Monroe Township Board of Education 08.22.12 Regular Meeting

001[Music] good evening the meeting of the Monro Township Board of Education will come to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Mr Gorski may we please have a roll call Mrs K Pano here Mr Chella miss antelis here Mr Braverman yes Mr calman here Mr Klein here Mr lirry Mr Masters here Mr tesler here Mrs Fon here Madam board president you have a quum for that thank you in accordance with the provisions of the New Jersey open public meetings law the Monroe Township Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted

002August 177 2012 one at all schools two home News Tribune three cranberry press four filed with the clerk of the municipality at this time we will go to the public forum anyone wishing to speak to the agenda please come to the microphone phone and state your name and address for the record and I will ask that all board members please hold all your comments questions um and respond under other board business so anyone from the public wishing to speak please come to the microphone have a please come to the microphone state your name and address for the record and this is in regard to anything on the agenda well it's not a specifically anything on the agenda but I do have questions on the whole business of funding and how funds flow from the state

003then we we'll hold that off until the next uh second public forum thank you anyone else okay at this time we will go to number seven an Applegarth School update we the six okay the approval of the minutes for the public Board of Education meeting of June 5th 2012 Motion in a second Mr Kaufman second Mr tesler comments or questions all in favor I opposed exstension miss anelis abstained the closed session public Board of Education meeting of June 5th 2012 Mr Kaufman second second by Mr Masters comments or questions all in favor all opposed abstentions abstain miss anelis abstains the special public Board of Education meeting of June 13 2012 move Mr kleene Mr tesler all in favor I opposed extensions okay then we'll go to the public session special public Board of Education meeting

004of June 13th 2012 I'll move Mr Klein second Mr Masters all in favor I opposed abstentions okay seeing none that we approve the minutes of the public Board of Education meeting of June 20th 2012 move that Mr Klein second by Mr Masters all in favor I opposed abstentions none the closed session public Board of Education meeting of June 20th 20 2 so move Mr tesler second second by Mr Masters all in favor I I opposed abstentions okay seeing none we will go to number seven which is an appleg School update Dr Hamilton uh good evening everyone um this evening we are going to do an update on the uh Applegarth Elementary School we will be having a presentation this evening that will include information from the building principal Mr Dennis ventrillo um we will also

005have information from our director of Transportation director of facilities and our certified um environmental hygienist Dr Lynch will be giving us information as well we're going to begin with a brief overview of the our efforts to create parody with appleg Garf with the other um elementary schools in the district and we'll start with Mr ventrello [Music] good evening everyone I don't want to give my back to anyone just want to say you know the adage is that it takes a village and you should just notice the fact that I'm very proud about the progress that we made at Apple guard school and it's certainly directly related to so many people coming together to work and I do want to I want to acknowledge uh Mr T if he's here Jerry T and all the director

006of facilities the uh all the staff of the facilities the custodian the teachers I want to acknowledge the Board of Education the business administrator uh the superintendent all the board members the buildings and grounds committee I can't say enough it's been they've all been very very supportive as far as getting that school in shape uh for September I'm really looking forward to obviously for September we have the orientation for the children on Tuesday September the 4th just want to let you know that parents have already been informed with that said is that I know there's some concerns out there as far as safety and that's what Dr Hamilton has asked me to stress this evening school safety plan just let you know let's do fire first my expectation is that with the teachers and the

007staff in the building is that we'll be doing fire drills that first week at Oak Tree school probably with about maybe 850 students we probably evacuated in under a minute and a half I'm hoping to evacuate Apple Guard School in under a minute and that should alleviate some fears as far as just in case there is a fire the kid the kids will be out fast the staff will be there as well too that'll be supervised and orderly drop off and pickup you should just know this if you're not and if you're not a parent and you don't know this is that that becomes an issue it was an issue at Oak Tree as far as the number of parents that are dropping off children in the morning I've made arrangements is that uh parents

008so this way if you're out there is that you should just know that as you come into the appar school parking lot on the right hand side in front of the trailers we'll be doing a loop you can drop off your child there your child will be on the sidewalk they'll come into the main office area there and sign in is there as well too so we'll have an opportunity then for parents to drop off the children and they can also come inside and speaking of coming inside there'll also be a security person right there you'll be buzzed in to ensure the safety of the building playground and safeguards playground safeguards just let you know is that there's a number of staff that have that are coming on board these are pars these are adults

009uh they'll be watching the children we have an exceptional playground area right now I think there was a concern out there and I don't know if anybody's aware of it but there was a concern about an electrical outlet or box area um that has been removed and I believe is that if Mr T's here can he also confirm for me that the fact that the telephone poll that's out there as well too that is also going to be removed by JCP now so it's a great place for the kids you should see the playground uh equipment area you should see the recess area it's good everything is good as far as I'm concerned visitors and guests again as I said is a fact that the um as parents come in they will have to be

010buzzed in to ensure the safety of the children School parody Dr Hamilton just mentioned that as far as school parody every program that we had at Oak tree for grades four and five as well as you know at Brookside or Woodland School for grades four and five it'll be the same programs at um at aarth everything from the regular education special education uh any of the uh Support Services special education classes um Spanish any program that we've had for any of the grade four or five they will all be there as well too so if I can assure uh anybody or maybe answer any questions from anyone about the programs or anything about the school I'm here for you now now would be the time if we could hold questions till the end sure if

011you can hold your questions till the end of the presentation that way you can ask um everyone who's making a presentation what your questions might be absolutely thank you okay thank good evening everyone thank you for the opportunity to present my name is Jerry tag and I'm the director of facilities I'm going to walk you through the building give you an idea area by area what we did this summer to prepare the school starting at the the rear of the building with the gymnasium last summer you may recall with the opening of the new high school and Applegarth being closed Applegarth gymnasium uh served as a storage facility for us so all of the furniture that we were removing or moving between the various schools was stockpiled at the appart gymnasium all the computers that

012were being taken out of District service were stockpiled there so one of the first things we had to do was start to get rid of that um equipment we offered the furniture throughout the schools and the various schools picked and chose what pieces they wanted the remaining Furniture we put up for sale uh some of the furniture was purchased by some surrounding districts Spotswood for example uh purchased a lot of the student desk that which we were no longer using uh some of it was donated away and then anything that was considered unsafe was disposed of we also then went through an environmental recycling program to dispose of all the old computers and Technology waste once that was done what we did in the gymnasium is we refinished the gym floor it's a maple hardwood

013floor so we have that sanded down to be wood and we have new line striping installed for the games basketball volleyball Etc new logo put in there and then we also painted the gymnasium uh painted the gymnasium with our maintenance staff and we did that from about a point halfway up the wall down there's an accent band that goes around the gym uh painted the gymnasium the gymnasium if you know the layout of the building also has a stage on it the stage serves as the music classroom so what we did there is the stage curtains were all replaced with new curtains as well as the window drapery in the gymnasium so it's now an inherently flame material one of the things we have to do at all the schools is a lot of the

014old drapery is not what's classified as an inherently flame material so every 5 years you have to have it retreated this material was due for retreating it was I think 19 years old kind of Beyond its serviceable life so we had that replaced moving on to the stage in the gym classroom we simply had that recarpeted again had carpeting on that it was about 20 years old so that was recarpeted moving out of the gymnasium um flanking each side you have a boys and girls locker room now it was a middle school environment you had showers in there that could have been part of the fizzed or athletic curriculum that obviously is not part of the program with the fourth and fifth graders so those spaces are not going to be used they were simply

015cleaned but the shower area will be off limits uh for the Applegarth use stepping out into the hallway we had two small group rooms existing 31 33 nothing was done there other than typical summer cleaning and some touch-up painting moving into the Center Commons area flanking the commons we have the library no real work done in the library other than again some painting and then a new library collection was installed I believe the um assistant superintendent's office worked with school librarian the alfed with some new books and we took some of the collection from Oak Tree school so you now have a fully functioning library on the opposite side we had the old wood shop and the industrial Arts wood shop program is not part of the elementary curriculum so that was part of the

016move that we did last summer so the industrial arts equipment the table saws Etc we all moved to the new Middle School across the street and that room is not in service it will not be used this year we're actually using it just for some temporary storage right now adjacent to the wood shop we have the art classroom and that will again serve as an art classroom no real work done in there other than painting and cleaning stepping out into the commons proper um that area has been reestablished with just some finishes anybody who's familiar with the building may recall there are acoustic wall panels at the back of the commons area those were rewrapped with new Fabric and some new floor tile put down throughout that area moving then into what is the 79

017section of the building the gymnasium and the areas that I just covered were a 1983 Edition working your way back into the building steps us into the 79 section in the 79 section on the right hand side of the hallway as you go down were science classrooms those were rooms 21 and 22 two they had a greenhouse and an outdoor area science is not part of or chemical science is not part of the elementary curriculum those rooms will not be used as part of the asbestos remediation was done earlier in the year the floor tile was removed from those rooms the lab tabletops were removed and the Fume hoods were all removed as they had Asus containing material so those rooms will just simply be used as storage and the board will consider future Renovations

018for that space the greenhouse will will not be used but there's an outdoor Garden area uh that we had semi- restored Mr vello has a group of volunteer parents and teachers who want to reestablish a garden in there so we simply had all of the old plantings removed and soil Roa till ready for them to take it over moving further through the 79 Wing we had four classrooms there they were classrooms 23 through 26 and they will be used one as a music classroom another as the guidance office one will be a spare and then one is housing our special services operation in front of that you had two former conference rooms right off the hallway one will remain a conference room and the other will be a work room for the main office with

019a copier in it all of those aforementioned rooms simply had some painting done in them and some ceiling tile replaced furthering our way down the hallway towards the main office uh touching on security one of the things we did at the building is we put in a controlled access door locking system around the school you may be familiar with it here at this building and we have it at some of the other schools and it's the card swipe if you're familiar with that so we now have a card swipe set up intercoms and a video intercom at some locations around the perimeter doors I believe 12 in total and we reconfigured the layout of the main office primarily the two secretarial desks so that we have a line of sight to the front door the

020front doors to the school were replaced and we have more glazing in there so you have a direct line of sight and visitors to the school will not be able to just walk in the school as they were before they will have to be buzzed in by a security person in the main office um some of the perimeter doors also around the exterior have the video intercom setup we have one for example at the rear near the gymnasium the thought process there is that as a gym class goes out we don't want to leave a door propped open where somebody could possibly get in the school but if a student had to get back in to use a restroom for example the student could go to that push on to the video incom the main

021office could see them and then permit the student access back into the building so that was the realignment of the main office no other Renovations in there there in the corridor going down the 79 hallway we replaced the floor tile and the ceiling tile the ceiling we pulled out the old ceiling tile painted the grid we left the Grid in place and just installed new ceiling tile as you enter the building you turn to the left that's what's known as the 1960 Edition or the 1960 Wing that houses classrooms 10 through 17 and also the nurses office and that was part of the original scope with the board and what was done there is those classrooms all contain the vinyl asbest floor tile that was part of the remediation so that was all removed replaced

022with new vinyl composition floor tile classrooms were painted uh if you anybody remembers those classrooms they had an exposed wood ceiling in them ceilings were painted white and then indirect lighting which is the lighting you see above your heads now was installed in those rooms and the rooms freshly PLT it those rooms since it was being used as a middle school and then we found this throughout the school there were metal lockers that had been installed over the years for the middle school students so we removed the metal lockers and now that we're going back to the original anten of the school which is an elementary use uh the area where the lockers were we refer to them as cubby areas they were reestablished with some shelving and coat hooks and whatnot for the students

023working our way back across to the other side of the building which is the red brick building you see from the outside that's the 1936 building and what we did there is uh there was some floor tole removed at the stair Landings and then the board also wanted the stair treads replaced the rubber stair riser treads so those were replaced as I said The Landings were replaced working your way down to the lower level the teacher lunchroom there was no renovation in there uh into the kitchen area if you're familiar with that space there are acoustic wall panels around the perimeter of that they were also rewrapped with fresh panels and the flooring in that area remains we didn't put any new flooring in there didn't put any new ceilings in there just did some

024touchup painting throughout the space working our way across from there we get to the kitchen serving area and what we did in there is we've reconfigured the space Nancy Mitek the food service director is introducing some new pieces of food service equipment so basically we've revised the way the serving line will flow in there moved a couple pieces of equipment around and then installed ceramic tile on the walls and make it a little more hygienic of a space the lighting remains though we did some painting in there as well stepping to the outside of the building uh as Mr vanello said we put in a new playground the electrical service that he's referring to is you may recall we had several classroom trailers out there there's one set of trailers that is remaining and that

025houses the district Special Services Group at the end of that were other classroom trailers that had been removed there is a utility poll there from jcpnl that supplied power to a service specifically for those trailers when those trailers were removed we left the jcpnl poll in place under the thought that it's possible that you may need trailers in the future at that time we thought the playground was going to be going on the opposite side of the building now that the playground has landed on that side of the building we've had the old electric service removed we've made arrangements with jcpnl they're scheduled to be out there on the 30th to pull that pole out of there so you've got a new uh playground in that area uh someone from the public had commented about

026some stock piles of soil we had over there that is when we put the playground in we excavate the area down to a depth of about 14 inch put in some drainage underneath that top it with wood chips that excavated material is the spoils from that we'll use that to back fill around the border that goes on the playground back to the front of the building the rail that went up the 1936 uh stair that's being replaced if you've driven by there you see that missing now that's being replaced with a new handrail and then around the rest of the perimeter building just did a little Landscaping touchup cut back some bushes around windows um at the parking area as Mr valent Trello mentioned we're reworking a student drop off area so you'll see some

027new line striping and signage go in later this week which will direct parents how to go to the loop for the student drop off arrows on grounds on the ground those kind of things and restriping the bus area and that's kind of a summary overview of what we've done there okay great thank you Jerry Doug you would come up please and give us the transportation plan good evening my name is Doug Gillan I'm the director of transportation and for the oak tree apple appleg routes we are currently have 20 routes that have the students on them um right now two of those buses are not going to appleg gorth they may add some appor students in the future but right now we don't have any buses will come out of oak tree make a right

028on Applegarth and a left into Applegarth Elementary where they will drop off the students there's 10 minutes between the um start times for both schools we have done three test runs um one of them was approximately 7 minutes and the other two were less than that we designed the routes in a um safe orderly efficient manner and many of them will um look like they have in the past with the exception that some stops have been moved to make the bus routes shorter the longest bus routes we have are 30 minutes to give us the 10 minutes to unload at alore so no student should be on the bus more than 40 minutes uh with the exception of the first couple weeks of school as those routes take a little bit longer and in weather

029um one of the reasons why we felt this was a good option was siblings will be on the same bus and you won't have to have two different bus stops or different times for your children um where bus passes should go out by Monday we had some last minute um registrations so they're not totally set we do have the routes done but as we add students it's easier to send them out the bus passes out in one shot um really don't have much else it's we've gone through it we've looked at the routes um like I said they will be similar to what they were in the past with the exception of some stops will be moved on to different buses to make them more efficient the other isue we have right now is there's

030a closure on North disb Road um pretty much only affects one family and we have called and left the message for that family and we are offering them to alternate bus stops because the buses will not be allowed to go up there that's it okay thank you thank you and Dr Lynch thank you uh I'm Dr Lynch I'm the district's certified industrial hygienist uh consultant and have been in that capacity for about the last 11 years or so uh as all of the work that's been happening in the Apple car school over the summer has been occurring we've been overseeing that process uh on every on every level from the beginning when the asbest work was being planned and the con consultants and the contractors were out we oversaw all of that process as well

031as continue to do uh kind of oversight and and sampling throughout the building as things are moving along um we we've been doing a series of sampling rounds particularly related to uh concern concerns about the possibility of elevated lead in the drinking water and that's been an issue that we've been working on pretty substantially over the course of the summer of course uh when when you leave a building uh for a period of time without any water running there's always an expectation that when you do start the water again you've got to flush it and we absolutely saw that we saw that back in June uh the school at that point had been vacant for a number of months and we thought that it would be a good idea to uh get some initial testing

032there our initial testing showed high levels of lead in some of the drinking water and some of the faucets in the area we flushed the system we found reductions but we also found some movement of of of sediment and Lead through the building as expected so uh the the the district did a comprehensive flushing of the system over over uh the next several weeks and then we came back in uh in in August retested and the levels uh were largely just right where we wanted to be uh uh based on testing done on August 13th and then finally we did another round of testing on August 20th which was this past Monday results just came in today uh and uh all of the drinking water areas came back absolutely clean um one of the things

033that's been interesting that we've learned along the way um is that there is in the township there are some issues with turbidity in the water and our testing uh and the results that we got as we sort of track things through the building sort of pointed to this and then we were able uh Jerry was able to have some conversations with people at the Utilities Authority which confirmed that they were having some issues that are impacting this whole area and uh they're working on that and as a result of uh of that finding we've made a decision uh in combination with the other results to install uh filters in a number of places throughout the building certainly everywhere where there's drinking fountains and and that kind of thing there's going to be local filters there

034but we're also installing uh sort of the high level filters right at the building main uh as soon as the water comes off of the the Township's lines and into our buildings uh into our building there where where're we're installing uh filters there that will do uh sort of the initial interception and that should help man AG whatever issues the township is going with uh going through as well and then finally um and so from our perspective we're we're satisfied that that's the right course of action I understand that the district is making an additional uh uh precaution in that you're going to be making drinking water available uh to you know throughout the building bottle drinking water as well uh but from our perspective we're quite satisfied with that we've also been doing air

035sampling and air monitoring throughout the construction process and what I can tell you is that we are exactly where we need to be right now we did initial testing back in uh back in in in in June we were out throughout July uh we just did another round of testing now uh as the construction is sort of wrapping up and we are exactly where we need to be as soon as the final cleaning is done we're going to do our final uh round but we're very very satisfied with the results there are no elevations in mold the Fresh Air Supply is amazing in fact I was telling Jerry it's so amazing we may I may end up asking him to dial it back a bit once we uh get a little closer but I have

036a little bit more testing to do on that uh so we're really really satisfied with that so from from from my perspective uh I am very very satisfied that the work that's being done in the district is being done in the right sequence at the right timing to allow for the off gassing of the uh of of the vapors that were that are obviously going to be released that's why we did the gym as early as we did uh and it's moving along nicely the carpets have been installed we're all in the final process of that now and um we expect that by the end of or by I guess by the end of this week the middle of next week uh all of the major work will be done the final cleaning will be

037done and we'll just do our final round at that point but we're very very satisfied with with the way that things are going okay and lastly just to summarize the the information that's been presented by by District staff and and the district consultant um we are certain that Applegarth will provide an exceptional learning environment for the students that will be entering in September um we believe the building is educationally and structurally prudent um I do want to commend Jerry T for outstanding work along with your BG your your buildings and ground team um we actually did a tour of the building yesterday and it is quite impressive um I also want to acknowledge our ba Mike for making sure all of this happened in a fashion that was consistent with with the par within the

038parameter with which we had to work and the transportation plan I think is also very very sound and reflects the kind of uh due diligence that is necessary we have been responsive to some preceived um Notions that the traffic flow may be heavier than usual particularly during the first part of the school year which is not unusual when there's a new pattern that emerges so we have reached out to the police department they will provide police presence to help direct the flow of traffic for the first few days or as long as necessary until the traffic patterns are established there um we have also met with the middle sex County Department of Public Safety and Health and we've reviewed our plan we' reviewed our results with them and they are very confident that we have

039taken all the necessary steps to ensure the health and safety of our students and staff so with all that said we believe that we have been very responsive to concerns that have been expressed by members of our public related to Applegarth and we are confident that the school and as we always have been that the school is ready to receive students so that concludes the apple G status report okay are there any comments or questions from any member of the Board of Education Mr Kaufman now I'm awake um I just want to have a little point of clarity um a member of the public came at the last board meeting and made a couple of comments about well you know we we spoke at the our report that the building was vacant but if it's

040vacant how can there have been people working in the building and the flushing and everything else I I think we have to just be very clear when we say vacant we are referring to the fact that there are no students and there are no staff in the building which would require the magnitude of flushing which would make Dr Lynch happy with all of the water fountains all of the the toilets and all of the flow that has to happen everywhere in the building if we have staff in there or workers or subcontractors working on a portion of the building it's a couple of people and clearly it's not indicative of hundreds of people moving hundreds and thousands of gallons of water uh through the building so I just want to make sure that we're clear

041when we say it was vacant it was vacant of students uh and the normal people that would be in the building not that there was no human beings in the building and if it there were how could there be work going on so I think we just want to be clear about that and not that's alloin of clarity anyone else Mr Masters I believe Doug said it was it seven minutes to get 18 buses AC is that what he said you want to confirm your information and you may as well have a seat at the table in case other questions come up you too Jerry um during the three test runs it was the longest one was just a little over s minutes and that's including the time we dropped off at Oak Tree so

042is that just to get the buses across the street or you're saying dis embarcation embarcation included correct seven minutes correct it's a little optimistic my son can't get off a bus in seven minutes any anyone else from the board well I just like to say that I had an opportunity yesterday to take a very comprehensive tour of Applegarth and I think it's looking amazing um haven't been in Applegarth in a while haven't had my children go through there many years ago it doesn't resemble anything that it used to look like it's bright it's cheerful it it's it's new looking um the hallways are completely different you're going to love it it's very Elementary friendly and again we have to thank Jerry tag and his staff for the Excell excellent job and Mr ventrillo too um

043for their Insight in how they wanted this school to look so I was very um excited to do that I know that there's still a few board members who have not had the opportunity to visit Apple Gort school so we want to make sure that they do get that chance before we open it up to the public um for for visit and I also know that there are still people working on the building so while there's people working on the building um we don't usually let anybody get into the other build to the place that that's we're working on so um it'll be there shortly um I'd like to open it up to the public for any comments or questions that you might have in regard to the Apple gar um just Apple um we're

044going to hold this adhere to your three minutes we'd like you to make your comments and ask all your questions at the same time and then we will get the experts to answer all of them um we also know that there is many questions here a lot of them are the same a lot of them have been answered this evening so we'd like to hold this portion of the um meeting to um an hour if we could possibly do that so anyone who has a question in regard to Applegarth please come to the microphone state your name and address make your comments ask all your questions and we're going to ask that the board members please refrain from making any comments during this part of the meeting hi Esther Gregory to Kelly Court thank you

045for the presentation everyone uh my first question is about um if we've obtained a certificate of occupancy for Applegarth hi Jerry T here uh no we do not have a certificate of oceny for the work that has been done we have some building permit or not building permits some permits pulled for some of the work that is going on but when you do small projects it does not generate a certificate of occupancy for the building you may be referring to early on the board's architect of record made an inquiry to the Department of Community Affairs regarding building closure and what happens in the case when a building is closed for a period of possibly 2 to 3 years the Department of Community Affairs responded that um the board doesn't really need to do anything to

046reopen the building other than reopen it if however the building is condemned or deemed to be closed for safety hazard or safety conditions a CFO must be issued after the fact so we haven't been closed for that reason uh so there would be no C ofo however I am going to meet tomorrow with uh Robert Downey he's the code official for the town he controls the building department um you may be familiar we're opening a daycare center at mil Lake School Mecca and for that facility although we had an existing certificate of occupancy from when that building was constructed we did a what is known as a change of use group there it went from an e classification which is educational to an i4 which is daycare so for that we had to go through

047the process of getting a new certificate of occupancy I had some conversation with him at the time regarding Applegarth and he said know his involvement wasn't necessary but I'm going to reconfirm that with him tomorrow if he does require it he is very cooperative and works you know wonderfully with us and I'll get that going tomorrow but as of now I do not believe it is necessary can you please come to the microphone didn't do major Construction in Applegarth so you're right I'm not sure if we do need it but for staff to enter the building you would need at least a temporary certificate of occupancy so the fine line of construction right we did not do any con we did no construction that changed the structure of the building we basically just did a

048lot of Cosmetics however some of the projects we did for example the exterior door locks that I told you about we have a permit open for that some of the electrical work that's going on there are permits open for that and those you know inspections will follow those particular items but when you have a permit open for a small project you don't get a certificate of occy you just get closure on the permit okay thank you my last comment was for transportation it's just a comment I have three kids getting out of a minivan it's tough so good luck with the buses thank you thank you anyone else from the public please come up to the microphone and state your name and address Maryann Lester 44 Avenue y uh since there is an um concern

049about increasing taxes in the town I was just wondering for the record what the total cost of the renovation was and um was the res renovation within the original allocated budget and if it was over budget by how much and the reason for it okay thank you Mr Gorski can you handle that the total expenditures uh that have been expended renovating Applegarth to date is 1 million $173,600 that was in the budget whiteboard Tech boards 10,485 that was also in the budget asbest remediation lighting floor tiling and finishes 374,000 as Mr T mentioned we did Renovations in the cafeteria that's an Enterprise fund and it was paid for out of the retained earnings of this proprietary fund demographic study $4,000 that was not in the budget educational specifications were designed $7,500 not in the budget

050retro commissioning study of the um Hardware the air handling units and so on 9,925 not in the budget gym floor and safety pads 17,93 to not in the budget doors and security Hardware 55,1 not in the budget acoustic ceiling and panels 24,28 not in the Budget Trailer design $6,500 not in the budget that was for the plan B trailer design playground equipment $888,000 that was procured through a lease purchase authorized by the board instructional projection monitors 193,000 again that was part of the lease purchase authorized by the board signing signage and Graphics 21965 not in the budget HVAC equipment 20,20 that was taken from capital reserve account that was $135,000 account on the balance sheet called capital reserve it's residual monies that were left over from prior Year's roving projects where we were able to

051efficiently close out those projects under budget we transferred $135,000 from capital reserve um towards these purposes Environmental Testing $18,750 not in the budget telephone system 17958 not in the budget site improvements including fencing Paving sidewalks railings lot signage $41,600 not in the budget now these items that I have mentioned that are not in the budget have come from the following financing sources capital reserve as I mentioned $135,000 was transferred from excess monies appropriated in Prior years for roving projects Dr Hamilton initiated a purchase order freeze January of 2012 and the savings from that purchase order freeze for non-essential nonprogram items was directed for these purposes there were significant Energy savings due to the very mild winter that we had those monies were transferred uh via the board's directive to these purposes and we also expended

052no money on snow plowing all of that was transferred over to these P purposes again the total is 1,17 3,638 you also had a savings on the on the remediation of the asbest what was that amount Mr Mr cowman's uh comments was that there were savings recognized on the budgeted amount of money for the asbest remediation I'm going to ask Mr T to comment on that I believe we originally had uh around $888,000 in there for the aestus remediation if the building grounds committee recalls uh that project was slated to be done last summer uh twofold reason one is with everything we had going on last year with the move and realized we were going to use Applegarth as a storage center and two we thought we could get a much better price if we

053waited to what is the real off season for asbest work as we talked to some of the contractors they said you know School asbest removal work is you know hot and heavy in the summer you're going to pay a premium for it no one has any work over the winter break we delayed to then and we saw about a 37 $38,000 savings because of that delay and the committee recommended that we reapply that to Applegarth anyone else from the public good evening my name is Joe calucho 20 Ashley courton Monroe what I don't understand is when we do have a savings I just roughly added these numbers up when you were speaking you about a half a million over a budget why would not we not want to save that money and put it back

054in so that homeowners uh would would not would benefit from it we have a tax bill that continues to rise some 60% of our tax bill is the Board of Education or for education in the town uh you would think that we'd want to practice some austerity uh these this is the way we should be looking at everything we do if we have our own home our own household we don't spend what we don't have if we save money it doesn't mean hey that's great let's go spend it right away what we should be doing is saying gee how can we put that back in to alleviate some of the tax bill that's going that's getting out of hand um I don't represent a group and I'm part of a group and I'm sure many

055of the people in this room also would understand that when you get increases I mean incredible increases in tax builds uh in an economy like this we're not practicing austerity we're not looking at how to save money we're looking how to spend money we're using the township and we're using the taxpayers of Monroe as if they were an ATM machine we're not an ATM machine you just can't keep going back and spending money you can't go back to the taxpayers and say hey we need because there were appeals we need to come back and take money from the people that didn't have appeals when we could have easily saved another half a million dollars we had an issue with iPads recently that was $4 million when you when you added all the mistakes and and

056and the bring back we need to have responsible people responsible government you're elected officials you're there representing the people in this town and you should have the responsibility to save money when you can not spend it thank you we don't have to answer that [Applause] is there anyone else from the public is there a comment from the MR Gorski would you like to Sure sir I very much appreciate your comment and uh your thought process on the matter because um Dr Hamilton and the board and the administrative staff has strived for Budget efficiencies and savings throughout the year as I've mentioned previous L the 2012 2013 budget the board passed a resolution uh to um wave the election if we came under cap and defer the candidate election to November we put forth a budget

057that was $1.5 Million under the cap that we could have gone to without going to the voters for special approval for going over in addition to that the previous year we were awarded 88 $7,000 of additional state aid that came in July after the budget was set the Board of Education dedicated approximately $230,000 for tax relief from that extra award the Board of Education through the efficient and um very active management of the construction process of this building built this facility about $7 million under budget in the 201223 budget we applied $2 million of these savings Against The Debt Service Levy in addition to that internal savings during the year that are just ordinary and customary for us we joined a purchasing Consortium uh and we have a letter from the county saying that we've

058saved over $360,000 year-to date by Cooperative purchasing we've saved $35,000 by switching insurance carriers for Property and Casualty um and we are opening some new proprietary funds um as Mr T mentioned for the the mecca program to um hopefully generate profits from that Venture one of the problems that you're facing in the tax bill this year is stemming from a systemic drop in ratables throughout the state um this has caused a great deal of pressure on the tax rate and as I mentioned in the last meeting there are some green shoots that uh Dr Hamilton and I were speaking with Wayne Hamilton from the municipality as far as um new business ventures moving in and new ratables the biggest problem that we're facing though is in the area of state aid um the municipality in

059conjunction with the school district has lost a great deal of state aid and is grossly underfunded specifically speaking to the school district for state aid fund financing we are going to um speak further about this but we are going to encourage the state to fully fund the existing funding formula if that was the case Monroe School District alone would receive an extra $5 million of state aid that would have a dramatic effect on your taxes and also the municipality has had significant Cuts in Municipal Aid so if there's one biggest problem that both of us face this year aside from ratables it's the lack of state aid funding you're taxed from corporate taxes income taxes sales taxes and all of those funds are diverted elsewhere they're not coming back to you in form of AIDS

060to your municipality and Aid to your school district and I would just like to further comment from our conversation with Wayne Hamilton at the municipality um it's my opinion that they're doing a fine job managing under these conditions they've had incredible health insurance savings and they've also had staff reductions to really tow the line in this very difficult environment I I I appreciate the detail um but it's sort of like the person that goes shopping and says look how much money I Spa saved everything was on sale so they save 50% on everything had they not gone shopping they would have saved 100% and that's where we're at right now we've had runaway budgets for [Applause] years we we've had runaway budgets for years people have been spending and spending so when we say we're

061starting to cut now we're not even halfway into the fact that we've been increasing over the years we see things as in the future what I'm really concerned about is that you talk about rables ratables will go down even more because what do people want when they come to a town the first thing they look at is education that would be the smartest thing to do because you want to educate your children and you want to have a good educational system but everything has a limit you're in one of the worst economies in a 100 years you have over 8% unemployment for 41 months you have underemployment which means people who haven't gone back to work at 15% we have staggering numbers in this economy we could play with numbers all we want you know

062the old phrase about numbers don't lie but Liars make numbers we can play with numbers all day long we could say we saved here and we took money here we have been spending out of control for years so we haven't even dented what we need to cut back we have to look at it that way we can't say well we just and every time we do save money we seem to just want to spend it anyway and say well let's spend it over here we just saved a half a million dollars let's go and buy something else okay thank you very much your time has expired thank you very [Music] much no I want I I just want to say too that in regard to Applegarth and correct me if I'm wrong um the scope

063of the project from when we first started when we were going to open up One Wing has increased we now we're opening up the whole building the population on the southern side of town is growing so much that we now have to open we had to open the whole building so instead of the the the financing for one part of the building we financed the whole building and that money had to come from the the sources that Mr Gorski had explained so originally the Applegarth um renovation was going to be a small part and we ended up um renovating most of the building Mr Gorski one last thing on that note um I failed to mention we also uh replaced Barkley Brook's roof within the budget in the 1213 school year and all of the

064projects that Mr tag delineated before for you um could really have been part of a bond referendum you may recall in 2002 as part of the referendum to build a new high school on Applegarth Road there was Appropriations in there for the renovation of Applegarth school um with that defeat from the voters those projects were cancelled or and and now have been addressed through these budget efficiencies so you know I could appreciate the general soundbite comments that you made However the fact of the matter is that these school districts have been very well financed and funded name and address please gu Del R 24 24 asy Court honestly I don't think those were sound bites a lot of stuff that I'm hearing to me are sound bites um first time here shame on me uh

065just wanted to get an idea because when you rattled off uh the expenses Joe did the math for us seems to me almost 50% of it were not on the budget he said I don't understand the reason that is and maybe whoever whoever created the budget to begin with should be looked at maybe they didn't do they didn't do it right which seems to be the reg the norm here in other words a lot of stuff were over were not on the budget and like Joe said because you found you found money instead of saving it for the future taxes you basically took that money and correct me if I misunderstood and you spent it on something else is that what happened from an from an operating budget we were able to recognize efficiencies some

066of which were due to uh environmental factors with the warmer winter than normal uh some of them were reserves on our balance sheet from other projects that were managed efficiently and we were able to within our operating budget renovate a school that's like someone taking from their home annual budget and putting an addition on their home that's significant that shows um quite crafty financing well it's just of it's slicing the pie in different way excuse me we only have one person talking at a time it just seem I mean what is the process you a budget is put in place who approves that the board approves the budget okay and then when there's changes to it what is the process of getting getting that the board also does that yes all right just clarification thank

067you any Robert roach J Newfield Boulevard uh I just uh for full clarification I would just uh like to mention that Mr Gorski indicated that $200,000 of the uh 800,000 was given back to the taxpayers and that help reduce what he failed to recognize is that was money that came from the state with the direction that it should be used for tax relief and what the board chose to do is Mr Kaufman when he was president of the board and Dr Hamilton appeared before Town Council and indicated certain items that could be put cut from the budget that was defeated and when they got the money from the state what they chose to do instead of put the money back in the reserves they used it to reinstate the the items that had been chopped

068from the budget which they indicated was not necessary thank you thank you [Applause] Chrissy scurby 8 seminal Court um I I just like to start off by saying I know that it does sound like a lot of money that was put into appleg GTH school and as the president of the oak tree PTA I've been very involved in the renovations and what's been going on at Oak Tree and I have to say it it's not a lot of money that was spent the building needed a lot of work um and I do thank the board um for how far we've come I also think it's very important to thank the D and the middlex county freeholders I know um there was a a very large meeting yesterday I was told from the officials at the

069DP they came in um I think they met with you Dr Lynch and various members um of the board uh they reviewed the lead results that were taken and that's where I think the solution came from to install all these filters and water coolers so I I I really think that going forward I know how many months we've come out here parents asking about the results for lead we were told time and time again that there was no problem there were no issues nothing would be done there would be no further testing and I'm just happy tonight to stand here and hear that we're actually doing something about it I'm thrilled um as a parent that we are putting filters throughout the building um and water coolers I do want to let the board know

070the oak tree PTA did um offer to pay for water uh coolers in the building I've not heard whether or not we're going to be taken up on that um if somebody could Dr Hamilton or Mr Gorski or Mr tag let us know uh we are working on our budget right now um that has been offered that was offered months ago to rectify this problem with the drinking water um so again I I just going forward I don't think our parent groups should be looked at as adversaries as it was said last week we are here all for the same reason we're here for the good of the children we're not here to come up here and fight but when we see something going wrong we will we will come out and we will make

071it right and I'm glad that all of us came out month after month and fought because now we know that our children will have safe drinking water Miss thank you m gby um and we will take you up on that offer for the water coolers particularly in the in the gym thank you Doug boy for tamarak Road um I I know it was mentioned that we will have police uh present the first couple of weeks uh to expedite the flow of traffic uh in the area of the oak tree Applegarth schools uh but I am concerned that as the year moves along uh that with those buses having to cross Applegarth and knowing the traffic that moves up and down that that road at a rather High rate of speed uh I have a concern

072that uh we could have an accident uh someone that's texting someone that's on the phone someone that isn't paying attention may not see a bus pull out uh if you're saying that it only takes 7 to 10 minutes to get those buses across the road then I would suggest that the municipality provide patrol cars to make sure that it is noticeable and stop the traffic so all of the buses can cross at one time I know at one time uh I heard from the board that you did not feel that that was necessary but once we have our first accident once we have our first children injured then we will find that it was necessary uh when you're talking about such little time in the morning 10 to 15 minutes at most that we would

073want a patrol car in that are area and then again in the afternoon I cannot imagine that the municipality cannot afford to send patrol cars to that area for that short amount of time so I would encourage you to rethink that and see if you cannot get our municipal government to provide that extra security for those buses and for our children thank you okay thank you anyone else from the public yes Jerry kiskowski three Glenn Eagle way as long as long as we got into a a bit of a discussion about funding I have read through some of the school funding Reform Act of 2008 it may have been amended after the version I read so you can correct me if it has while believe it leaves much to be desired for a district such

074as Monroe there are absolutely basic and fundamental concepts that it builds upon and perhaps you can help us understand a more precise ly believe me I would rather have a root canal without the anesthesia before reading it again it makes your head hurt but allow me to go to three two or three of the concepts which I believe are fundamental before you respond it will only take a couple of minutes let's first start with the first concept at risk students which to build the finds based on socioeconomic factors the legislation States in am quoting it is appropriate to reflect in the formula a greater weight as the district's proportion of that risk students increase pretty self-explanatory I believe the greater the percent of that risk the more generous the funding can you tell us what

075the percent of atrisk students there currently are in the district and how that may compare to surrounding districts the second is base pupil amount which is ba which is defined as the cost per pupil of delivering the Core Curriculum contents and extracurricular contents and co-curricular activities necessary for a thorough and efficient education I believe this is one of the basic factors for establishing the adequacy budget is it I read that the figure was 6 9,649 in 0809 when this legislation was passed what is it for 2012 2013 budget year and lastly section 28 I believe of the legislation States notwithstanding any provision to the cont contrary if a district proposes a a budget with a general fund tax levy and Equalization rate which exceeds the adequacy budget the following statement shall be published in the

076legal notice of public hearing held on the budget posted at the public hearing on the budget and printed on the sample ballot it goes further to say your school district has proposed programs and services in addition to the Core Curriculum standards adopted by the State Board of Education information on the budget and programs is available from your local school district does just want yes 30 seconds does our general fund Levy and Equalization Aid exceed the accuracy budget for the district if so what are the programs and services which cause us to exceed it and the approximate CT of cost of each right what exactly is the adequacy budget what is the approximate dollar amount for 2012 13 school year and how many dollars in excess of the ad adequacy budget are we spending thank you

077for allowing me to finish thanks I will have Mr Gorski answer the budget questions the first question dealt with um state aid funding based upon the District's number of atrisk students atrisk students are defined as students who are reported as being low income on the free and reduced lunch program and uh some other classifications as such as one students and Monroe has historically and still has a very low percentage of the students I don't have that percentage committed to memory but I would estimate it to be in the 5% to 7% range so it's fair to assume that we'll have Mr Gorski finish answering the questions first um also Monroe has a lower than average percentage as compared to our peers in the county that goes to the affluence perhaps and the amount of students

078at need within the district um Dr Hamilton and I and our finance chair had a meeting at the state with yuty Thomas the the chair Finance of uh the Department of Education and we specifically addressed our underfunding here in Monroe in terms of state aid and she had indicated that Monroe had received less than comparative state aid funding to its peers based on two metrics and I mentioned these before please bear with me the first one is property wealth per pupil and that's the one that our district specifically took issue with because 60% of the residents in Monroe reside in planned retirement communities and submit no students to the school that amount of property wealth skews this metric to seem on average like we're living in a very wealthy community per student and that's false

079the second one is income level per pupil and we're slight higher than average there but mainly it's the first number that really hurts us in that comparison we've addressed that with the state and we've made little progress um the second item you talked about is the cost per pupil and I was going to add that is defined as adequacy spending that's how it previously defined in the budget software in the 201122 budget Monroe School District was $13 million above this adequacy number determined in the budget software uh we made great strides the district has made great strides in reducing this over adequacy figure to $7.5 million above adequacy in the 1213 budget we continue to try to reduce that number the third item that you mentioned is the statement posted that the District offers programs

080and services above uh the base thorough and efficient budget the adequacy budget and that is correct Monroe has always posted and has been required to post that statement on our ballot question and in the sample um I'm sorry the advertised budget that we put forth um at the tenative budget meeting you will find that nearly all of the counties who are our peers all of the districts in the county that are our peers have the same statement the state has a very conservative adequacy model for school districts it does not include um most of most of the busing services that we provide if a students below the two mile limit to uh from home to school you don't provide the busing we do in many instances because the town doesn't necessarily have the infrastructure to

081support kids walking and we're not going to take that risk special ed funding we're well above what the state considers thorough and efficient in the area of special education funding gifted and talented programs again this is above what the state considers adequate the Board of Education here does not parking lots and lighting are two more items that we would probably consider essential the state does not so all of these items in aggregate to answer your question are what the components of our above adequacy status are made up from would you like to um we let we'll have get back to you as soon as we get through everybody else okay is there anyone else from the public that wishes to speak to Applegarth yes um of the gentlemen that was here before me uh name

082is from 10 Fox and drive man Township first time I'm here in 12 years shame on me in support to my colleagues here speaking as for as the impact on property taxes the message um I work as a consultant in various different uh discipline and private sector the message is simple that's happening in in in the environment people are being laid off my neighbors across the street have been un employed for six over six months now about three or four of my neighbors have been unemployed for about uh about the same time um some of the leaders that I I I speak to the last six months 6 to eight months every time I go see them the story is the same some of my I had to lay off a lot of number of

083people and uh from a soundbag perspective some of the message for those that women employ they're asking them to take a pay cut so the short message to this Bo to the board if you have you need to do more with less that is what I'm being asked to do this is what I'm asking my managers to do that's what I want you to do thank you thank you hi jod toide to Northwind Court I was I came in a little late I'm not sure um if you mentioned the number of buses that were used on the test um and I was also wondering um what that number was and if we do find it's a colossal nightmare even for the months with the police there is there any Plan B of going to maybe

084putting more buses for those students that go specifically to that school and the last thing I'd like to mention is again I walked in a little late um the notific ations that will be sent out to students I don't know if it's districtwide um that will be happening Monday I I heard um however I've received two to students that don't live with me I need to call the transportation department but I just want to make sure that something's not wrong with the system um because I did receive two students um that are in high school and they don't live with me I will be calling on Monday okay thank you we'll look into that but do you have a question an answer to her question when we did when we did the test runs we

085used um 18 buses okay is there anyone else from the public hi Christy scurby uh when did we do the 18 buses I thought last month we said we did it with uh six buses Mr V reported that at the last meeting or two meetings ago was six buses took s minutes um Mr Gorski will respond to that we ran it with the full bus fleet when was that Dennis Doug when were those runs three times if I if I misspoke I think that we even started the first time around around I think that I'm sorry let me come up that I think we did it time what we did they were full 18 buses if it was only the six that we talked about I know I had actually taken a ride or two

086with a couple of the buses with just me first then we did the 18 is what we end up doing so they were the 18 and we have we're expecting the 20 is what we are expecting even for the student orientation as a matter of fact we're doing the full 20 that will not include the contract buses if I'm understanding that correctly as well but it was the 18 buses it was the seven and I know that it sound it sounds like it's a very short amount of time but it it only took less than 10 minutes it was those seven or eight minutes now as as Mr Po matter of fact even mentioned uh say you know if we can get support from the police that would be wonderful there's no doubt about that

087even if the lights were just flashing that would slow the traffic down that would make a difference as far as the safety of the children but that's all it took on those days we did it I think the three times is what we did 18 buses across the street less than 7 [Music] minutes okay so eight so now it's 18 took it took seven minutes and then how long is it going to take to how long are they going to sit in oak tree and then how long are they going to sit at Applegarth they you know what doug why don't you just use the mic in front of Mr there's 10 minutes between the the start times M so from the time we start unloading over at Oak Tree how long is that projected

088to take it's it's total of SE it was taken us a total of s minutes from the time that they started unloading till the time that we were parked across the street at appor so now it took 7 minutes to unload all V tree students and cross the street and then cross the street correct will the bus drivers have a list of students that should remain on the bus will they wear different bus tags they to ensure that students do not get off at Oak Tree because don't tell me that a fifth grader fourth grader won't play around and get off at Oak what happens in that what happens in the in that a child who's supposed to go to Applegarth thinks it's funny and gets off and walks around the halls of oak tree

089and then tells somebody oh I'm supposed to be across the street what happen what happens to that student then we will get someone over there to transport them who it will be a dri if not I will do one of my office staff will do it or I'll do it myself office you will go over and drive is that legal yes ma'am I we we are all licensed qualified drivers will the parent be called and made aware of the situation I will would assume they they would um because the office would have to call us they should call the parent as well what happens if it please do do not see me as being adversarial I'm just trying to understand because I have both of my children one that will be at Oak treay and

090one that will be at Applegarth and I'm very nervous about this what happens I know my son got sick on the bus going in an oak tree this year what happens if a child gets sick on the bus who's supposed to be at Applegarth will they be taken off at Oak Tree and taken to the oak tree nurse can I answer sure I'll come up to the microphone I would just I'll mention it to everyone uh I would expect obviously if there are any complications as far as you know the children being transported between oak tree and then appleg guard school so in this particular situation as you just mentioned that there's no doubt in my mind is that obviously there's communication between the appart staff the principal principal at Oak Tree nurse to nurse

091Etc the children we have to stop thinking as far as aarth kids and Oak Tree kids they're all of our students you have all that all the staff that is there we'll make sure as the fact that obviously then we make sure that the children are okay so in answer to question would I call you absolutely your child was left on the bus didn't feel well we have him in a nurse's office at Oak Tree and when he's okay if you're okay then we'll make sure that there's Arrangement as far as no Transportation over to Applegarth that's how I would handle it okay okay do we have any other scenarios before before I go over there have them sit over there sit next to Dr Lynch there's no microphone there yes there is is there

092can that's we we'll just let Mr V finish okay uh as far as the now visitor parking just let you know is that Applegarth does not have ample parking there's no doubt about that um as you go in there's also the trailers are to the right and then to the left there's also the basketball courts that were even used when Apple Gart school was in effect as a Middle School uh the teachers were actually parking on those basketball courts there's very limited parking there uh my intention as we open up and even on the student orientation day as we open up is at the front of the school all of that would be reserved just for parents I think it's important that visitors have a right obviously to have parking ample parking so under my

093direction and the teachers will go to the right they'll be parking in front of the trailers that'll be the grade five team the grade four team will then be over to the left and that'll be on the basketball court front of the trailer yes that's correct I thought that's the loop that is the loop but there there's parking there there so there are parking spaces there in front of the trailer they're already slotted the loop will be around that those group of cars anything else while I'm up here okay thank you thank you anyone else from the public Jill Deo 48 limbwood drive my son's going to Applegarth next year and I've come to all the board meetings and I want to thank everybody who's put the effort into getting Applegarth ready because I think

094you guys have done a phenomenal job thanks thank you thank you anyone else from the public decent um just a little story we moved out to banro about 20 years ago we went out shopping for a dinette set and the one we wanted we couldn't afford so we bought a modest dinet set this is 20 is in the future we still have that dinet set and it bothers me I mean I shouldn't use those words I really would like you guys to really go into decisions future decisions with that type of mindset if we don't have it we can't just get stuff because it's nice to have um it kind of bothers me I forget to mention saying that a lot of the stuff that we had old stuff that's been storage you were able

095to sell it to other townships if Spotswood can buy desks maybe that's the mentality we need to do as opposed to always assume that you know going new or going better going bigger is the better way to go just frof for thought it just you know if we don't have the money we really cannot the problem isn't the taxes coming in the problem is what we're spending and we really need to curb that thank you just want to i' like to clar I like to clarify we didn't dispose of that furniture because we didn't want used furniture that wasn't appropriate for elementary Aid students the desks were too big and do do we know what spots would is using them for I would imagine they're either middle or high school age students we or maybe

096not but I'm certain that by standard they would not have been able to use those deaths for fourth or fifth grade students because they're too big okay but just you know just go with that mindset I understand I mean going forward it's like what you know if we have to put things on hold for a few years till the economy gets better you know then so be it you know can't just say oh it's only $25 here it's only $50 there because by the end of the year that those $25 and $50 add up okay and just keep us in mind that's all is there anyone else in the public wishing to speak to Apple gorth well this is we have a second public forum for for because we're supposed to be talking about Apple

097so the second public forum will be for anything yes Melissa Manelli I'm at 300 Morning Glory Drive um I have children that went to Oak Tree one still in oak tree um in third grade and when you did the um the 20 buses or so going across the street in 7 minutes were they loaded with children full buses of children getting off in one location going across the street and unloading again no uh the students were on the bus at Oak Tree they were buses were empty when they went across the street so nobody timed them getting off going across parking making sure all the bar buses were parked appropriately so children can get off the bus safely and into the school building that didn't account in that seven minutes the buses were parked appropriately

098just there weren't any students to get off of them okay thank you you're welcome is there anybody else wishing to speak to Apple gorth Jennifer Marcus 15 Harvest View Drive just a question regarding the water Mr Lynch you spoke before regarding the um testing on the water I know that I had attended the buildings and ground meetings where we determined that you had no concerns with the water so two questions number one why did we go ahead and get all these water filters put in and in addition to that did we put them in the bathrooms where the kids will be washing their hands because my kid puts her hands in her mouth um cafeteria will the employees be washing their hands in filtered water or are they just at the water fountains cuz that's

099not where the kids wash their hands and that's not where the cafeteria employees would be you know washing their hands to prepare the food just wondering where those filters were put our recommendations to our children are they are not to drink the water they're not um buying the food in the cafeteria because I can't confirm where the um issues were so if that could get clarified for me I think that would be really helpful well the first the first part of your uh first part of your question uh related to the early meetings what we said is that we were going to test and we and we did a great job of testing that um clearly um I'll let Jerry answer the questions about exactly where the filters are going to be placed however I'm

100not concerned about the drinking water I'm concerned about the handwashing and the food I'm going to let Jerry answer all the questions for where all of them are going to be but the answer is that they're going to be both in drinking water areas as well as centrally in the building why were they put in though if you were content with the results of the water testing uh I I don't why did we spend the money to put in water filters if we didn't have a problem with the water do we have a problem with the water could you could you expand on that because something was said about a meeting yesterday that I didn't know anything about after being at the buildings and grounds meeting I came home and said my kid is not

101drinking the water and not eating the food if it's pre packaged she can have it because the employees won't be touching it so I just want to clarify where these Mr T if you could clarify where the filters are the filters are installed at the drinking locations only they are not at the hand wash locations that's important Mr ventolo had a suggestion to the representatives from the county health department who were here and that was to install the purel hand wash stations throughout the school so students will have an option if they want to wash their hands with uh water that has not been filtered okay could we make a recommendation to the students if they're washing their hands in the bathroom not only should they wash their hands but then they should put priella

102on top of their hands because we're not filtering that water in the bathroom and I don't know why it's not true it's not true well why did I'm I'm not clear on why we installed the filters I'll I'll I'll be happy to answer when you finish asking okay are you done I'm done okay uh there will be the the the uh the filters at the drinking locations but based on the results that we got we also made a recommendation and they are being installed that there will be Central filters in the line for all of the water that goes through so some of the water will be getting filtered twice um and so I I think that that's uh that's sort of belt end suspenders and then another set of suspenders with the with the

103uh drinking water uh bottle drinking water that's being being added and I and and and to get at the point that you're that I that I that I'm thinking that you're asking which is what has changed to help us reach those decisions there is a process that we went through through uh all of the testing that we've done that have led me to make a recommendation like that uh the some of the early assumptions that were sort of suggested by Health Health Department officials that may have come out earlier in the in the in the summer about you know point source uh changing you know water spets and things like that didn't make any scientific sense and part of what we were doing over the course of the process was sort of tracking what we

104were seeing and that's what led to the recommendation I feel very confident that the decision process that we went through here certainly I must say catalyzed by the concerns that that some of the members in the community have clearly raised have helped us to not only understand sort of the nature of of the situation here but it's actually been confirmed by information that we're even hearing from the municipality we think that the approach that we're taking here with respect to the the the filters at the inlet to the building combined with the drinking water filters and the and the uh and the ballot water is an excellent approach and I'm very confident that that's a you know what was the meeting yesterday who was it with I I didn't I'm not understanding cuz I heard

105your report and then I heard somebody else speak about a meeting yesterday I'm question I'll respond to that that meeting was um requested by the uh middle sex County Public Department of Public Safety Safety and Health it included myself Mr T Mr Gorski uh the director of the health office the department head of the department of health and safety certified environmental health specialist from the Department of Health um the department head for the Environmental Division and the supervising Chief registered environmental health specialist from the Department of Health along with the county business administrator could we look into filtering the water where the people will be serving the food to there's a as as Dr ly just just indicated there is a filter being installed at the source so all the water that's coming into the

106building from that Source will go through this filter okay and then there additional ones on the drinking fountains correct and there's also an additional one at the kitchen sinks as well there's two sinks in the kitchen there's a series of three compartment sink which is the the pot wash sink and then there's a hand wash sink there'll be a filter on the hot water coming out of the hot water heater that feeds those and then there'll be a filter on the cold water there as well um so for the kitchen area specifically the hand wash and the pot sink may be filtered um I'll have to double check out there um but I can tell you in the classrooms and in the restrooms uh that water is not filtered okay so and and just to

107kind of touch on how we got to the point of putting the filters in uh actually your husband is to be comp commended because he reached out to the board or to me actually I think back in February with the question about the lead and water uh personally I didn't think we were going to have a problem because Applegarth School built in 1936 had wellwater up until 2008 and while we were on wellwater the middle SE County Health Department runs an extensive testing program uh testing for lead copper a in the water voc's vcos C bacteria the list goes on and on so for a period of you know 10 203 years that testing program was going on while wellwater was uh being delivered to the school and there was never a problem with lead

108um so to me I kind of thought well there probably won't be an issue but I brought his concerns to the committee and the committee said sure let's have it tested just in case and lo and behold it tested High um when Dr Lynch talked to the DP they said try a flushing program and that helped to lower things as we got closer to the start of school year though you know we have a deadline of opening and although the results were lowering you know and talking with Dr Hamilton we didn't want to run the risk of although we see a progression where they're they're lowering to a point where they're not in issued by the standards what happens if we don't get there let's take a belt and suspenders approach and let's you know

109put them on the spots where the the children will drink and that's what kind of drove this we may end up after this flushing and this final round of testing without the filters to have no problem at all there might not be any readings so the filter will just be kind of an added level of protection is there any more questions from the public in regard to Apple okay seeing no one we will go to number nine is superintendent Report with Dr Hamilton number eight oh number eight I'm sorry um we are going to be tabling number eight until our next meeting in um in not the one on Saturday but the one in um in September it is on the agenda but unfortunately there was an unexpected passing of a board member from Jamesburg

110this today and out of respect to Jamesburg we're just going to table this until um the the September meeting so we will go to number nine uh superintendent's report okay um Madam board president members of the Board of Education it is recommended by the superintendent that Personnel items a through double F be approved by roll call I'll vote so move um Mr Kaufman is there a second I'll second Mr Masters are there any comments or questions for the superintendent report Mr Klein just a clarification on W and X where everybody go just a exp oh just an explanation on W andx please yes let me just get get to it yeah on W what is that these are the teachers who are designated as team leaders at the middle school the school is divided into

111teams different uh each grade level has a Team Evolution Mosaic Etc that's the name of their team now was that something we did last year also yes we've we've always done that Jeff Gorman so let Jeff Gorman pay for it uh and then X um the school goals committee goals committee yes that's not new uh each school has a school goals committee okay and then if I may on double e will we show increase in contracts what's the explanation for that is it that they have more education um generally I'm trying to Fig see who you may be referring to specifically you'll see that there's a load of an increasing contract okay those yes those are teachers who are teaching uh an extra period so they're teaching above their contractual uh amount of time okay

112thank you you're welcome any more any other comments or questions from the board then Mr gy we will have a roll call Mr calman yes Mr Klein yes Mr Larry yes Mr Masters yes Mr tesler yes Mrs Fon yes sellis yes Mr Braverman yes Mr Chella still absent Mrs kapano yes madame board president personal items a through double F passes thank you and moving on to board action items Madame board president members of the board is recommended by the superintendent that board action items a through I be approved by roll call vote Mr Kaufman and Mr tesler again is there any comments or questions Mr Klein just on H where we're listing uh new curriculum um does this mean new textbooks for each class no no new textbooks no just curriculum just curriculum okay thank

113you you're welcome that's the best thing I heard all night anyone else okay seeing no one will have a roll call Mr calman Mr Klein yes Mr Larry yes Mr Masters yes Mr tesler abely yes Braverman yes paano yes Madam board president board action items a through I passes that concludes the superintendent report thank you then we will move to the business administrators Report with Mr Gorski Madame board president and members of the Monroe Township Board of Education it is recommended that board action items a through double A be approved by consent roll call and please note that on item o uh the travel expenditure any board member who's participating in that travel expenditure please if you're voting for The affirmative on the action item please yes yes with recusing yourself y okay is there

114any um is there a motion is second so move second sellis and Mr Kaufman comments or questions for Mr Gorski then we will have a roll call Mr calman yes to all reuse on Mr line yes on everything recuse on o Mr Larry yes recuse on item o for my name Mr Masters yes Mr tesler yes Mr fron yes M anelis yes recuse myself on item o Mr Braverman yes recuse on item o Mrs kapano yes recuse myself on number o Madame board president board action items a through AA passes thank you does that conclude your report yes ma'am okay um we will go to number 11 board president's report and I will try to keep this really short um it's hard to believe that the end of the summer is here and that we

115will be starting school in two weeks um I'd like to thank the the director of facilities and our custodial staff as each of our schools who are working very hard to make sure that they are up and ready and clean and healthy for all our students for September 5th opening um same thing with the mecca the Monro employee Child Care Academy at the mil Lake Annex it's coming along nicely they will be holding an open house on Monday August 27th from 10:00 in the morning till 4:00 in the afternoon and a couple of important dates this Saturday August 25th there will be a special board meeting for us at 8:00 in the morning here in the media center um the the the purpose of that meeting is to set goals for next year we have

116New Jersey school boards who will be coming in to help us with that process uh Tuesday September 4th 8:00 a.m. at the monre tanip high school performing arts center is opening day for all staff so that's an exciting time for everybody and later that day at 10:45 we expect to have a dedication ceremony to celebrate the reopening of Applegarth elementary school so we have a lot of good things coming up number 12 on the agenda committee reports are there any committees from the board that need to report Mr Kaufman thanks there was a curriculum meeting this evening uh we look at some uh new curriculum for language arts social studies career and Technology uh mathematics uh move forward on those items we also talked about a pilot program that we're looking to get involved with

117with Pearson to look at I books I books not ebooks thank you very much will you guys to slap me around for that one um we also looked at a proposal from Comcast to provide internet service to uh families that are free or on reduced lunch uh programs and what that would would take a look at and and we'll probably discuss that more in detail uh we just got some information and uh it looks like a pretty good program and we'll probably talk again about it in another meeting it was kind of last minute we're running out of time that's about it Madam Bo president if I may sure uh Luke Hoffman just reminded me of something um through the efforts of and tell us we were able to receive uh donation of 400 about

118450 backpacks from um Costco so we will be having a book bag backpack giveaway at our elementary schools our first uh priority will be for those students who have demonstrated some level of need um we'll give those bags away and then we'll open it up the principles will come up with another mechanism um for for Distributing those backpacks so we have 400 backpacks will be given away for free very nice very good are there any other committees that need to report tonight okay seeing none we'll go to Other Board of Education business is there any other board of business from any member of the Board of Education Mr Klein two things it's funny that um so many people attended this meeting complaining about the taxes and the expenditures I appreciate that I just wish all

119of you were here starting 3 years ago but I do compliment you for finally coming out and speaking your mind the first thing that I do want to say is the proper way of State funding is not the way our state does it uh where they they basically give upwards of 60% or 65% of the total state budget for education to 31 school districts the proper way which I said three years ago and finally a uh a state senator up in Washington Warren County Warren County came up with the same idea that I mentioned three years ago and that is every child is worth the same I don't care whether the child is in Princeton Lawrenceville newk Camden uh Monro Township Oldbridge they're all worth the same and the state should see it that way

120and my idea at that time just picking a figure out of my head was every school district should receive receive $6,000 per student in state aid as a base then when you have special Le and special needs based on the population those districts would receive more special circumstances and that could be breakfast could be lunch could be school books they would get more but at least every school starts the same in which case we would probably come out receiving instead of under $3 million $30 million which would be fairer and fairer to all of us taxpayers so that is the proper way of doing it so all the snow that they give us at Trenton is nothing but a bunch of baloney now those of you that brought up about about the spending I had

121something prepared for tonight for this section and you basically or went over basically what I uh want to state I'm going to try to read this without my glasses this board must concentrate on cutting costs and that means new books new programs uh little used classes um and using the excuse of staying below the false 2% cap we all know that the 2% cap means nothing what the 2% cap is it does not count salaries pensions and medical and that's basically where most of your cost uh Rises so when when uh uh anybody says whether it be a municipality or the school board says well we're staying below the 2% cap yeah in one respect you are but in the other respect you still have your insurance is going up your pensions are going up

122your salaries are going up and that's why what you saw now is an increase of about 11% counting immunity tax um so staying below the 2% cap is definitely not the answer our residents can no longer keep paying these large increases each year this year we kept our increase now we're talking the school board now to about $300 and that was basically because we took $2 million that was left over from the referendum for the high school and we put that into the budget therefore instead of perhaps $500 it was only $300 p last years we went up $600 $800 um with the increase this year with the municipal tax they're taking the brunt of the blame because the last 3 to four years maybe five years the municipal tax here in Monroe Township stayed

123level if they had any increase it was bare minimum this year because of the appeals they took a bang of 11.4 million plus as somebody said they've taken cuts from the state in Municipal Aid and but they took it from townships like ours but they didn't take it from Camden or Nork or Perth Amboy but they took it from us again putting more of the tax burden on all of us the taxpayers so in this case we come out smelling like a rose because the front of the complaints have been with the township um and as I said in past years they've been basically flat but when you look at our school taxes we've gone up I think it was last year for a house like mine was $600 $700 at a shot the year

124before was perhaps $800 what we have to do here on the school board and after I leave the school board or whoever takes over it's no longer spending what we have it's no longer spending what we get back from the state our main concern should be taxpayers without affecting the students there's a lot of money that goes towards the students that probably could be pulled off like new books we found out that when all the state asks for is for us to review the textbooks every five years they don't tell us to buy textbooks every five years these are areas we should save and what I'm asking my fellow board members is forget about the 2% cap why don't we come in with a God bless you with a budget I'd love to see a

125budget we were 10% 12% below what it was before these are the people that need the help I need the help you all need the help as long as you have good jobs and you're making big money and you can keep affording paying the taxes all the power to you but a lot of our residents can't afford it and it's not only the elderly you have families here a man hit the nail right on the head where if you're able to get a job you were earning $80,000 before and now you're taking a job for $50,000 and working on a weekend at Home Depot to make any you cannot do it anymore and what I'm asking is and I know a lot of you try to do it but we have to make a concerted

126effort I don't want to hear 2% cap I'm talking about big major cuts and this was prepared before that gentleman spoke and I thank you for the points that you brought out thank you anyone else from the board miss an Tellis I'd like to um kind of piggyback on some of what Mr Klein said about three years ago Mr ly and I went down to Washington DC uh part of New Jersey school boards to speak to um Congressman Rush Holt about funding um every state gets individual with disability Education Act funding that's Ida New Jersey receives 12% every other state in this country receives between 15 and 21% I was told the reason that we don't get this money is because New Jersey is Rich I'm not rich this is money that needs to come

127to this state when I try to meet with Congressman Hol he wasn't there I've tried to speak to him again about it no response he's our Congressman he's on the education committee we need that money and when Mr Klein asks people talk to your legislators talk to the government talk to rush Hol too because that 3% or 4% more of idea money could really make a difference in Monroe where the norm for uh special education in New Jersey is 133% we are about 16% so you know that's that's one point my second is um apparently there's been some um rumors out there that our New Mecca program the um Child Care Program for our teachers is free it is not free our teachers are paying for it they're paying pretty much what they paid for

128their regular child care but now they have it here so that's a profit the other thing that's come to my intention is enrollment apparently we have a number of children in this District who don't live in Monroe um other districts have addressed this by doing re-enrollment um I've heard in the last week that there's at least four or five children coming to Monroe Schools that do not live here that's our tax dollars that they're using that needs to stop as well uh my last issue is the before and after school program um I've talked about this before this group came into this town about I think they said about 15 or 20 years ago we have figured out that they were making $250,000 per year on our students this was wrong now that state has

129said we could take this over so all of a sudden they said well we'll pay you $100,000 it's not enough we should get that whole $250,000 thank you Mr Klein Amy thank you um you brought up about Rush Hol and I get a kick out of this because um if you get a chance to go on the internet and look at what New Jersey receives in homeland security funds from the federal government with our proximity to Manhattan and the World Trade Center we get one of the lowest uh I heard and I don't remember it was Arizona or Colorado or Montana was getting tripled what we were getting federal taxes we pay federal income taxes Most states every dollar that they send in to the to the federal government in federal taxes they're getting back

130back 80 cents a dollar a125 A50 a175 I think the last figure I saw two years ago we were getting something like 40 cents on a dollar so what we have is we have two state senators who are are elected by us to represent us and they're doing a damn lousy job we don't get off fair share from the federal government either thanks Amy anyone else from the board okay seeing no one Clos session resolution number 14 on the agenda seeing that we have nothing on the closed session tonight we will move back to or forward to number 15 the public forum again anyone from the public wishing to speak in regard to anything please come up state your name and address for the record now will thank you can I be excused go dude

131man break time I was just I was just going to get up and talk it was going to be a couple of minutes I was going to talk for 20 minutes recess take a recess yeah okay at this time right before public forum we'll give everybody a five minute recess Nelson Chen for Ashley Court I have a a question and a statement I'm going to begin with the statement first I appreciate your efforts uh Mr Klein and miss anelis going to the state and going to the federal government and looking for additional funding for the town to give us some relief leave I definitely appreciate that I could take out a home equity loan if I'm falling short and I Look to go outside as well but as many people stated in here tonight we

132have to control our spending it's nice if we get the state aid or the federal government Aid to offset some of these costs but at the end of the day it goes back to the people sitting here the people sitting out here in the audience and the people of the Town kids safety and their education is number one one if not for education I would not be standing here so I agree with the parents that came here from Applegarth and the conditions of appleg school both my kids went there and I think it was time for a redo I don't agree with some of the expenditures that went forward but it is what it is it's a new day now you have to go from the beginning back on forward it's too late to go

133back the second the uh uh second issue which is the question when are you going to address the Jamesburg uh tax issue is that going to be at the next meeting yes it will be at the next meeting the next open meeting at September I believe 12th is our next um September September 12th we will be discussing we'll put that on the agenda thank you you're welcome no CL Donna po 20 Saddle Court um in a docu doent stated sources of revenue for school budget 2012 2013 school year the third largest source of Revenue listed was other revenue and a big part of that was tuition from Jamesburg a three 3,663 360 how much of that Revenue have we received from Jamesburg yes we're not going to be discussing Jamesburg this evening we're going to

134save all the questions in regard to Jamesburg and their finances to the September 12th meeting she and I gave her an answer so you're not going to answer the question we're not going to be discussing Jamesburg finances tonight due to a death of a Jamesburg board member still talking about well I I feel badly for that but don't we have that information anyway do we have that information right now talk would you mind letting me see that document I prepared it but I don't have it handy I'm I wasn't prepared to talk about the budget tonight and if you just let me take a look at I really just wanted to know if we receive any money from Jamesburg absolutely Jamesburg pays tuition and transportation fees every month okay and are we receiving the full

135amount uh we have received the full amount as to the tuition and there's only one item in dispute pertaining to June's Transportation invoice that uh Jamesburg has questioned a method for calculation even though it hasn't changed over the last few decades and the business administrator and I are are working on a resolution to that that's about a $29,000 Transportation bill for June other than that I can give you an assurance that every debt that Jamesburg has owed Monroe has been paid and paid according to schedule so then it's fair to say that that $3 million number has been paid um we're at an interim part of the budget year but as far as where they are this month yes there are not in rear on any tuition there's only one Transportation invoice that's in dispute

136thank you very much anyone else from the public Jerry kiskowski I just want to follow up on something that uh I asked you earlier I believe you said uh adequacy funding for Monroe we were spending something around seven seven plus million dollars in excess of what the state considers adequacy funding that I I'm I'm going to make a quick calculation that's got to be seven or 8% of the of the operating budget it's 8% it's 8% okay does that money spent in in uh above adequacy affect the amount of funding that comes back from the state is it a consideration in the funding that comes back from the state Mr Gorski the answer to that is yes we were issued guidance with the third the 1213 budget and um it there was an outline for

137future funding and the amount that districts are above adequacy will reduce the amount of state fundings that districts receive that's why the Monroe board of education has been um so diligent in reducing that number and we went again from 13 million to 7 and a half and we're still making progress so we take a double hit in effect yes we we reduce our funding in in addition to spense more than we have to those are both correct statements yes the other the other thing I hear comments about the tax rate in Monroe the municial rate being flat part of the reason for being flat was that they used $23 million of excess of surplus funds over the last two years and I heard comments here tonight about Reserve funds I think we have to be

138careful when we start taking the reserve funds to fund stuff because that's how Monroe Township municipal tax rate got to the hit it took this year partly living off Reserve funds for the past years instead of addressing the fundamental issues that were in the township thank you um Joe calucho 20 Ashley Court um I wanted to make a comment because we had parents here talking with obviously they have children in the school my children are out of the school and I want to be very very explicit that this is not about the parents that have children and the parents that don't have children we want a good educational system in Monroe Township and we expect that every child gets what they're supposed to get there's no question about that but we are saying how you

139go about it is what we need the people on the board to look at you know we had years ago one room School houses people still got educ ated I'm not suggesting we go back there but we also don't need a lot of the fluff that we're seeing and that we're observing and that's costing the money the $1.1 million that Mr Gorski talked about before and then itemized it there was a half a milliion $600,000 over budget none of that would have affected the education of the children they would have been just fine without that stuff they could have learned whether they had a a water fil we spent about 20 minutes on water filters which is important but again you know find out where to get the money somewhere else that's what it's all

140about it's not just a blank check it's not just a credit card it's finding out how to do it there's three words I picked it up in the military it's called adapt adjust and overcome you have to figure out how to adapt adjust and overcome each day that's the way it works if we have a senator that's not cooperating well that could be addressed at the at the election on Election Day but sometimes doesn't work that way we know that but that doesn't mean that we just have to throw up our hands and say well because that Senator got reelected you know I said Monroe is not getting their fair share they think we're affluent or whatever the thing we adjust and we overcome it we figure out how to do that so those are

141two very important points um Mr Gorski also mentioned when I after my comments he used the word crafty I you know about being crafty with the budget I prefer that people using a budget use the word austerity I don't really like people being crafty when they're using my money and the Township's money and many of you on the board's money use austerity we don't need to be crafty and and I think those points you know have to be taken home the other thing you mentioned about me my comments was sound bites these are not sound bites everything I'm talking to you about have been thoroughly looked at I'm looking at facts I have facts I don't want to bore you with a lot of numbers I look at SAT scores I look at fouryear graduations

142going out the colleges okay this is what education is about and and it's not that good in Monroe Township so really if we have to it's the public portion Sir Mr Larry okay public portion is public portion what we have to do is look at those things and we're all for good education but let's use austerity let's spend what we can spend and what we have to put off we put off there's nothing wrong with putting something off there are needs and there are wants I want a lot of things too but you can't always spend at the moment sometimes it takes a little more time that's all we're asking for you to do use the tax dollars appropriately and use it to where it's supposed to be used and when you don't have it

143you have to put off thank you very much thank you is there anyone else from the public um if I can just comment I do needt I I feel obligated as a superintendent to just respond to one of your things I agree with most of what you said but I i' beg to differ with you um Monroe students get an exceptional education and that's evident in so many of the things that we in terms of what our children are able to do when they graduate from our schools and um I shareed with the board um in a in a mailing last week you're never a profit in your own land and I and I can appreciate that but when you step outside the walls the boundaries of Monroe and you start to hear the reverence

144and respect that this district is generating because of the programs and the services that our children are generating you get a different level of appreciation for how well our children are doing post Monro high school so I I I do need to just publicly respond to that and Mr ly Mr ly Mr ly Mr ly will'll do it after public forum not now I'm I'm waiting okay you wait Mr Po uh yes Doug PO for tamarak Road uh for a couple of years now we we've heard about the uh inquit in equitability the uh the unfairness of the school funding formula that we are strapped with here in New Jersey and this board has basically acknowledged that as long as that formula is in place as long as the state does not fully fund school

145aid uh then we're always going to be faced with this problem uh in today's Star Ledger in the editorial section on page 15 uh there was an article called special session will allow Trenton to tackle its wos well basically it talks about two Assembly women uh an Allison M hose and a Donna Simmon they are both uh in the New Jersey legislature they have jointly sponsored a resolution it's entitled ACR 131 that resolution essentially provides for a special session of the legislature to consider property tax relief and reform and it deals with all the problems that we have been complaining about over the last several years both at the municipal level and here at the Schoolboard level and we can come to these meetings you can go to a town council meeting you can come

146to a board meeting and you can complain and complain and complain but until you notify contact your legislators who can do something about the problem okay until we do that then we're just going to continue to to complain so I'm going to encourage the board to I've I've made you a copy of the article in case you don't get the Star Ledger I'm going to give you a copy of the article but I'm also going to encourage the public that they look at this that they contact their representative it's a simple matter you pick up the phone you call them and say I want you to support ACR 131 you don't have to have a fancy letter you don't have to have a lengthy statement all you have to do is make that one single

147statement you can do it by email you can do it by phone you can send them a letter but keep it short and simple I expect you to support ACR 131 and do something about the property taxes in the state of New Jersey thank you thank [Applause] you is there anyone else from the public who wishes to speak than Miss prer 29 Spruce Meadows Drive I want to speak I just watched the uh meeting last week I was away and I just want I noticed that uh somebody commented about your communication that we've discussed about and I don't want you to be discouraged because I'm not on Facebook but I do the the slow way Wagman Stop and Shop the beach and a lot of people really appreciated the communication so I don't want you

148to be discouraged and not continue because thank you we appreciated it it was clear I for one was away so it was nice to know before leaving what was going to go on so really appreciate it thank you I appreciate you saying that thank [Music] you sh or min9 Nathaniel Street um sorry I am once again compelled to respond to uh a lot of the speakers and a lot of the board members who again speak about the percentage uh that we get of funding from the state with all due respect to uh Mr Po and the gentleman who has been speaking about um our a status with the with the state I'd like to remind everyone that this board is responsible for again Mr Gorski you can correct me about 83 or $84 million of

149spending yes you have control over that the answer is yes considering all the fixed obligations that are in there well the fixed obligations are after you vote for everybody's pay raise and then it becomes a fixed obligation so again once again we should be coming here and complaining if we need to about the kind of spending that this board is responsible for not necessarily and I and I take Mr Po's point I'm going to go home and call my legislator because that's part and parcel of getting things done but when we come here it's not just complaining and I'd like it not to be characterize that way this is an obligation of citizenship and we have elected officials here and they need to hear what we have to say and we need to keep them

150responsible for the $84 million that they are responsible POS for spending so to keep pointing the finger at an outside situation that again for the last 20 or 10 years I've been listening to really CH is is is changing the argument and not making the board or the people that we elect have um responsibility for the spending that they do have so thank you thank you good evening Tom notein 15 Nathaniel Street um just a question with regards to the Jamesburg tuition update tabling um when was that decision made to table that it was made this evening did that have to and why wasn't there a motion to table that usually uh that's what I would have expected to have seen because I I believe I have the responsibility uh the option to table things

151and not or not table them um Miss Fon or Jamesburg representative had just found out that a member the board had had um died suddenly this this evening um so she came to us and and and we had a discussion and we decided it would be best to table that conversation just with you and her was the discussion oh Mr Gorski and Dr Hamilton thank you um also with regards to the uh iPad update it's been probably uh I don't know is this going into the second year now with these or we have two years under our our belts already I'm just wondering um where does that stand with the empirical data as far as breakage um returns not returns but lost uh things of that nature obviously when we first started this program we

152really didn't have anything concrete to go by and I just wondered uh is that insurance plan working I haven't heard anything about this and I was hoping for a quick update um this is year two the first year was 6 months from October 19th till June so this is the second year um since the new high school started um I can get you an update on um how many have not been returned there I do believe have been eight that um that were that led to police reports off of that deem that they were missing So based off of the policy eight police reports were filed um we have about I do I don't I don't have the number in front of me so I'm I'm guesstimating for you we have about 20 not returned

153from last year um but we have lots of um steps in place which include contact from the high school um schedules gradu withholding of schedules graduation diplomas and other um checks and balances to ensure that we get it when we have the kids we even have a plan to reach out to the police um after um calling families and possibly even um trying other means of communication to return them as well as to locate them through the iPad um um find my iPad GPS um I could go and we did do um a pretty comprehensive update on the transition in the last couple of months I can give you all that information um and we'll obviously update you monthly on where we stand as we move into um year two of the initiative is this

154where we expect it to be obviously you must have done some projections before you did a project like this is this um Meeting those expectations or uh above those expectations as far as in what regard it's a multifaceted um the breakage and the not returns so the breakage we um estimated at a number and it exceeded that expectation um so then that prompted us to look at new Solutions and set goals and that happened from in year two on why we may have exceeded the breakage that's why we looked at the new Apple Care um program that's why we refreshed at this time that was as as part of it um but a lot of why estimations is that we were pioneering with the iPads in a lot of ways so these learning tools were

155um um relatively new in the onetoone implementation the magnitude of the one toone implementation um there are the use of iPads in schools is Rising every day um but there was no Foundation or back research on what iPad learning tools um would result in breakage and losses we've um talked about lessons learned over the last year and from those lessons what our next steps are to reduce and do things better in year two and how about the uh insurance is that uh coverage working out all right with that amount did that have to be increased I didn't hear we made an adjustment with the refresh so the new the everything has remained the same from the from the user out to us but the new Apple Care um plus program is very significant it basically

156says um two breakages um replacement for everything so if you go to a Verizon store and take out the Apple Care Plus it's the same program that you would have um for the new iPads um that was not the same when we entered the agreement we actually were refunded I think Mike about 70 to 80 ,000 on the old Apple Care um um plan based on the new refresh so we anticipate um a much uh more efficient process with breakages returns and adjustments um and you'll see that in the acceptable use policies um as the year goes on and um different steps to help monitor um the interaction we also believe that um as we enter year two and we look at digital textbooks so the text is actually on the iPad that there'll be

157a much more vested um piece from the students that they need them and they rely on them um for their schoolwork thank you anyone else from the public may I make a statement not yet we're still in public forum Robert roach J team your field Boulevard Monroe uh at the last meeting I mentioned the fact that on the board's website there was only uh one a video of the prior of the of the meetings and I talked to Dr Hamilton about uh having whether more were available and I think you indicated that you were not sure what was there and we look into it and see what um uh was available I I did look into it I checked the capacity to see if there was some limitation on our uh ability how many we

158could keep up there at at any single time and the standard that's been used is that we've pretty much been following the standard that the municipality follows uh with keeping one up until the next one is loaded so what we will be doing is going to the policy committee and asking the policy to just estab the committee to establish a standard whether they want a month on there or two months on there or an infinite number on there but we'll establish a policy so that there's a level of consistency when when you say a month there's there's basically one board meeting a month maybe sometimes two I'm I'm only referring to board meetings not the entire video uh yeah I I understand and that's that was that will be what we will ask the policy

159committee to establish thank you you're welcome Chrissy scurby eight seminal Court I just wanted to um respond to some of the comments um this evening one in particular about the spending for Applegarth school um what some people who don't regularly attend the meetings might not know is that um there were a lot of options talked about for the overcrowding at Oak Tree um we talked about redistricting however a lot of parents came out against that idea which would have been a lot um more coste effective than opening up Applegarth there was talk about renting and moving trailers over to Oak tree for a few years um that was shot down too but once the board decided to open Applegarth School the spending that they've done has been necessary and the spending hasn't been frivolous it

160has been to remediate asbestos it has been to remediate lead paint the filters are not frivolous um I don't want it looked at like the children at Applegarth are getting things that they really don't need filters on The Fountains that have lead water going through them are most definitely needed at Applegarth so I think there are ways in our budget that we could probably spend a little better but I don't want anybody thinking that because we're opening up Applegarth we spent money that we didn't need all of that money that was spent was definitely needed thank you thank you thank you anyone else from the public elering time Anthony preso at equestrian way now that we had the uh iPads for almost two years have test scores gone up we have seen a change in

161our special ed scores um but it's only been six months so we're very hesitant to attribute that increase to the iPad so we want to do further research and have a long a longer period of time in which to measure but from last year to this year you you have no idea if it's working we had them six months and our scores in the area of special ed have gone up but even okay at at a six-month period that's really not enough time to be able to say even those those scores that have gone up we really just can't say we don't have enough data to say that they went up because of the iPad so we need more time okay as far as the special EDG goes they've been using them all over the

162country for years so they know it's working but we're not too sure if it's working on our typical kids today so that's I'm hesitant to make that kind of empirical analysis without carefully looking at the data thank you anyone else from the public wishing to speak okay seeing no one we will close the public forum Mr ly I know that you're sitting there awaiting on Sunday's Star Ledger inside New Jersey magazine they had a listing county by county of the schools performance now middle sex County vocational technical school has two magnet schools that really get Superior students they have one in Edison for engineering and Science and they have one in Woodbridge for health and they get astounding scores when you look at the other eight comprehensive schools that take all students we're in there

163we've got a very good program and it's improving quit this bull of saying we're a bad School Mr L anyone else from the board I seeing no one our next scheduled public Board of Education meeting will be this coming Saturday August 25th 8:00 a.m. in the high school for goal setting is there a motion to adjourn Mr Kaufman Mr Tesla all in favor opposed extensions and the meeting is adjourned