Monroe Township Board of Education 02.13.13 Regular Meeting

001[Music] good evening the meeting of the Monro Township Board of Education will come to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all there I am may we have a roll call Mr I'm going back Mr gor yes ma'am Mrs K Pano here Mr tesler here miss antelis here Mr Braverman Mr Chella here Mr calman here Mr Masters here Mr Po here 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 Monroe Township Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having

002the date time and place thereof posted February 8th 2013 one at all schools two home News Tribune three cranberry press and four filed with the clerk of the municipality and before we go on with the rest of the agenda uh I understand that it has started to snow and um looks like we're supposed to be getting a little snowstorm this evening so there'll be a good possibility that we will be plowing and salting and sanding so we are going to limit our board meeting tonight till 9:30 so that we can make sure that everybody gets home safe and sound and I appreciate your understanding of that so at this time we will go to our student board members report students thank you good evening ladies and gentlemen um the events that will take this this

003take place this month are um the Battle of the Bands is on February 15th and um it's basically it's an enjoyable event that um students can come together and play music within their bands and there's a winner at the end and also uh eighth grade orientation was yesterday February 12th also school is closed for President's Day on February 18th and school is closed on February 19th due to staff and service also there's one book read on the fault in our Stars by John Green which will take place in the media center on February 28th thank you thank you this time we will go to a public forum anyone from the public wishing to speak to the agenda please come to the microphone and give your name and address for the record we will adhere to

004our 3 minute time limit for all speakers and we ask that you due to the time of the the length of uh board meeting being limited we ask that you only come up to the microphone once so anyone from the public wishing to speak to the agenda oh no oh boy it's we have we have voted to take it down to two minutes no give me a half a chance no before you vote I just want to bring up one point it's record 53 turnbury drive you the board members are fully responsible for decisions made by this Administration once you vote to approve you take full responsibility away from the administrator who placed it on the agenda I'm not going to go in for instance but most of you know what I'm talking about uh

005there were two items last year that were approved by this board that were well over any policies or anything that we've done before uh because an administrator puts this on the agenda doesn't necessarily mean that people on this border a rubber stamp to approve it a lot of these items have to be questioned I've always tried to do it many of you have tried to do it but it can no longer be a rubber stamp we have to start thinking I saw what happened at the meeting last week I was in Florida I caught the tail end of it it's something that I I warned the board about for two years it's coming to a head now I ask all of you to please anything that comes on the agenda check it out before you

006vote thank you thank you Mr Klein anyone else from the [Music] public hi Doug Dale 653 spots with Englishtown road for the record I am a resident a district employee and a parent of a Munro student my concerns are not with the school board but with the Public's aggression against the board's decision concerning the budget the spending and especially collective bargaining outcomes after watching the last two board Meetings online I couldn't believe some of the public suggestions to curb spending in the district I got so angry that I actually yelled at my computer in response to what I had heard running a school district is a daunting business running a school district with 95% of your educational Aid cut for the last three years and only 2% cap on annual property tax increases down from

0074% sounds impossible to do without drastic changes however thanks to Dr hamlton Mr Gorski and the school board it's getting done with very little cuts through programs and School staff yet that doesn't appear to be enough from what I heard schools are the highest commodity in town people don't move to towns with bad schools and they don't stay in they don't stay in town if the schools or go bad and like all things schools need money to run successfully and the town needs successful schools to compete with neighboring towns to keep its residence and bring more bring more in which brings in business and more taxes all I've heard lately was about how to cut the fluff how people don't seem to care to know is that the so-called fluff pays for the bills for

008those of us who are lucky enough to get it I've heard recently to cut the IQ coordinators with a savings per year of $3,600 equating to about 17 cents per household but who cares about the students and sta if they get sick like many did in the high school several years ago with some having to be hospitalized which is why the IQ coordinat position was created with no one to monitor air quality students and staff may suffer which will cost more in the district when people get sick and a sub is needed and medical costs are needed and in in this day and age of the social media and the Rumor will get out that Monroe Township is the poisonous school district and people will vacate leaving the taxes to the rest of us I

009heard the cut stiens and Club advisors and sports coaches those were already frozen for three years and are of no additional cost to the board at this time cut paying for new clubs which really means to stop giving the students the opportunity to learn or expand their knowledge of new things because a teacher gets an extra bit of fluff in a stien to run a club the best one yet that I heard at last mon last month's meeting was to cut the teaching staff salaries by 10% why not just make it 100 why not have the Blazing nerve to just tell us all to work for free it's already been said by Mr Gorski Dr Hamilton Mr Chella that the recent negotiations St of staff salaries was of no cost to the board for the

010three years of the current contract yet cutting salaries are still being suggested I understand the argument of needing to lower taxes my taxes are high too and they continue to go up like everyone else but the school district has a very limited budget and the people who draw a salary or the students who benefit from that budget are not the ones to be sticking your hand out to Monroe's average teacher salary is ranked 15 out of 25 districts in middlex county that was quick yeah thank you for your comments you could read the rest of them later all right I'll come back later hi is this in regard to the agenda we want to talk about that well yeah because it's really not a an agenda item per say okay you want to okay sh

011AR min9 Nathaniel Street um on page 15 the bill list the board action for the bill list um we have just a small paragraph it's sort of just like um a very small paragraph of what it is I'd like to know if the board members have the full list before in front of them before they vote on all of the items in each list the board me the board members get a copy of the bill list and that list is available also to the public is that correct is that I believe every bill is every list should be available so after this after is is it could it be available before the board votes on it when is that available if we mark it preliminary before it's approved by the board before the dispersements represented

012in the bill list are are mailed um then that's there's no problem with that we could do okay or even after they're mailed if it's just before the board meeting so we could see the full list okay because that's and just a comment to the gentleman thank you for coming and thank you your comment about the IAQ but I think the point about the IAQ was that um it was a teacher everyone wants good good air quality in the school but it was that someone had to go to a teacher in order for that teacher to tell the principal where the the person who who told the teacher could go directly to the principal it's about waste it's not about taking anything away from education it's it is about programs not every program implemented is

013either you know sometimes they go they become Obsolete and sometimes they just need to be changed so I think that um everyone I'm I'm glad everybody has a position and we're deliberating these things but it's really about waste it's not about the use of funds it's about the waste of funds thank you thank you anyone else speaking to the agenda okay seeing no one we will go to the approval of the minutes for their special public Board of Education meeting of December 13 2012 need a motion in a second second Miss anelis Mr Chella are there any corrections to the minutes okay all in favor I opposed abstentions Rob had was abstained because he's not here I believe um you were not here for the December 13th meeting Mr proso and Mr Po you were

014not here for the December 13 meeting no so a board members no so you would have to re re um abstain okay approval of the minutes for the public Board of Education meeting of December 19 2012 so moved Mr tesler second Miss anelis comments or questions all in favor opposed extensions Mr seski Mr Po Mr proso approval of the minutes of the closed session meeting of December 19th 2012 so move Mr cherala second second Mr Masters comments or questions all in favor I opposed abstentions Mr zareski Mr Po Mr proso abstain approval of the minutes for the public Board of Education organization meeting of January 3rd 2013 so moved Mr Koffman Mr zesi comments or questions all in favor I opposed exstension there are no exensions okay at this time we will go to the

015superintendent Report with Dr Hamilton I I have a couple of things I'd like to share first of all good evening everyone um reminder that tomorrow is Monroe Care's day we are partner partnering with United We to collect donations to be distributed to families impacted by Hurricane Sandy bins have been stationed at each of our Loc ations and they will only be there for the one day um tomorrow the mayor has provided a proclamation declaring uh February 14th is Monroe cares day and i' like to just read it in to the board records relatively short um Proclamation from the office of the mayor Monroe cares day February 14th 2013 whereas Hurricane Sandy ravaged New Jersey when it made landfall on October 29th 2012 and whereas while Monroe Township was not spared with s's wrath coastal towns

016were nearly decimated by the powerful storm and whereas the township and School District feel it is important to stand unified with the rest of New Jersey and whereas both the township and school district have agreed to promote and support a townwide collection of much-needed supplies and whereas all community members can make donations such as bottled water new coats new blankets flashlights batteries non- perishable food items such as canned food pasta Etc and whereas donation boxes will be available at all Monroe Township Schools on Thursday February 4 14 2013 together we can make a difference now therefore I Richard pooie mayor of the township of Monroe to hereby declare February 14 2013 is Monroe car's day in the township of Monroe dated January 25th 2013 by mayor Richard pooie uh we will also be providing uh

017districtwide training by New Jersey school boards on strategic planning we're asking anyone and everyone who wishes to be part of this planning process that will help us to develop the plan for the next several years to attend this very important session school boards will be providing a strategic planning workshop on Saturday March 2nd here at the high school 2013 um from 900 a.m. till 12: noon we are asking all design team members ad hoc members and members of the public who wish to be a part of this very important process to attend this session um and later on my report I will be asking for resolution to this effect um and before I get on to the rest of my report uh as you know this year will be our first graduating class for Avid

018students we have some data we'd like to share with you about the impact of this effort and also as a follow-up to the finance committee meeting I'm asking Dr Gorman to share the data with you about how we have improved enrollment in our AP level courses and those outcomes Dr Forman okay thank you um so at the March 21st board meeting we're going to ask our Avid seniors to do a student presentation for you they've been in the program for three years and they are graduating this year um comparing their outcomes to last year senior class last year 60% of our senior class went to four-year colleges this year 71% of our Avid seniors are going to four-year colleges 26% of our students last year went to two-year colleges 18% of our Avid seniors are

019going to twoyear colleges and 12% of our whole class went to military work or Technical School versus 11% um of our Avid students going to those same denominations so we're really proud of them and um they will uh they will floor you at at our meeting and um and they are very confident and eager to um approach the world and society and do really great things and change uh change the world for the better so that's going to come up at our next board meeting on the 21st um just to follow up some data from the AP exams last year just very preliminarily I just broke down last year's um students last year in Monroe Township we had 3968 advanced placement exams taken um 216 students took those 396 exams out of that number of

020396 exams 299 of them were 76% um scored at a three a four or a five which enables them to be um to have the potential to receive Advanced college credits while they're in high school so I think those numbers are very impressive um additionally when we started our move towards raising the bar for our kids in 2004 and 2005 um only 73 students took 107 exams this year coming up there are 273 of our students and they'll be taking 400 50 exams so that's just a small followup at the next finance committee or curriculum committee I'll provide data for all those years on the number of kids that are achieving at really high levels based on taking those exams thank you sir moving on to the superintendent report uh the enrollment data is provided

021uh in the agenda for this evening along with our enrollment for students and out of District placement and our homebound in uh students that are on homebound instruction our fire drills and safety drills are also listed in the agenda um and I do need to go on record we have been advised that we will be the recipients of a visit by Homeland Security a random unannounced visit to uh see how our schools are implementing measures of our state implemented security plan so that's just for for your information I don't know when or how that will happen um but we are anticipating at least two visits this year from Homeland Security 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

022a through double F be approved by roll call vote there are two double C's listed on your agenda please note that the second item listed as CC should be noted as FF Miss Miss antelis there a second second is Pella are there any comments or questions for Dr Hamilton I have a question please Mr zareski under e um familiar with salary guides and how they work I was just looking for an explanation I was on page 13 those to the High School Spanish teachers there I notice a percentage 117% of contract I just looking for a little explanation on that um those are teachers wherever there's a percentage that exceeds 100% they are covering an addition class uh during which time they're either giving up a prep or a lunch period and contractually they're um

023eligible for additional compensation anyone else okay seeing no one we'll have a roll call Mr Gorski Miss antelis yes Mr Chella yes Mr zareski yes Mr calman yes Mr Masters yes Mr poy yes Mr proso yes Mr Tesla Mr Tesla yes sorry Mrs K Peno yes Madam board president Personnel items a through double F passes thank you moving on to board action items Madame board president members of the board of education is recommended by the superintendent that board action items a through K be approved by roll call vote please note that item H is removed from my report and will be addressed during the board president's report so moved Mr cherella miss anelis any comments or questions for Dr Hamilton Mr on E further [Music] clarification [Music] [Laughter] e um what what's your question Mr

024Masters can you just explain that um yes there is uh due to enrollment there is a need at the middle school for an additional class to accommodate students who are either moving up from the elementary school or students who are already in in the Middle School who have been classified and will need uh additional placement anyone else I have a question on Mr zareski on Jay is that well my my question actually is how long are these students in that Center for is it once a week is it a full-time middlex County ars no it's not full-time but I don't know how many days a week they're there do you know Jee no but I'll be happy to provide that information for you send you all the dates exactly I was just wondering how how

025that was that's all it was a fulltime you know they were going there is one day a week that's all you you pretty much answered my question by saying it's not a fulltime no it's not fulltime thank you on board members before you vote on this uh I just need to make sure your copy of the agenda Does it show the um item k for New Jersey school boards no yes said no I said yes well here I I will read K in for the record item K would be asking the board to approve it you have it yes please item K is as follows it is recommended that the board approve New Jersey school boards Association representatives to conduct a strategic plan workshop on Saturday March 2nd 2013 1 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:

026p.m. at a cost of $1,000 that would be item K do I need to have another would somebody like to um whoever made that motion is it okay to include that in yeah I'll make the motion again well you made the motion we added something so is that okay fine me to add that miss anelis is a second okay okay so any comments or questions what are they going to do they are going to facilitate a workshop for the design teams board members members of the public members who are serving on the ad hoc committee to go through the strategic planning process and this was a recommendation that came from the oversight committee yesterday they they already Saturday March 2nd they already agreed to this date School Board is only because there's a student achievement

027thing going on in Princeton that's why that's where I'm going um we're going to take case separately when we do the roll call is there any you have a question on the uh yeah I have a question on some of the items uh item a uh which deals with uh staff professional development uh I had asked a question about that last month uh and I have an additional question now that I've seen this month's list uh I I would like to know what the basis is for which professional developments are paid and which are not paid uh I thought I understood it last month but then when I saw this month's uh I I felt that I I really didn't understand it um I I know you mentioned that some of the teachers pay for

028it themselves and so it's at at no cost to the board and on other occasions the board does pick it up if the board has requested that they do that but I I did see some items in that list that as I said it confused me specific specifically um the process for professional development goes through my learning plan and it goes through a series of checks and balances so usually is generated by the teacher and it could be a workshop out of District a workshop in District um a free Workshop or um they get credit for professional development hours or it could be a plethora of different things through my learning plan they submitted a proposal through that it gets approved by principal by supervisor content supervisor and myself um for example there I do

029believe there's one on a iTunes University workshop at the Monroe Township Library that is a free Workshop um that that we've partnered and and that's a great benefit to us that Workshop would be thousands of dollars otherwi um for the most part the basis or the foundation happened three years ago when we had drastic cuts to our professional development so the overriding drive is can we handle it internally or can or do we need to do it externally the ones that you see are repeatedly from um speech child study possibly um music um certain Arts things that we can't internally handle through our capacity um some of them most of those are tied into maintaining certifications that those professionals have to maintain um what you don't see are the denials that I've gone through or

030that we've process through the month as well but um if you'd like to talk specifics I could tell you every one of those things because they do run through me the principles and the content supervisors okay so if it's if I'm understanding you correctly if it's for example from a music teacher a speech teacher uh some of our School nurses those typically are going to be paid for by the Board of Education uh generally well they're all ped for the Board of Education some of them though are we pay our own teachers to teach our teachers which is significantly cheaper than the out of District um process where the one hit professional developments um that have been um historically in the past that districts deal with because the out of District workshops are significantly more

031expensive times the amount of staff I understand that I I I won't uh Bel labor the issue and I'll talk with you uh about that i' be happy to give you everything about it's still not quite clear to me on that um and I did have a question about e but that's been dealt with uh an item I regulation 7510 I don't believe that regulation is complete and I think we should table voting on that until it is complete are you making a motion to I I I move that we table uh voting on item I if we want to deal with that as a package or on that particular regulation since it the statement of that regulation is not complete in my opinion I second you're going to second that okay was a motion

032made to table is it the regulation or the Reg it's the regulation 7510 just not the policy just the regulation it's just the regulation Madam Bo president if if regulation is going to be held I would recommend that the policy be held as all as well okay would you agree to that too yes I would okay so we're going to amend the motion to include the policy and the regulation of 7510 is that a that's not a roll call can that be explained to the public or would would you like to speak to the motion well I can if if you look at it uh it's on page four of 15 for that regulation and uh it says follow uh follow through on the recommendations of an evaluations for alcohol or other drug abuse and

033related behaviors and it has first offense second offense third offense uh and the um the disciplinary action is not specified for those offenses oh Mr P you're not referring to 7510 then that's 5530 5530 I'm sorry let me see it is 5530 I'm I'm quite sorry it's 5530 okay so we'll amend the motion to to um to to table policy 5530 and regulation 5530 instead of policy 7510 and regulation 7510 yes okay is everyone in favor of that all in favor was Mr proso still a second yes and I got a question okay okay did you now need to speak does anybody wish to make a comment well did it go through policy I mean is is this something it did go through policy yes so why is it not complete or why are we

034voting on something not complete um Mr Po makes a reference to disciplinary action um that policy the policies that you have I believe it's been updated but I'm not sure what you're what you're looking at honestly well well I'm looking at it has first offense second offense and third offense um but it should also reflect a an insert that refers to student handbook well as I said what is here is not to my satisfaction and I did bring this out in the policy committee meeting that that was missing and and it's still in my opinion not complete I I I it talks about what the penalties are the disciplinary actions will be taken but all it says First Defense second offense third offense it doesn't say what those actions are and I think we checked

035with stal Esme and that's the information they gave us and then you have to look back in your handbook because um the penalties for high school are different from middle school and elementary school so that that what they're saying is that it's the first offense the second offense the third offense but those offenses are listed in our handbooks not on the policy well well then I think the regulation needs to state that which it does not is there any other comments or questions but my my my next question is would that would that need a rewrite of other policies if the offenses are not literal in the policy and it's a reference to another document how many other policies would that affect I don't think that particular insert would affect any other policies frankly um

036and it would not be I mean it's up to the board but it would not be my recommendation to put those offenses in because the policies are district policies and the handbooks are specific to grade schools and grades so we would not be able to include offenses very specifically uh because it would fluctuate between high school middle and elementary but inserting C appropriate handbook would be appropriate um any other policy members here I mean are are are we voting on something that you feel comfortable with or not I I I don't know where to go I wasn't at the meeting but um it sounds to me like it went through the policy committee because it's here for the first reading um Mr Masters you had filled in for me so I yeah um I thought

037the policy committee was okay with this yeah I I thought so too because what we said is well we would check back with stra Ese and get what they might Mr Po is asking now we did check back yes we did and that's the information that they gave us you want the policy up updated to be more specific we could we could add to the policy boun back student handbook and and that would cover it I I I would be willing to accept that yes but but the way it is I'm not willing to accept that particular reg the statement of that regulation okay I I think there's information there that is missing and if you want to say according to the handbooks of the various schools as part of that wording to complete that

038item to uh then that would probably suffice but as it presently stands and that's what we're voting on uh I am not comfortable voting on that can we vote on that with an addition with that addition absolutely we we can add that to the policy okay we can vote on that with the stipulation that we add that to the policy okay if it says after first second and third offense per uh individual uh grade level student handbooks or or whatever the proper phrasing would be then I would have no further objection absolutely okay then you would withdraw your your motion to I would withdraw the motion to table this okay and Mr presio so you would agree with that okay so any other questions well he mentioned 7510 and I was under the impression that

039we don't know whether we left it alone the policy because of the municipality wanted I believe the Pol that these policies were all approved by the policy committee last week so we're leaving that policy alone the way the way that they were given to you anyone else okay so at this time we are going to take a roll call on Mr Question besides that okay item F on page 14 uh we're taking away the administrative assistance job and on item G we're adding a human resources coordinator correct that is correct taking one job away and adding another yes anyone else so at this time we will have a roll call to approve items a through J we will be taking case separately with the addition of um the language in policy 5530 and regulation 5530

040adding that we will adhere to the handbooks of each individual grade okay Miss antelis yes Mr Chella yes Mr zareski yes Mr calman yes Mr Masters yes Mr Po yes Mr proso yes to everything but G it's a no on G so noted Mr tesler yes Mrs K Pano yes madame board president board action items passes okay now we will have a roll call on K which has been motioned by Mr Chella and second by Miss anelis in the former motion and Chella yeah is that for the special meeting creation yes you want me to read that please okay I'm G to read K again it is recommended that the board approve a special Board of Education meeting to be held on Saturday March 2nd 2013 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at the Monroe

041Township High School Media Center the purpose of the meeting is for representatives of the New Jersey School Board Association to conduct a strategic planning workshop at a cost of $11,000 if you don't mind okay at a cost of $1,000 Mr cherella that was your motion do you and Miss antalis okay at this time are there any comments or questions by the board then we will have a roll call Miss anelis yes Mr Chella yes Mr zareski yes Mr calman yes Mr Masters yes Mr Po yes Mr proso yes Mr tesler yes Mrs K Pano yes madame board president item action K passes unanimously okay thank you that concludes the superintendent report then at this time we will go to the business administrator report Mr Gorski Madame board president and members of the Monro Township Board

042of Education it is recommended that board action items a through V be approved by consent roll call before we have a vote uh Madame board president may I discuss absolutely important item on there pertaining to District Insurance yes as discussed at the most recent finance committee meeting I presented to the finance committee um the fact that Monroe Township Board of Education has had the same insurance broker for about a quarter century and uh that relationship has served the district well over the years but this year there was a delay in the Furnishing me with insurance rates and specifically the health insurance rates came in astronomically High whereas the increase in just that one appropriation line item was more than we could aggregately grow the entire budget so I negotiated uh different type of coverage with

043the broker um of a payment method going to prospective that saved 1 .2 million off of the initial premiums I further negotiated another $400,000 off the policies just by haggling that amount fits in the budget now but I'm not satisfied I'm not satisfied with the broker representation that we receiv received uh negotiating with our carriers and I'm not satisfied with our broker recommendation uh who who said that we have expensive plan coverage and we should immediately mid-contract year Jam our staff out of two plans into a direct access plan that is not like kind coverage I don't believe the Monro Township Board of Education or Administration would ever Jam our employees into an alternate Health Plan mid-contract year so it is my recommendation to the finance committee and to the board to resend our broker

044relationship with gr Murray for health insurance and property casualty and everything else and appoint two new Brokers of record Gallagher insurance services for health benefits which is a very large multinational brokerage firm that has tremendous clout and represents some very big school districts such as uh Philadelphia and when they negotiate rates with their size and and book of clients they have a lot of negotiating power and I think that will result in several hundred, off of the rates that we currently have in the budget I also recommended that the Property and Casualty and all other insurance policies be uh handed to the broker firm of bord and Pearlman they are a very large middle sex County spe um focused firm that only deals with property in casualty and I feel that splitting the services into

045these two brokerage firm Specialties will serve the board the best and will provide the best coverage for the district and also the best savings for the taxpayers for one of our largest account line items okay is there a motion and accept uh second to accept the ba report move Mr Coffman and Miss anelis are there any questions for Mr Gorski Mr Masters you Mike what is you the uh joining the school boards risk management um the district joined a um New Jersey school boards Insurance Group fund for Property and Casualty Insurance it's a three-year commitment to the fund and this resolution U changes the broker of record from gr Mary to Bor and Pearlman to represent the Monroe Township Board of Education at the NJB sub fund monthly meetings and to handle all correspondence and

046claims for the district any other questions Mr Tesla just not a question just a little comment on V I'd like to just thank the uh Woodland PTO for the donation anyone else yeah V that's that's a pretty big donation yeah Mr Master we know what kind of Technology purchases it's going to Encompass or is just open yes um it is a very generous donation from the Woodland PTO and it was for technology purchases specifically um I believe it was iPads and related projection equipment at wooden yes sir anyone else shouldn't it be wood yes yeah just say yeah wood m okay since there are no further questions we'll have a roll call Miss antelis Mr Chella yes Mr zareski yes Mr calman yes Mr Masters yes on all I have to recuse on H1 or

047H if you can't do it to Q's on H so noted Mr Mr Po yes Mr proso yes Mr tesler yes Mrs kapano Madame board president board action board action items a through V passes okay thank you very much that concludes my report at this time we go to board president's report and I have a few things to go over today um the first one is adequacy um we I know we've talked a lot about adequacy over the last couple of years and um I'm not sure that everybody in the public and maybe and everybody on the board has got the same understanding of what the state's version of adequate School District looks like so I've asked Mr Gorski to prepare for us this evening a very simple version of what it is what's included

048in it and how it can affect our district Mike the adequacy calculation um now defined as Levy above um minimum tax levy is a model that's designed by the state and it's incorporated into the budget software and it takes your aggregate Appropriations and divides by your number of students and comes up with an amount above the state model for our district for the 1112 school year the Monro Township Board of Education was above this adequacy model by 13 m774 60 by curtailing spending and by also absorbing increasing enrollment the district about half that above adequacy number in 2012 2013 to about 7.5 million that strong trend of decreasing our above adequacy status is projected to continue into 1314 with an approximate range of about $3.25 million above adequacy now items that are above adequacy um

049in this District specifically include transportation services that we render to students above the state's model uh whereas they Define an amount that an elementary a middle school and a high school student may walk home we have routes in town that we deem to be hazardous and would not allow children for example to walk down Buckaloo Avenue or Schoolhouse Road with a book bag um without a sidewalk so the district provides transportation services for the safeguarding of students another big item that forced the over adequacy number in 1112 was the 89 TR uh trailer portable trailer classroom units that the district had to engage in the rental lease for that was to support the growth of students at that time all of those with the exception of I think 14 are now gone um the extracurricular

050activities the sporting uh teams that the district has are all considered above adequacy items such as parking lots and and and light stands are above adequacy we've become accustomed to all these but um you know they're they're really essential for providing what we determin to be a adequate education now again if you look in the comprehensive annual financial report there ratio in the statistical section in the back that shows District spending per pupil for the last three years the increase in District spending per pupil has increased less than 1% and that's reflected in these reduction inadequacy numbers and the reason that this is important is that according to Senator Greenstein the state is deliberating right now on the new distribution of state aid to districts and as it's related to the new calculation for adequacy

051and they want to penalize districts that are above adequacy by reducing their aid so these efforts to reduce above adequacy status hopefully will help this District recognize some fruit in our efforts to um receive extra state aid and not be further penalized with another reduction in state aid okay is there any questions yeah I just have a question on that because what you just what from what I understood from what you just said you said that uh that the senator said that they're going to penalize districts that are above adequacy that doesn't say anything about giving more money to districts who are reducing adequacy or are who are adequate or are are underneath adequacy so I just want to make sure that you know that we're driving for the right things here as a board

052because I understand what we're doing and I do appreciate explanation of what adequacy is but I think also that we have a lot of great things going on in this district and some of the things we can't control for instance some of the busing and things like that and but I you know those are some some being over adequacy is not an entirely awful thing so I just want to I just want to make everyone mindful the fact that we won't we might not necessarily get more Aid we might not just we might just not get reduced and you can't you can't take how much further can they even reduce us from what they already give us you know so I just we're going to bend over backwards to reduced adequacy which is going to

053impact our students and at the same time there's no promise of more money there's actually maybe a threat of losing more money so I just wanted to state that anyone else I want to say something too Mr Masters it kind of irks me um not to kick the dead horse here in the room but uh something you said so what they really want us to do is strive for mediocrity and they're dangling this carrot of possible state aid which I think Lou was always said it's never guaranteed um and again what Ken just said is how much more can they take I mean if we always budget for Zero from now on um and then just go our own way with our adequacy or whatever we want to do I'm not saying we have to

054go crazy with stuff like that and and never mind it I think that might be a way to or a direction we might want to start moving in uh it's just it's bothering me this chicken egg thing where they're trying to play games with this adequacy and giving us money or not giving us money when I spoke to the State Department of Education recently and I asked why Monroe is ineligible for Equalization Aid um it was determined that because of two factors that I've repeated many times our income per pupil and our property wealth per pupil prohibit us from receiving any Equalization Aid whereas our neighboring District of South Brunswick receive $17 million of Equalization Aid every year and the uh the advice I got from the state in the commentary was as follows the

055state wants to strive to help every school district in this state reach the adequacy level and they'll fund those who can't reach the level financially themselves with state aid those districts that can fund themselves and meet their own adequacy level the state will encourage you and require you to um fund it yourself in the form of less or no state aid but it needs to be noted the only way they can fund those is by taking from you and you and you and you and you and me that's correct so we're paying for somebody else's School District that's correct the states the states money that they're Distributing I remind you comes from your income taxes your sales taxes your excise taxes all of the taxes that you pay um and then that gets distributed not

056to you but the the point of this illustration if I may is to provide a pictorial if you will of the district's efforts to reduce the over adequacy spending that has um garnered so much attention um publicly and in the Press not just Monroe but schools in in general um but perhaps this chart helps to illustrate the downward Trend that we have been working to accomplish over the last few years and I guess to to to say that we have really not cut our programs we still have our Sports we still have our um clubs that's one of the things that we're looking at as a school goal this year where those are not working um what can be eliminated what can't and still keep us under adequacy but still support our students Mr tesler

057did you have your hand up yeah I guess did what Louis a about mediocrity we have to be careful too because a lot of people move into this town because of these programs we provide so it's a it's a slippery slope or a tight RPP that we walk on when we say we're reducing adequacy we start saying we're going to reduce these programs you I know my kids take advantage of these programs they like to do some sports my daughter just cheerleading and things like that and people come here because we have that so we just got to be careful on that too right anyone else in that chart just to go back what you're were saying because I came off kind of nasty last one is it is a testament to how hard I

058mean really kids haven't been impacted so far I mean besides some minor and that's a drastic drop if you look at that that's not a little bit um I just get nervous that we keep going down that slope and um we just have to be on top of things okay yeah and I agree about the adequacy um we're getting down the adequacy but there's no guarantee we're going to get the money and honestly I met with the Senator Greenstein basically she told me that the governor wants this on the back of the taxpayers of the Town um I'm guessing Jamesburg is an inadequacy you've cut just about everything in your town yet are you getting more State funding no so I don't think we are but I think that if we moved in the other

059direction and just get said then the heck with it and kept giving the little bit of funding we get we're going to lose it's it's a no win situation anyone else Mr Po it would seem to me that if we've reduced the amount of money that we're spending uh in terms of over adequacy and yet our budget has been going up then those funds that we've been reducing from over adequacy have actually been going into programs that we needed to spend money on is that correct Mr Gorski part of the factor is the new students that are coming into the district that by itself is reducing the adequacy number with spending per pupil only increasing less than 1% a year and through the efficient budgeting practices of the board and administration for the last few

060years by eliminating positions by not increasing staff to some of the projected levels that would come through the initial defense rounds um we were able to to reduce adequacy by that amount and and what's most noteworthy too is in 1112 we we uh returned a great number of portable classroom units that were being rented the total appropriation amount for those classroom trailer units was about $3 million a year including energy anyone else you said by not increasing staff is that contributing to our class size increase then to a degree it is but we carefully review class size every year and um and uh I think I think Dr Hamilton would agree that they're at comfortable level still also I I believe in the past when we were experiencing 350 plus students a year um we

061were getting money from the state for that so while they were contributing to that and then all of a sudden they stopped the burden then became on the taxpayer and we had to take those children in um I remember years 350 375 children in the in the school year um that's teachers class space and again we were always getting that money which you know then you would see the budget going up and up but we were getting funded and then the funding stopped but the children still had to be educated this is why when I started on this board 20 years ago there were 2 200 students and the budget was about $33 million we've tripled by that since then okay anyone else well that brings me to number two um in 2008 the state

062of New Jersey enacted a New Jersey school funding Reform Act that was to ensure adequate and Equitable school funding for each child on the basis of need regardless of where that child lives so they were supposed to um treat every child the same and every free child was worth the same so at at this time I'd like to read into the record of resolution urging the New Jersey state legislature to protect the school funding Reform Act of 2008 in this year's state budget and I'm hoping that the the board will unanimously support it and I believe everybody has received a copy of this already but I want to just read this into the record it's a resolution on school funding in the fy14 New Jersey state budget whereas the New Jersey school funding Reform Act

063of 2008 the state's school aid formula ensures adequate and Equitable school funding for each child on the basis of individual need regardless of where the child lives whereas continued underfunding of the New Jersey school funding Reform Act of 2008 has resulted in cuts to vital educational programs and services in schools throughout the state whereas mon Township School District middlex County recognizes the precarious state of New Jersey's fiscal landscape as a result of Revenue shortfalls and the impact of Hurricane Sandy whereas Monro Township School District recognizes that Municipal budgets and local taxpayers provide more than their fair share of support to local schools and other essential Community Services whereas Monro Township School District supports the school funding reformed Act of 2008 and a clearly designated Pathway to full funding of the law in order to provide

064New Jersey school children with the resources they need to ensure a successful future and to which they are entitled by law now therefore be it resolved that Monroe Township School District strongly urges the New Jersey state legislator legislature to follow the school funding reformed Act of 2008 and then the fiscal year 14 state budget and provide all New Jersey school children with adequate and Equitable School fund resolve that Monro Township School District urges the New Jersey state legislature to make every effort to protect the school funding Reform Act of 2008 and to vigorously oppose attempts to reduce the equity and adequacy of the SF to the detriment of all New Jersey school children is there a motion and a second to support the resolution some second Mr Chella Miss anelis are there any comments or

065questions and we will have a roll call on supporting this resolution on school funding Miss antelis yes Mr Chella yes Mr zareski yes Mr calman yes Mr Masters yes Mr Po yes Mr proso yes Mr tesler yes M col Pano yes madame board president motion unanimously passes thank you very much and we'll get this out to the state and that brings me to an issue from regarding um James B and Monroe a few weeks ago after our board meeting in January IRA and I had the opportunity to sit down with the President and Vice President of the Jamesburg Board of Education we wanted to brainstorm ways that we could work to work at our financial difficulties in this um difficult era of financial difficulties although it is a financial issue for both districts it is

066also a very critical educ issue for all the students that will attend Monro tanip High School in the past few years Jamesburg has been very negatively impacted by the loss of state aid and was forced to make the following cuts and this is just some of them to their programs they've cut out all athletic and co-curricular programs all Librarians all art music programs all computer and Technology teachers the special services director secretarial and Par professional pupil staff and eliminated a full-time principal at their middle school this has had a severely negative impact on Jamesburg students when they enter our high school in regard to remedial skills needed competition for sports and clubs and test scores so we decided as a joint venture that we would write a joint letter from both Monroe and and James

067Berg Board of educations to the governor explaining our situation and requesting an immediate emergency meeting to try to resolve this financial and educational issue um we're also sending a copy of this letter to the commissioner of Education our state senator assemblyman county superintendent and County ba and the superintendent of both districts it is our hope that somebody will acknowledge that this is a crisis for both of our towns and offer us relief without harming the students or the taxpayers of either district and I would like to say that when Jamesburg students come to Monroe High School they become our students and we have the responsibility of educating them we need to make sure that all of our students receive the help and services needed for the equality education that we expect in Monroe so I

068think this is important to um make sure that Jamesburg and Monro continues to work together to try to come up with um a solution to our financial and educational differences okay and I think I have one more thing and it's in regard to um some of our committee processes for um I'd like to clarify things for the public and the board as to how our committee process works um and I'm sure most of the board already knows our board works as a system of committees which are charged to conduct studies make recommendations to the full board and act in an advisory capacity each of our committees has a chair person a vice chairperson two board members and an alternate the board president serves as ex officio and may attend all committee meetings the responsibility of

069our committees is to review and discuss the recommendations made to that committee by Administration no individual committee has an authorization to take any action at that committee level any action that is taken must be taken by the board as a whole based on the recommendations of the majority of the committee the agenda for the Committees are created by the administration with the help of the chairperson if a board member would like something discussed at the committee level they should contact the administrator to let the committee know and to put it on the agender for instance any item that has to do with Personnel would go to Dr Hamilton curriculum items would go to Dr Gorman Transportation items would go to Mr Gorski and this way they will have the information they need at that time

070all the available information so that when we have a discussion on a topic they have what they need and and nobody's surprised um there are is there are times when a an item might be brought up in more than one committee and then there's the potential to have different committees suggesting different things so it's important to make sure that any item that needs to be discussed be placed on the appropriate committee agenda agenda and it's really important that each board member makes sure that they have all the information that they need in order to make informed educational decisions if you don't feel that enough information is coming through then we need to table that specific um idea or recommendation until everyone feels that they're comfortable enough to make that decision it's also important to understand

071that we govern by the majority rule and once a decision is made brought to the board and approved or not approved that decision should be final because I think in the past we've spent too much time and I know our administrators have spent a lot of time going back and back over and over again decisions that we have already been made as a board and um it gets a little tiring and it takes up time and attention from both the board and the administration um I know that lately that we've been giving our committees a little bit more time for discussion and I think that's help helping to make our decisions better because there's more time for discussion we get the attention that we need and the conversation that's needed to make a decision all

072of our committee meetings are open to the public with the exception of personnel and negotiations and any person is welcome to attend but there is no partic no public participation at that level and lastly it should be noted that all decisions that come out of committee throughout the entire year has has an effect on the budget it's not just the proc the budget process between the the end of October till J January February March but every decision that is made in a committee affects the budget somehow so I think that there's um that there's a lot of discussions that we need to have and um I I hope that this kind of clarifies any miscommunication from the board members or the public so at this time we're going to move on to committee reports and

073is there any committees that need to report this evening Mr Kaufman uh yes there was a curriculum meeting this evening um it was pretty much a one item agenda um Dr Gorman was nice enough to give us a presentation on some of the history and current status of the one to1 iPad initiative here in Monroe um I would also like to thank all the administrators and the students and the teachers and the members of the public that attended the meeting I thought it was uh a nice round table of discussion uh some really good points came up and again thanks to Jeff for putting that all together and uh we can continue to add uh more information to that and uh as we develop this program of information we will continually share this stuff on

074the uh website we're appropriate and thanks again Jeff anyone else Mr Tesla yes sir we had a personel meeting last week on topics were discussed as uh number one um we were presented with a uh job description combining a vice principal and math uh supervisor position vice principal would be uh replacing uh Mr mag who's retired uh and Who services um oak tree and Applegarth as a vice principal U math supervisor we um all our um departments have a supervisor right now except math uh the math is uh run by lead teachers and um uh the initial job description was combining that position uh we talked for a while the committee talked for a while on that and decided to actually keep that separate um um replacing uh the vice principal at Oak Tree and

075Applegarth and replacing our current lead teacher model which we have now which fills the math supervis role with actually a math supervisor and that all kind is going to be pretty much uh a wash and in expenses so we decided and it was the job descriptions were uh were approved tonight uh for that we also approved tonight the an HR coordinator um position and we talked about that for quite a while in the um in the uh meeting as well and as as a result of the new tenure laws new evaluation model models and recommendation regarding labor practices uh we recommended that uh the this position be filled basically um a district this size um compared to other districts his size I have some somebody in charge of Human Resources right now that's falling on

076um Mike and uh Doc and Ken Dr Hamilton and Mr Gorski to do that um and uh this position would uh have a person dedicated that they can uh Service uh all the human resources needs for our district and and let uh uh Dr Hamilton and Miss Gorski concentrate on uh on their their own jobs and selling instead of doing this as well and that's uh a uh a uh position we uh a job description we approved tonight um we also were presented presented with a collaborative planning day uh the committee reviewed the schedule for the collaborative planning day in response to uh a work uh Place grievance uh Dr Hamilton indicated to us that some teachers have also opted out of this collaborative planning day uh we got an update on active grievances there's

077only one at this time uh we were shared a new list to prop propos new positions for the next budget um it's not final yet depending upon upon final budget changes but any new positions uh are uh result in um um growth or District growth only uh we also talked about a middle school secretarial position a new position and that uh was tabled that discussion was tabled for our next meeting so that's not moved forward at this time and also we reviewed our current vacancy list and that is it thank you Mr tesler any questions comments oh God Miss s Alis we had a finance committee meeting on Monday February 11th um as Mr Gorski explained before we had gone over um the insurance carrier gr Murray um Mike thank you I know that this

078wasn't a one phone call thing this was how many months of research um looks like you're going to save us quite a bit of money and thank you for that for all your hard work with that um Mr Gorski uh updated the committee uh we have REM received all the remaining money from the high school um Grant the $2.9 million so we have secured that finally and a budget update uh we expect to have 17 projected new staff members I know that we had talked about 18 but I had spok if Mike it looked like we went down by one roof uh roof replacement at the middle school at the auditorium security upgrades recommended by the buildings and grounds Transportation committee um again addressing the above adequacy status the tax rate is expected to be

079significantly significantly decreased from prior years and even though we are still doing all these other things within the budget um Mr Gorski presented an inter interm audit schedule showing an approximate $6 million remaining in the high school bond funds that was um part of the referendum and this year $3.5 million of that6 million will be applied to tax relief in the uh for this budget and I asked Mr Gorski about the other 2.5 million and uh hopefully and it should be applied to the 1314 budget uh for again for tax relief uh we spoke about the APA exam cost consideration um that's costing us $30,000 a year to um pay for the students exams Mr Gorski gave us some uh figures and we'll discuss it again at the next Finance meeting and uh we talked

080about the Jamesburg um again for the uh public Jamesburg uh filed a petition of appeal with the commissioner of Education requesting an extension of 20 days and that's the end of my report any questions how much is going back for tax relief say that again how much is going back for tax relief this year 3.5 next year and that will be the $6 million anyone else m m Masters I'll do the buildings and grounds one um it's very lengthy so just get bear with me um buildings grounds meeting on February 6th um and again I'll go through it as fast as I possibly can we had an update on the uh autism classroom substantially complete children should be in it in the next two weeks uh we had a won internet internet upgrade um which

081ties into the security recommendation which is another issue um we're going to be revamping some of our connections from central office and through all the schools uh we had a discussion about a video server request and video distribution at uh the high school that's actually been tabled uh further uh cost and curriculum information was requested uh we had a budget guidance uh topic about Transportation um I'll get back to that in a second uh New Jersey starts Smart Start I forget who's doing the paperwork for that but we are doing the paperwork it doesn't cost us anything it might get us some money back uh we finalized our security recommendations I don't know if we could talk about that yet Dr Hilton no not yet okay um it's a it's a about a Sixpoint plan

082for some for uh increasing the security in the district uh and as we alluded to before there is some Personnel being hired and some other upgrades we'll be doing um now back to the budget guidance for transportation now what we did was we looked at three uh I guess contributing factors to the busing late run uh into discussion of that um the first one being is it in the budget can we pay for it um the second one being some advice that Mr tesler had asked for from John neemo who's the executive County uh School business administrator and I'll read I'm going to read his letter back to us to the district uh and the third major factor being the participation we did get a uh Mr buer provided us with a pretty good participation

083summary and I'll also go over that really quickly um so I'm going to read the letter real fast it's not like the ethical thing that I did last meeting meeting before so that bad you it's not that bad um so we had asked him for direction about the lat run busing um and I will just read this for btim so you can read into it whatever you want uh okay yes okay Mr Gorski the question raised by your board is can Monroe add a late run bus a late bus run for the Monroe Township middle and high schools to your budget the simple answer to the question is yes the administration the board are responsible to develop and adopt a budget that provides for support of the instructional program in accordance with budget guidelines and

084parameters however there are a number of factors that need to continue to to be considered when incorporating new non-mandated programs or services into the proposed budget Monroe's budget is significantly over adequacy a major contributor to this fact is offering programs or services that are non-mandated obvious the district has been requested and has taken steps to address this condition to lower the amount above adequacy the 2012 2013 budget eliminated the late run late bus runs for Monroe Township middle school and Monroe Township High School and place of these transportation services the district instituted staff supervis waiting areas in the high school and middle School for students waiting for rides home following participation in extracurricular programs it is my understanding that this program was successful in the number of participants was an improvement to the safety of

085the students and was costeffective the previous lat run Services provided transportation to unsupervised bus stops which required students to walk home I'm G have to do a rubyo here hold on a second recess right all right nobody watched it last night all right the student enrollment in Monroe continues to increase creating proportional increases in instructional costs in addition based on the recent budget review meeting there are facility needs that will require budget resources to continue to maintain health and safety for students and occupants in the schools the fact that the supervised student waiting areas was successful and in consideration of the other District needs I would encourage Monroe to not reinstate the late bus runs but continue to provide the waiting area model I would also encourage when order to carefully consider the cost benefit

086and safety components of offering subscription Transportation if you have any questions or need to discuss this please don't hesitate to contact me John neth executive County administ county office ask a question now I'm going to just go over briefly the participation numbers go ahe um we had again we had Mr Byer do a little study I'm not going to I'll just go over it really briefly and I can give it to you if you want it uh High School fall Sports the numbers were up in most sports uh winter sports the numbers were consistent with slight increases in most sports clubs and after clubs and after school activity numbers were down um and I I'll go into that so we can do it after school activities in clubs that have a history of being predominantly

087freshman sophomore attended the numbers are down after school activities and clubs that have a history of being predominantly junior senior attendant the numbers are consistent because they have cars Middle School fall Sports the numbers trying out were slightly down boys soccer the numbers were slightly down the numbers making the team and participating remain consistent girls soccer the numbers were slightly uh we trying out were down the numbers making the team participating remain consistent field hockey same trying out were down team and participating were remain consistent cross country numbers were slightly down the numbers participating were slightly down since no cuts are made winner Sports It's the middle school are numbers trying out remain consistent and it's uh consistent across most of the sports except for wrestling they must have heard about the Olympics um so

088that's my general overview with that I think that's it just double check it sorry Mike did you want to go over anything with the numbers with the um the phone system or anything like that explain that I know there was some discussion yes thank you as part of the security upgrades that you um referred to before um the district specifically Mr Washington and Mr tag presented to the building grounds and transportation committee meeting um a recommend ation for upgrades to some Telecom equipment as follows before I get into the specifics the beauty of this recommendation is that it practically and materially pays for itself during the leas purchased term of 5 years and after the lease purchase term saves the district $72,600 a year in reduced phone bills and I'll get into the specifics and

089I'll be brief Brookside School mil Lake School Woodland School and Barkley Brook School we all re uh will replace the existing pots telephone system which is a standard old-fashioned telephone system and service with new equipment ISDN PR service through Comcast that's um voiceover internet service it also includes PA system upgrades right now in these schools they're working on very Antiquated equipment and it's a or Miss if the PA system works so that will be upgraded with new Comcast internet equipment the cost of this equipment including connecting fiber between Applegarth and& oak tree and Barkley at Brookside is approximately $352,400 that is recommended to be financed over a 5-year lease purchase so the annual Debt Service for the lease incl including interest is about $74,000 the annual savings that will'll recognize on the POA ISDN and

090the fiber internet cost savings is $1,945 6,684 respectively so the difference between the financial obligation for the lease and the savings cost the district $1,387 per year for this significant upgrade and and Once the lease debt is satisfied after 5 years the district will reap $72,600 in savings every year thereafter so it improves security it pays for itself and it offers significant financial savings after the lease is concluded thank you Mr Chella did you have a question I just had a question on uh for Mr Masters on what um John neemo had recommended he's he basically is recommending that we don't go to a pay to bus thing I guess right uh and also that we do not reinstitute a late run so basically he's just he's saying we should just keep what we're doing

091and and maintain that um that's correct I think one of the things we really need to look at and I and I thank you Mr Masters for looking at it is the um where we're at with participation by the kids in our in our clubs and sports and things like that that the other thing though I'd like to know is have we had any safety issues with these safe havens you know with kids leaving or or you know jumping in car cars with you know older kids that kind of thing that have been reported and where do we stand with that because I just want to make sure that we're balancing you know we're doing this supposedly for to save money and be decrease our adequacy and then also to provide safety but I don't

092think anything is as safe as making sure that the kids are getting on a bus and and getting home so I just want to make sure that we're looking at that and that uh you know if we could have some kind of report on that that would be helpful I'm sorry maybe I missed it didn't you just report on the participation for this year as a result of that yes oh okay no he did I was asking about safety issues oh okay sorry Mr Gorski uh Mr cherel if it helps the supervision centers both at the high school and the middle school were designed in collaboration with parents and principles and provides for a safe illuminated staff environment at the middle school till 5:15 and at the high school till 6:15 from the Inception of

093that program this September to today I have not had any complaints or and and I receive every student accident report in this District as a student unfortunately is injured and I have had none that relate to the supervision centers okay thank you Mr tesler yep just a more uh a couple more comments on the upgraded phone system couple advantages that we discussed also is that uh we mentioned the PA system obviously a working PA system inter school is is important in case there is some issue or an intruder to make sure uh you know everybody's notified correctly one other Advantage we get is all the schools will be on the same system so we have intercommunication between all their schools and uh central office so if there's something going on in one School uh Dr

094Hamilton can pick up a phone make a a districtwide announcement saying that you know there's something going on or there's a lockdown then we don't have that capability now so it's all par of part of what we're looking at to upgrade our our security anyone else with the committee report okay hold on you want me to just policy real fast I mean I took some notes but it's the policy you want me to just over that real fast the policy committee um again what we discussed what you saw basically on the report was what we discussed I'll just real fast um there were some discussions about um without getting too into it categories and um the tiers up draw the tiers for the facility use um substance abuse counseling was discussed a lot especially uh

095with adding some of the new verbiage with new drugs into it um purchasing Mike gave a nice little overview about purchasing um we discussed the AP exams and the impact and paying for that um there's also some discussion about the school calendar and personal develop professional development it thank youone else okay then we will go to Other Board of Education business is there any other business from any member of the Board of Education Mr Chella I have some I have a few things and I'll be brief but one of the things I just wanted to mention I think something that maybe we should look at um is maybe moving our committee reports up or to the front of the meeting and I and the one of the reasons that I think that's important is that

096I think that we're hearing details about the things that we're voting on after the fact so one of the things that made me think of that is Mr proso just asked about all right we're taking this assistant superintendent we're getting rid of that and we're we're putting in a human resources person you know and that rightfully so he should be asking those questions uh I I'm I'm on Personnel so I knew that answer but I don't think a lot of board members do and I think that giving that information now if Personnel is giving their um their committee report it's going to help clarify that for some of the board members MERS and I so I just think that maybe moving those details up would be helpful um one of the other things thank you

097for the Mr Gorski Roberts Rules of Order book I think that it's it's pretty big I hope Ira Mr Tesla isn't going to read it to us chapter one um on Monday we had a wck board meeting and I just the only thing on that I want to say is or two things actually uh Baseball opening day is April 6th so if anybody wants to come out it's going to be a great day a little far away but get it out now and so everybody can BLK it in their calendars the other thing is that we we we got some really good feedback on the online system for field use by Rec board members so thank you for that and they wanted me to relay that it's been working out well so I just wanted

098to make sure that you guys heard that um and I have a couple sad things that I have to note um one of my my uh my sons is in first grade he's six years old and one of his classmates father's uh her father died yesterday uh he died of cancer and um his his name was Donald malti um I'm only telling you that because they're not only is it very sad you know I want to give my send my condolences to the malti family but uh also that they're taking up a collection so that if anyone uh wants to give they can contact Mrs lon's first first grade class and they'll take care of it from there but I just want to let you know that and then we also had another death uh

099yesterday or a couple days ago Ben Roth who many of you probably don't know but he was a Monroe Township councilman for many years years ago um he's also on the historic preservation commission with me or was uh and he was a World War II vet hero war hero and uh he passed away recently too so I just wanted to mention him because uh he was a monor Township councilman and um he also you know he's just a good man did a lot for this town and was a great volunteer so that's it thank you anyone else where's the opening day the baseball where is that at the uh one all the way there over there yeah at the uh they James James Monro Park thanks Mr pres I'd like to bring up the U

100meca to Monroe employee Child Academy it is my understanding that the board of education has loaned this organization $200,000 and this was supposed to be a self- sustaining uh Endeavor and uh they can't get enough children in the uh Academy right now so they're opening up to the municipality in the public which I think that's a bad idea and if this continues we're going to bleed money from this organization so I think the board really needs to look at this and make some kind of decision down the road okay anyone else Mr Coffman yeah just a suggestion um something to think about like one of the worst case scenarios is when two board members from two different districts meet in a in a in a social setting and start talking about stuff and in the

101spirit of all the stuff we're doing for E4 andj and a new HR person I I would ask that the the HR HR the Personnel Committee in conjunction with the administration take a look at um developing some type of evaluation process where our staff gets an opportunity to evaluate their supervisors we have a lot of things in place that the administrators and everybody evaluate people going down the chain it's a great opportunity to also have like a 360 review where you know the administrators get feedback from the staff on things that you know they may not be seeing and and we don't really have a formal process that does that and I know a lot of other districts do do that so I think it would be a great idea if we take a look

102at you know what can we do to mirror some of these things also because you know you want to try and provide the best you know educational environment and and and and work environment for everybody it's a good idea if everybody if you guys don't know about problems you can't fix them you can't bring them before the board right and putting a formal process like this helps fix that just you know think about we're actually the state requires that we adopt a new principal uh supervisor evaluation tool and that's a part of that new tool and it will eventually work its way all the way up the administrative ladder there you go there you go done I have Miss Miss an yeah I just want to go back to Mr a suggestion about the committee

103use your M sorry about the committee you know what when you think about it I agree with him um because what happens is we end up voting on these things and then we're discussing it in front of the public so um I think it would give a chance for the board members to hear you know the discussion be able to participate a little bit in it and and um and the public as well get a chance you know to hear what goes on with the Committees back to the meca that's actually a good point have we officially decided to open it up to the municipality and the public yet municipality yes public that has not been a formal decision but municipality that was that came up last year do we have any numbers on teachers

104second year we knew first year were going to get not not yet those numbers we're working on the recruitment efforts this month the next month okay I just caution opening it up and then we wind up with 800 teachers that want to I think part of the problem last year was we didn't hire a director until July it was L and the reason we didn't hire a director till July was because we didn't feel any of them were qualified that we would accept as a a daycare center in Monroe the other thing in coinciding with that is that a lot of daycare centers want you to um have your child registered in probably April May of the F of the year to go in to September so we were kind of in a catch 22

105where everybody knew we were going to open it but they're a little hesitant to put their children in a daycare where they don't know who the director or the program was going to be so now there is um and and it's working well I think we've gotten a lot of good feedback from that so we're hoping that this year would work out much better than it did last year just a dovetail onto that maybe something to consider if you really want to try and see where we are going to be and try and fill up that that facility give the staff a deadline as like the end of March that that's the date that you need to tell us that you want in because after that date it's going to be opened up to Township

106and maybe a month after that we open it up to the public so it's staged because it's first in first out right or first come first Ser first Ser uh too much work right so you know this way it was meant for our staff give them first shot first shot at the seats you don't get in by the end of March goes to the township they get a month to put their children in and after that you're still in May right and you still have the opportunity to provide something for anybody else if we have additional seating Mr proso what happens if this is not successful what happens to the $200,000 loan who absorbs that Mr bski not that he absorbs [Laughter] it yeah um he could answer the question the uh the $200,000 loan

107right now exists on the balance sheet from the general fund to the Enterprise fund called the Monroe the mecca program and if under the circumstance that Mecca um becomes dissolved and doesn't meet expectations then that loan would have to be written off and it would reduce our excess SL Surplus calculation I'm concerned that this is turning into a babysitting service now we're opening up to the municipality and next is the public so it started out with just the teachers and that was a good idea but right now we're moving forward with another idea I don't think that's a good course so my opinion thanks anyone [Music] else Mr zareski it was brought up here tonight how Jamesburg cut several programs and stuff one being music and arts and this District offers on February 28th if

108I'm correct a chorus concert for the district which he invited the middle school and lower grades to and I was wondering if something like this in the future can be ex the invitation could be extended to the Jamesburg students so this way they can also see what programs are performed here at the high school they're going to be coming into the high school was said several times not only tonight but in the past how Jamesburg students are Monroe High School students when they get here they're not included on programs like this that open up the door to here's what the high school is offering and if you'd like to be involved in it here's your opportunity to see what it is so if we can possibly look into something like that where it is aition

109districtwide you know in this case it's a chorus concert if that can be opened up to the Jamesburg students also anyone else okay next is our close session but um that's going to take up a little bit of time so and and there might be action taken after the Clos session so it might be a good idea to um move our public Forum to before the close session because we are getting late in time and um we want to make sure everybody gets home safely in the snow so we want to um if somebody needs to make a motion to move the close the public forum before the Clos session second second Mr Koffman Mr zareski all in favor all opposed okay so then at this time we will have the public forum just got

110three minutes only come up once because we got Mary Smith on the clock um we are we will have our closed session we're going to limit the closed session to 40 minutes we will ask you to please limit your speech to three minutes and to please only come up once during this portion okay uh good evening my name is Joe calucho 20 Ashley Court um I'm part of one organization called Monro citizens for responsible government I wanted to clear one thing up um last meeting I misspoke and Miss anellus uh was very kind to correct me this this evening before the meeting she I mentioned in my passionate dissertation that we pay your salaries and I of course you don't get salaries so I want to make at least take that back um I also

111offered that if she would contribute more to cutting the fluff that I would be happy to pay salaries but nonetheless that was just a little joke on my on my part but what it did tell me was that uh Miss antelis and I hope many of you review the meeting on tape um last month she could not attend uh and I'm I'm I'm glad to see that she was riveted to every word that I was saying and I'm happy about that equally I hope she's spending that much time taking copious notes on many of the other things that I said regarding cutting wasteful spending um I wanted to ask three questions first and not so you should answer them while I'm here because I don't want to use up my three minutes or two minutes

112or whatever it is and if you could be kind enough to answer those questions uh after I U go back in the audience um one of them Mr um precioso mentioned earlier regarding uh the um Monroe employee Child Academy that's what meca stands for Monroe employee Child Academy and and I I was curious to know why the possibly the uh Monroe citizens will be paying for especially if there's going to be an extensive program so again if you could answer that I'd appreciate that um number two regarding the Jamesburg situation where there's $615,000 that is in a a lawsuit I believe that that's for the interest on the loan and that of course is counted as revenue and if we're not to have that uh then how do we make up for that Revenue uh

113that we won't have in addition to the $200,000 loan that might go away also and uh thirdly you we talked about AP exams and I again I want to make sure that you understand our organization is a strong proponent of Education I mean we don't want anything to impair the education of the children in the township at any uh with any thought in mind that that that we're not considering that at all but we do want to know um if AP exams are apparently paid by the township residents or the taxpayers if that's so why is that and why isn't that the responsibility of the parents um there's an interesting um piece that I came my way on an email and uh it's a piece that all of you should take a look at it's

114uh this data comes from the 2012 taxpayers guide to educational spending There are 16 categories on here that range from everything from salaries to supplies and textbooks it's a very interesting item thank you for your comments and it covers a lot of ground and I think you should take a look look at that because it's very important we have a situation in Monro Township which is really we only have 40 minutes which is really a problem and what I'm hoping is that we will have our Township residents still in this town and we won't be able to see Township people leaving because many of the TA taxes are going from 20 to $30,000 a house thank you I'll have Mr Gorski answer the financial questions and Dr Gman you might want to take the AP

115um question regarding Mecca your first question question who pays for it it's paid for by the staff currently who use the program um and it will be paid for presumably by the township uh employees who elect to use the program so the design was that it it's a self- sustaining Enterprise fund paid for by enrollment into uh the program the only way that citizens would pay for it as you asked is is uh as we alluded to before if it it doesn't become successful and that loan is not repaid um number two Jamesburg 615,000 you correct that's the amount of monies that Monroe is budgeting for in the 134 budget and it's my understanding that Jamesburg cannot budget for it in theirs and consequently we for the first time we don't have a Reconciliation when

116we submit our budgets to the county um how will Administration make that up if that money is directed for Monroe not to uh be included in the budget Dr Hamilton and I have discussed this previously and um the most um uh obvious way is that currently in the budget we have a projected insurance rate um proposal that will be NE renegotiated iated when our new broker goes to the carriers they can only do so once they are broker of record and I am expecting significant savings once that comes to fruition I don't know if that'll be in time for the budget to get finalized and um those savings could offset perhaps the interest portion if it's determined that Monroe should remove it from the budget and number three was AP exam Dr Forman I do

117believe Miss analis referred based off of the meeting that the district does pay about $30,000 for AP exams and um the committee looked at the history and the decision based on 73 students and 107 exams we felt that it was a worthwhile academic investment at the time and the results seemed to be getting stronger and stronger so that was a commitment that the Board of Education made towards raising the standard and incentive there was a history that kids taking AP exams AP classes were not taking the exams and they were using it just to boost their GPA so the Board of Education decided that if you take an AP class you have to take the exam and then the impetus came well if we're telling they have to take the exam then they decided to

118burden that um financial responsibility is there anyone else from the public Jill Deo 48 l would drive I want to thank you for passing the saffra resolution and I just wanted to talk about some two things that are unrelated to each other real quick I was at the fiscal accountability meeting in January and Mike asked us as a group what was the T District's greatest asset um my answer to him was our teachers and as we go into the budget phase of this year I don't want you guys to forget about that my son's teachers past and present are smart kind and very hardworking people they care deeply about the children they teach they give 110% to their jobs and they are some of the lowest paid teachers in this County so don't forget about

119them [Music] secondly um I get an email from um potier New Jersey which is comes from State Street wire it's kind of a recap of what's going on in Trenton every day and today I got this um blurb that the state treasurer has given the green light to some 125 million doll in qualified School construction bonds to help build more charter schools throughout the state so if you have any doubt about where the administration's um focus is with regard to school it's with building more Charter Schools rather than fixing the current schools we already have in place um so think it would behoove everybody to keep an eye on what's going on in Trenton because it's not good and it really has is filtering down to us thank you thank [Applause] you Lisa weinthal you

120need my address yes t m forland Circle um I just want to address some of the comments on the buildings and grounds committee meeting um specifically all the committee members I have a first of all a comment because I had the opportunity to speak with Mr Nemo myself regarding the his email that was kindly distributed um and uh I did send an email out to the committee members and have not gotten a response so I'm hoping I can get some type of dialogue here regarding the thinking behind the decisions made at that meeting uh since we weren't allowed to participate um Mr neemo no way says he's not um that we shouldn't de with it actually Mr neemo is pretty specific that it's his opinion that the center works but he's not basing that on

121any specific evaluative um observations it's simply data given to him so I'd like that to be on the record that his opinion isn't one of Monroe Township resident's opinions it's one of a county superintendent who really doesn't have any vested interest in what happens with their own children here so just another point I'd like to bring up is to address to the committee and I'm not sure if this is a give and take discussion or you'll answer qu okay you only get three minutes so here's the questions um the report that was done by commissioned by the superintendent um address Sports specifically um I'd like to know how and when after school activities CMAC tutoring after school testing and any other academic Club our participation will be addressed because those numbers in fact have gone

122down as Ed in the study and yet that was not discussed at the building and ground committee the second point is I'd like to know exactly with all the surveillance and security and investment in in wiring and this that and the other thing about making our school safe which I certainly applaud I know for a fact kids are leaving the property unsupervised and leaving without any um monitoring of bus stops as Mr neemo said any kind of buzzing would would entail and yet I know my son for for for fact leaves daily because he doesn't have a ride and he scrambles daily to find a ride so how is that safety of those students being handled and lastly I'd like to know how come the middle school students who are in math tutoring do get

123busing and yet once they get to the high school which we are clearly proponents of Academia Academia and furthering our our academic support of these students they don't get busing sure okay regarding the uh academic study we are actually doing a review of all of our programs academic and non-academic uh extracurricular and co-curricular programs it's going to take some time to get that because there are quite a few going on um but the preliminary report that you referenced that was shared at the bg& committee that was just phase one of that and there will be additional studies uh related to participation not just participation but cost benefit analysis of those programs as well your second question regarding security I am unaware of students leaving uh the supervised centers is first I'm hearing of that I'm

124not referring to the supervised centers your pardon I'm not referring to the supervised centers I'm not specific I'm that is not what I'm referring to and I want to be perfectly clear this has nothing to do with the supervised centers this has to do with CMAC tutoring after school testing and any other academic support students are getting here at the middle school and the high school they are leaving the property and walking I know for a fact if you need pictures to ver verify it I suggest you go out and monitor it but I know my son has walked home a dozen times I will be I will share your concerns with the building principal and get some data that I could share with the board relative to that and come up with any stop

125Gates that are necessary based on that information and lastly you talked about math tutoring the math tutoring at the middle school um the board agreed to Provo to provide support uh transportation for those youngsters who were in basic skills and are TAG this additional math group are students who are pre-basic skills students that we've included in that that arena for the middle school so that's why those youngsters are part of the basic skills and or tag transportation services with all due respect sir I beg to differ because my daughter's not pre-basic skills she's getting an A in math and she's in that program so it's not just for pre-basic skills that's the data that that was the premise under which that decision was was made and I'm I'm asking the board to please reconsider for

126academic purposes is to have the same privilege of students transportating transporting at 4:15 thank you thank you anyone else from the public had a lot but being that we're limited to 3 minutes try to cut it short don't time it yet oh first I want to thank your name and address for the record please mark Klein Turnberry Drive Monro I want to thank Mr gski for an exemplary job that he's done in the years that he's been involved with this District he saved us millions of dollars and continues to do it I wish we could do that on the other end um some of the things that you brought up which changed everything that I wanted to say the bit about Prosperity wealth per pupil if they're taking the total cost of homes and dividing

127it by pupil it's wrong you got 50 to at least 50% are adults over 55 in these adult communities if they're counting that into the equation of course we're going to lose um as far as last month about the two new buses we're mandated the course of the age I would tell a state as I told you when I was on a board to stick it we need the money from the buses to fix these rules being that they don't want to give us anything um as far as um grant money you know that's a pet peeve of mine and we keep getting turned down and I saw in my time on the board Dr copelan from Piscataway and the superintendent from Woodbridge both districts receive tens of millions of dollars more than we do

128yet they're able to get grant money to do repairs on their schools and we're told that we can't I asked Dr Hamilton when this was going on when they had the the uh judge in Nork assigned by the state supreme court for any districts that felt that they were being negatively impacted by the cuts and that's after we got cut down to $238,000 nothing was done from this Administration nothing was nothing was discussed no complaints um as far as state aid you know that the more than three years that I was on the board three years I started this before fighting for our fair share you know I've contacted the state supreme court Governor Christie I've spoken to him directly New Jersey Department of Education Newark education Law Center and so on and so forth

129I've spoken to Linda Greenstein she can't even get the support from the Democratic Leadership so how is she going to be able to do anything for us um next I spoke to Bob Smith State Senator last year at a different meeting I explained our situation he's done nothing I made a motion at one of the meeting to file a lawsuit whoever I've spoken to whether it be um the Nork Law Center Middle sex education services we have a right to sue and we should Prevail the state is in violation of the state constitution in providing free public education I'm not going to read it because you all know what it is but our our members I'm finished our members are residents are paying 97 to 98% of Education that's not free public education thank you

130very much anyone else on the public everything is made for tall folks Maryann Sullivan 12 shbl Court I'm curious to know what the Criterion is for selecting a student for an AP course is that your your question that that's one of them well ask all your questions my other question is um having taught an AP course they were always a free choice they were never paid for by the school parents subsidized them because we found that the kids had a much more motivational background when the parents felt that they had to pay for it because basically the seniors or Juniors who took AP courses really um let's say they they didn't have the motivation if it was given to them for nothing so that's why I'm curious as to how that's being done okay thank

131you Dr Gorman generally speaking AP courses are chosen by students but they have to meet criteria through honors classes first and they have to achieve at a high level academically okay yeah we had criteria too but but why is it it it says here on the minutes to the uh other meeting basically the finance committee meeting that students basically thought that they would be accepted into better colleges my understanding is is there any collaboration between colleges and high school with regard to uh accepting these credits because some colleges will not accept AP courses we know that so then if that be the case why can't there be some collaboration between the local colleges and high school to make sure that those credits are going to be accepted and that this is not just going to

132be a waste of money I think that's a great point and I know that we have ongoing Partnerships and discussions with colleges and universities but we don't have um um authority to um dictate what they will accept and what they don't accept generally speaking um advanced placement courses do lead towards um towards um more rigorous college acceptances so it is a criteria for rigor um the problem that sometimes happens is in in from our lens equal access in public education which means we we um we educate all children and so while everybody has access if they do well it's our job to give them the skills to have that access and I think that's where the bigger conversation sort of happens with advanced placement not just for the kids that are but I don't understand

133why the school itself is paying for that and not the parents thank you okay anyone else from the public George gunkelman five KY Court Monroe uh I'd like to bring to the board's attention in the policy area uh r710 7510 uh these are not it's the I guess page one of 10 there are the categories that were mentioned about from the policy meeting there seems to be some confusion here in class two the cultureal Arts commission is placed with outside organizations the cultureal Arts commission is a creation of the Monroe Township the commission is appointed by the mayor the funding for the commission comes from the Township councils from our taxes just like our taxes for the school district why it would be the only one in that category that's going to pay this higher

134fee when other groups like Recreation which is also a creation and funded by the town all the other groups in class two are not Township organizations all you all you manage to do by doing this is reduce the funds available for Cultural Arts programs that's the net result result all the cultural arts program or virtually all are free to this any student in Monroe Township none of these others are free to the students so why there would be this discrimination against this one organization I don't know if the full board understood that I think it was brought to the attention of the committee how it did not get to the full board I don't know but I guess it goes to this thing that was mentioned earlier maybe the committee meetings should be reported on

135before you vote but that might not even be enough if there's not an interval for public participation to have an opportunity for a correction um I would like a response as to why and if if it doesn't get any satisfaction here I'm going to have to talk to the mayor and the council thank you do you want to respond we don't have to we don't have to okay okay anyone else from the public we will resp we will take it under advisement I'm not sure what that [Music] means Mr gunkelman um reporting on the actions of the policy committee a few month months back it was determined by the policy committee that the use of building charges have not been updated in several years or perhaps even decades I didn't mention the fees about the

136categ pleas let me finish address my question I will I'll I'll do it a little more politely um the the fees were updated to be current pursuant to our profession environmental Safety Management which actually came in and determined a rate per hour per each classroom and per each Auditorium and gymnasium in this District so that the renters are charged the fee instead of the school district and the taxpayers paying for it the categories never changed the cultural arts commission was always a class two user the impact uh that the cultural arts commission is facing is the increased fees and I understand that um the policy committee will look at this issue again anyone else from the public Nelson Chen for Ashley uh I want to know uh I have a few questions actually the first

137one is uh sometimes you give handouts uh explaining some of these items on the agenda and sometimes you don't in particular I'm talking about the item on page 15 the bill list which is $1.8 million in expenditures that you all are voting on very quickly and we have no idea the public the taxpayers have no idea what is being voted on uh in that item yet for the policy you gave us a 30-page handout uh about the policies and I just want to know why why you print some of the things and why you don't uh print others the other question that I have is item six on page 17 the uh uh Bata nurses what are we paying nurses to travel from uh Monroe Township to Crown Plaza I don't know what that is

138and I would like an explanation about that and then also uh on the 17 positions how many of those positions are mandated the new positions that are costing $790,000 how many of those positions are mandated uh and how many are not mandated and have we reviewed those positions to make sure that they're absolutely necessary in these times when people have not gotten raises in three four five the last four years people have not seen raises and we are still in bad Economic Times also the mecca program was put in place for the teachers okay there's 14 kids in that program we've loaned them $200,000 so far I don't know if that number includes the salaries and the maintenance of the building the electrical the heating if we're attributing those costs to those people that have

139their kids going to that program if it's not working close it it's $200,000 now we don't need the extra liability of Township employees and having to hire more people and having to pay them more benefits okay if it's not working the teachers don't want it CL it thank you you want to take there was there was one more thing uh actually on that Doe uh the New Jersey Department of Education you know Monroe Township was third for spending per pupil spending and classroom instruction course they were third behind New Brunswick and uh Perth Amboy which are both Abbott districts so the reality we're number one okay in spending per pupil okay Mr Chen um number one uh the bill list this month's bill list is 65 pages of immense detail for all of the bills

140that were prepared for Appropriations that were budgeted for and approved by the Board of Education in the 1213 budget so to provide detail for 65 pages of immense information would be impractical for a board meeting if there's a specific question or anything I welcome anybody to give me a call or you can OA the um the itemized purchase order or even the invoice if you wish but uh it would be impractical to provide that information how do you differentiate what gets printed at one what does it the whole bill list is printed with more detail than that's required distri distributed to the entire Bill list is distributed at each meeting the public yes yes sir not to the public the bill list they get the public I didn't get one can I have one then

141yeah I beg your pardon the bill list is not the bill list goes to the board members that's my question what differentiates it being distributed versus not because that 65 pages I think you said yes that's 30 pages I think that's what you have in that policy if I'm mistaken I don't know how it's pretty thick that policy I haven't counted the pages but it's probably the same amount of pages okay um number two Bata nurses the district uh subcontracts with Bata nurses for specific um disabled students needs as required by their ie and it's fiscally prudent to use the services of bayata as opposed to hiring a full-time nurse and benefits in many instances so this is actually a cost-saving maneuver to have an RN or an an LPN serve the students in accordance

142with the IEP what's that travel yeah you know um there's 17 positions that are recommended to the board in the 1314 budget I'm sorry Mr the travel course for the bi we your your time was up and we're in I'm answering the questions now you didn't answer the last question I don't understand what the TR I can't argue with you in this uh you know public form there's 17 positions in the budget um mandated out of those 17 are at least seven that are special ed that I discussed with our special ed director for um I see at our inclass resource room there's probably more that are mandated than just that seven because of um uh pupil per staff ratios which Reed by law which are required by law so in my opinion without the

143factual information it's at least seven probably as much as 12 of the 17 are mandated the security three are not mandated but you know that's arguable and um Mecca we've already talked about Mecca Mecca I believe we covered already on I don't have a specific question on Mecca that was a comment okay we only have time for two more people if we can keep it three minutes or less Doug Dale 653 spots gtown Road just going to finish up what I was uh okay saying before we'll splice it into the beginning one thank you um I wanted to get to the point that um Monroe's average teacher salary is ranked 15th out of 25 districts in Middle sex County Oldbridge just next door is ranked third with an average salary of 73,000 monro's full-time secretary

144is ranked 12th with a $10,000 difference from the top District Monroe's full-time power professionals average $26,000 a year Star Ledger article dated 91212 lists of poverty level in New Jersey at an income of less than 22,000 Monroe ranked 335th at of 588 school districts in New Jersey in an average teacher salary in 1112 still the Monro Township High School ranked 118 out of 322 high schools in New Jersey and one of the top 10 in Middle sex County it's time to stop blaming the education system and the teachers for the taxes it's not the time to start cutting programs to students a few months ago big bad Governor Christie found a discrepancy in our town budget he made a big big bad stink about it all over the YouTube and in the media and demanded

145the taxpayers get the money back and we all got a check for $225 that was $550,000 of tax money that I got $25 back on I bought one box of diapers for my two-year-old that was waste in Hamilton Township in July 2010 Christie is quoted as saying this is the beginning of real property tax relief for New Jersey it's time to blame him our taxes haven't moved in any direction but up since he's been Governor certainly is not the fault of the Monroe school board for the situation that we are in now the problem comes from Trenton what burns me the most is that everyone in this room had an education at some point in their lives and some teacher gave their all and some District did their best to provide services and programs and

146some taxpayers without kids in the school paid for it is it fair to say now that's too much if you want to see taxes go down call the governor's office and ask him what he's doing about it don't stand in this room and nitpick the education away from the Youth of Monroe Township thank you [Applause] okay our last who would like to be last Maran Lester 44 Avenue I I have a question on page 17 um the second number what oh counts for the um the1 to $250 per hour like why is that such a wide Gap in the rate The Interpreter do you know why it's so big a gap what they charge I'm not sure what that rate is a contractual rate that's provided to us by the Cross County clinical and educational

147services this is their fee guide that they provide to us that we that we have to be that has to be approved before we can pay it okay I just have another this is for interpretation and they said that it's a minimum of three I guess this is for children who don't speak English a minimum of three hours a day say it's average 200 right so that would be we'd be paying 600 let me if maybe I'm wrong $600 a day $33,000 a week up to a potential of $122,000 a month uh for the whole school year for just one child is that correct it would not be for one child no not not for one child no this would be like a a CL a group a class could be yes okay all right

148and I just want to say um I really like teachers um but I just want to remind everybody that their salaries are based on 10 months a year too just to remind everybody and most people work 12 months okay okay thank you very much at this time I will close public forum and we'll go to close session be it resolved that the Board of Education of the township of Monroe hereby moves to go into closed session in accordance with Sunshine Law chapter 231 of the public laws of 1975 njs 10 col 4-6 Su 10 col 4-2 21 to discuss the following subjects student matters harassment intimidation bullying incident 16- 21 legal advice appeal to commissioner update and Personnel Employee 01428 grievance the discussion conducted in closed session can be disclosed to the public at such

149time the matters have been resolved a motion to go into Clos session move um who Koffman and Chella all in favor I opposed extensions then the board will move into closed session at this time the board will move back into public session I think we only have one item yes if I may it is recommended that the Board of Education hereby deny the level three grievance regarding employee number 0014 428 dated January 22nd 2013 the superintendent of schools and the board's business administrative board secretary authorized to take all necessary steps to implement this action of the board of education is there a motion and a second so move Mr Kaufman second Mr Masters any comments or questions then we will have a roll call Miss anelis yes cherella yes oh my God here he goes

150yes Mr zareski yes Mr calman yes Mr Masters yes Mr poy yes Mr preso yes Mr tesler yes Mrs K Pano yes madame board president item AC item passes okay thank you at this time before um Mr tiella needs um needs medical help um our number 15 our next scheduled public Board of Education meeting which is our tenative budget hearing will be held on March 5th 2013 7:00 p.m. at our high school I need a motion to adjourn motion motion by Mr Master second by Mr tesler all in favor opposed extensions the meeting is adjourned