that dollar amount and lower it hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases now Millions a million and a half by last but if you added up all the defeated budgets uh we'll call it 2 million on aund million budget right that got us to this place where we're talking about adequacy and and cutting hairs so when it comes to what can I do as a person who lives in the town yeah writing letters is good um but in the future we don't have to worry about it now because a state law was just passed that I don't know whether you know but I'll Loop you in residents no longer need to vote on a school budget as long as it's below cap so I just want to let you all know that as long

083as we're doing our due diligence and keeping that money within the below cap thing we're good the budgets aren't going to be voted on and that's the state law that was enacted this year how ever that doesn't mean you're never going to vote on anything again there are going to be in the future Capital project that this district is going to need to be able to build facilities and support the things that we're looking to try and do so while it's a nice thing to write letters and try and deal with some of these other big ticket items don't forget your own local responsibility of trying to support the local schools we do what we can to make sure that our students get everything they possibly can get and when we have to look at

084something to cut it goes through a lot of debate and it's not an easy thing to do don't think that we just said okay well busing is easy we'll just shoot at that you don't think we knew you were going to come and people will be annoyed and angry and upset with the board because you know we're eliminating busing it's a big ticket item we're not doing this in the vacuum so I just want to make sure everybody understands we're doing the best thing that we can do here we need need the support from the community also to when we ask for things and budgets or you know referendums that will happen in the future remember this time right here when you're angry at us for just trying to provide the best education we can

085for our students that's it I'm good thank you Barbara Pascal 253 Fern head Avenue a lot of you know me as bobin um wow there's a lot to say uh I think that first I just want to speak to whether or not we knew they wouldn't be here if we had known today they would have been here four months ago or whenever it was so they didn't know and I didn't know um and had we known we would have said something a lot sooner because otherwise why would we be here today if we didn't care obviously we didn't know um on the issue of over adequacy that's why I live here I live here for my kids to come to these schools when we moved here 14 years ago we picked Monroe because of the

086schools we looked at Oldbridge and we looked at I don't remember what the other one was but we saw where those towns were headed and we picked Monroe because we saw that they were not going in the direction we wanted them to go now my son was only three months old at the time so I did my research and I'm glad I'm here and I agree with you totally Mr calman that more parents need to get out and vote but the ones that do are mostly are passing the budget the defeats aren't necessarily coming from in our districts oh you really need to look at the demographics then I looked very upset very upset Al then I'll say my district because I did I looked at the outcome when the voting happened um you know

087going to the point of whether or not we knew my understanding is that when this happened this was eliminated from the budget that it wasn't necessarily like you know a full-blown discussion with us that it was and I can't as a parent sit and look at that budget I don't have the brain capacity for that to and find what you took out okay I see what's in there but I can't see what you took out I need to be told it needs to be spelled out for me now maybe it was and maybe I missed it but I I need to it needs to be spelled out for me all right there's a couple things I just wanted to address on if we don't have this the idea is somewhat appealing about a 430 bus

088and then an other option for the safety of the kids I just want to ask one question on the legal issue of the busing and whether you know because you can't control where those kids are or what's going on with them when they're on that bus can we sign a waiver I'm not an attorney I'd have to ask our board attorney cuz we'll do it we'll sign a waiver that says we need the bus so if we have to sign a waiver that says we know our kids are getting on that bus and we know that you're not on the bus with them I think we would sign that um you know presumably the drivers are safe and they've been checked and all that but we would sign a wer saying you know we understand

089that so A couple of issues that I think unintended consequences that could come out of not having this some of those towns we talked about that might have eliminated their courtesy busing you know I'm interested in the teen crime rate I don't know what it is I don't know what ours is I'd love to learn about it I looked for it today it's not the easiest thing to find necessarily but I'd love to know what it is we're also different than some of those communities in that they can't just walk home I live I don't even know how many miles but it's not safe they can't walk home they might try though and that scares me especially the middle school and the high school kids also I don't know all of you um I know

090some of you I don't know that all of you have kids in the schools but have you ever tried to pick up your kid from a dance or graduation or something over here when you go to pick up those kids when you want us to go pick up those kids at 4:15 or 5:15 or whatever we're going to be there till 7 trying to get out because there's nowhere that you can't move the traffic that fast it's a nightmare so there are things that need to be thought through you're asking us to pick them up which by the way a lot of us can't do because we have to work and so even if we can get there we're going to be stuck there and forever with the traffic now that's something that maybe can

091be discussed and resolved but I can tell you right now just picking them up from a dance is a nightmare thank we have to I just have to move on so that other people speak so the last thing that I'm going to say is you know we teach our kids right there's a concept of need versus want okay iPads are really cool I love the idea of the kids having iPads I really do and I totally support it but I need the transport for my kids they don't need the iPads I want them to have them I do but this is what I teach my kids okay thank you thank [Applause] you cliff weinthal 10 McFarland Circle I just had two questions um I saw in the on on the board agenda I items M

092as in Mary n Nancy o Oscar about $108,000 worth of credits I having to do with this building I think is that usable money what's H what H where's where's that 108,000 credit going I very much appreciate your sharp eye finding those dollars but unfortunately those are referendum funds as I mentioned before those are in the general contractors's um agreement to build this school and they are reductions of the contract that will lead to perhaps Surplus in the bond referendum um account which has only two options remaining either to expend for the purpose of the question that the school was built for or number two to return for tax relief no transferability that's correct I think we need more Creative Accounting go to jail go directly to Jail the um and just out of curiosity

093the the The Basque money what did that to I understand it's been spent already but what did it total as I mentioned we had a lot of um unanticipated budget demands this year and the bass money was committed in aggregate to those specifically that's a lot of the renovations and testing and uh parody playground equipment and things that we put into Apple Gart school I understand it been spent I'm just roughly how much has been spent how what was that Revenue number oh how much has been spent that's that's what was the B Revenue number Bas was uh they're going to pay us 10 grand a month starting in September so we haven't received anything from them yet for 10 months for 12 months what September to June $100,000 it's $100,000 annually once we get

094up to swing but again we haven't we haven't recognized any of that money yet because the Bas program hasn't begun we haven't received any revenue and anticipation of that money we have committed additional funds out of surplus towards some of these causes that I mentioned understood thank you Andy poori 16 in St James Street Monro I heard the orchestration of the taken away the zero period in the transportation associated with it and Mr Klein I appreciate you fighting for us like the lady mentioned here none of us are aware of it just like today's debacle this meeting started at 7 7:15 there were 187 people with about 80 kids here as you can see the crowd is evaporating so when the governing body doesn't care for the people that's what it becomes so people lose

095interest in doing it I don't care [Applause] sorry the idea here is I I I I read your mission statement here and the mission statement is to educate the kids if the people can't get to get education who are you going to give the education too the desks of the CH chairs please I'm more than more than willing to talk to Linda Greenstein I'm more than willing to talk to Chris Christie I'm more than willing to talk to anybody please let us know what we should be talking to them about I haven't seen the budget I have I'm an educated guy you know the lady actually admitted that she may not understand I understand it okay I came here I read this resolution I did not know where the agenda started and where the agenda

096ended I did not know why you stayed in the room for 40 minutes when you know 80 kids are waiting here I don't know I'm on the planning board I know what we do and we to take care of the people who are sitting over here first before we have our meetings I would appreciate to make sure that you put out the facts in front of the people and let them know when the school is ending I think the school superintendent did make a phone call telling us that the school year is ended along with the message if I remember correctly there was something about eliminating the program I tell you something when you hear the first sentence on your voicemail you stop it and you erase it if this matter is is important please

097make sure that we know about it so that we can fight for it we are willing to fight that's why these people at 9:30 without having dinner are still standing here thank you very [Applause] much and that's right on it it's presented the whole weinthal T McFarland Circle as a result of the superintendent and business administrator's recommendations this past March our board elected to eliminate courtesy busing we get it but the issue is not about eliminating a non-mandated service the issue is the complete abandonment by administrators and elected of Representatives of their responsibility toward identifying feasible Alternatives that provide satisfactory levels of Safety and Security as a standard of care for our students the middle sex County business administrator John neemo has stated during a personal call to me that although the district's not mandated

098to provide transportation home they certainly the board certainly has the community responsibility and will ultimately be held accountable to see that our children are kept in a safe and secure environment until Arrangements can be made for safe transport contrary to the rationale offered by the count County Superintendent that our board has to do something board Representatives has sat on their hands for three months now four months preferring a policy of having to parents figure it out in fact our board and administration have been presented with several Concepts a separate non-district subscription pay for busing service that will be the parents responsibility to contract for has been discussed a lowcost no cost option for an after care type program unfortunately as you know Monroe is not a walking district and to date there are no safe

099passage areas that would allow students within the prescribed State boundaries to walk the one and a half or two miles that other districts can encourage this too though as a long-term partnering strategy with the township could yield infrastructure improvements that through readily available NJ dot grants but our board and Senior administrators have chosen to ignore this too ironically Monroe Township does have standards of care that are upheld middle school students cannot leave the premises and incidental car pooling is forbidden if you don't have a signed consent security guards see middle school children onto buses and unless you have multiple layers of approval a grandparent you can't even pick up your own grandchild similarly high school students though have a safe place to go until 4:15 is a safe harbor that have been included in this

100and previous year's budgets sadly these standards of care are meaningless when the program is to have parents figure it out themselves which has been reiterated time and again at numerous public meetings our board has chosen the simpler route ignore their obligation to develop options for these same children that can't leave a middle school in lie of developing a safe and secure environment to host them in after school sponsored programs end it's just bizarre recently Mike Gorski principal Goodall principal Chanley and several concerned parents partnered to develop a solution that could be embraced in the short term something that can be implemented without a significant additional cost and a program that while not perfect can be made available for the coming year if addressed properly it could actually be a win-win members of the board have

101ignore this and all other suggestions in Le of a figure it out mentality this issue is not about fiscal responsibility it's about properly representing the parent of this community and upholding a standard of care you were elected to sustain thank you [Applause] she was a main driver for the referend for the high school you don't want to response did you want to respond somebody asked okay um my name is Arlene de Michelle and I'm here and I agree with most of the parents excuse me I'm sorry what's your add dir Drake Avenue Monroe Township New Jersey yeah um we're really concerned about how our children are going to get to school and come home from school this little bit off topic I'm more concerned about about what goes on in the school um once they

102get here and when they're here and when they're with supposed responsibility responsible adults who are taking care of them and I was always told that when you want to find out an answer to something get everybody in the same room and ask the question so what I really want to know is um couple of months ago there was an incident with some drinking on a trip that the varsity team took to Florida and I feel concerned because you know your question was good how did we get here you know how did we get here when my daughter who's eight years old now comes into high school I don't want to have to ask how did we get here how how is she in a drug infested School how is she in a place where certain

103things are condoned and nobody knows about so I'm going to tell you I know that it happened and I was told that it was investigated I mean anybody investigate this at any time uh the matter is still pending investigation it is a it is a Personnel related matter so I'm not at Liberty to to give you any further detail about that okay excellent but you are investigating it correct okay because I was told that it had been investigated and the investigating was complete and the accusations were unfounded so we have everybody up here in the same room now and what I'm hearing is you're investigating it I'm worried about my daughters who are coming behind my son and who are going to be in an environment where it's condoned and it's okay I don't want

104this to happen and you know maybe there's a lot of things people don't know they don't know about the busing situation they're saying you know until tonight to be honest with you I didn't know about it neither you know the this with this incident with the drinking and so on and so forth and certain things being condoned I teach my children hard work pays off and you get into a situation where something like this happens and it's not investigated and the appropriate actions aren't taking that says something really really scary about the environment and I agree with this woman here I mean I came here because where I came from you didn't want to send your kids to school okay and I don't want to ask when my daughter who's 8 years old is coming

105to the school how did we get here I came here so that I could have a great school environment for her and I don't want to see this type of thing be condoned so that when she gets here I can say well this is a drug infested place so therefore I'm here I got everybody in the same room just something I was always taught you're telling me is in the process of being investigated so how do we know what the outcome of that investigation is um ma'am I would not be at Liberty to disclose that information um if our board attorney uh recommends a a process for disclosure but I do want to go back to something that you said though um and that is a you use the word condone a couple of times

106in your statement and um I I'm not sure what your evidence would be that the school district would condone drugs or or or drinking in in the school but you can rest assured that if we if a matter is reported to us now of course we can't address things we don't know okay but um the things that are brought to our attention sometimes they're very multifaceted um there are rights and and confidentiality issues that we have to be mindful of so that we're not subject to to liability um but as more information comes available to us it may initiate other sorts of other steps that we may be required or recommended that we take Mr L I used to be on the middle sex County Educational Service Commission and and pardon me I'm sorry uh

107I used to be on the middle sex County Educational Service Commission and one of the interesting schools we have there is up in New Brunswick it's called the middle sex County Academy okay and it's for children who are one step away from going down to Yardville or anandale okay and we send students from this school who are in bad shape or in Bad Company and they get straightened out up there and usually within a year or so they come back into the but with a different set of values a different set of colleagues and they generally come flying high and straight but we care my colleague and I are going Hammers and tongs on all the disciplinary reports okay and so we care okay excellent that's glad I'm glad to hear that I mean I

108was told by doc Dr gorum that the investigation was unfounded and um you know I don't know what the nature of the investigation was because I guess as far as I'm concerned nobody really you know and and and and in the end my concern is the people who are involved you know the people who are involved are children that I've known since they're five or six years old and if um the the person in charge is you know putting them aside and taking them and saying listen what happened here stays here and this that and the other thing I don't like that I'm sorry call me crazy my son wasn't even involved he's like nowhere it was nowhere around but I don't think that's cool and I'm not I don't think anybody should stand for

109that so you know now we have everybody in the same room and I was told that the investigation was complete apparently not what your I am I am waiting until she's finished just want to get every listen hey you know what we're going to maintain order here okay and we're going to go to a three minute Rule and we're not going to yell stuff out and we're not going to interrupt people when they're speaking and I'm not interrupting all I all I want to say is that I would like for it to be investigated and I think as a taxpayer and a citizen of this town I have the right to know what the investigation says and I'd like for the children involved to be reprimanded and the person who was in charge the appropriate

110things to happen because that's the way we're supposed to be raising our children we're concerned about how we get here how they get here how they get home I'm concerned about what happens when they are here thank you my name is Chris Ryan I live at five region Drive in Monroe I'm on Orleans team here uh we're talking about Monroe baseball here uh with the incident that came up I'm going to go through points what happens is is is that we're having a problem with the VAR City coach um I met with Dr Hamilton today and Mr Goodall the um and a lot of people a lot of the parents are afraid to come forward in the program because they don't want the kids getting blackballed so a lot of this stuff that I'm going

111to go over is actually related to by some of the parents if you want to stop me while I'm going through it illegal workouts in the offseason that was done last year uh it was brought to my attention paid lessons is unethical in anywhere there's towns that are right by us that actually the the varsity coach was giv lessons to the uh kids in in high school and basically the ad said you can't do that then what happened was okay he's not doing it but he had his assistant coaches doing it and then recently I've been uh talking to you know the Mr Goodall the last couple weeks and and the ad and it just I'll go through a couple things more play's drink in arleene uh brought that up in Florida and Dr Hamilton

112answered that fudging stats to make his lesson kid look better there's kids on a team that he's given he gave lessons to and it goes actually this goes from seventh grade to 12th grade and it's been going on for a long time unsupervised players on Florida on Florida trip these kids were unsupervised uh that's that's what the rumor had putting himself first before the row baseball program and obviously there's more important things that you guys talked about tonight but these are important issues too using taxpayers money to benefit himself so basically he's the head Varity Coach and he's actually using that to leverage himself this guy supposedly and obviously I don't know the exact figures it could be six figures that this guy made on the side giving lessons $90 an hour you're not going

113to find out exactly what it was because a lot of it was probably cash hindering better players and from playing through man uh manipulation telling other parents like myself who were arguing with this this coach actually telling other parents oh this Chris Ryan is giving me a hard time I don't know who the guy is his name is Rodriguez is going around at a at a GMC Varsity level during the summer and having a petition signed um and using my name oh uh Chris Ryan and somebody else is trying to get rid of me to get rid of the coach so you know what that's that's really unethical to actually say who's you know arguing with you setting lineups for players he knows through lessons and benching kids he's never seen play this summer um

114he's actually makes the lineup for all three teams and he's never seen a lot of these kids play but he's seen them through lessons forcing parents to get their kids lessons thinking so basically a lot of the parents in Monroe from 9 years old all the way through to the high school level they feel that they have to get less mess to this guy because if they don't the kids aren't going to play sending out an recent email to promote a facility he used for his illegal activities of lessons disclaimers he put disclaimers all the email but we know the truth Vice superintendent is gatekeeper Red Flags uh should have went up last year Mr Goodall mentioned this because a lot of people called when he was going to get hired to to the position

115of VAR City coach all his people that he gave lessons to were actually calling up oh you should give this guy the job you should give this guy guy the job so I I don't think that's right that actually that's you know if somebody's doing that that's a red flag do me a favor Mr Ryan go back to Bullet two or two up which one you said something about superintendent and gatekeeper yeah Mr Gorman has stopped you know was brought up before about the uh the drinking oh okay and and and there's other stuff too I think his uh son took lessons from uh Mr Dron is that correct yes what the drinking thing I D no the lessons did your son ever take lessons yes sir are you related to him at all are

116you related to Mr Jone no I'm not okay are you his godfa uh Godfather or something no I'm not okay that's a a rumor unfounded sorry about that but you did take the his your son took lessons from him from Mr drone yes I live in another town I'm sorry I live in another town okay good that's great so you know him I was his principal and he worked for me for four years as a physical education teacher okay so that's that's F okay I understand I I went over the six figures and basically what it is is that he's using a pedestal of being the head coach taxpayer money he's making 11 8 to 11,000 I don't know the exact figure but he's using that leverage of that job to promote his lessons throughout

117the whole community and that's really that's unfounded unbelievable I just went to a um a baseball camp and one of the parents brought up that they go to North Brunswick okay and they I was talking to the lady and she said oh yeah my son takes lessons at the baseball Warehouse in Highland Park so I said that's great but uh unfortunately he can't take lessons from Ryan villig who's the actual the head baseball I think that's his name anyhow but I I said oh why can't he do that because he's the head varsity coach well what does that mean well we have a rule that we can't do that but in that town they can do it they have ethics here we don't even have ethics it's unbelievable athletic director told the wrestling coach he

118couldn't give lessons Okay buyers told the the wrestling coach he couldn't get the lesson so why is the baseball coach able to do it this will never if you don't if this guy is not he he'll never stop he'll find another way to make money off this you can't cut the legs out of $100,000 or whatever the guy's making and again I don't know exact figures could be 50 could be 100 I don't know but you're not going to stop the guy he's going to find a way to he'll refer it to another place so I I just can't believe that this has been going on this long and nobody's really done anything and you know it's it's not fair to the kids that you know it's not fair the kids can't afford the lessons

119so if you have a kid get taking lessons and you have a kid non-t taking lessons and it's up to the coach to make the decision what is he going to tell the parent oh I'm not going to put you you're not going to start but for the last couple years oh your son's great taking a couple thousand dollars from the kid and the parents oh your son's great and you know but unfortunately kid that didn't take the lessons uh is going to start that's not the way it happened so that's all I have to say thank you thank [Applause] you hi uh some of you may know me my name is Lords Timberman three Carly Court I'm here for two reasons um one I have three kids in the district and I had and

120they go to rille and I also have a child that gets zero period busing so when you think about it I'm being um taxed plus I have to pay I would have to pay extra for zero period and pay extra because now after so many years um REM civille Learning Center is being told that they're not going to bust there anymore I rely on that I work sometimes I work 10 12 hours a day day my husband works we travel and we rely on brille WE rely on the busing we don't have anyone else to help us so we rely it's it's something that's important to us now the director is here she would like to say something so I said I would come up and maybe just open it for her but she wants

121to say a few few words and there's I I think they want to stand up there are a lot of parents here from that are in the same situation where they have zero period where they and they also have children in rille and they want to be seen and heard my name is Donna jordano and I run the daycare center uh remsterville Learning Center 230 Prospect Plains Road and I have some comments from the owner he wasn't able to be here today so he asked me to read this he says his name is Roy Sipple my wife Donna Sipple and I are the owners of remsterville Learning Center located on Prospect Plains Road for the past 16 years we've provided care certified by the state for 98 children ages 6 weeks to 12 years we

122are sorry that we are unable to attend this meeting but due to a previously scheduled family commitment however we would like to make the following comments in the past the students that attended remsterville were based to were busted to and from the Township Schools as a group as an alternative of being transported to individual stops near their homes it would seem more efficient to bust groups of children to in from one location rather than a number of individual stops we would we would appreciate you continuing this approach there are currently 25 families and 41 children affected by your actions these working parents will need to make arrangements for their children to be supervised elsewhere or pay an additional amount for their share of the bsing fee it's estimated that the families affected by your actions

123pay $210,000 in school taxes and remster Ville also pays $2,842 annually 29 families signed a petition asking for Relief many concerned parents are here tonight to plead their case and we appreciate you listening to us we thank you for providing the bus service over the past 16 years we hope that you will consider your decision and work with us to minimize the cost to our families Donna R Sipple Roy Sipple um we have a bus stop right near our school right down the driveway so I don't understand why the bus can't go it goes in our driveway and why the bus can't pick up the children right at the end of our driveway so you know I got a notice back in I think it was April stating that it was going to cost us

124$75 per bus to have the buses come through our lot and pick up the children so I have the parents here anybody want to talk Dana Gman six Seer Court Monroe both of my children have been at remsterville for years both of them have special needs I have contacted the before and after school program that is offered at Oak Tree it is not appropriate for my children to have 50 children in a cafeteria as your before and after school program as your only option because you are now no longer transporting to a place like remsterville who is able to give individual attention to children that have a seizure disorder and children that are high functioning autistic how could you stop busing that is not their least restrictive environment to put them in a program like

125before and after school care I work full-time I am in education as well in another school district how could you make a choice that will be of detriment to these children remsterville has been part of our community for years your decision to stop busing even though they drive right past will put them out of business and will harm my my children and how could you make that [Applause] decision uh Taylor Gracia 134 Federal Road um again I I'm here with all these people here in support of of all the families that use remsterville uh both of my kids go there um and I consider this place a diamond in the rough I truly do um they are a complete extension to to Monroe they they help raise our children they help teach our children they

126help take care of our kids and they are an extension of the public school system my my son went to kindergarten in in Monroe here and he was beyond ready from the programs that remsterville provide for preschool and prek um my daughter is going to be in kindergarten next year and we don't have full day kindergarten in Monroe so I I really need her to go there um to get that uh education that she needs to to be ready for uh Public School here in Monroe um they're just amazing what about the the days that that public school's closed our kids go to remsterville for those days because they can because they're taken well care of there um that was one of the reasons I even went to remsterville because I thought it was amazing

127that Monroe had that service um for the busing and and I'll be quite honest I'm I'm I get really upset when I think about the fact that the town wants to take away so much of this busing because we have a reputation of being Community Based and family oriented and working together and supporting each other and having amazing programs and services and I'm embarrassed to say that yeah they're taking away busing my my my child has to now I don't know what I'm going to do um so again I just think that you know in in addition to all of the busing kids need to be somewhere we need to have a safe place for them to go and REM remsterville is is a huge resource that's right here and and we're so lucky to

128have them as part of our extended community and family in Monroe thank you my name is Samantha Sterling I live at 82 McFarland Circle here in mono Township and my son is here with me tonight and he's been with remsterville since he was 7 months old he's almost nine so it's been eight years that remster bille has been a part of our family it's really important for me because I'm a working mother I work early in the morning I'm at work it's :30 in the morning I get from work about 5:30 6:00 at night and this is the place where I know I can take him there and he's always safe and I know that the people there will support him and take care of him as I need them to I've been an advocate

129for this dayare and I've made sure that I've told people about this service it's amazing and we get compliments all the time that we have a place where our kids can go and we know that they'll be I can leave them in the morning I can drop them off a remsterville I pick him up from rille at night he gets to school he gets the care he needs there he comes back home from school he's getting the care he needs there until I can come and get him so I know for me this is very critical it's a service that I appreciate it's a service that I continue to need and it will impact me financially if this is going into into into effect and we're expecting to pay this kind of money for daily

130services for busing so I would like you to consider the fact that this does have an effect on all of us and it is important to how we work and how we build our families thank you thank you [Applause] good evening my name is Kim Bassie and I live at 10 preservation drive I'm also a member of remsterville for several years now um if the busting goes away this year I will have two kids divided amongst two schools oak tree and Applegarth I commute very far from my work I leave very early in the morning and I have to commute home in time to pick them up by 6: p.m. now not only where I pick them up centrally located at one stop I'm going to have to drive to two schools and try to

131be there by a certain time so I just I also have a person my family that works for the community and I have to say the first time I heard about the bus and going away was the last day of school with a year-end message and I thought it was very inappropriate that the message came with oh have a great summer and by the way we're canceling busing and that's how I learned about this decision so I hope you will reconsider and implement the busing [Applause] hi my name is Karen Grant 20 Stanley Drive Monroe I also have two children at remsterville Learning Center and we love it so much and my question for all of you is what alternatives do working parents have when the before and after school program doesn't as open doesn't

132open as early as remsterville does and it doesn't stay open as late as remsterville does what options do we have hi I'm ER Eric Timberman three Carly Court um one of the other points that um i' like to bring up is the fact the location of remsterville monre you have an excellent Community Center but monre is 44 square miles as you know and it's very hard and difficult to get to the other side of town remsterville has been you know part of our lives and really would like to continue the busing and I spoke to Mr gorsy and I thank you for your time thank you thank you I spoke to um two other daycare centers and um they told me that they weren't going to be affected by this busing which I don't understand

133because we're affected by the busing it was developmental Learning Center which is on the other side of town and the Applegarth School and they also bust back and forth to the public schools um but I I I also don't understand why you wouldn't put 30 children on a bus rather than have to put them on all different buses I would think that that would be more convenient for everyone in the area um for the safety of the children Applegarth is one of our schools it's a no there's Apple daycare center that's also in Monroe and their directors nobody knew anything about busing being stopped to them but we got the notices that it was going to be stopped to us so I don't know what the difference is there um anybody know are you are

134you finished with your statement no no well I just I'm asking your question do you know why they didn't receive any information about it but we received it well I I have a a statement about this if you'd like me to make it at this time or if you wanted to finish yours I'd be happy to um for the safety of the children the children go right out our door we are there with them we make sure they get on the bus on the right bus they are always safe and I think that's what a lot of the parents are saying is they want that safety we're open longer than Basque and we also are open days off from school and I don't know what these parents are going to do if we not if

135they don't have us because they're not going to be able to attend remsterville if I fill their slots with other people you know that aren't being busted um that's that's it I guess it's going to hurt us if you do this and I and one more thing I'm sorry I did make an an attorney for the school made all kinds of notes and letters to different people on the on you know Mike I know we sent letters to you and we got no answers we tried to get something from the mayor no answers no one wants to give us an answer and we need an answer because I have to schedule for school it's already July and I don't have answers for parents of what they're going to do I can I can tell you

136that back a few months ago we had another business come to us and ask us to do to create the same relationship that we've had with rville at that point many of the board members who were new or newer didn't even know that those that those types of relationships existed and basically what that amounts to is subsidizing private businesses by by providing buses that you're remsterville is a for-profit business and so were these other businesses that are coming to us and ask us to do the same kind of relationship so we what we decided to do was to have businesses who want to do who want to have that service pay for those services and that's basically it so one of the Alternatives would be that remsterville pays for the busing and and doesn't defer

137it to the to their we pay enough tax already remsterville pays taxes and and the buses come through my parking lot we but you have to understand we cannot we cannot subsidize every business that asks for busing and that's what's that is if you look you back on the record we had a whole we had a whole debate instead of dropping the kids to home you drop to ramster Ville in one stop you save 15 stop per bus think about it so it's more economical because then I pick up my kids to her instead of the bus making 20 steps it makes one stop safe because I have somebody that look at my kids when you get off and get in think about it I also spoke to the busz company today and they did

138tell me that if you asked for your child to be picked up at a friend's house they'll do that but they won't pick them up at remsterville where they come through my parking lot and there's a stop right at the end of the parking lot and they're telling me no I'm not going to do it okay so what sense does that make Mr they're not coming through my parking lot ch um sorry ma'am I'm going to say my name is Kim Bassie again 10 preservation Drive um I think I understand the other business that came to you about busing I won't disclose their name because my kids also go there in the summer um with for lack of a better term remsterville is a daycare center uh the kids go there from September to June

139and they get bused to and from school it was a godsend when the daughter was in half a day kindergarten cuz I commute far and she was afternoon kindergarten so how would I get her on the bus in the afternoon to go to school and who's going to supply that it's a legal right for school to supply busing for the kid so I need that however the other vendor that tries to get busing happens to be a camp they don't even have the facilities to house children in the winter time um my kids go there I'll probably get kicked out um they're enjoying their summer there I pay extra if I want to get them bus to Camp I have to pay extra for busing and Camp costs as much as a car just for

140eight weeks in the summer so while you pay daycare uh they are getting they're getting paid to watch my children before and after school and they're there in times that I need them again I Comm far I'm a working mother I work for a pharmaceutical company I work on oncology drug trials so I do feel that I impact the community greatly and I do need care for my children and I don't think that the two centers are similar in nature for the busing so I just wanted to state if it's the same company that I think it is it's totally totally different situation um I'm sorry go ahead I thought you I thought the group was finished I beg your pardon um hi my name is Amry Esposito and I live at 6B Public Road

141Not only am I a teacher but I'm also a parent and it does affect me because if this goes up they have to raise my tuition and just like jaylen's Mom I can't afford that I'm a single mother with two kids so I'm sorry I'm just nervous but like Donna said the bus has come through the reason why they come through is they pick our kids up first and then they go at the end of Public Road and pick up that stop so they don't have to walk across the street and get hit by a car so if they're cutting through our parking cot to keep our kids safe from not going across the street why can't they just stop from one minute cuz I put them on the bus and it takes seconds and

142another thing is you guys mentioned how with other schools you don't know who goes on the bus we know our names we have to know who goes on the bus and who gets on the off the bus that's why our these parents go to work with a relief because they know where their kids are soon as they get done with school and that they're going to know where they're going to be when they get out of work that's why it's important that we cannot get rid of that thank you you want to Sure speak to it all right thank you thank you for your comments approximately nine months ago we received a request from a private Day Camp Eagle River Day Camp it's a matter of public record now because it's gone through the notes

143from the building ground transportation committee meeting and it was also discussed in public and it's in the minutes from a prior board meeting uh their demand to the Board of Education was that the Board of Education provide school public resources to provide transportation services to deliver students in the morning and after school to this for-profit Camp it's fundamentally unlawful to use public tax dollars to provide resources and services for a private entity it has been the practice before that has morphed into what it is particularly with with rster Village it was never that significant when it started and with enrollment increases in the development of the program there over the years it has grown more Monumental the board reviewed the costs for the Eagle River day camp and it was also brought to the attention

144of the board by representatives of Eagle River that we have been previously providing these transportation services to remsterville the costs currently that were proposed that the Board of Education absorb for providing services for this for-profit Enterprise Eagle River was in a vicinity of $17,500 a year when Rumer vills was calculated it was a little less I don't have the figures in front of me but I think it was about 15 um that's a significant amount of resources that does not exist in in the budget for this purpose and is unlawful now the point that the bus is going through the parking lot anyway was considered and The Proposal was that was given to remsterville was not students that were adjacent to the school if if we could accommodate a route directly near the school and

145it's not costly to the district that was considered and not included in your cost what the proposal was for rville is for students that are not adjacent to the school and would require an additional cost that's a fact I reviewed that uh analysis myself so the the building grounds Transportation committee unanimous ly recommended the um the disapproval of Eagle River's request and furthermore at that time had requested the discontinuance of remsterville services but out of courtesy for the parents had decided to do it through the end of the school year June 30th to provide several months of service with full notification made to rumst serville for you to make your other arrangements it's now July and I can tell you that I have not heard one request from remsterville as an organization who is the

146what the board is dealing with um either acknowledging the fee schedule or attempting to make any other arrangements so it was presented then to the full board and the full board I believe at the time voted unanimously also to support the recommendation from the building grounds Transportation committee that's the problem we fac number one it's it's unlawful you're raising monies through taxation through the whole Community to provide busing services for a private Enterprise and number two if we could absorb that in the past in the budget as an accommodation to parents it it simply can't be done anymore you see the transportation issues that we're facing tonight with late run courtesy busing and those are our students hi my name is uh fortunat Orlando for Lis Lane um I have two kids uh ramster Ville

147uh I think that this is a loophole because busing from ramster Ville is not illegal because you are not sponsoring a private business okay or a lawful like you said uh the bus has to pick up my kids from somewhere correct a scheduled a scheduled bus route that is done by our transportation department now now if it's ramille or for Louis Lane it doesn't matter it's a pickup point therefore therefore the bus we save money we save the environment because we don't provide too much pollution because the bus wake makes one stop it picks up how many kids 41 children think about it think about it so why is unlawful it's unlawful because you're using public do tax dollars to provide those routes now you still have to pick up my key Transportation the money

148back transportation department I give to to Donna and donay you all right the transportation department has scheduled bus routes that they work very diligently on in a computer to efficiently deliver students to and from school to deviate from those routes is extremely costly especially to go into remsterville you have a pick up before ramille and after ramille is a midpoint where you pick up 41 people remsterville is not a scheduled bus stop for the district sir it is it it's not it is a bus stop at the end of the driveway you may be referring to one bus stop ma'am we're talking about a bus a fleet of operation a couple buses that stop at the end there's a bus that stops across the street and there's a bus that stops at the end of

149our Drive know what grade level with students we are you you can't a middle school and there's oak tree oak tree children where are you oak tree Public Road she lives on public road you'd have to pick them up to bring them to public road which is right there right there we pay taxes they're coming through my I'll invite you in to look at the transportation routes which I have we have experts who who work on these routes you may be referring to one bus that passes by but what happens previously has been numerous buses going to rville dropping we have special ed buses which they have to bring different tiered busing that we have here in the district you can't just say I see one bus and now you should stop here for everybody

150is that's not how it operates okay and I want to go back to the um us sending you letters we have the attorney has sent letters and no one has answered our letters ma'am I've responded to every letter and every email and every phone call that I've received on this matter and I have never had any correspondence from an attorney because I would referred it to the boards well the attorney's letter is right here if you'd like me to read it it's right here so are you telling me that the bus that goes through our parking lot okay to turn around and there's many buses that come through the parking lot they are not going to pick up my children or they will not pick up my children at the end of the road but

151yet they'll go to developmental Learning Center and they'll pick them up at the end of their driveway what is the difference tell me what the difference is public and private they what public and private no they're they're private developmental Learning Center is just as private as we are ma'am I I I I I will be happy to invite you in so that you can get a better perspective on the routes but I can assure you that the list of fees that I sent to you are for outof thee way services that are currently providing to Rum surville now that's the best way I can explain this it's not on a route where we can just open the door and then and then do that we have tiered busing that runs all day long and what

152you're looking at is not the full picture okay so you're telling me that the bus that comes through my lot okay is not on the bus route then why are they coming through my lot a bus that you may be talking about maybe on a direction to a bus route but we're not talking about one bus man we're talking about a whole Fleet of tiered busing for all different grade levels all different schools that's the issue here not one bus there's two buses that come by there so you're telling me for those two buses you're going to come through my lot and pick up my children again I'll reiterate my comment from before if we have a stop adjacent to remsterville and it it's of no additional cost to the district to have the student

153release there we offered to do it and when are we going to know that so that these parents could make choices arrangements for where they're going to bring their children mville as an organization was provided with the routes that were not adjacent to the building it's remsterville obligation to contact the parents you no I got no specific answer from you as to what routes we were going to have back in April or May when we called you you said you weren't sure what routes we're going to be coming to remster I don't have our transportation routing software with me but again I'll invite you in to look at it to you satisfaction I can't I do anymore and I'm telling you I know I know specifically there's can be arranged call me tomorrow my name's

154on the website numers on the website um I I assure you I do know no right now you don't have on your mind what is the route at the stops that's what I'm sorry if you misunderstood you don't remember exactly what are if I put remsterville address down as my home address does that count as my bus stop when that's done and a parent calls in as a courtesy to temporarily change a bus stop to a friend's house grandma's house we make that accommodation if they come and do it in writing and it's it no remsterville has been our bus stop since we started kindergarten at Oak Tree when the doors first opened and I actually if if I ever if I am home on a day where my children are going to school I

155drive them from my house down Applegarth Road and bring them to the rille bus stop and watch them get on the bus and pick them up and get them off the bus on a day that I would be home or a day that I was around for a school function however the days that I'm at work I drop them at remsterville it is their bus stop so for all practical purposes it is my address where the bus should stop at the end of my street and pick up my kid so should I change my address to prospect road so that the bus will stop there and pick up my children if you have a specific instance what are you going to provide us what what are you going to provide for parents who work in

156this community so that our children can get to and from school because we obviously commute farther and longer these days to to jobs so that we can pay our taxes so that you all can be paid so therefore we need to know what we're going to do with our kids during the day so that they can even get to school two from school we have an obligation to provide and we will continue to provide but what we cannot provide is transportation services for private organizations so where should I put my kid in the morning before the bus comes I'm already at work for three hours but the private organization is paying taxes $112,000 a year in school taxes it's not like you're doing it for free I pay my taxes and I also pay for

157the private organization separately so therefore my tax dollars for my busing is already being paid for through my taxes just that my address of 10 preservation Drive is Prospect listen I I do appreciate your comments but we can go on and on for days I guess right now I would say that the best thing to do is to contact Mr Gorski and go through this I do know that the documentation was given to rster Bill if that was not given to the to the parents well then that that has to be dealt with also but if you want to come in you're welcome to do that but I would like to also give everyone here an opportunity to speak now thank you my name is Umar yusf Z 7 wson Lane um I'll be quick

158I have uh two comments and a question um the first thing is so in my community uh including my children we have three children they go to both zero period and tag and we are in the same situation that that you heard from several people over here um so one of the proposals that's being debated here and you made the motion about the 4:30 time is that would that cover the tag talented and gifted programs tag tag and basic skill routes um were never cut from the budget those were and still are in the budget okay thank you so the the comment that I have is is about communication and Mr Klein you you made a very passionate speech and and um comments uh that we couldn't respond to um I think you know we

159live in an age where a lot of us use internet email for communication and I I believe one of the reasons why you have so many people here is because there was an email sent out so I really urge the board to use email as a form of communication for important messages so we can you know represent we can get angry on uh on our governor and our our representative of Congress and and you know bond together to do something for the community okay so we really appreciate if you could do that um and the third point is regarding um the cost for zero period why is it 250k when other costs like the 430 one is estimated to be a lot lower the the entire we we're talking about the entire run for it

160would be three runs and that would that's the the total cost was 4 450 450,000 so to have one run for those schools would would be 100,000 instead of 450,000 so we still would see a savings and that was my point I understand that but for the zero period which is a hardship particularly for us in the morning the the cost is estimated to be a lot higher right it's 250k correct um I'd like to understand why is there a such a big difference part of the reason is because it's before the school day opens so you're having drivers now you're have you're opening up the transportation Fleet earlier and um you're you're bringing in extra drivers for that period um I have a schedule in the office that details how that 250 is calculated

161but that's been in a couple budgets um for review now and I'm I'm certain that that number is factually correct okay would you provide a a detailed breakdown of that send me an email request okay U my email addresses on the website and I'll be happy to send you the schedule okay and Mr Klein you mentioned that uh actually was Mr Kaufman that um um the budget has been defeated and this is why we're we're at this stage uh for several years now um I'm I'm just curious if there are other uh municipalities in the county where the budget has been defeated in a similar Manner and if they had to cut this busing from their programs can you guys comment on that um I know Mike had done a lot of analysis on other

162districts that had the courtesy busing either still in play or had it removed or never had it the exact correlation to when their budgets got defeated and when and if it cascaded into the loss of courtesy busing I don't know if we ever did any statistical analysis at that point because from our perspective we were looking at it not because of the fact that the budgets were defeated although it is a critical Factor we have to deal with the Here and Now what happened in the past while relevant to the budget doesn't impact the decision or in total what we do today we had to know from the analysis that Mike did from all let's just say middle of six County all the other count or towns in midex County how many of them still

163have courtesy busting how many of them don't have it how many never had it and what can we do to try and lessen our exposure with this over adequacy issue to to to know that at some point the the county can turn around and say cuz they have the final decision on our budget if we're the odd man out in Middle sex County we and I'm not saying we are but we could be amongst the last that have courtesy busing when we go before them to have them pass our budget they could say we'll give you everything except courtesy busting and you have to take that out and then we would be forced so as Mike mentioned I believe before this is not new news to Monro Township it's new news to maybe a lot

164of people in the room because it's hot now last year it was off the budget and then because of things that happened we got more money from the state we were able to bring it back but prior to that at least for two or three maybe even four more years prior to that it was close to being cut and you know because we were able to work things out with the township because we lost the budgets right we were able to kind of come up with workarounds through being able to make things happen but don't think that this is something that new that just happened it's just before we backtracked last year and before two years before that we were able to do workarounds but at some point in time you got to Fisher cut

165bait and unfortunately this could be the year now or it is the year where this had to happen now I for one am very interested to see okay we've we've eliminated courtesy Bud busing because you County guys told us that we need to be thinking about this I better make sure that I see a significant amount of money coming back from the state because if I'm going to get a pittance back from the state because we eliminated courtesy busing then it doesn't make sense to do that but unfortunately as was explained here anybody know math in this room I'm I'm thinking a lot of people know math I defy anybody that can count to go to the New Jersey Department of Education and download their document on how to calculate funding for schools I defy

166you to be able to figure that document out it's about 80 pages long and it's designed to have so many undefined variables because with an undefined variable you can't do the math right that there are so many ways that they can kind of make it up as they go between the adequacy and all these other things it's almost impossible to determine how much money we're supposed to get or validate what we do get is the right amount so it's unfortunate that we are at this place right now um but as we've said it it it's not it hasn't come easy to make this call so okay um and I'll just wrap up and I'll I'll say on at least on my behalf and my family's behalf I would really like to see an alternative presented

167where I could use a pay paper use service I know there was probably some challenges that happened in the past that you alluded to I'm not familiar with what the what really happened there but that would really help my family out and I I suspect that if this goes away it would help other families out as well and they'd be willing to to put some money in thank you thank [Music] you Glen Bork 51 Bentley Road um I'm actually looking for clarification on page 20 of the board action items there was an item on there about the physical education sections for Avid students and I know the wording was changed from zero period to Alternative could you elaborate a little bit more on what options you're looking at um yeah during the transition from the

168sixth grade elementary to the middle school there was a brand new schedule implemented um so one of the casualties of the schedule was time for the Avid kids which we're now in our fourth year of implementation this year we are brainstorming ways throughout the year to get them more time um in its simple as sense without taking away um other classes so because it's an elective class and because all the kids go through criteria and um volunteer to go to the program we tried to be flexible in giving them more school time so we're trying to flex the time where they'll now attend physical education one day after school um each week plus a fifth rotating day or before school um but we took it out of the zero period piece to just leave it

169as an option for for before and after school when will that decision be made on where that's going a lot of it has to do with the outcome of tonight okay well then that was going to be part of my question because one of my concerns is the fact that as you say it is an elective course I have a daughter in Avid now at the middle school and it does preclude any other elective being able to do that we had been told originally that they would have the option to do those after school but it was really just in a club environment it wasn't really an elective um so if the gym was going to be after school I was hoping since that is a requirement that they have to take that busing would

170be provided for that regardless that's one of the discussions we're having okay because tag and and uh basic skills are elective programs as well they're required by state so that rationale would would lend to that argument of academic um that we have to provide for the kids regardless of the outcome of the vote tonight but again I can't speak on that until there's outcomes and discussions about it well you could still speak to based on if the vote was still tonight to not do the 4:30 run but if you're saying that it is required similar to tag and basic skills you could comment on that that's where the um the P piece was put into the board minutes tonight for okay okay thank you quick just to clarify this is included then busing is included

171with this Jay we're having conversations about including it in the tag and basic skills piece which wouldn't be an additional expense but they'd get busing yes that's where the conversation is and I just have two points to make um first of all uh some of the parents uh made note about uh when you had a vote on the budget that the people who came out and voted of the families voted for it just to give you a little background um we get a report the night of the election the vote and it's broken down by polling places and you find that the polling places that represented the the retired communities or the over 55 communities they would show up at the rate of 35 to 50% of registered voters when you went into the family

172communities the family polling places it was as low as 4 5% and maybe the highest was 8% so the P the uh parents were not showing up to vote for the budget now I also heard um parents complaining they pay taxes and therefore they're entitled to all this why don't you look at it the other way or let me go over one thing the other taxpayers look through the eyes of taxpayers that have no one involved in the school system and we had all those trailers and this board promised to taxpayers that when we did away with the trailers that money would be returned via reduced taxes school taxes when that was done and we did away with it what was it 7 some OD trailers um you had the parents complaining here because they

173didn't want to pay pay to play uh there were three things there was pay to play the science program and one other item they wanted reinstituted maybe that was Zero period busing so what they did is the money that was promised to the taxpayers in tax relief was spent to save programs that the parents wanted so what about the rest of the taxpayers that are paying $500 $600 more each year to support the children in the school district um so that's something you got to look at that's basically all I have to say there was something else but I forgot my name is Aron marala I'm on 16 Burn Court in monora Township um my my question and comment is not specific to the busing or you know because I think a lot of the

174issues that we're talking about whether they be budget cuts or voting or these are the same issues that are going to plague us year after year you're never going to get surplus of funds you're always going to get cuts and so those challenges exist year to year but I think whether you're in the private sector or in the public sector when you don't have answers to these questions sometimes you look to other uh whether they be townships or companies that are maybe doing a better job of handling these kinds of situations whether it be from a leadership standpoint or a community involvement standpoint who do we look at from a middle sex County St uh perspective or a New Jersey state who's doing a better job than us you I think one of the examples

175used was Oldbridge has a larger amount of funding than we do is that largely because the families don't come out and vote at the rate of 4% no that's State what's the comparative state so I would say you know what would help us understand where the key issues are is I think to say it's entirely a family you know not uh the community participating enough or blaming it entirely on the leadership probably isn't fair but I would like to see some sort of comparative on who's doing a good job of this who's getting the results that we're looking for and what are they doing and what are we not doing so we can model ourselves basically what it is and this came out earlier that we offer advanced classes we so do communities you would

176think that the State Board of Education wants all the districts to reach but what they're doing to us is they're forcing us to come down understand the limitations I sit on the board for the high school of economics and Finance in New York city so I understand the limitations understand it's not always an equal playing field but what you do do is do comparative just like you have high school rankings in the state and you see where you stand relative to everyone else I would think that we would look at these kind of comparatives whether they be voting turnouts demographics or any of these other statistics that would help us isolate the problem because the problem's going to change year after year right we have our own unique challenges our demographics are different than let's

177say Oldbridge but how do we how do we get insight into that so we can participate in some of those Solutions right now when you're telling us write a letter to be honest I I largely don't part participate in any of this because it always falls on DEA ears I don't know I you know in order to be be able to produce a convincing argument I need data I need something that can give me a comparison Dr Hamilton would like to address yeah I know I really appreciate your your your posture and one of the things that it's really going to be imperative for our community to do is make sure we have a voice and we have a Community representative who serves on saves our save our schools it is a very uh rapidly

178growing organization and they do have audience with with people who can apply pressure at at the legislative level to make these changes and that's what we can do we can begin and I I understand your disappointment or your frustration with writing letters and often it falls on De fears there is a sample letter on the website that that was posted there for folks who don't wanted to just download print and and and mail um there is information on there about potential the potential um benefits of fully funding the school formula but in essence to to address how this impacts us long term is to really say to the legislators we need you to fully fund the school funding formula that is really what we can do as a community and save the schools organization has

179a bigger voice in that conversation right now than you or I would be able to have as an individual I agree with that but I also think that in addition to getting the full funding one of the responsibilities we're going to have is are we making the right decisions with the funding that we have we're not able to get insight into that without that kind of data and to be honest with you you know there's a lot of folks probably in the room who have large scope of responsibilities managing large budgets and the anyone who manages a budget knows that unless you're in the details of it you can hide a lot of things or it it becomes difficult for somebody on the outside unless you have some sort of audit background to be able

180to you know sift through that and get into the details so I'm not suggesting anyone's hiding anything but I'm suggesting that it's difficult for anyone to look at a budget no matter how you produce it just like these formulas are difficult to decipher you need somebody to be able to provide some sort of comparatives because I don't think we're going to figure it out we you know everyone has a day job as you guys do and we're not going to be able to figure it out on the nights and weekends but what what we can see is how are we doing relative to our peers if we know that then we can tell if we doing a good job or a bad job right now I can't tell and I'm not sure if anyone on

181the board can tell how are we doing compared to the other townships and uh middle sex County we use an Oldbridge example how do we say are we in the middle are we at the bottom 10% but comparable with with regard to the adequacy discussion that we had before that's really a basis for State Aid distribution going forward our district unfortunately is is among the highest if not the highest in the county for being above adequacy we've made strides to reduce that 1112 we were over $13 million above adequacy in 1314 we've cut that down to about $7.5 million and with the highest in the state you said or in the county that will generate more of the state aid Pi for Monroe going forward and it will continue if we continue to decrease that

182okay U when I said comparable I was talking about what are the results from the high school performance exams when you take a look at those we're well performing particularly and that uh in our County we're good overall some parts of Northern New Jersey do quite better than us right I mean our high school rankings it's somewhere in the middle tier right we're somewhere around 90 if I remember correctly that's not at the top 10% it's not even in the top 20 we're right at dead center so and those are School statistics and I understand that but I'm talking about how we manage our funding right I mean the the issue is you know the academic part that's a different discussion but from a funding standpoint how are we doing it how we interacting with

183our legislature how we getting the results that we're all looking to get and I understand everyone has different interests but when we compare ourselves from a school perspective and the and the services we provide how do we compare and we should be able to break it down whether it's the bus service the before after school programs the level of AP programs and you can break that up and come up with an easy Matrix that tells us where we stand at least that would give us a report card we don't have that service in the county and we the fifth best in the entire state for in what category operation of our bus fleet with 65 buses Mr gor um you know starting in about uh November we begin with discussions in the finance committee about

184the budget um about what the budget's framework is looking like for next year and um then we this year we had a budget steering committee which invited representatives from the community to come in and offer viewpoints about what they thought was important in the budget and um how they what what recommendations they would support to get us to cap when we were over and and decisions like that uh the state requires that the user friendly budgets posted on the website there's a great deal of userfriendly information I hate to use the same word but available there that a lay person can digest and get a lot of and if and I have made myself available to many members of the Community to come in and actually go through the budget book which consists of about

185this much individual paper in detail to see actually where every dime is spent all right thank you well again appreciate the time good evening Chrissy scurby 8 seminal Court um I know that you have a decision to make this evening about the late runs um I also wanted to know if you are considering at all the zero period buses for the um six elementary schools that will have uh the band Advanced band and the core students all affected and if not um I know tag and basic skills after school at the elementary schools will have busing um I know at Oak Tree there's about six or seven buses that leave after school for Basque and tag they're about a quarter full would the board consider moving band and chorus to an after school program and

186those children home along with the bask and tag students great idea it wouldn't be um administratively I wouldn't be able to respond to that without looking at how that would impact scheduling and teachers and and what the ramifications of that it's it's a perceivably a viable option but I would be hesitant to make a commitment to that without really looking at the ramifications okay because taking away the busing for the students in those six elementary schools before school will severely cut children's opportunities to participate in those programs as well as the late buses for the middle school and the high school will cut people's opportunities from participating in sports Andor clubs so if we're going to give it back to or make options available for the middle school and the high school I'd really hope

187to think that you would think about the students in the elementary school as well thank you thank you Hello Jill Deo 48 limbwood Drive I just wanted to clarify Dr Hamilton the organization that Dr Hamilton keeps talking about save our schools new jersey. org if you're interested in going there and learning about what we're doing um there is a national organization called save our schools but we are save our schools new jersey. org so if anybody's interested in figuring out what we're doing and where we're advocating and where we need help that's the website thank you thank you Court Masters now I'm Michaela Court um in regards to the oak tree Applegarth busing I would like to know if anyone will be comparing the amount of bus incidents from last year to this year since

188there will now be a layover time at each of those schools I restate that please sure in regards to the Oaken Applegarth busing for September I'd like to know if anyone will be comparing the amount of bus incidents from last year to this year since it will now be a lay over time at each of the schools when you say Buzz incident you mean discipline referrals yes bullying well we hadn't we hadn't thought about that but that's certainly something we could do okay and maybe that could be like on a month-to-month basis I was thinking and then also will the principles at the both schools be working collaboratively on instance regarding the children from the schools when an incident does occur yes out of order Mr V yes okay thank you Jody deide to Northwind

189Court my concern we're talking a lot about courtesy busing and zero perity busing um in regards to the Applegarth busing I understand that Barkley Brook Brookside they share buses everyone goes on the same bus they share a parking lot Applegarth and Oak Tree will not share a parking lot they will have to go across the street buses will have to start at Applegarth I mean oak tree and go to Applegarth my concern is is my daughter who will be going into first grade she will now have to sit on the bus for 10 minutes longer which will impact the old ultimate time that she'll have to spend on the bus being a parent if I think that's too much time I will then decide to go to the school and pick her up which will

190then cause even more traffic issues are we entertaining the idea that we could Implement specific B buses just for Applegarth because of the very unique situation there um again to alleviate traffic issues I already see it in the mornings when if I drop my child off at Oak Tree I see the backup of parents looking to drop children off and my concern is ultimately if these buses keep these children on for an hour 40 minutes whatever it is parents will come out stop dropping kids start dropping kids off and it'll be a little bit like Mayhem over there thank you Mr gy yes ma'am in regard to um your your comments we've uh Dennis vent trillo our Doug Gillian our transportation director and I have looked closely at all of the routes affecting oak tree

191and appleg guard schools and as presented to the building grounds Transportation committee recently oak tree is going to open at 855 Applegarth at 905 to absorb um the students being on the same buses we we've added two buses to the routes so we have a total of 18 buses and two Vans which will be serving both oak tree and appleg Gart school one of the benefits of the 10-minute differential in time is that the students will be able to siblings will be able to wait at the same bus stop um parents won't have to get one kid out the bus in the morning and then get another one ready and wait with them at a time later on and most importantly with this review of the routes we can State at this time that we

192do not the longest that a child right now is on a bus at oak tree is 40 to 45 minutes we've timed out every route um that we have scheduled for next year and we can make a statement that according to our uh estimates that no child will be on a bus for longer than 40 minutes now that's actually slightly less than the oak tree service that's going on right now so you know we're confident that 40 minutes is a reasonable time for a student to be on a bus and we're going to actively manage this to make sure that it never exceeds that now granted there'll be some inclement weather days or unforeseen circumstances but and especially for the first week or week of two of school where adjustments are being made and we

193find a lot of occurrences where parents over talk with bus drivers and that familiarity develops which causes delays but 40 minutes is the most we look at a child being on a bus just wanted to add again uh Taylor Gracia 134 Federal Road um I've been teaching 15 years in a district um I don't want to say where um I was just curious as to why um I know in I in elementary where I teach B um band chorus basic skills and academically talented programs are all offered during the school day like they don't have all these extra busing for these programs after school so I didn't know if that was something to consider or if it had to be I mean obviously it doesn't have to be after school since my district doesn't do

194that I just know that when I teach my kids leave once a week to go to chorus if they are in chorus uh if they're a basic skills child they are pulled out for certain you know periods a week to go to that um and another I just find a little upsetting that since my child doesn't need extra help that he's doing very well in school and that he's also not gifted and talented he doesn't get to get to the get to get on the bus to go to remsterville Just because he doesn't need those extra Services it just feels like you know he's going to lose that because he doesn't need those extra extra services so I didn't just again you know also thinking consider how the programs are offered it that just might

195be something to think about I don't know why Monroe does it after school I was just throwing it out there thanks well the the the primary reason for that is to avoid the pull out and and disruption and instructional program the continuity of care we believe is academically and educationally more sound than a pullout uh than a pullout program hi Christy scurby again at seminal Court um I had a follow-up question to Mrs desai's question about the oak tree Applegarth busing um we're taking the equivalent of about five to six buses out of oak tree why wouldn't we use that to reroute to create new routes for those for oak tree and those for Applegarth mil Lake and Woodland does that right is that correct mil Lake and Woodland have different routes is there a

196huge problem with mil Lake and Woodland parents complaining that siblings don't wait on the same bus stop you're talking about a much more condensed area of town as opposed to to Oak Tree uh the routing schedules that we've looked at and the mapping programs that we have all indicate that this 10-minute differential and opening is the most efficient way to transport the students but are we really to believe 18 buses during rush hour traffic on Applegarth Road with a senior center due to open 18 buses will make it across the street in 10 minutes yes and unload and be able to begin school yes and in fact we've had I think Dennis KCK from wrong but I think we had seven trial runs with buses with six buses six and uh six buses not 18

197six M and how long did that take 10 minutes seven minutes seven minutes seven minutes so three times more would only take three more minutes yeah yes yes 12 buses can get over in 3 minutes but it took six buses s minutes the the meth doesn't add up well are our routing software does add up and it indicates that this is the most efficient and effective way to handle this and will there be a police officer outside directing tra it's rush hour traffic if anybody has ever dropped off at Oak Tree school you can sit there for at least a good five minutes to pull out how is 18 BS we're going to have parents dropping off and we're going to have 18 buses all trying to cross Applegarth Road at the same time during

198rush hour with a new seat p Senior Center going up with additional traffic could are we going to have a police officer or cross somebody to stop the traffic no why why aren't we looking into that we have looked into it and there's no identifiable need for that at this time again if if circumstances arise that we have problems with the 40 minutes um which is unanticipated then we'll look at additional busing um according to Mr ventrillo who rode every route that we went through a dry run there was never a area of congestion or any difficult area for a bus to turn or maneuver during this whole route well it has to turn it's going to congest the parking lot at Oak Tree because 18 buses lined up to make a right out and

199then a left into Applegarth right there it's going to cause a huge congestion right in that little area 8 we only did it with six we didn't do it with 18 we have many many buses more than that leaving the high school and the middle school not crossing the street to get into another parking lot problem during rush hour I don't know how many other times I got to say we've scheduled it we've testr run it and it's not an anticipated problem well we didn't test are we going to test run 18 are we going to have that test run or we're going to wait till the first day of school when the kids all come to Oak Tree and they're all sitting there and then they take them out one by one kindergarten first

200grade second grade third grade if you've ever been there on the first day of school school for the first two weeks doesn't start until 9:20 9:25 sometimes 9:30 and then they're going to have to sit there and go through that whole process of unloading by grade and then go across the street it doesn't make sense to keep kids on the bus that long and then we're going to have the kindergarten kids in the afternoon have to sit across the street at Applegarth and wait for those students to dismiss and all load the bus and go home you're keeping kids on the bus for way too long we're shaving five minutes off the current routes I find that hard to believe and as far as the late busing I know it was brought up at buildings

201and grounds the other night that we should be looking at other districts comparable to us one being South Brunswick because of they're just as big and I think Mr tesler brought up the fact that or found evidence that South Brunswick does in fact have late busing so I just wanted to um make note of that publicly to the entire board because I know several times it's been said that South Brunswick doesn't have late buses but they in fact do so when you're making your decision you might want to think about what the other districts right next to us are doing too thank you Ares youf say s wison lane and this adds on to miss Kirby's uh comments and the prior comments about comparing as we move forward now we've been defeated the budget has

202been defeated by the state or the county you you said the county has the final say or the state has the final say oh no after our budget is approved and locked it goes to the county and they need to improve approve it okay so as she just said about South Brun wi I would like to know um out of curiosity what others districts in Middle sex do not have courtesy busing or have removed it we had those statistics I don't know if they're here tonight that's been asked and answered we went over old no you didn't name the district today I'm asking I'm asking tonight right now I'm asking for the first time I didn't hear anybody else ask it or I didn't hear the names of the other districts that do not have

203courtesy busing or have had had it cut back you know at the time that this discussion was relevant around the budget creation all of that information was provided and I'll be happy files in the office and provide it to just send me an email requesting I'll I will do that because I think that's important to compare and that's what a couple of the other parents brought up moving forward that we could bring this back even if it's defeated now and we don't have busing I could tell you if you have a snapshot now that South Brunswick offers some courtesy busting okay which they may be requiring subscription for from parents okay there uh is pressure for the discontinuance of that coming from the county so I wouldn't even count on that okay I haven't heard

204that I have family and friends and sou brunck and they're very happy with their busting so you can't none of you can tell me off the top of your heads any districts in Middle sex that don't have courtesy busing right now or have cut it back nobody can remember from memory okay thank you Michelle Arm min9 ethaniel Street um I I keep hearing about budgets budget failures um how much uh the state doesn't give us how much we don't get I again I I really feel compelled to constantly repeat myself about this this board is responsible for more than 80% of a $100 million budget to keep trying to pass the blame on and I may agree with you that we should be getting more funds and you know we deserve more and all of

205that stuff but the point is the people sitting here who are elected by the by the taxpayers of this town are responsible for over 80% of the working budget in Monroe or approximately is it am I incorrect Mr Gorski you can correct believe I believe that ratio pertains to 80% of the budget is fixed cost and the board's uh real interaction in the budget is limited to about 20 the fixed cost has to do with negotiation with teachers and salaries and administrative salaries and if we're if it it's only fixed costs because you rely on mediation or whatever I mean if if you're not negotiating salar I mean you negotiate salaries every uh budget is that not correct no no every years so every how three years so every three years this board is responsible

206for negotiating salaries I think we are very generous with our salaries and benefits I understand that you know some of the administrators have gotten raises um so I think the people need to keep that in mind to pass the to literally pass the buck the responsibility for the buck to other parties is not fair to pit the seniors against the the people with children is not fair in this town this is a community we pay for things for everyone and this Board needs to be responsible for the amount of money they negotiate with professionals they negotiate for themselves and it's not this use of the money that I think anyone objects to it's the waste of the money there are places in the budget that things are paid for that there are maybe more important

207things now it is the responsibility of all of us as Citizens to take a look at these budgets and maybe not just come once a year I definitely agree with that but and to and and for all those people who only come on a regular on an irregular basis everything that people have asked for information and data from is public record any person in this room can go to the board of education and ask for all the these documents they are entitled to them they would get them right away I encourage people to just be more informed but please don't pass the buck you are responsible for the way the funds are spent in in this community um the debt so we have about we we have $10 million a year in interest I believe

208that we pay our debt off is it approximately 10 million the $10 million approximate number is for principal and interest in the debt service fund right so we have a $100 million operating budget how 95 $95 million in an operating budget so that means people are choosing how to use those funds how much debt do we have actual principal debt over a 100 million or over 200 million I'd have to refer to the caffer long-term debt schedules to give you an exact number I I actually mailed you a caffer when you asked that question I don't don't remember either but it's over it's quite a bit of million 150 million so people really need to realize how much we really are spending in this community so to spend it wisely is the responsibility of this

209board and to say that the that the budgets are defeated on a100 million budget um historically in the last five defeated budgets the township Council on that kind of money takes they used to take only $500,000 off of the budget so to say that somebody else is depriving our children because some people voted the budget down is ridiculous I don't know I'm not a mathematician but $500,000 on aund million budget is is it less than a half a percent it's cumulative that's what gets n well it's only cumulative because every year when you raise so it's cumulative and the opposite Mr Larry when you raise the budget 2% every year and we know it's more than 2% because that cap doesn't apply to all all financing so it goes beyond 2% and people don't let

210me finish please I believe I have the floor okay so it's accumulative on the opposite end too every time you raise a $100 million budget 2% what does that make it 102 million and the next year when you raise it another 2% so it's it's a exponential increase so when it comes down cumulatively the exponential increase is is higher so let's be real clear and not have the rhetoric about about budgets that have failed cuz it's not been that much the council has not taken I think only in the last year with a lot of public pressure did the council take for the first time over a million dollars off of the budget and I know that there's a lot of calculation prior to because the public is not privy to what gets taken off

211that you guys have the the council and the Board of Ed UC ation has private meetings so you already know what you're going to take off and what you're not so let's be clear and and succinct with the with the public and not make them feel that one party or the other is really responsible for this we are all responsible in total and it's how you spend the money that counts and the children not sometimes the salaries are the ones it's supposed to be all about the children well sometimes it doesn't seem that way thank you thank you may I make a brief statement when we talk about budgets what what you have to look at use your mic Mr M we all want to hear what you have to say I'm sorry uh uh

212the uh there are a couple of factors we are a rapidly growing Community even under these horrible economic conditions we're adding 200 plus students to our uh and in the case of our uh High School we're adding well over a hundred students I agree with you I think children the parents should go to Township Council meetings and planning board and zoning board meetings as well and the other thing is of course the uh the economics I mean in the early 2000s we were facing significant increases year-over-year particularly for building and other things like that now everything's in the you know in the dumper but we as we look forward we could be facing increasing economic uh increases cost of living increase cost of production so uh 2% is beggarly to say the least well it's

213more than 2% sir if Mr Gorski can attest that 2% cap is not on all of the funding there's funding outside of the 2% cap that gets raised a lot higher so people don't realize that until after they get their tax bills thank you I'm going to move to British came and [Music] sorry Christy scurby again eight seminal Court this is on a different issue uh Dr Hamilton you'll remember I attended the buildings and grounds meetings in June in which Dr Lynch delivered the results of the water test of alpart school Dr Lynch reported that the water indeed did contain lead due to old pipes that run throughout the building he said it was a mun it was not a Municipal Water issue but rather an issue with the building Dr Lynch's results showed that

214the first draws were in some cases 20 billion parts per million over the acceptable level he said that rotor rter came in and flushed the system and after several attempts they finally got clean samples to quote him he said his rule of thumb is to have the water run for at least 30 seconds each time it is turned on he said the system needs constant flushing to ensure acceptable levels of lead I was alarmed hearing this as I don't know how you control student turning on the water and making it run for 30 seconds each time they take a drink or wash their hands I've been in contact with the middlex County Freeholder office who put me in touch with reps from the D and the EPA I would like to read a quote from

215the lead rule the EPA sent me children are especially susceptible to lead exposure because their bodies absorb these Metals at higher rates than the average adult exposure to high levels of lead can cause damage to the brain red blood cells and kidneys exposure to even low levels of lead can cause low IQ hearing impairment reduced attention span and poor classroom performance pregnant women and their fetuses are especially vulnerable to lead exposure since it can significantly harm the fetus causing low birth weight and slowing normal mental and physical development Dave from the health department was at Applegarth last Wednesday July 18th and he met with Jerry tag he said Jerry walked him through Dr Lynch's results and that Jerry had spoken to the board about some op options for mitigating this situation I followed up with

216Dave on Monday at 3:30 and he said he had spoken again to Jerry and that on the tour of Applegarth school he would talk to the board again about possible options since I was not allowed on the tour and it was not discussed at the buildings and grounds meeting I wanted to know what options the board is currently planning to follow we didn't from what I I was I'm the chair of the buildings ground and transportation we didn't we didn't discuss any options with regard to that first of all with the water results that were communicated to the public previously and I don't have them handy um the lead in the water standard even applied to residential um guidelines was Far Below um any issues where it would ever be a concern they were perfectly

217safe so there is no need for any kind of lead in the water remediation plan no the first draw of the water at Applegarth did not show that it was after rotor rter came in and flushed the system Dr Lynch said that evening at the buildings and grounds meeting correct me if I'm wrong Mr shella he said the system needs constant flushing and that every time the water is turned on it should be left to run for 30 seconds is that not what was reported in start at the start of the from what I recollect the start of the day right my recollection of of that it was was in reference to the building not being occupied and in use and he said going forward it needs constant flushing because the pipes are old and

218the gentleman from the health department said that he would like to see two more samples of first draw water simulating a long weekend four to 5 days and he said he spoke to Jerry about that and he was supposed to recommend that to the board has that happened that has not happened yet no and I'm not familiar with this conversation you you referen well that's that's surprising because the gentleman from the D knew about the tour I did not speak to this gentleman um so I I don't know why that would be surprising to you and I am not aware of the exchange that may have happened between Mr T and this gentleman that you're referring we had the health department into Applegarth looking into lead he made some recommendations but it's never been brought

219to the board what I I want to be clear what I what I'm saying I am saying that I can't confirm that the way you re you're recanting this conversation is accurate so I don't want to give the impression that I am confirming what you are now reporting as a summation of that conversation because I don't know that to be true well maybe could we set up a meeting with you me Jerry and Dave from the health department I I I can speak to that because I did speak to Jerry after he met with um the representatives from the health department and the township per your request to come check the water and according to Jerry T P he immediately furnished all of these officials with results from the water testing all of the testing

220including the first test which you referred to which tested the water shortly after the water was turned back on after the building sat for a year the water hasn't been turned on since it the building was closed so what the gentleman informed Jerry of after looking at the results was quote what's the problem here these results are so far below any uh Health concern even for a residential property that there's no issue and he took the reports and there was no corrective action plan reported to us from this gentleman there was no um need for any address he left satisfied with the reports and per if you were the one who invited the gentleman you should perhaps ask him and speak to him yourself I will because he told me that one of the recommendations

221that the board made to Jerry was to maybe turn off all the drinking fountains there was never a need for a recommendation because the water levels with lead are no they weren't and Dr Lynch recommended again constant flushing because because when the water sits for more than six hours in the pipes it gets recontaminated again that's exactly what the woman from the EPA told me and from the gentleman from the D that was here that's a general comment that could be applied to residential uh pipes and and F but Dr Lynch made the recommendation at the buildings and grounds to have the water run as a rule of thumb he said 30 seconds seconds every time it is turned on and I know Mr shella was asking questions that night about what constant flushing meant

222right so have we looked into do we have a plan for that constant flushing I think that's something that we should probably at least discuss at the next buildings and grounds meeting just to see what you know with regards to Flushing and and and at least speak to Jerry about some of these points I mean time is time again we say Dr Lynch is the expert well the expert was there and the expert said it needs constant flushing and that as a rule of thumb every time it's turned on it should run for 30 seconds that's what our expert that you pay told us I I I respectfully think you're misquoting him and we should refer to Dr Lynch and get guidance from him on this well maybe the buildings and grounds committee remembers better

223I that's what I heard Dr Lynch never expected us to be continuously flushing the water before every use that's false no that is exactly testing results are so immaterial with the content of lead that's not needed there is no re that was after rotor rter came in for 3 days and continuously flush the system RoR rer was there because we had a clog in the outgoing pipe that's not what that's not what was talked about buildings and grounds that evening no will we look into that Mr shella from buildings and grounds will they will your committee look into that thank you Liz prer 209 Spruce met this drive uh Ken had an excellent uh vote on the floor if we can get back to it um I think it would be a great solution I

224think everybody would be very happy in this town for what you propose however if I'm hearing that that's going to be a problem financially um The Safe House although not perfect I really think we should try it because we owe it morally uh and and legally somewhat to our children to give it a give it a try to see if it'll work it'll it it'll be a nominal amount of money and hopefully that will do the trick so thank you thank you I think e either way we vote I would like to keep an eye on the enrollment numbers just to see how this impacts the busing and overall you know do we have nobody attending band from now on or music Elementary level I just don't want to uh just write them off absolutely

225and also that the idea to may move it into the afternoon might not compromise you have that on the Jennifer hijack 12 Sycamore Court um first of all I want to thank some members of the board of education for finally entertaining some options for us working parents I have been here month after month since March I know many other people didn't even know what was going on and thank you finally for sending out the alert now to let people know obviously they got the message and they came out tonight to show you that it's not just a handful of people it was going to affect obviously it's room full um thank you for offering us the safe house Andor the bus run I think either of those options as a working parent I know I

226am very grateful for and I'm sure that many of my friends and other parents who are in similar situation as myself are thankful for so when you make your vote please consider our needs and know that we thank you deeply for trying to help us thank you um if I can m cherella um Dr Gorman just brought something to my attention that I want to go Recon on in reference to your your reply in terms your question regarding moving B to the afternoon um historically there has been a huge uh problem for youngsters because when banon uh music is added at the end of the day it conflicts with the sports programs so children often are for forced into a situation where they have to choose between one or the other so about just at

227the elementary and tag elementary does have sports they got tag and basic tag and basic skills lunch time well that we've always tried to do that at sometimes okay thank you this prer 29 super sty um I have a comment about the music program um moving it at the grade level I think they were suggesting it there's no Sports after school because the start times at Brookside and Oak Tree are later um I don't think it's going to be as much of a problem at um Woodland because I believe they start at like 7:40 I don't know if anybody could back that and the program at the middle school starts at 7:30 which seems early enough for parents to get there so I guess the concern would be potentially Oak treay and Brookside because they

228start about 805 no the band 855 820 855 for no no no for the band zero perod we're talking zero period busing so maybe if if you see a diminish in the future maybe the the grade schools the the fourth and fifth grade band to there's no conflict in sports or anything but there would be a conflict with tag and basic skills oh wellow you just oh well sorry thank you hour it okay okay I'm going to close out the public forum I'm going to withdraw my motion so that and I I don't want to start a riot but I'm going to but uh Mr Gorski is going to read into the record a new motion thank you it is recommended to the members of the Monroe Township Board of Education that a 4:30 late

229bus transportation services be reinstated at the Monro Township High School and Monro Township Middle School and whereas a supervision Center will be established at the Monro Township High School until 6:15 p.m. and then Mr Gorski is directed and authorized to perform a budget review for the 2012 2013 current year budget and Report the transfer of available funds and the source accounts to the board by the meeting of August 20th second first by K Chella second by Ira tesler any any comments comments ohce I'm sorry I me is this a recommendation that Dr Hamilton and Mr Gorski are supporting I could support that yes sorry I can support that yes question what do we do if the the financial analysis comes back and says you can't do it I I just want to make if I

230vote Yes it's contingent upon the ability to afford to be able to do it I I appreciate your concern $355,000 as reported tonight was saved by um the insurance change so the the number that we're talking about here is about $80,000 approximately to fulfill the rest of this obligation um it'll have to be presented to the finance committee some potential Source recommendations for the fund some eliminations from the budget in order to accommodate this I want to be clear that everybody understands that if you vote Yes to this other things will go I recommend that we don't vote on this until we know what those other things are because otherwise we could be borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and I don't know what I'm giving up if I say yes to bringing back the

231fourth I I think we need to know what the impact is I think the other thing too for the board to consider um is next month we could have all of our band parents here because we have not reinstated zero period busting um so there could be a whole another group here next month I'm going to agree with Mr calman because I can't vote on something and then you're coming back to us saying gee now we got to cut this there could be a program we have until I know where the money is coming from I could never support this but I would support the safe haven because I think that that money we could come up with tell us to that comment that the money for the safety program which just for full clarification

232would be an establishment of a staff supervision area in the mono Township High School until 6:15 p.m. and a staff supervision area in the monal township middle school till 5:15 p.m. we estimated the cost for that to be approximately 20 25,000 and that could be um transferred from the insurance account on the the savings that I mentioned earlier why don't we split the motion that's what I'm just going to say well why don't we just do one and then the other I think you have a motion we table this and wait for the finance committee deliberations and then we can look at what's the puts and what's the takes here's the here's the thing rules are you have a motion we're going to have to vote on it we're going to have to say no

233if anybody wants to make another motion that says maybe we can have the safe haven then we can vote on that and maybe another motion that says go back and figure out where the 100K is coming back from perhaps well the problem too is that the next board meeting is not until August 22nd and I think the parents really want to know what's going on either way could we have a special meeting just to address this and in early August and get it off the the monkey off people's back I'd like to say this is a very slippery slope because the next meeting you're going to get another group and you're going to flip again and you just can't do that month after month after month and we do it year after year after year

234and it's certainly not popular and it's not comfortable voting against the group of parents when they come in here but you know know what the big picture is and sometimes you just got to stand up for itoll call if there's no other comments we'll have a roll call yes on the resolution or the motion that's on the floor to um reinstate at 4:30 run and have a safe supervision area at the mon Township High School till 6:15 Mr calman no Mr Mr Klein no Mr Larry reluctantly no Mr Masters no Mr tesler yes M Fon yes Miss antelis no Mr Braverman no Mr cherella yes Mr acting board president motion does not pass thank you I want to make a motion to everything about the safe haven remove the busing it is recommended to the

235members of the Monro Township Board of Education that a supervision Center be provided at the monra Township High School expanding the period from 4:15 to 6:15 and a supervision Center be established at the Monroe Township middle school until [Music] 5:15 and authorize Mr Gorski has directed um to transfer money from the insurance account in Le of the savings from the change of carrier and Report such to the board by August 22nd 2012 second question just what's What's the total cost on that approximately 25,000 thank you and if we implement the bus run subsequently that'll actually go down right to about 15 18 15 approximately that's correct need the middle I'm just trying to clarify correct the 4:30 late run if it came later would alleviate the need for the supervision Center at the middle school

236you got a motion in a second take the vote Lou Masters made the motion Amy second me second it okay Mr calman yes Mr Klein yes Mr Larry yes Mr Masters yes Mr tesler yes Mrs fron yes Miss antelis yes Mr Braverman no Mr cherella yes Mr acting board president motion passes get out of here Mr thank you um I'd like to make another motion to direct Mr Gorski to uh find out um where the money potentially could come for the 4:30 bus run and report back to us at the next Board of Education meeting or next finance committee meeting so that that's a feasibility study find $80,000 for um potential 430 reinstatement righta made the motion second Luke cman second comment after the insurance comment yes um perhaps this board should do a feasibility

237study on looking at the before and after school program because from the um profits that baser is making which includes another $150,000 maybe that's uh something that could bring that busing back I'm sorry I was just making a comment but we can do that yeah I just I just wanted to comment on on on something and thank you Amy for reminding me because I totally forgot when The Basque folks came in and we were talking about what they're going to be doing to the for the district I know we spoke about earlier openings and later closings in the afternoon to kind of span out because that was a concern of the parents after we had those meetings I know that there were going to be other follow-ups held by the administration does anybody have an

238update for me on where we are with that and and I know what was also brought up was the question of being open when the schools aren't so I don't know if anything I b& didn't hear anything after that so I don't know if we had you follow up middle I I can say that you know the the start times of the school have been established have the support from the principles and um I I did make an assurance that I I recollect you're bringing up now that I will monitor the bass program and act as a liaison with bass to find out if there's any difficulties and Survey the parents to make sure that Bas get in the community effectively is that your recollection he you yeah I just I know that there was

239supposed to be some kind of followup but I can't remember what the what it was going to be because there were there were really three concerns that I remember one was opening earlier the second was staying open later and the third was being available to the parents when the schools are closed that's what came up in the meeting so so yeah and that was Amy's that was Point yeah okay all right just I think which is why we should look at taking this program over motion yeah finished the motion yeah yes it was seconded okay so we have a first by Lou Masters and a second by Ira tesler Ira tesler Luke hman okay this the analysis could you repeat the motion please yes uh the motion is recommended to the members of the Monroe

240town Township Board of Education that Mr Gorski conduct a feasibility study and budget review to determine if available funds exist to the tune of approximately $85,000 to initiate a 4:30 late run service at the mon Township Middle School Monro Township High School and report back such by the August 22nd meeting yeah i' just like to amend the motion instead of the next meeting to as soon as possible [Music] I I think this is something that should just be looked at for next year I I think to scramble and start grabbing things we didn't budget the money to start scrambling and oh we can take it from here take it from there we don't know what the long-term impact is we've made a decision about the safe haven and we should just stick with it do

241a feasibility study perhaps January about taking over the after school program and perhaps from that profit we can then reinstate our busing but I think to start scrambling around now to find out where this money is coming from we're not going to have this answer till the August 22nd it's going to be too late what are we going to make a phone call to parents and say oops we changed our mind again we're just causing more confusion than anything so I will I'm not going to support that motion second any other comments roll call roll call Mr calman yes Mr Klein haven't got the foggiest idea just a yes or no um again this is for a feasibility study to determine if budget funds are available in approximate amount of 85,000 to bring back the

2424:30 late runs and to be furnished to the board as soon as possible give it a yes yeah because he doesn't have enough work to do right now so are you going to get it you're going to get the information before the last meeting that we can find out like the second week of August I I hope I hope uh to have it have it within a week there's a lot of budget accounts that have to have encumbrances adjusted but um I'm confident that I can and this is just a study hey can I go back to high school you're in high school yes yes yes so noted my Mr liry yes Mr Masters yes Mr tesler yes Mrs fron Miss anelis no Mr Braverman Mr cherella yes Mr acting board president motion passes and

243I will conduct said feasibility study and Report the results as soon as possible um Mr president can I make a motion to close the meeting no no no no no Mr President I'd like to make a motion to have a special meeting to hear these findings on August 13th that gives you a little over a week a little bit time to get your stats together uh for August 13th it's a Monday um because otherwise we need to know as quick as possible do you do we need a a public meeting for that or could you need to you have to have a motion in a second and and he needs a you need a thing right to have a special meeting you have approval by the board you mean to appr to to to see

244it and approve it to have a special me yeah because he's got to do the we got to make the decision we can't wait till the 22nd I misunderstood I thought you were just asking for a special meeting to hear about it no no to to act on it I second it anybody want to buy a house in Regency so would you mind please repeating or not a problem I move to have a special meeting to hear the findings and to vote on this particular matter on August Monday August 13th at 7 pm. at the high school thank you why can't it be done in a finance meeting will be then somebody has I know why we have have a speci meeting we have a finance committee that can really discuss it do it's open

245to the public finan is open to the public is finance open to the public absolutely oh okay absolutely you don't need the board to create a committee meeting but you need the board to create the special meeting so that's why I second it right okay I'm with you it's a public meeting I didn't say we um roll call has been called for Mr calman yes finan is Mr Klein yes Mr Larry yes Mr Masters yes I just want to make a motion Mr tesler did we say what time 7.m 7 I did actually I got motion sickness right now so yes motion Mrs Ferron Miss antelis no Mr Braverman Mr Chella yes I was like are we still here Mr acting board president motion passes to create a special board meeting Friday August 13th 2012

246uh Monday August Monday pardon Monday August 13th 2012 7 p.m. at the high school for the purpose of reviewing feasibility study the next scheduled public board of that meeting is August 13th right and make a motion to close the meeting a second second all in favor I thank you for your support all in [Music] favor James did we actually close meeting