001like that huh I like it good evening the meeting of the Monroe 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 allong you do more may we please have a roll call Mr Gorski Mrs kapano here Mr tesler here miss antelis here Mr Braverman Mr Chella here Mr calman here Mr Masters here Mr Po Mr proso here Mr zareski here Madam board president you have a quorum thank you in accordance with the provisions of the New Jersey open public meetings law the monio Township Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date
002time and place thereof posted May 1st 2013 one at all schools two home News Tribune three cranberry press and four filed with the clerk of the municipality at this time we will have our teacher of the year award and I know that a lot of them are coming in so we'll hopefully have a chance to have all of them show up and here tonight we are honoring our teachers of the year and prior to this dinner prior to this meeting we've had a dinner that was prepared and St served by our students in our culinary arts program and it was fantastic and I think it would the dinner we had this evening would rival any restaurant we have in mon row or in the area tonight we're honoring the best of the best in teachers
003of our district they're all our honores tonight are dedicated caring and professional who make a difference in the lives of children every single day and help shape the future so at this time we'd like to honor them at a board meeting with a plaque so Dr Hamilton would be um as I call you and will'll present the plaques in the middle of the room and for those of you who are interested in photo ops I'm going to ask that your building principal also join us at that time so I can be a part of that photo op okay okay our first honory this evening is from Brookside School the Monroe Township School District honors Jennifer mroi teacher of the year Brookside School [Applause] oh I guess not from Woodland School Allison bernady [Applause] [Laughter] I'm
004from Mil Lake School Danielle chopoli [Applause] agree thank you thank you you're very welcome from Applegarth School Nancy Poland [Applause] from Monroe Township Middle School Patricia [Applause] Smith try CLE this whole [Applause] from Barkley Brook School Daniel Sano you know what I'm going to do sometime cha [Applause] oak tree School D Marie Copus [Applause] and last but not least from Monroe Township High School rat [Applause] McKenzie you got pictures congratulations to all of our teachers and their principles on you this time we will go to number six on our agenda early enrichment program proposal Dr Hamilton okay uh good evening all we have been working on developing a program to augment our current Mecca program this program has been developed in collaboration with myself uh Marietta ruella who is the director of pupil Personnel Services
005and the director of Mecca and our head teacher there Sharon Jensen almost drew a blank there Sharon sorry um and we've put together a proposal that we presented to the finance committee uh last week we are now presenting to the full board for consideration this program is designed to accomplish a couple of things one is to uh create a mechanism that would restore the advancements made to the mecca program from the mundro Township Board of Education uh to enhance our educational program for our students and lastly to make the program self-sufficient and create a solvency uh initiative so with that I will turn it over to maretta and Sharon difficult when you're not stand so we're gonna begin here and we're going hope that you all take a look at slides Sharon go good evening
006so our enrichment program would be a structured program that would offer an extension to our existing kindergarten day the program will reinforce the learning that's taking place in the kindergarten classrooms to help meet those Common Core State Standards which is a difficult task in just a 2 and a half hour program the mecca enrollment has increased over this school year the projected September enrollment um the business has doubled come September this leaves us with the opportunity to develop new programs to further increase our enrollment and our Revenue as you know there's no full day kindergarten in the school district the only option for the families is being run by an outside company there are a total of 234 students registered for this upcoming school year we called the surrounding school districts to see what type
007of programs they do if they're only running a halfday um kindergarten these were the results we only found four school districts that we called that have a district run enrichment program so we surveyed our current and registered kindergarten families um the numbers on the sheet you have might not be the numers you see up here because we were still calling even this afternoon to try and reach as many families as we Poss possibly could I'm just going to step in here and just to talk to you a little bit about um 238 students have registered at this time for our kindergarten program but the expectation is that also increases during the summer and we will increase to continue our survey we have a small portion here I when you're probably looking at it you're saying
00889 um families were contacted but we were contacting during the school day which many parents are working and that's part of what this program is about it's really directed to those parents that have students kindergarten children that either at this point we're going to KP or they were going to some type of sitting care so this is going to be a program not only to service our residents but it's also going to be an enrichment program it's going to be an educational program that will be provided for the district um some of the responses when we were speaking with the families on the phone was that they are worried that their children are going from a half a full day preschool program into just a halfday kindergarten program um they preferred the idea of a
009structured program that's run by the district not an outside company they said It felt you know safer it gave them more familiarity you know just to have that better feeling that their child is being taken care of in the best way possible um they also appreciate a program that's focused on quality at an affordable cost um so you can see that if we could implement the enrichment program the potential for Mecca's enrollment would soar and you know definitely bring in the numbers and the revenue that is needed um parents would choose mecca for our low cost the lunch program transportation that safe and secure environment and we also have the high scope curriculum that we're currently using in our preschool class now we would also be using in the enrichment program the high scope curriculum
010um is a wonderful curriculum that it sets a classroom that the learning environment is child directed it's Hands-On everything is developmentally appropriate they have their plan do and review sequence along with their daily schedule and they're getting in those key developmental indicators to get everything they can out of their school day um so Mecca is a wonderful Center where we have the flexibility to utilize the building in a way to that benefits our employees to give them the quality child care but it also gives us that capability to implement programs to help them in our Township residents thank you for your time and I hope you will take this into consideration how helpful it will be to our residents how much it will service our students we have a growing population [Applause] um maretta if
011you and Sharon would just kind of hang at the microphone in case board members have question Madam president um I think we have a resolution that we'll read and then we'll open it up to the board for comments or questions and then we'll open it up to the public for comments or questions Miss anelis thank you it is recommended by the finance committee that the Board of Education approve the Early Childhood enrichment program to operate in conjunction with Mecca at a monthly rate of $400 per student for a full-time program effective September 1st 2013 and to authorize the superintendent and the business administrator board secretary to take necessary steps to ensure its implementation is there a second to that motion I'll second Mr Chella so at this time I'll open it up to the board
012for any comments or questions that they might have Mr proso uh this Mecca program that was designed uh over a year ago what was the original idea of the program original the original idea of Mecca was to provide a child care facility for District employees that would encourage teachers to um return to work sooner based on those who had indicated that they were not able to return to work because of a affordable child care the intent of that at the time was we and we still experienced that frankly is that when a teacher is out and exercises his or her right to the full year leave we are paying that teacher's salary uh assuming that they have the sick time available and the salary the full-time salary and benefits of his or her replacement teacher
013so for each CH each teacher that came back we were saving in addition to what the tuition generated we were saving the cost of about $54,000 assuming it was a beginning teacher in Benny's okay why are we adding another program a brand new program into this Mecca program is it because it's failing it doesn't it's not sub sustaining itself we have to add another program and more kids yes okay uh can you tell me where the Mecca and the enrichment programs are going to be housed at the mil Lake School annex okay uh what was that building used for before it housed um the special services staff okay and where is the special services staff where do they reside now they are at the Applegarth trailer okay um Michael how much do we pay for
014mortgage and rent on those trailers um I believe that the Applegarth trailers are between 16 and $177,000 a month lease payment pay okay so in other words we moved staff that works for the school we moved them out of a building we own and we put them in a trailer that we have to rent so we could put this Mecca program who where I was told that it wasn't going to cost the public a dime or the with a board of edad now we're paying $166,000 a month for a program that's failing uh Social Services is in that trailer right now and we pay a lease or a rental fee $116,000 month uh another question would be if the enrollment in this program Mecca is at capacity because of the enrichment program and a teacher
015that just had her child wants to use this mea program how is that going to help her get back to her job early if there are no openings doesn't that defeat the whole purpose what we're doing really is we're making a full day kindergarten program which the voters voted down two to one the last time we had a vote now I know it's a half day in one part and another half day but two half days make a hold to me I think this is just another way of getting a kindergarten program kicked off because now it's not for the teachers anymore it's for kindergarten kids and the original idea of this program was to help the teachers and this is not going to help the teachers not only is it not going to help
016the teachers the taxpayers foot in a bill 16,000 a month to house the employees that we're in our building to begin with so and and another thing uh teachers are going to pay $850 a month on an average to have her child there while the enrichment programs only going to pay $400 a month doesn't make sense why a teacher would pay $850 while somebody else is paying 400 they're not going to sign up so it's going to deter a lot of teachers from signing and uh I'm really surprised that the finance committee this was presented to us and in five minutes the presentation was no debate let's just get on with it and um was no investigating no none whatsoever no no thought of how much it was going to cost us to house those
017kids in that building and right now we have two board members missing and we're going to vote on a proposal to add more money into that program I think we should table this and really discuss what we're trying to do here I just feel that we're expanding so much when we should think of the future we're going to be stuck for a lot of money in the future and we can't be afforded we can't afford to do this tell us if I [Applause] may if I may I'll I'll answer the question that was embedded in your comments um if a teacher was to have a baby and wanted to utilize Mecca they would still be able to do that because that baby would go in the infant room and the pre the kindergarten pre preschool
018age kindergarten program um would not occupy those rooms so there would still be room for that so the initial purpose of Mecca would still be able to be um accommodated in that in that case um that so I just wanted to answer that Miss analis talk a little bit about child care what about the bill Sor ex has the floor um many years ago when the bass program first started I remember um it took about three years for it to fill up at this time I people children are locked out of it um we have more housing going up we have uh I was told Ken you were at the meeting what did they tell you about the 95 children and how many units that's the total yeah the total about 95 more child care
019so bass came in and they're running this great program and and kids are signing up and they're making lots and lots of money and every year we're saying to bask gee you're using our school you're using our buses how about giving us some money no wouldn't give us any money finally when regulations came around and we were able to take over child care and bass got a little nervous and came to our meeting and rallied the parents uh entered into negotiations with Mr Gorski and Dr Hamilton and agreed to pay us $100,000 a year now if they can afford to pay us $100,000 a year just think of what their profit is so now we have people from outside of Monroe running a program in our schools making probably without the 100,000 $50 $300,000 a
020year wouldn't that be better off in the pockets of the Monroe taxpayers I believe it would now now they the parents are going to have an option you can either um you have a kindergarten child you can either after kindergarten take your child home if you are able to do that or you put your child in a child care program they have the KP and basically they go in there and they work with the children what we're offering for the same price is to have children in kindergarten we already have the curriculum written we already have the teacher at the program why in the world would any parent take the best KP over education for their children there might be some who do but I don't think they will this is an educational enrichment program
021you see all the schools that have full day kindergarten we can't afford it the voters did vote it down but now we're giving the parents a chance to pay for this and I believe they're going to come and that's why I support this and when we're collecting $253,000 and the program is made up I think we'll be hearing a different tune from board members anyone else Mr proso well we were told that it wasn't going to cost the board or the taxpayer a dime and now I find out that we're paying for trailers because originally That was supposed to be used for social services not only that we complain all the time about how many kids are coming in how many more people how many more children we're going to have to take care of
022in the future that building could be used for something constructive we don't need to start a babysitting service or even a kindergarten service don't get me wrong that's a good idea kindergarten service we can't do that right now in the future there's 2% is not going to support the school system we're not thinking of the future we're expanding we have the Basque program that does this already we shouldn't be going into another business we can't do it I disagree because what you're saying is yes more children are coming we are not getting any more money from the state and we better start thinking of some real creative ways to start bringing Revenue back into the district and off of the back of the taxpayers if we could collect $350,000 a year in it two years
023we have a roof Mr proso can I ask why we weren't told about social services moving to another building and we were paying rent because they were taking up our space for Mecca we all knew that no originally that building was used for social services or could have been used for anything well the trailer is also move Social Services over to the trailers and we're paying a monster uh rental for that trailer and now we're responsible for that that should be part of the mecca the tra could have been put in there instead of our school our district the trailers um the reason we selected the annex was because it was already outfitted um to have the appropriate size toilet rooms the toilet rooms in every classroom uh it was an ideal location the trailers
024are not just utilized for pupil Personnel Services is also our professional development center as well so the trails would be operated even if special services weren't there we would still need the trailers for that space and it is not true that the board was not aware that the pupil Personnel Services was moving to the trailer that was fully vetted with the board and I believe pupil personnels moved at least three times around this District because we haven't found a true home for them yet and we are doing that we are looking for a home and also the trailers that we are renting we have a rental agreement and we still have 2 years left on that rental agreement so we don't want to keep them empty anyone else Mr presos last statement would be this
025is basically a childcare kindergarten program and the voters had told you they don't like that idea they're the taxpayers we're supposed to set an example we're supposed to be representing them and the children those children could stay home and let the families take care of them we're not responsible for them we shouldn't be taking care of them we don't we don't have the money to take care of them we got problems in the high school that we should be addressing but we're not we're concentrating on Mecca and a daycare center I'd like to know why 770 kids were suspended or not suspended uh oh what's that word you had problems we you have a lot of problems in the high school and I think we should address things like that before we open up a
026babysitting service Ju Just quick point of clarification the difference between this is and what the voters voted down was that was a fully funded tax funded program this one will be funded by the people that are taking advantage of the program that's the difference that we seem to be crossing over here I think we also see too that there are parents who have their their children in our kindergarten program for a half a day and then they look for an outside place to put their K their kindergarten children in a half day kindergarten there are also kindergarten parents who take their kids out of our kindergarten totally and then bring them back in first grade if we can keep them in Monroe and and teach them what we're learning to get them acclimated into first
027grade it's only going to help all of our students I also have the school report card from the Board of Education it says here we have 770 number of students suspended in Monroe Township High School I'd like to see that report you're referring to that could not possibly be accurate okay any Mr tesler just a couple things for clarification um and correct me if I'm wrong the mecca program started when we okay the the meca program started or we started investigating it last year as a way to uh one uh make a profit make some extra money uh to help uh with the tax relief and we were trying to think out of the box and try to come up with new re revenue streams since we weren't getting it from the state and other
028sources it's also a way to um provide a service for the teachers for for the children and it's in my mind was always supposed to be a way to make a profit um as I know or other people know once you start a new business um the first year or so you may not make a profit I think we got off to a uh little rocky start we started advertising a little late and we ended up with only uh was 15 or 17 children the first year what I would like to know I guess is as of now uh what are the uh enrollment uh numbers for next year as of now I know it's probably still growing and also what's the projected enrollment and an idea of the kindergarten M and what how many
029students and are uh would be enrolled to give at least Break Even next year or or make a profit so we can start repaying back the loan and my second thing is is I think what Kathy already touched upon maybe Mike can clarify this for clarification the trailers at Applegarth are we're under contract for a few more years so regardless of what we're doing we still have to pay for them um and I bet in a few more years with the growth we'll probably need them for students eventually and I guess pupil Personnel solices will be moving again um and uh also if uh uh if I do support this um I would like to uh have a uh a monthly report uh like uh like we have enrollment report every month for the um
030for the district enrollment of uh of the kindergarten program and AA program as part of our the superintendence report and also a regular report on the profit and loss uh as part of the program and uh if I do support this this time um if the program doesn't at least break even or turn a profit in one more year I don't think I will support it again um to answer your question um these numbers are raw right now there are 23 students registered in uh from Mecca in September um and that number is we anticipate that number will continue to increase and our break even number is 34 40 41 in total between both programs um and the number of students who have expressed interest in the the early enrichment program is 40 75 students
031have expressed interest now expressed interest is different than bringing a deposit but 75 students have parents have expressed interest okay what are we what are we doing to you advertise or if if this gets approved tonight what are our methodology for advertising to the parents how are we going to approach that for the kindergarten program can you please um one we would design a letter to send home obviously to all the registered families I think it would be necessary to have um a parent information night so they could come here you know get the program explained to them you know kind of like an open house um to see what we're do you know different ways to get it and of course maybe something on the website or even the alert now is the telephone
032and Central registration and um you know with Marietta and Shar at Central registration right as they come in to register our kindergarten students they would receive that information just as they do for our uh preschool integrated program so we hand that out and this is perfect look at advertising right now as we speak that how we do that it'll be word of mouth and we will continue to have CU yeah because I with our with our customer base of over uh uh the number of students we have in staff we have about a thousand staff and obviously all those those students I just can't see why as long as we advertise advertise it properly manage it properly that we can't you know run this business well and make a profit Mr tiella yes hello I
033just have a question regarding um the capacity for housing the students so for instance let's how many students would we be able to fit in this program because we're all worried about not having enough students but what happens if we have too many I mean or is there a point where we would exceed our ability to hold them if this information was presented to our finance committee and okay I will and I I would like to look at you too so you don't mind my back right it was uh presented to the finance committee and with collaboration with Dr Hamilton and Sharon and myself we do take a look there are two rooms that are empty right now that can be utilized for these kindergarten students that were speaking so if we look at possibly
034somewhere between 18 to 20 students in each room and in four different sections we're looking close to 80 students at this time the capacity for the building is 100 students though okay thank you that's Mr masters with no additional staff or we'd have to if we had 100 kids in there we would need we would need some more staff Mr Kaufman yeah just to add on to what Ken was saying because I he not were're thinking about the same thing I thanks for asking the question with the functional capacity of about aund or so students and you're comingling two different programs I may be the odd man out here but we need to start thinking about overc capacity because as the enrichment program starts to take um hold and the word gets out that you
035know that's now a viable option for children that or for parents who want to pay for that additional time spent within District um which as was mentioned earlier was by Lou exactly the opposite of what the the voters voted against um I think we really need to think about you know it would there be capacity to expand the annex on site where it is or what are we going to do when couple things happen it really takes hold and I know we've spoken about this at a couple of board meetings if at some point in in the future we decide to take Basque over how will that Cascade across the district because now we'd have the Basque early enrichment and Mecca and and managing the priorities to make sure that you know Mecca was its
036original intent was to help the staff members to keep that in Focus because I think as Ken mentioned once two of them start comingling in the same building if Mecca starts to actually gain a lot of popularity with our staff and they were the original priority and we now have both programs in the same building running at the same time we're going to have uh two issues capacity and Logistics of getting kids in and out because the enrichment would require Transportation at some point for the kids getting from the school they're in to the anex from from wherever so Future For Thought we've actually anticipated that um we do have a contingency plan the enrollment the kindergarten enrollment right now at mil lake is lower than it usually is this time of year um we're
037kind of sitting on that and watching for those late enrol leav then that may not develop until maybe even August um but if we needed to we would probably have space at mil Lake that we could house uh part of the enrichment program if we needed to that's one and two um we use a lottery which is a lot what a lot of the other programs do when they are out of space for the number of students that require it which would be a good problem to have and then uh lastly make this a part of the demographic study that we're looking at if that's a different population that we're we're trying to seek thanks anyone else from the clarification again what was the break even the break even points the break even for Mike
038just gave me these numbers so I was going to correct this uh the mecca program is you have 24 um for the mecca program The Break Even enrollment the projected number of students next year is 24 so assuming 24 based upon that projection you would need 41 students participating in the enrichment program to break even so that would be 20 a.m. 20 p.m. or some combination thereof any anyone else from Mr proso like to make a motion to table this is there a second a second can he second that because uh I don't believe so I I believe I yeah I believe based upon the legal advice that uh the Jamesburg representative was to be excluded on this particular agenda item that to table this item also be since there is no second um motion
039is denied any other comments or questions from members of the board then Mr Tesla Tesla Tesla just real quick if I don't if there's any uh the teachers here who just happen to have any their uh kids in the program and if they uh if they would like to make any comments in public form uh I know I would personally like to hear from them that okay yeah that's that's fine yes just state your name and address for the record sure hi my name is Don Marie capus I'm 21 Avenue H here in Monroe a few moments ago I stood here before you as oak tree's teacher of the year I stand before you now as a mother of two small children who attend Mecca I'd like to start by saying thank you thank you
040for offering District employees a loving and caring school for our children to attend which gives us peace of mind as we take care of and teach the children of those in our town I have heard the questions and concerns at the board meetings from the public it's not making enough money was it the right decision who are the teachers who use it and hope that tonight I can help you to see Mecca Through The Eyes of a devoted parent who is also a devoted teacher in our district our two boys have had a wonderful experience at Mecca our one-year-old is cared for and loved by his teachers they give helpful advice find enjoyment in his accomplishments and comfor comfort him when he's not feeling his best our oldest is in the preschool program and he
041is also cared for and loved by his teacher she utilizes the high scope curriculum which you heard about this evening and I'm amazed at all that he has learned this year and it's evident by the things he says at home such as recognizing and writing his letters numbers writing his name participating in activities related to music Art and Science his teacher is kind and considerate and always willing to help or give suggestions the preschool class has also participated in some mil Lake activities such as attending a fire assembly and Toys for Tots thank you to Dr barbarry for helping to create that partnership I look forward to the day when our children will attend mil Lake as kindergarteners and if he was entering kindergarten in September I would be the first one to sign up
042for what you're proposing osing tonight I'm telling you this so that the public can hopefully see what a blessing it has been to us and that the mecca staff our teachers who support the learning styles of the children who attend whether that be a four-year-old learning letter sounds or a 12-month-old learning to walk they are anything but glorified babysitters and I cannot stress that enough I understand the Public's desire to see it at capacity and making money and I appreciate our board president letting the public know at the April meeting that yes parents do have to put deposits in the spring to secure their spot for the fall and since Sharon Mecca's director wasn't hired until July that happened to several parents who may have otherwise enrolled their child in Mecca however as teachers who
043attend Mecca began to spread the word about the wonderful things happening there enrollment did begin to grow Sharon Palazo a special education teacher at Oak Tree enrolled her son after returning from maternity leave in January Sunny DeMarco a fifth grade teacher at Applegarth loved her visit to Mecca so much and heard the wonderful things teachers had to say about it she took her daughter out of Bright Horizons in February so she could start at Mecca and I did have permission from both to let you know that who they could not be here tonight both are very happy they did we agree that we don't know what we would do if it closed we strongly feel that we wouldn't find the same compassion and commitment to our children at another daycare provider our oldest was at
044another daycare last year and we are thrilled with our experience at Mecca and are so happy we made the change both of our children will be there again in September and we would highly recommend it to other families thank you for your comments thank you is there any more comments or questions from the MR Layman Adam Layman 16 Edington Lane principal at Woodland Elementary School uh my son he's four and a half his name is Sam and uh we actually sent him to the program uh starting in January we took a leap of faith um we kind of wanted to see how things shaked out at the beginning of the school year had a really good reputation uh my wife and I clearly both educators and the number one priority for us was a quality
045program with people we could trust um he's our precious um commodity and we wouldn't leave him in the hands of anybody else uh that we wouldn't we didn't have faith in and uh we took a tour we had a great feeling and leading up to and from his previous experience he didn't want to go to preschool he didn't want to go to daycare we took him in that building he we could barely hold on to him he was so excited he started playing with the students that were there and uh you know since then he gets up in the morning wants to go to school when he gets home from school all he talks about is when is he get to go back so we put our deposit down for next year we're excited about
046it and uh he's not ready for kindergarten yet but hopefully two years from now we'll have an option to uh you know send him to full dayk or send to the the kindergarten enrichment program and that would be outstanding so thank you thank you is there any more comments from the before I open it up to the public kind of wonder why Tom notein 15 Nathaniel Street why was it why are these people speaking if it's not open to the public Mr Tes asked since when does Mr Tesla can call up public people promoting something you didn't vote on yet I'm I'm asking you to please take your seat until I open it up to the public this is unbelievable so obviously he's made up his mind he's called on people to support this this
047is a travesty no that wasn't planned it was not um does any other board members have any comments or questions um and before I open it up to the public I just just want to say again and I've said this for many months we did not open this until July because um we could not find a director that we thought was appropriate for this facility and we finally found a phenomenal director and is doing a phenomenal job so sometimes it just you you you kind of go off the road a little bit until you get the right people in place and then you can have the program you can have the program with the wrong people and then it's not going to work so we decided to get the right people and then have our
048program work and it's been growing so now at this time I will open it up to the public for any comments or questions we will um adhere to our three minutes comments so if anybody'd like to speak please come up to the microphone state your name and address for the record good evening my name is Mel Waller I live at Regency at Monroe I don't think the street address is of particular importance uh Mr Hamilton you mentioned that there was 43 children necessary to break even then later on you mentioned 20 and 22 and I'm saying to myself well already I have a difference not only is there a difference to the break even I'm wondering what is the cost per student and at what point will we be making any money that's what I'm
049interested in I've been in business my uh my entire career thank goodness I don't have to do it anymore uh there should be a cushion for a reserve because of the fact that there would be a number of items would come about that we never planned on and this would be over and above the break even per child uh that's what I'm interested in dollars and cents I'm not in uh to have to go in and we have to pay for other buildings uh trailers as M Mr pres alsoo mentioned we get a little bit disgusted hearing about all these additional monies that we have to pay for but no no one has come out and said how much it will cost for each student in the program the tuition rate varies depending on how
050many days a student is there so for example a full-time student would the parent of a full-time student would pay more than a child that's there three days and there's a scale that goes 5 days four days three days two days halftime um or any kind of modified schedule so it ranges the most apparent p for the mecca program is $875 yeah before before you mentioned uh 8850 and and then you mentioned 400 now it's 875 no I didn't I didn't mention 850 I don't know where that would have come from but came out right someone here mentioned it pull that out of thin air the $400 is what the proposed rate would be for the kids in the enrichment program that's separate from from meca that would be the same for any youngster that's
0515 days that's a full-time rate that would be 400 the proposed rate is $400 okay the mecca program it varies depending on the number of days that the student is in the program okay again I go back to one point and that is how much would it cost us per child and no one here has come out when said anything about that thank you you want to can you calculate that real quick no anyone else from the public all Klein 53 turnbury please let me know when I have a minute left I'm using Klein instead of Smith this time first of all I want to congratulate all the teachers that won the awards they are deserving of it the two that spoke uh the principal Adam Layman and the teacher in other words they're satisfied
052paying $875 a student or child in which case the principal not the principal the teacher had two children that she's paying 816 1750 a month for the two kids then you're going to have the enrichment kids come in for $400 I just want to bring up if you remember the committee meeting we had when I was on a board and I told everyone that was on the board in that committee that my daughter took part in Stewartsville where her cost went from $1,100 a month per student in private daycare to $600 $550 or $600 what you find and those with young children when they get used to a program in a teacher and it's going to cost them $1,100 versus $875 they'll pay the additional and not disturb the child in the uh in the
053school that he's in now but if you came in and you started the program at 600 or 650 I'm sure even though it started late and we know it started late you would have gotten many many more signing up but at 875 they're going to stay where they were just a few fast questions if I make will this cut into the Basque program at all it's conceivable okay they're giving us $100,000 now miss antill is brought up at one of the meetings that she wanted to have our own bask program and we decided not to because you got a winning program everybody is happy with it why start our own and now we're going to revert back to go back on what one minute one minute that's F yes okay how are we going to
054transport these kids to mil Lake okay the more kids you have the more Personnel you need and then as far as Mill like this is my last comment as far as mil Lake you're saying we don't have enough students there now all your building is going on in the South you're going to have to do redistricting which we never did even though we did a study for godten knows how much money those kids are going to have to be redistricted so that means mil Lake within the next two years will probably be overc capacity thank you very much for not yelling at me you have 22 seconds if you'd like to use them I owe then you owe me two seconds for later okay thank you thank you do you have any answers to his
055comment no okay anyone else from the public Mike Bono 38 creno I just have a few questions I want to clear up first of all what just was said Is there going to be and who's going to pay for busing these kids are not going to walk over by themselves they're going to have to be transported now a hidden cost is going to be busing also if you're putting 20 kids per teacher are these teachers all licensed in Early Education and are we paying them un wages for two or three hours finally which is very confusing how do you enrich a Kindergarten kid what are you going to teach him how to draw a line if you were talking about third graders who had problems with math or science and you wanted to use this
056time to enrich them fine you're talking about babysitting that's masked as an enrichment program I can't understand for the life of me how you're going to enrich a 5-year-old in what field ma science aerodynamics what field are you going to deal with these kids so before you vote on this thing and hit the taxpayers again be kind guys this is not an ATM machine we can't keep funding they're all very worthy programs all very worthy causes they're wonderful but they all cost money and what business in the world keeps losing money while in business sooner or later you got to say uncle and you got to close these things down now if we're walking on a thread normally why do we want to put this other elephant on our back not knowing how many kids
057we're going to get into the program now you get a bunch of kids more teachers more space more rental and how do you tell them you can't come in if you already have 40 kids in the program there's some unintended consequences going on here people that you got to think about before you invest more money thank you do you want to the bus you want to the busing yes or in both like you want to take the busing piece and I'll take the the busing piece is the they're already being bu preschool kindergarten yeah preschool program yes well in in essence I I'll respond to I'll I'll take it m uh the busing the students are already being bused um if anything this would actually probably consolidate some of the busing because instead of taking
058them to uh various places they would go from um the school with they house for whichever portion of kindergarten they're in whether it's AM or PM to the mil Lake Annex so we're busting them anyway so there's no additional or hidden cost there um in terms of union wages uh the teachers staff there is either have been or will be trained in um High scope the curriculum for high scope and they are not paid union wages they are represented as non-affiliate uh staff members at this juncture so they are not covered by a negotiated agreement excuse me Mr Dr Hamilton has the floor that's it did you want to talk excuse me if You' like to make a comment you can come to the microphone because I still you have uh was over how much
059time did he have I don't know any longer I'll give him like I think he had like 47 by state law you must have a licensed teacher in that age group in that class in that grade if you have kindergarten students you must have a licensed Early Education teacher in that room now she could have 47 parents but there must be one licensed teacher now if you're going to run 20 kids to a class you're going to need licensed teachers or you're going to be violation of the law that's that's not how are you getting around that by waving a flag and saying we don't need licensed teachers well we actually don't sir that's not in that particular program that is not the certification is not required the training that we are providing for the
060high scope curriculum is actually even above what we're we're required to do frankly God bless you good luck with that if a key gets hurt in that class good luck with that my name is Jay sinov I'm a certified public accountant and a cgma I'd like to thank Dr Hamilton for having uh Mr Gorski send me the information I requested it so quickly and promptly uh from looking over the information and talking over the situation myself I think most probably the program was started improperly and ineptly at the start all right dealing with uh proper marketing and acquisition of information of the demographics now that it's in place all right according to the information all right we've already put in about 300,000 into the project now we can look at this as an opportunity cost
061or an opportunity future profit personally I would not not like to throw out $300,000 of my tax money that has already been spent I myself right now did last year a plan for a uh pre K uh 3 to 5 year olds uh in Brooklyn uh of a school uh they'll have 120 kids uh profitability was somewhere in the neighborhood of a $425,000 so I look at it this way we've already put x amount of over 300 thou about $250,000 into this [Music] project why throw it out all right let's go for profitability all right and make it something that will work in function all right and do it properly according to good marketing uh criteria uh dealing with uh the prior gentleman um my wife by the way is a teacher of three and
062four year olds in the city of Elizabeth uh she has her bachelor's and a master's plus 30 the work that she does besides teaching the kids six hours she puts in another four to 3 to five hours uh every other day making up uh plans she's also used High scope so is my other daughter who's a special ed teacher who graduated here uh through the special ed program since F since she was 5 years old so the education here and everything is excellent as being a resident of this town for about 27 years I know since three of my four kids have all went to the Monroe Schools I don't consider my wife to be a professional babysitter I think your assumption of what a babysitter is may go back to the 1910s could you
063please address the board all right uh at that time and the way the demographics are today people cannot use grandparents thank you for your comments thank you anyone else from the [Applause] public good evening Tom not Stein 15 Nathaniel Street um I actually think that this has some a potential I I am almost like Mr sinov in that respect however I don't know if anybody on this board that is capable of running a business and that correct me if I'm wrong is the goal for this we are going to run this as a business um has anybody created a business plan I'm sure the answer is no um that's one of the most important things that a business needs when you first start up uh has anybody looked I know at the finance committee it
064was mentioned uh there was only 15 students the comment was made well we've committed to these 15 students we need to say this will go on next year no matter how many students we have even if eight people were to drop out or all of them drop out we were going to run the program for one person because we made a commitment to these people well in a business you don't look at those type of commitments you have to say the bottom line is the commitment and I don't see that here I think that in order for this to be successful we have to take off our Educator's hats and we have to put on a business outfit and think of this as what you want it to be is a profitable business where the
065profit is the most important thing providing a good service is equally as important but all I see here and it's kind of like we run our taxes it's just all about spending we don't really give thought to the revenue and that is in a business of prime importance so I think that if obviously this is a done deal I can see it already just for the fact that we couldn't even get a second on tabling it until two other members are here um so obviously this is a done deal but I would hope that maybe some member of the board could make a motion and say let's give this a sunsetting clause or let's say after one year if we don't have X amount of profit that we're going to just say we have to
066cut our losses because any business has that built into it where you know this is where we're going to be this is where we're going to cut our losses unfortunately the board has unlimited revenues because they can just keep borrowing from the taxpayers and that is not a good business plan so I urge everyone on this board to I I like the idea we're thinking outside the box in this day and age that's precisely where we need to be but we also need to think of the repercussions down the road and just say maybe we need to just give this another month another Finance committing meeting to give it some real thought WR up that business plan we have great mission statements and everything but that's not nearly as important as a business plan if
067it's going to be run as a business so all I can say is it's definitely got some potential but I think that to jump into this really nearly like like I see happening um is not the way to go thank you for your time thank you Alan KH 11 crore Court I was at the finance meeting the other night and of course there was no comment from the public there but I was appalled at what I heard you described this program I think was 17 children as the current enrollment cost so far about $280,000 uh Revenue 7 something plus a loss of over $200,000 and the recommendation from the superintendent to the director of the program was go recruit some kids it sounded to me like you were using the students in our kindergarten program
068to save a failed program go talk to parents tell them what a wonderful program we're going to have not that we have but that we're going to have let's save this failed program this program utilizes five classrooms now at the planning board meetings at the Town Council meetings you all know that we've got loads of kids coming in you're going to be coming to us for another building five classrooms another hundred kids coming in could be served utilizing five classrooms I think this is the wrong way to go at this point to start a new program and I I cannot believe that you wouldn't even put it off another month to think about this I think you're wrong anyone else from the public 44 Avenue I it seems the purpose is that we're going our
069purpose is to put out the Basque program as it is now and it seems to be working and you're going to do that by taking away all their um profits by taking out the kindergarteners once you do that you're going to eliminate them and then we're going to have to worry about the before and after school children that are above the kindergarten level and then what's going to happen to that we're going to have to hire teachers for before after for you know children that go in the before and after program above the kindergarten level and also in the Basque program I believe at Oak Tree and um Barkley Brook the K WP is located at those schools so now you're going to have to bust those children over to M lake so that'll be
070additional busing there also and also I have a question about the infant care too you said I don't know uh how many infants you're planning on enrolling I I used to be a nursing um I don't know what the Capac is per room but I believe by state law like cribs you have to keep them a certain distance perhaps the preschool teacher know Z so you might need like an additional room for infants just based on state law by uh spacing of cribs and things like that we do we we are not bound by those those guidelines but they do serve as a standard to help us create a program that is competitive for those programs that we are competing against um so there are guidelines we do follow in terms of the number of
071cribs that can be in the infant room okay so you might need if more than one room I'm just I was at the finance meeting and you only have five rooms so I'm saying that might entail an additional room right there I I don't know what the projected infant number is for okay and how about the okay and how about the additional busing that you'd have to take the from their area which means the parents would have to go over by the mil Lake area and I'm sure those children would be just more comfortable in their own school because krap has always been in their schools well if they're if they're in the U program where they're being transported out anyway into another uh provider that they're being transported anyway so well that was only
072if they're going to after care for the bask at millik that was that's an if right if they're being transport although if they wouldn't be ordinarily transported they still wouldn't be and what about um if you run them out of business then we're going to be in the business of after care and before care for children above kindergarten level now we're talking about more teachers there also that that's that's getting into Flex care we're talking my parents say if you're a nurse you have to be in I know like you have to drop them off at 6:30 in the morning that gets very complicated because they're very flexible at B well Mrs ler that would be a great problem to have because that would mean more money for our taxpayers it would also mean hiring
073a lot of people and what about uh you know if sometimes parents are late the teachers have to stay that requires extra salary also a lot of times and they and these kind of um private places that you know you'd have to charge for that you'd have to figure that out a lot of times parents are late now we're getting into you know parents coming in from the city they didn't make it back till 7 o'clock who's going to stay there we deal with that right now every day I don't not on regular parents are working every day maybe for sports and things like that it is not at all unusual for a principal to have to stay behind because a parent is delayed for various reasons that's not at all unusual okay and and
074I would also like to say I agree with everybody because I was at the financial um committee meeting when Mr proso asked for a um a cost study you're asking for over $62,000 more and you don't even know if you're competitive on your tuition rates anything you have no cost study and you're asking for more money I I just I just don't think that's fair without a cost study I agree with everyone else who's been up here Mrs ler that's not true we have surveyed all the other providers and we've set our price to be as competitive as possible so we have done our research on your pie diagram cirle for com just one more thing you said that U they're interested interested does not mean you have a check in hand anyone else from
075the public Christ shy 8 foran Avenue um I just have a quick question I was under the impression that Basque was under a contract for 3 years so any subject of taking over would kind of be stopped for the the next 3 years so I'm a little bit confused why this is being brought up now when we're only one year into the contract uh we oh Mr Gori Dr Hamilton and I raised that question to the board attorney today who felt that it was not restricted for the board to engage in the enrichment program under the current terms of the contract mhm so then what is this discussion about I said it was not restricted meaning not so then what was the point of the contract that we settled on last year well there's certainly
076still a lot of services that are provided by the contract that the board is not um going engaging in the kindergarten wraparound program is one part of it it's a huge part of it well it gives it gives um parents another option there are a lot of people who might want to keep their kids in kindergarten or KP there might be other parents who want the enrichment program so our Basque program it we're not um looking to get rid of The Basque we had a three-year contract we signed with them we still I believe have two years to go with them we do and we're going to honor that contract but K is part of bass yes we know that it just gives parents another option okay and I just hope you as KP is
077also enrichment program and last year I spoke and I welcomed everyone to come to my program and Mr Klein was the only one who showed up to came to see what we do there so I welcome you all again to see what I do at my program and um there was one other oh and just to clarify yes it's an outside program but we are all Monroe residents who work there just to clarify that we have children who go to the Monroe Schools and we care about the students just like you all do and we're The Outsiders but really not thank you Nelson Chen for Ashley Court Mecca as it was designed as a failure the program was designed to benefit teachers and would allegedly come who would allegedly come back early from maternity and
078paternity Le leave and therefore save the district money the only problem was that the teachers did not sign up for the program and you cannot bring yourselves to admit it was a failure so you have redesigned Mecca to be an all day kindergarten this is nothing more than child care why is the school involved in a private Enterprise there is already an Al alternative in place as you just heard krap and Basque which will be comp which you will be competing against and now may be opening yourselves up to some litigation because there is a contract in place a real private Enterprise the school should be educating children not providing daycare You only doing this with the hope of recovering all the taxpayers money that you have already lost on Mecca uh 265,000 with this
079proposal of an additional 65,000 you say there is no that there is no cost to the program uh to the taxpayers yet you continue to borrow money from the taxpayers that should be used for school age children not a dayare Center you obviously do not know how to run when is this money going to be paid back all we hear are excuses why the program has failed was there a plan was there a study done sure there were projections at the last Finance meeting but all those projections rely on enrollment no real actual data how many deposits have you collected let me give you some real data to date there's only 17 and a half children enrolled in the program 7 uh come September you're saying that will be 24 I hope there's deposits on
080all those 24 you have stated that the reason for the daycare center was not was not successful this year was because by May the parents already know where their children will be enrolled and therefore no longer looking well may is here so what makes you think that your plan will be successful if your program doesn't succeed and you were full to capacity what happens when the teacher has a baby and wants to enroll that child in Mecca but you are full to capacity next year there will be a redistricting study conducted because of all the growth in our town the growth is creating space issues in our district we are renting trailers at some schools and Mecca is occupying a whole building on the grounds of mil lake with as many as five classrooms this
081space should be used for our school aged children not to run a daycare center or other programs you are inventing uses for this space and within 2 or 3 years you will be coming to the public to vote for the rental of trailers or the construction of additional schol schools why isn't this space being utilized for the school age children there have been many unaccounted for CA involved with Mecca as well your time Mr superintendent Mr gorsky's time Miss Marietta's time and other staff members and the time of the board as well and that time is forever lost that time should have been spent on our children thank you uh Bob zagari uh as you know uh board member Doug PO is not could not be here this evening and uh he was concern that
082a his message uh be passed on to the Board of Education during discussion of the proposed Early Childhood en Rich Madam president Mr Mr Presa we have member of the public speaking I understand that excuse me excuse me we have a member of the public speaking please please continue is there a problem this is a board member's letter that you should be reading should be read oh okay uh in any event I wanted to ask a few questions about um uh the the fact that you're using a building for this program uh and you have a special ed department and most special ed departments across the state are now interested in bringing as many students back uh into the district from out of District placements my question is and my concern is is this program
083in any way inhibiting the special ed Department in in that uh regard will special ed not be able to bring back students that are um in out of District placements uh back to the district because there is no room and also would they not be able to when they do bring back some of these students if they were to do it and I'm not saying that uh anyone should or uh is planning to do that would they not be able to open up some extra special ed classes um that you could charge tuition for and achieve your goal of uh bringing in some funds from other school districts or outside funds into the school district thank you thank you anyone else from the public this is the message from oh that's okay um he did
084not send me a message so I'm not planning to read a message from Mr poy can have my copy back please M Mr Po did not tell me to read anything to the to the public anyone else from the public wishing to speak on the Mecca hi good evening my name is stepen Ryback 23 Riviera Drive first I'm I'm extremely glad that I came today because I learned well quite a few things that I was unaware of before that being said gentleman's comments brought up the business plan sparked my interest to come up and speak because frankly I think he was right and I and I think you would think he was right also I'm sitting here listening to a proposed plan expansion of a program that's been failed um without even hearing the word
085pilot and please correct me if I'm wrong but shouldn't you be considering a pilot program before going you know full force into something new that you don't even know will succeed or how much things would cost I mean these are the things I think we need to hear and Mr pry also I think was 100% right in asking for a tabling of this motion clearly two board members are missing but I think you still have homework to uh to do because if you're going to present a program to the public you better be sure that it's a program that's going to be successful we can't afford any more failures thank you thank [Applause] you is there anybody else from the public sh AR min9 Nathaniel Street um again uh philosophically I don't have an objection
086to this kind of program however it seems and I've said it before and unfortunately because we're still discussing it I have to say it again it's a pattern of incomplete thought by the board to project what may happen and we have already some evidence that it hasn't it's not working yet um so I do still have a couple questions when you say projected and I think Mr uh Chen asked the question but didn't get an answer you have projected 20 23 for next September how many deposits do you have you have 23 deposit people have paid their deposits okay that's a good thing um Insurance liability how much is that costing for the program Mr Gorski according to our insurance broker um if there's a negligible cost when we added the mecca program was he
087estimated $1,500 annual increase in insurance I believe the bill came in between 11 and 1,200 and with infants in the building and and all that okay and that goes to my other question about how we we keep changing the language of what's going on we keep talking about this being an enrichment it's more of you know some people think it's babysitting service others are saying that it is an enrichment program you're going to be teaching the children even at a small level I'm sure you can teach a three-year-old 5-year-old very good things I know there's new studies about Early Education intervention however at one point you're saying well this enrichment and the other point you're saying you're not having certified teachers and you're not having professionals you're having power professionals so you're you're you're mixing
088things up again we're not getting a clear picture of what's Happening you're the state standard seems to be higher than what you are going to be proposing so that scares me as a taxpayer about liability it really seems if you're bringing infants into a room that $1,500 extra a year is not going to cover any form of liability the other question is um if Basque has professional teachers and I don't know um what staff they have but if they're professional teachers and I'm not always for privatization I'm a little bit more of a I guess a socialist than that but um if if Basque has teachers that we're not paying pensions on and and all those kinds of things then we're we don't have a future cost to the services that at Mecca would provide
089if we start the need for professionals and teachers and things then we're not going then we're we're going to have pensions we're going to have benefit liability and all that so that kind of stuff also should be considered in the cost of these programs again philosophically I'm not opposed to daycare for children so women can go to work and have professions and and families and it it helps families but again it's not a good it's not good planning and we need leadership for good planning and we need to really stop the well if we think it's a good idea we should just go forward with it and you look we've we've incurred millions of dollars of costs with that attitude not with this program but in general so please consider tabling it until we get
090all our facts thank you I'd like to Mrs am I'd like to respond to a couple of things you said there and I appreciate the opportunity to clarify um the teachers are not rep the staff members there are not not represented by a bargaining unit but they do have a pension they are District employees so they they are eligible for those right um and there is a certificated teacher on staff um and you're absolutely right as is Mr Chen the Catalyst for coming up with an alternative really is about raising the money it's about creating a mechanism to restore the funds that the district has put out to start up the mecca program it's an alternative funding source to make it solvent and pay that money back the mecca program we need something in the
091interum this time next year this could be a non-issue Mecca may be full to capacity and it may serve its purpose but if it does not the idea the Catalyst for what do we do to restore the money we had to come up with an alternative and we think this is a very viable one and one that will provide a solid Educational Foundation for our students and it is an educ ational program it is not what our children are expected to know and be able to do by the time they leave kindergarten will Amaze you kids are leaving kindergarten reading and writing in full sentences it is not cut like you and I may have experienced in kindergarten color and cut and pce it's a very different world and that's what this program is designed
092to do truncate those learning experiences uh the the Catalyst for the program was not an ideal scenario frankly but I think it created an ideal situation for us us to create great opportunities for our kids and and restore the financial burden to some extent to our taxpayers well I just like to say my objection is you keep changing you know we keep moving the goal and it's not fair to the taxpayers to keep moving the goal we were told in January it meant something at that point then we were told a few months later it meant something else all good intentions but we can't you owe the people people paying the bills an a a clear idea of what we're paying for thank you is there anyone else from the public wishing to speak then
093at this time we're going to close you've already had an opportunity to speak on I don't you are you going to have another public what are you speaking on Mecca yeah I am I just I just would like you folks if you're not going to table it to at least come to a please give your name I'm sorry Nelson Chen I think you all know me by now same address but the microphone doesn't so oh the microphone doesn't Hello yeah uh in any case I would like to have a sunset clause for Mecca and a commitment from you folks that we don't have to let you don't have to lend the program any more funds for the there's already been a commitment made by the finance committee that we would revisit this again next year
094earlier than we have this year and and decide what we want to do but as Michelle said you keep moving the goal you keep commit committing more money to a throwing throwing you know just throwing pots of money into the program and you owe it to us to at least have a sunset clause on this thing and not commit any more funds to it I mean you're Reinventing it you made excuses for it here we are again addressing the same issue we addressed 6 months ago and you know when you first started lending it money and now you're still hearing the same place make a commitment to the folks sitting here that you're not going to commit any more funds to it thank you this this is going to be the last comment on Mecca
095then we have to go through the rest of the agenda Tom not Stein 15 Nathaniel Street um I realize that the finance committee has said they want to revisit this earlier this next time but what does revisit mean um anytime we talk about education we always talk about a metric um something to correlate what we're seeing with the results what kind of metrics are we going to use if we're if we're down $20,000 is that going to be good enough if we're down $100,000 are we going to cut our losses what is that criteria going to be uh when we revisit this to say revisit what does that even mean again these are not business terms that this board is using because nothing against the board a requirement to be on the board does not
096mean you need to know how to run a business but obviously there's nobody here that does because you would never start a business first of all by financing heavily that's the guaranteed way to to to go into a failed business and secondly where is your your your steps I mean if anybody know anything about a business plan this is not how it's being done so again I urge you come up with some metrics uh for this revisiting and more importantly hold off what is the rush let's not rush into this it's got some great potential but not if you rush so please I urge you consider that okay at at this time we have a motion on the um floor Amy if you'd like to read the mo motion again and it's already been seconded
097Madam president I'm G to have Miss selis read the motion it is recommended by the finance committee that the Board of Education approve the Early Childhood enrichment program to operate in conjunction with Mecca at a monthly rate of $400 per student for a full-time program effective September 1st 2013 and to authorize the superintendent and the business administrator board secretary to take the necessary steps to ensure its implementation are there any further comments or questions by board members Mr tesler well he was first that's okay M Mr Tesla um I would like to maybe have a quick discussion on a on a clause saying that as of maybe the December board meeting if we're not making if we not break even or making a certain profit that we are going to sense out the program I
098don't know if we have to amend the the motion or the the uh the proper way to do that but I would like to be somehow incorporate that in this make it a separate separate motion that would be a separate motion we could before you do that maybe at the next Finance meeting why don't we start to formulate a business plan start to talk about you know timeline um money and that kind of thing I don't think we need a motion I think we can discuss it a finance well I I think we said every month that Finance we needed an update from the administration as to where we are that would be able what what I would like to see is maybe I'll just direct the finance committee at your next meeting to bring
099back at the next Board of Ed meeting that that concrete plan and information saying that you know uh here's the plan if we're not making a profit by this date by the end of the year then you know the next uh school year will be will terminate the program or for making a great profit and fantastic but I would like to well we'll do that on our monthly Finance meetings and we'll have make sure that there's a a a an item on the board agenda every month to to update everything even if it's done through Miss antelis um committee reports that's fine I would just like to see that concrete numbers at the next June board meeting Mr proso did you have a question uh I received a statement from Doug po asking me if
100you would read it he did not send me anything okay I I will be happy to read it this is a message from Doug po I don't I don't think that's appropriate for us to do that there's another board member who's absent well I unfortunately there's always a board member who is absent from our meetings and if he wanted me to read something he could have sent it to me and he didn't send me anything to read so at this time we'll have a roll call hold up now I now I have a problem um if we're going to I guess wait until the next Finance meeting to come up with some sort of plan and add additional Sunset Clause I I have a bigger issue with this now um I I agree with Mr
101presos I think we should table it till the next [Applause] [Music] [Applause] meeting can you just explain why I I I'm not quite understanding why you want to table it all of a sudden if exactly if we're going to wait till the next Finance meeting which I'm on and I thought we had a really good discussion contrary to what Mr presos said at the last meeting about this but bringing up Sunset Clauses And discussing these at the next meeting in a business plan and then agreeing that we are going to factor those into our decision to me that seems like we don't have all the information now and we should wait well one of the Mr Mr CH yeah I just want to I I I know Mr tesler early on um brought up that
102he thought it was important to have that that maybe he wouldn't uh if we weren't profitable in a year that he would like for us to revisit that uh and then he and then he just said that he you know he he wanted to see if this could be amended or a motion could be made in order to U in order to at least work that in so that we had some sort of sunset clause or at least Milestones to say here we are uh and something from a from a business perspective that gave us clear a clear plan as to where we want to go and then as we're going there how we're going to get there and and if we're on track um and that's what that's what businesses do so to to
103to to lose Point um I I think that that's very important and I think for us to come up with a business plan after the fact is counterintuitive and I don't think that that's the way I I think that this program will work and I think that what we did with Mecca um that I think that where we started it and and the late implementation hurt us but I think that I I do believe that uh thinking outside the box and looking for ways for alternative funds that those are important things for us to be looking at in many different areas and this is one of them but I don't think that this is something that we should be jumping into tonight without having a clear definition of uh of of the path and the
104Milestones that we need in order to make sure that we're successful I want it to be successful Well here here's the issue it's already may now if we sit here and hedge on this we're going to go through the same thing that we went through the last time parents are going to go well well now the board is not sure what they want to do they're doing this the reason I suggested the finance meeting was just to come up with a plan I think we need to go ahead with this we need to recoup the money we need to let the parents know but there's no reason why you can't set up a a plan after that and say we're going to do it for next year because we we're making that commitment and then
105at the end of next year if this is not working because we're not going to cut it off in the middle then halfway through or or um April of next year we say look this just isn't working people are not coming to it um but to do it now I think we're going to sabotage it I want to comment on Miss anelis because she's correct the longer we keep postponing this nobody's going to put their children into a program that the board has not approved so now you're looking until June and this is what happened last year nobody put their Pro their CH children into Mecca because it was not approved till July so we're going to do this we might as well not even do it right um [Music] as as Amy said we
106can do this in in finance we've already had board members ask for a a an update a complete update every single month and we already had um Miss Jensen tell us that we have 21 23 confirmed people for next year it's May we're going to get more so the longer we put this off the hard it's going to be to get people to commit now so that's just my op and we've made phone calls to parents talking about the enrichment program I really think we need to move ahead we through the finance committee we've given these ladies the permission to do these calls I think if you stop it now you're just going to sabotage the program just to clar clarify I I I agree and I think I do think this is a great
107program I think we should go forward with it um I think I don't know about my fellow board members if we can come up with some sort of sunset like Nelson was saying I'd be okay with it and then we can work on Amy's right we can work on the plan we can approve this and then we can have as somebody making a motion for Sunset Clause if you want to put that in because I know we've talked about a lot in finance and we have we've kind of formulated a lot I mean we've talked about this ad nauseum um but these to get it out there for the public to hear that we actually are committing to something um and it could be I don't want to say an estimate but it could be
108as close as we possi you got to make a good faith estimate I think I still think I agree with Ken it's a great I think this is a great plan Okay so Mr tesler all right yep again no disrespect anybody I do think it's a it's a it's a great it's a great service uh and and a great plan and well great program that we can provide and make some money but just thinking out of the box maybe other board members can discuss this too um if the finance Comm why do we have to wait a whole month couldn't we have a finance committee within the next week to discuss this come up with the numbers and the plan and have just have a special board meeting next week to discuss this so we
109don't have to wait all that time what do no we can have a finance committee and then bring it to the next board meeting with with the with the plan but right now we have a an agenda item that we need to take a roll call on I mean because all this all this um uh motion is doing is just having the superintendant and the board uh secretary take the steps to start the implementation and we've really already done that by calling parents and surveying them and if if I may I just want to remind remind the board of an earlier meeting where the board charged the administration with developing a gradual plan to begin to assume the kinds of services for our district that would generate additional funds akin to The Basque program so
110that's what we're doing so at this time we'll have a roll call Mr Gorski I'd like to make a motion we are in the middle of a roll call Miss anelis yes Mr Chella yes Mr calman yes Mr Masters yes Mr proso no Mr tesler yes Mrs kapano Madam board president motion passes thank you okay at this time food out of my children excuse me excuse me this time we will go to um number seven is maretta gonna take y maretta I hope we can kind of refocus a little bit maretta maretta maretta are you doing a PowerPoint yes well it's it's going to be back there I guess you want to bring It Forward talk to the board okay we're kind of move to the side so that you can kind of talk to
111every with with the microphone with the microphone with the microphone something here who the microphone there now I'm taking it out of the way how's that is that good yeah I'm I'm all right um ready I'm sorry that's okay that's okay okay tonight we also have a presentation next week is special education week and we'd like to celebrate our programs we'd like to celebrate our students their families our teachers and I think you're going to really enjoy this brief Montage of how we integrate our special ed students with our gen ed students throughout the programs so if we can begin that hello my name is Richard French the following is a video several weeks in the making we travel throughout throughout the district capturing events and programs in our schools showcasing special education students and
112their achievements we hope you enjoy [Music] it at mon Township High School Falcon pal students participate in an Adaptive physical education program Pals which stands for peer assistant learning socialization consists of 12 seniors six Juniors and five special needs students that participate in a peer interactive physical education program the class integrates socialization and character education with team building and fitness-based activities the Falcon pals are committed to making a safe enjoyable learning environment for all students involved [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] m [Applause] [Music] at Brookside students with autism develop social and communication skills through interactions with regular education students during Pals which stands for peer assisting in learning social skills the students with autism practice asking and answering socially appropriate questions with their buddy and work together to complete a cooking recipe after
113the recipe is completed and enjoyed the students work together on a structured activity to enhance their social skills and friendship some of the activities this year have included crafts games puzzles mazes and iPad games [Music] at M Lake School students are engaged in activities that let them demonstrate empathy and understanding that people are different in many ways teacher Denise Quinn in her class read and discuss the book Andy and his yellow frisbee which is about a boy who prefers to play alone spinning his yellow frisbee despite the attempts of a friendly girl who tries to engage him in play students then try spinning frisbees themselves and are prompted to think about why Andy would like doing it [Music] in this activity the emphasis is on accepting people for who they are at learning how to
114use a variety of friendship skills that may lead to positive interactions how can we be a friend to someone who is different who is different to us than us she's them really nice okay you you can ask for their names and that's where empathy comes in how do you want to be treated if you're having trouble with something and you don't understand you treat people how you want to be treated I love that give me a high five good job okay now boys and girls you've built a great puzzle here and here's a message that I want you to go away with we are all connected all of us all people are connected somehow and we've built a puzzle with autism answers and questions that explains to us when we have this discussion how we
115can understand and have empathy for people who are [Music] different at Barkley Brook third fourth and fifth grade Lunch Bunch students from Brookside School visited second grade classrooms for an Autism Awareness activity these general education students shared their knowledge of autism as well as the experience and The Importance of Being a Friend to students with autism people with Autism are wired differently from other people this means that their brains work differently people with Autism also have often have a hard time making friends or learning how to act around people many of the things you do every day can be difficult for people with autism remember even though people with autis may have different from you or your other F they are special in lots of wonderful way people with Autism do not like to be
116surprised they feel much more comfortable when things are predictable people with Autism sometimes find it hard to talk but find the right words to say some people with Autism are nasty G people with Autism may like to play in different ways than you do but just like you they enjoy playing um I like Lunch Bunch because you get to help other kids with special needs Lunch Bunch is really fun when you are helping someone with a autism or other disabilities you are helping yourself be a better person you can help your friends out make friends in your grades or in special classes house is like you being a teacher to especially [Music] kids at Woodland School fourth grade General and special education students participated in a children's yoga class yoga promotes inner strength and confidence
117self-esteem a feeling of well-being and respect for others yoga is also used in the classroom to enhance literacy and help students Focus relax and develop self-control [Music] n [Music] hi Antonio hi my name is and nice to meet you nice to meet you too you too also at mon Township High School students Uchi and Antonia hosted a meet and greet with superintendent Dr Hamilton administrators Board of Education members and parents the purpose of this event was to Showcase their job sampling activities two of the newly built apartment setting and to preview the new Falcon Life program for the 2013 2014 school year anding dance and this is a bed I made this is the B uses and this to Foods and this the sink we wash our hands and or washes the dishes have seat
118everyone this a picture of the school store where I walk the school store putting clothes with t-shirts pants t-shirt next you do the notice of where the sign in we watered WRA J finally we wrapped them in red boil these are the pictures of me making the bed in an our new apartment E [Music] this to teach us what are you doing here I'm going to cookies [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] good [Music] job thank you um there were a lot of people who were involved from teachers to administrators to Boris who put this all together for us um high school students who videotaped all they are on our special ed department and I think something to remember is what Miss Quinn said to all of her students we're all connected
119and I think tonight we should take a look at that and celebrate for special education thank [Applause] you thank you that was really really nice okay we're going to go to our student board member reports student board member good evening ladies and gentlemen uh this month is a busy month filled with a lot of testing um on May 4th the SATs took place at minor tup high school May 10th 10th is a half day due to Junior Prom AP testing is taking place from May 6th to May 16th the Multicultural Fair will be held on May 17th in the cafe at 700 p.m. also the New Jersey biology exam is from uh May 21st to May 22nd and school is closed on May 27th for Memorial Day thank you thank you um at this time
120we will go to public forum anyone wishing to speak to the agenda but not to Mecca please uh state your name and address and um for the record we can't speak about Mecca Ona if if you would like to all Klein 53 turnbury I want to compliment Mr prosa for having enough guts to do the right thing and that is to table the vote and the reason why I'm saying it's not taken away from the other people on the board but when you have questions that are not set in stone and you have a tremendous amount of taxpayers complaining about it and all they want to know is the truth actual figures basically what Miss anelis just did is what um Miss Pelosi did when it came to voting on Obamacare we're going to vote
121on it now and I'm going to read it later and that's what you have here as far as bass goes Let It Be I'm not a lawyer you're going to be you're going to talk to V you have a three-year contract with Basque if I'm not mistaken if you go out on your own and you take business away from them they have a right to break the contract which means you stand to lose $100,000 that they're presently paying you know that that's a going operation highly successful I'm not saying what you're going to do here is not but we're not at the point that you can afford to make another mistake like the iPads the iPads went that should have been a pilot program they went full bore we lost a lot of money and
122I'm not looking to lose more money here I thank you Mr preciosa well done anyone else from the public good evening Tom notein 15 ethaniel Street um this goes to a question on the uh the agenda or actually on the what's missing from the agenda I feel once again um the superintendent report uh starting on October 8th 2006 running from running to 1216 of 2009 including an item called violence SLS substance abuse SL SL estimated violence SL vandalism costs and uh I certainly have brought this up numerous times in the past and now I had the hard evidence that it is no longer in since uh since very recently actually why why is that no longer here and what do we need to do to get it back why was it ever even taken out
123Dr Hamilton um I know we do the viol evangelism report according to to stri right in October and that's what we're required to do however if that's information the board directs the superintendent or ba to put on that's perfectly okay but why was it ever taken out obviously they must have directed them at some point where was the motion to remove it on 1216 I don't know that there I don't recall that there there was a motion to remove so it sounds like it should have been in there all along if there was no motion to take it out and it's been in there since 2006 it stands to reason that it should still be in there without any board action correct if the board wants any it doesn't need board action I just need
124some Direction that's all but who gave the direction to take it out obviously we did something without Direction and now we don't want to do something I don't know that it was a deliberate action okay well could somebody I mean I don't see why you can't check if it was in there on 1216 2009 like I show on this paper why do we need to the board to do anything except whoever does that report should just put it back in we'll make sure that it's in on on a monthly basis or would you prefer quarterly which is easier for you um I mean we have the information just a matter I don't know why it was taken out I don't either actually I didn't know it was in there okay okay we'll look at that
125uh good evening I'm Joe hoki 61 Hoffman Road uh back in November I was asked by president Kathy to be on the committee for growth in the in the district and uh couple minutes later she asked me if I would chair that committee and I said yes I I'll do that and uh I had nothing to do with who the committee members are and so on but we did have three meetings the first meeting was quite well attended a lot of people there although there was a very heavy administrative presence uh the second one was very much the same and the third meeting unfortunately there were more administrators than people from the township so I'm asking you Kathy and the board to appoint to this committee or search out people representing all segments of the
126community uh because there's no sense in having a study made if there's no input from the people uh throughout the township uh I don't want to get involved in the uh what you voted on before before because I don't really know enough about it I'm familiar with the bass program then the other one know but my concern has been and is what happened the last three meetings that we've had it's very obvious that space for students in Monroe Township is at a critical point and what's going to happen is this particular program I'm not against it but it's going to take up space it's going to take up space from student students who are up higher up in the uh in the grades so that's my concern and the way I see it now two
127or three years from now three years from now there won't be any space and the only option is let's build another school or let's add on to a school because readed district is not going to work if there's no space in the northern part of the township so I'm just simply saying that my main concern is that space is very very critical and we have to be very careful how we use it now you're shifting uh special at from here to the trailers and so on eventually there's no place else to switch these people so you have to do something and of course the only option is going to be that you're going to have to come up with uh a plan to build a school and of course you know already that the high
128school in about 3 or four years is going to need an adition it's it's going to be NE necessary because the numbers are there and I just want to say two more things the decision that the committee made up to now and the committee continues to work the number one decision was that we need an updated study and what's the status of that have we started that uh Dr Hamilton yes we have um commissioned a demog we were looking for a new demographer if you recall and when do you think it will be done uh did he give us a date yet Mike uh I don't recall seeing it yet yeah I I don't know that he's given us a date his his commission is relatively recent well anyway whenever it's done whether it's June
129or July or August we will the committee will reconvene and I hope by that time we have additional members that we're looking for and of course the other thing is we did expand or we did were told that there is room at the middle school or apple guard school and uh I guess your team already has started to uh create classrooms new classrooms is that correct not not yet not yet but that's going to it's in the works correct okay all right I just wanted to mention about the uh the growth that we have thank you Mr koki sh min9 ethaniel Street will the nepotism policy control the mecca hirings yes yes they will oh well because it's a different entity so I want to be sure so clearly the nepotis of policy is in
130effect for that yes ma'am okay um will any board members be recusing themselves on Personnel R number page nine play play sixth gr play yes I don't I don't see any reason why any sitting board member would need to refuse themselves from that item okay Mr Kaufman's relative is not in on the is that's not his relative okay thank you and um I just would like to know if um and I might have misunderstood missant Tellis but I thought I she said that they made a decision in the committee meeting and I I'd like to know are things decided by committee or decided by the board the Committees make recommendations to the board and then the board will vote on anything so I hate I hate to just get involved in semantics here but when
131when it is said that the committee decides I think that that's not really the case it should be a discussion here okay well I didn't hear that I heard decided should so it should be recommended and it should be discussed in public which lately it has been and I commend the board for that that um I think that's all I have right now thank you thank you anyone else from the board public seeing no one we will close Public public forum and we will go to the approval of minutes for public Board of Education meeting April 17 2013 so Mr Mr Masters and Mr Chella um comments or questions all in favor I I opposed extensions okay the closed session meeting of April 17th Mr Chella second second by Mr Masters all in favor I
132I opposed abstentions the approval of the minutes for the special Board of Education meeting April 13 2000 April 30th 2013 some move second Jella Mr Masters all in favor I I opposed abstain abstain miss antalis abstains Mr kofman abstains and the Clos session meeting of April 30th 2013 Mr Chella second Mr tesler all in favor opposed extensions miss miss analis and Mr Kaufman okay at this time we will go to the superintendent's report okay thank you madam president um at the next Board of Education meeting or the June meeting um the first meeting in June um uh the administration and uh members of the superintendent Advisory Group will be presenting the state of the district address and this address will in include highlights from our elementary middle and high schools along with key departments in
133the district along with an analysis our student achievement data so we're hoping that that um that meeting will be well attended Madam president I would recommend that we host that particular meeting in the Performing Arts Center no not a problem okay um and we will also have our qac review which is scheduled for May 30th um we are ready we've been ready for the last uh two months for cusac so I have no reservation or concerns about our ability to again pass that process with flying colors moving on to the superintendent report the enrollment data is listed there again I continue to call your attention to the number of students in our district that continue to grow um I also would like to point out out the enrollment for outof district placements that are listed
134in your agenda and the home instruction those students that are uh homebound for various reasons those numbers are included for your awareness as well moving on to item three our fire drills and study drills are enclosed on your agenda again each school has been compliant with conducting the skill the drills that are required by law moving on to the Personnel report Madame board president and members of the Board of Education it is recommended by the superintendent that Personnel items a through AA be approved by roll call vote so move second Mr cherella Miss anelis said there any comments or questions for Dr Hamilton they seeing none we'll have a roll call Mr Gorski Miss anelis yes and recuse myself on item T like Tom so noted Mr Cher excuse me just only because it happened
135to another board member oh yes you can't second this motion no no saying trying to keep it clean house all right so we have a motion by Mr Cher second by Mr Masters thank you Mr Coffman that's right this is up to aa aa yes Mr Chella yes Mr zareski yes Mr calman yes recuse on item S's and Sam so noted Mr Masters yes cioso yes Mr tesler yes Mr Pano Madam board president personel items a through double A passes thank you and moving to board action items Madame board president members of the Board of Education it is recommended by the superintendent that board action items a through I be approved by roll call vote Please Mr cherella second second by Mr tesler comments or questions for Dr Hamilton question on G Mr Masters that's
136the stien position correct that is correct thank you Mr seski on C the field trips my understanding that there's no cost for nine out of the 10 field trips out of this Jeff Dr Gorman I'm sorry I don't have the list in front of me I only showed a cost uh saw cost for I'm guessing is a bowling trip for the 9th through 10th 12th graders that's the mecca program trip Maps what are the some of the what are the let me just say that's the um me that's um the maps program that's a curriculum funded um field trip that's the only field trip that we're paying for there's no cost on any other one and my belief with let me just make sure I'm on the same place you are but my belief is
137that the others are paid by either PTO or students maybe in the future we have some kind of notation on this if there zero cost then we don't then we then it's it's funded by students and parents and Andor PTO raised funds um I had that question a couple months ago I I'll get the list and I'll just double check and make sure with you thank you anyone else but that's actually not a bad suggestion I'd like to know who's paying for it is it the PT the PTO or the kids uh whatever clubs that's not a bad idea small notation on the side and it's a little recognition I guess it's good the yeah Lou are you paying for it that or pay for launch that's part of the approval process I have no
138problem giving you those details okay thank you so in the future we'll just add that to the agenda sure okay any other comments or questions then roll call Miss anel yes yes Mr Chella yes Mr zareski yes Mr calman yes Mr Masters yes Mr proso yes Mr tesler yes Mrs colano Madame board president board action items a through I passes thank you that concludes the superintendent's report hi we will go to the business administrator report Mr Gorski Madame board president and members of the Monroe Township Board of Education it is recommended that board action items a through e be approved by consent roll call Mr Chella second second by Miss analis are there any comments or questions for Mike seeing none we'll have a roll call Miss antelis yes Mr Chella yes Mr zareski yes
139Mr calman yes Mr Master yes Mr proso yes on everything but e that's a no on E so noted Mr tesler yes Mrs K Pano yes madame board president board action items a through e passes that concludes my report thank you um we'll go to the board president report and mine's going to be very short um a couple of um months ago during a board meeting I talked about I talked about uh sending a joint letter to the governor for Monroe and Jamesburg in regard to the legal situation we're in with the um Bond refer of money so I did get a a little email back from the governor's office and I just want to read it to you um Dear Miss kapano thank you for your recent request to schedule a meeting with Governor
140Christie to discuss specific emerging financial and budgetary issues with the monot tangent Board of Education unfortunately the governor has a very full schedule and we are not able to accommodate your request at this time the governor sends his best wishes for a successful resol solution to the outstanding issues as you continue working through the Department of Education and commissioner surf's office so that's where we are with that it doesn't look like they're going to be able to help us that could be a long wait and as far as I know s um 1701 is still alive since we haven't heard it's died yet so at this time we'll go to committee reports is there any report uh committees that need to report this evening Miss analis uh yes we had a finance committee meeting um
141one of the items discussed was the mecca the second item was the Food Service management company we had a request for proposal and Mr Gorski updated the committee on the request he discussed the timeline and the charges introduced to this RFP which will better serve the taxpayers and administration's oversight of Staff um he also gave us a fixed asset that's appraisal schedule Mr gors you want to just explain what that is yes under accounting pronouncement gby 34 the district is required to do a fixed asset appraisal annually whereas assets valued at $500 and higher are accumulated in a report and assets valued over $2,000 are compiled in a separate report uh the first lower threshold is for insurance purposes the latter is for recording appreciation and categorizing Assets in a government-wide financial statement and the
142comprehensive annual financial report at the end of the year um and we are going out to quote and we will be recommending to the Board of Education the lowest qualified um uh quote presenter uh in an effort to procure this service uh efficiently thank you um we did have the next committee meeting scheduled for Thursday June 3 13th and I'd just like to announce that our meetings uh finance committee meetings will now be held at Brookside school media center because the public a lot of public has come I think uh being in that little conference room is just not viable anymore and I think gives the chance for all the public to come and listen to the finance committee meeting so the next one will be at the Brookside school media center and we will
143have it before June 13th that's it okay we had a buildings and grounds meeting on the 30th I'll go through them as fast I can uh we had some concerns over at Oak Tree traffic and um some animal control with the wreck Fields directly behind the building where people were maybe walking their dogs and not leashing their dogs correctly and they were also driving over school property with their cars to get into the back there which is an unauthorized uh parking lot uh we authorized some signs some Shrubbery uh and we also are going to allow the wreck at their expense to put a portable bathroom back there so they could use that Barkley trailer update um we're looking into some issues with mold in one of the trailers we're going to rip off some
144of the uh facade and make sure that it's not invasive before we uh go ahead with two-year extension Barkley Brook crawl space had some issues with termites uh we're also requisitioning a design spec for 2014 to to remediate some of the asbest that's in there uh the Dr TRS efficiency report which is the transportation efficiency report I don't know what the acronym stands for um we are the best in the county as of the new report and we're among the highest in the state and that resulted in an increase of uh is it $20,000 in transportation Aid awarded to the township the pscg grant has been awarded and started work in Barkley Brook they're replacing all the light fixtures with with more efficient ones there's no cost of the district at all um Applegarth had
145some paperwork and some tests that that we just had to finalize with some of the issues over there uh and FEMA we're moving ahead with our damage claims with FEMA and some of the grants for possibly new generators and some other stuff uh supposedly a positive meeting hopefully by June we'll hear about it so next month thank you anyone else have a committee meeting I have another one you have more I have more uh April 26 was the middle sex Regional Education Service Commission meeting I'm not going to go through it's it's a pretty lengthy agenda but read it you want me to read it or you want to read it I have no problem motioning that you read this entire thing no don't do that because I we'll have to vote then Mr Tesla
146will have to read that would be great uh basically we talked about possibly selling more of the programs to some of the surrounding districts including Brick Township um there was discussion about school specialty which is another similar program that actually fired chapter 11 it was bought out by its stockholders they sold six unused school buses because they actually have underutilization of their school buses we also did the superintendence evaluation if anybody really cares um not our super just to clarify yes um and we also talked about some of the um programs they have for autism aw Awareness Month including um children singing the Star Spangled Banner at some of the minor league baseball games nice it was very nice actually yeah thank you anyone else okay then we will go to Other Board business is
147there any business by any member of Mr tesler the Board of Education just real quick I'll make it official I'd like to make a motion to include the vandalism and steps and abuse poort to the agenda of each board meeting second by Mr Chella any comments or questions can we just all in favor yes let me just write down the motion please repeat the motion motion to include the vandalism and sub vandalism and substance excuse me abuse Port reuse I can't even speak tonight report yes abuse report to the agenda of each Board of Education meeting second was Mr Chella okay all in favor wait I have a question we know what this report is right it yeah essentially all it does is it what the report would do is extract from um the suspension
148reports for example the infractions that are specific to violence and vandalism and if there's a cost and if parents are responsible for have all all in favor I opposed exstension MO passes any other board business I have another I'm sorry don't go because I got a couple than uh my next installment of construction around Monroe so we have Monroe Chase if anybody lives in oak tree they just open there uh development it's about a 100 units uh and then we also have Monroe Stratford Meadows which not a lot of people know about it's actually behind oak tree uh they're putting up 26 condo units each housing four condos so we're talking another 150 kids and there's also the Orchards Orchards I think which is behind CVS which I think is a even larger one but
149I couldn't get the numbers so I'll run those numbers next meeting but if again if you just I just want to put it in numericals if you push that out over five years of development and I know Monroe straford Meadows is already I think sold out maybe one or two aren't sold they're not even built yet but they're completely sold out uh we're talking an additional $2.15 million we're going to have to absorb in student costs so that brings the grand total so far to 9,827 757 over 5 years that's it any questions for Mr Masters yeah just qu you're including the uh what's it called the village and that that those figures which is the that's the mount Mills road development as well that's 500 units 5 738 million okay is this the the
150cost of adding that many students yes it's our cost that's our using the 1463 number are they expecting to Monroe and they're they're talking uh 522 units I believe and the0 75 coefficient so you're talking uh 80 over the three bedrooms uh 80 about 80 students I think in 27 per year though oh that was over the that was total I'm not I'm using the mayor's 75 coefficient because I think that was more accurate um yeah over that so it's five .7 for the mount Mills one that's the village that's vage and then the 33 Route 33 one any M what that one's called that's 1.9 unit Monro Manor Monro Manor that is part of Monro Manor over there there's two condo buildings that are um in the process right now of being sold does
151that conclude your report next meeting I'll have the Orchard and I think there's another one going up on the other side and you'll have total of adding all I'll keep totaling it okay sounds like miss anelis it looks like we have a lot of work for the ad hoc committee um Mr Gorski and I have been actively pursuing Senator Greenstein on s237 and um Mike I know you spoke to her today so maybe you could relate um what she had to say yes thank you um that's absolutely correct uh if anybody's new the district has introduced um our inhouse prepared legislation to address our state aid under funding issue um we recognize that the senior population in Monroe which exceeds onethird of the population according to the last decennial census is hurting because of the
152amount of taxes that is are being absorbed by our local tax levy um 85% of the district's Revenue sources are raised through the local Levy consequently most of the seniors are paying the taxes and in an effort to address that we wrote legislation um uh specific that if a district has a a population in excess of one3 65 years or older that uh the state fully fund their own model for funding schools called the school funding formula and uh afford the district that full amount without any amortization that would be an approximate additional $9 million for our district annually in the form of state aid as Finance chair Miss anelis and I have been in constant communication with Senator green Greenstein who introduced its legislation to the Senate and we have a favorable report from
153Senator Greenstein uh yesterday that she feels she's made inroads with Senator Sweeney who's the power broker in the Senate on the Democratic side and Senator Sweeney promises his cooperation with this legislation if like most political issues we may not get the full amount that's proposed there may be limitations that are added to this there may be additional qualifiers but I think from from speaking to Senator Greenstein at this point it's more probable than not that Monroe is going to be receiving an additional Award of state aid based upon our efforts to introduce this new legislation and uh Miss anelis and I will keep uh the public in the board updated on this thank you kudos to you Mike and Ken for all the work you've done on this thank you um I also want to
154mention on April 19th we had a um Monro education found fundraiser here at the school which it was the teachers versus the Monroe Police Department the teachers once again won uh I just want to thank Mr Goodall thank you so much for all your um effort and and getting things done to Elliot Feldman and I know I saw him here before who was the captain of the team so thank you Elliot uh to the Monroe Township Police Department and I don't think I can say enough about the custodial staff in this building they are amazing um you would just turn around they'd be standing there there was nothing that they couldn't do for you it it was a good night for all um just wanted to talk a little bit about the special needs programs
155um I have a special needs daughter who went through Monroe Schools she's 29 years old now and I really wish that we had had these programs when she was young and she didn't have to go out of the district um these programs are made so that we keep our children in the district and aren't paying these high costs of these programs besides the fact that children get to stay amongst their peers so um again again kudos to to you Dr Hamilton and Mr Gorman Mike for putting together um this program at the high school and on April 14th here uh I'm sorry at the Middle School uh the Henry rickless Holocaust committee had the yamasa uh I just want to commend our students um I believe they were here yesterday again rickless um so we
156bring Holocaust Survivors into the school to to talk to the students and then we asked them to submit essays this is not mandatory this is strictly a voluntary program last year over 196 students submitted essays um it you can tell that not a sound is made when these people are in the room it's it's just an amazing program so thank you for that and that's it anyone else have any other board business everybody's done I want to discuss what we talked about before about the sunset policy if we're going to do that now I don't even know if that's the correct I had to look it up that's that might be not be the correct termin ology because it's Sunset clause or Sunset law is really uh I'm just reading it as we it talks
157about a law that actually expires uh unless it's re uh unless it's extended which maybe it is what we're trying to go for here but I think minimally we should have Milestone meetings like Ken said uh we could probably do them at the finance committee and then bring them back to the board as a whole um for deliberation of discussion um me and I were talking about a date of the October board meeting to kind of figure out where we are for next year uh and I don't want to throw anything out there in stone I'm just throwing it out there see what people think so we'll think about it we'll bring it to finance we'll see what Finance comes up and then Finance can make a a a recommendation or a a report to
158the board at the next I think minimally though we should have Milestones set up or at least Milestone reporting set up at every Finance meeting which we kind of do now making it more official um so we can kind of keep track of this um and I'm thinking it should Encompass uh expenditures enrollment that's that's the two that's that's the meat of the matter I mean we're not going to start talking about electricity consumption or something like that but that would go to expenditures really um and again to formally bring it back to the board as a whole okay and you're on finance and Amy's on finance set something up within the next two weeks that's the first half the second half is do we want to actually set a sunset some sort of sunset
159provision on this I don't know if I really want to be 100% in that I mean because the sunset provision is only as strong as the members that support it we can always just re-extend it like we like we did already um so I don't know how strong it's going to be if we say you know by October 16th if we're not break even profitable um do we want to cut the program then or I would be more comfortable saying by October 16th if we're not not break even profitable we should have a major discussion on this a full board discussion too not a problem I don't think that's a problem so what basically what I'm saying is we do Milestones every Finance meeting so we keep it in finance but I think if we
160have an issue either before then or on the October 16th meeting almost like a drop dead date we bring it to the board as a whole okay any you have a problem with that really I don't that's good I'm trying to mix both the finance and I think it's a good idea okay great anybody else I just would like some clarification on next Finance meeting you said June 13th no we had just planned for June but now that we're discussing this we're going to move it up to somewhere within the next two weeks I thought it was in May you had one planned I could be wrong I don't think so I think at the next Finance meeting yeah yeah we just had we talked about June 13th I think or something that's after the
161next no we're going to have but within the next two weeks before the next board meeting okay is there any other board business was seeing none uh closed session resolution be it resolved that the Board of Education of the township of Monro hereby moves to go into close session in accordance with Sunshine Law chapter 231 of the public laws of njsa njsa 10 col 4-6 through 10 col 4-21 to discuss the following subjects Personnel Employee number 00225 employee number 00 3190 employee number 3 00 3497 employee number 00 3272 to discuss Personnel matters student matters harassment intimidation and bullying incidents 35 through 37 and a continuation of board confidential ity discussion the discussion conducted in Clos session can be disclosed to the public at such time as the matters have been resolved is there a
162motion to go and close session that much 50 45 45 minutes it should take about 45 minutes probably less U probably do you want to move the public form ahead I think 45 minutes probably probably good okay any a motion to go into close session I made a motion m santalis is her second second second by Mr M do we want to move the public form ahead of close session since it'll be 45 minutes there's a motion on the floor so take action on that motion and then you can entertain another motion to move the public for to be there will be action yeah presumably yeah so we might just want to keep it the way it is um all in all in favor I oos opposed abstentions then at this time the board will
163move into close session at this time the board will reconvene into public session and let's see we will go to public forum anybody wishing from the public wishing to speak should I do my motion oh sure I'm sorry um whereas the superintendent of schools has recommended that the Monroe Township Board of Education withhold Dean Quest employment and adjustment increments for the 2013 20104 school year due to the reasons set forth in the superintendent's letter dated May 8th 2013 to Dr Quest advising him of the superintendent's recommendation to withhold his increment and whereas following due consideration the board agrees with the recommendation of the superintendent and the reason therefore now therefore be it resolved by the Monroe Township Board of Education that Dean Quest employment and adjustment increments for the 2013 2014 school year shall be
164withheld so that his 2013 2014 salary shall be fixed at $65,625 Plus $5,750 for his Doctorate which is the same as as his salary for the 2012 2013 school year and be it further resolved that within 10 days of the date of this resolution is it has been approved by the board the superintendent hereby is directed to provide Dr quest with a copy of this resolution notifying him that his employment and adjustment increments have been withheld motion is second miss anelis Mr Chella any comments or questions then we'll have a roll call Miss anelis yes Mr cherella yes Mr zareski yes Mr calman yes Mr master yes Mr proso yes Mr tesler yes Mrs K Pano Madam board president motion pass thank you is that that's it yes thank you then we will go to
165public forum anyone from the public wishing to speak please come to the microphone state your name and address for the record sh AR min9 at thel Street I would before I do do anything else I'd like to volunteer for Mr homoki's committee absolutely you can volun you can get in touch with I'll give you my information at the end we have M write that down okay can you please review the um closed session the resolutions of the close session of April 17th and April 30th please excuse me what happened on April 30th and April 17th in the close session April 17th you have have the minutes right I do not have the minutes with me on the computer was it the superintendent's evaluation the 30th was um the special Board of Education me with the
166close session is um it was in regard to the superintendent evaluation okay no it wasn't 30th special board meeting was the superintendent evaluation was that in April April okay and what about um and that's ongoing well you approve the minutes so once you approve the minutes it should be open to the public well if approve the minutes tonight they won't go up until tomorrow yes but it's already happened so what's the resolve it's the superintendency evaluation and what happened we had a discussion it's ongoing his evaluation okay and what about the 17th uh just to be um was there any resolutions voted on after those sessions just want to point out one thing on the superintendent valuation there it is a deliberative process there has been no formal action taken yet okay you I don't
167have the the minutes for the 17th of April once you have the closed minutes I believe they're open to public scrutiny like I can open the closed minute sessions at this time correct one moment let me uh consult with my one can you shut the timer off please I don't know how to set the timer off well just shut it off and give me some well no you have uh 57 TCH yeah we've waited for you so give me a little break well it wasn't 45 minutes so that much M oh by the way the staff the the support staff I would like to just AC uh uh applaud for the kinds of stress they're probably under a great deal of time so thank you very much indeed that's an understatement thank you yes it
168is and I've always been treated with respect and courtesy at the board when I go which is frequent so I do appreciate all the staff members and I believe there's a young lady in the back here named Arianne that's very helpful as well yes uh the matter on the 17th was a residency hearing um where the the uh Board of Education the Board of Education heard a matter presented by Dr Hamilton and uh the board of educ Board of Education approved a parents appeal for a residency matter and the child remains on our registers okay and I I I missed this before um the other public uh open mic uh so I'd like some qualific on F board action F the Avid implementation agreement so all that money is going to the town uh to
169the school to the board of ed number f as in Frank it's recommended that the board approve the Avid implementation agreement effective July 1 can you explain those numbers anyone take it you have it in front of you I have the specific numbers about the exactly what the fees are um without using exact numbers each there are two sites in the district the high school and the middle school each comes with a license for the year it's about $3,800 I do believe there's also a curricular resource for about $525 the rest of it is all professional development at the summer Institute which is 3 days in the summer and that's the extent of the Avid agreement we we pay that out or we'd collect that in we pay that as part of our budgeting process
170so does any is there is there individuals that get paid this or is it all for training it's all for training but are and and who what individuals are involved in this um each site does a sends out um site team members and teachers and the teachers attend the training in the summer okay all right I can look into that thank you Nelson Chan for Ashley Court uh I just want to know have any of you looked at the uh state issued report card for the high school is is that the one that's on the website the yeah I did did Dr Hamilton look at it oh yes okay okay uh are you satisfied with that report card I very proud of some parts of it and I think it presents opportunities for growth in
171the other part what happens with that report card just so you know it is it's an embarked held in embargo um for generally two weeks before it goes to the public so that principles and superintendents have an opportunity to review it so we actually do see it before it goes public okay and and uh so the numbers that I'm going to read are accurate uh academic achievement for the high school 18th percentile amongst our peer group uh College and Career Readiness 29th percentile for our peer group graduation and postsecondary 44th per percentile for our peer group uh I understand that we fared okay when compared to other high schools in the state but amongst our peer group demographic socioeconomic background we have not fared so well uh is that a fair statement given these numbers
172I would say in some areas that would be a fair statement yes okay all right well well I really think that we need to focus where we should be focusing on this rather than on running a daycare center thank you anybody else from the public wishing to speak please come to the microphone Maryann Lester 44 Avenue I um Mr praso had a statement from Mr poy earlier and I was wondering if he could read it now or Mrs kapana which uh as I understand the problem earlier there was a motion on the floor already and you were waiting to vote on it so that why is why is probably wasn't read can we have that now no it wasn't read because it was not given to me by Mr Po to read to the board
173members excuse me sorry so um is there a policy that um precludes Mr proso or any other board member from reading a statement in proxy from another board member elected by the taxpayers is there a policy concerning that to chair a parliamentary procedure usually if somebody had something that they wanted read during a board meeting they would give it to the the chair of the board to read um then I would know that that's coming from a certain person and the reason that they they want something R doesn't happen very often but it has happened in the past okay and that's um and what policy number is that or where can I it's not it's just parliamentary procedure okay thank you anyone else okay um I need to set up a meeting for the board
174members who are involved in the evaluation to meet within the next couple of weeks to um talk about the superintendent evaluation and I don't have my calendar here so I'll have to rely on you I have my manual calendar right here we all need to have one of those um I I know Mr Po is on vacation and he will be back on the this is June he will be back on the 18th of May so are are we free would be be free that week after the 18th anytime what do you have well you don't have the 22nd 23rd what's this for what meeting is this for to discuss the superintendent evaluation a special meeting well well we'll do what we did last time is we opened it up to the public we had
175public forum and we went into Clos session we'll do the same thing yes is the 22nd good for everybody 22nd hold on I'm checking with my calendar a live calendar my live calendar May 22nd it's Wednesday right yeah coordinator the date planner huh she says uh yes yes I know two signs would somebody like to put that into a motion to have a special Board of ation meeting I could do that yeah I could do that uh make a motion well I won't make a motion I recommend that we have a special Board of Education meeting on Wednesday May 22nd to discuss the superintendent evaluation who move second Mr Tesla Mr Masters excuse me thir oh you're Zing it okay anybody want to go for four that's seven or 6 7 uh 7:00 p.m. here
176at the high school okay all in faor or we need a we don't need a roll call do we do we need a roll call all in favor opposed abstentions which would be Miss analis and Mr Kaufman okay thank you very much so our next schedule public Board of or special public Board of Education meeting will be held on Wednesday May 22nd 7:00 p.m. at the high school um motion to adjourn move second who was that Mr Coffman and second by m tesler all in favor opposed exensions and meeting is adjourned