001good evening the meeting of the Monro Township Board of Education will come to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all please continue standing while we have a moment of silence to honor those people who lost their lives 12 years ago today and um 911 thank you oops may we have a roll call Mr Gorski Mrs colowit here Mr tesler here miss antelis here Mr Braverman Mr Chella here Mr calman here Mr Masters here Mr poy here Mr proso here Mr zareski here Madame board president you have a quorum thank you in accordance with the provisions of the New Jersey open public meetings law
002the Monro tangent board board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted September 5th 2013 one at all schools two home News Tribune three cranberry press and four filed with the clerk of the municipality at this time we will go to our student board members reports but before we give our reports I'd like to welcome Miss Corey haer as our new student representative to the Monroe Township Board of Education and Cory we look forward to having you join us for the next two years and if there's any problems or questions don't hesitate to ask any of us because we're here to help you and thanks welcome to [Applause] monel and we'll go with our reports good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is
003Franchesca spranza and I'm the senior Board of uh representative for this year um and this is Corey [Music] events taking place during the month of September September 9th was the first day of school for students September 11th and 12th are makeup pictures for underclassmen September 13th there is a half day for students for Yam kapor September 17th is back to school night at the high school September 19th there is a senior parent meeting in the media center at 6:30 p.m. thank you [Music] thank you this time we will go to number seven on the agenda and have a presentation of her certificate of appreciation to Leo Wagner and I will give this to Dr Hamilton thank you good evening all I'm very proud this evening to present a certificate of appreciation to Leah Wagner Leah
004donated over 2,000 pristine screen cleaners to our students and our staff members in our high school um for cleaning their iPad ads and the certificate of appreciation reads this certificate is awarded to Leah Wagner and the Monroe Township Library in recognition of the valuable contribution of the valuable pristine screen cleaners to all Monroe Township students grade n through 12 so Mrs Wagner thank you so much [Applause] I can I use it right and we'd like to thank Miss Wagner for her contribution to the Monro school district and this is just another way of shared services between the township and the Board of Education and we continue to look for ways to have that partnership continue to grow and and be positive thank you thank you um number eight on the agenda September 11th remembrance by
005our chorus from the high school and the middle school and I'm going to Mr Dr Gorman do you want to handle this come on [Music] up um no it's the high school course and then we have the middle school that are going to present a couple of uh poems um in remembrance of September 11th for bless you and keep [Music] you his upon you and give you peace you and give you give you the Lord his to shine upon you and be graci and be gra the be gracious [Music] gra amen aen [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you very much that was absolutely beautiful you guys done a fantastic job and to the members of the public we hope to have more opportunities to showcase the great things that our children do or our students do
006uh during this coming school year so this is just the the beginning of what we're going to Doak and students from the seventh grade okay and eighth graders so I'm sure every or most of us remember exact where we were 12 years ago and I know that I was standing in room 12 of Applegarth Middle School when I heard what had happened on the day when the world stopped turning and as a social studies teacher I found with every year that passes it becomes more and more difficult for me to explain the events as my students grow further and further away from having any real memories of their own so my two of my wonderful Avid students are here joining me representing their class of 23 students and what they did on the first night
007of school is they went home and they interviewed their parents about what the world was like when it was still turning before 9911 and then they added their observations about what the world is like today and we put it together as a group uh very modified diamon poem they all contributed um and I have these wonderful ladies anelise Ortiz and gra Gabriella Jimenez who are going to read this poem on behalf of their classmates to you life in America September 10th 2001 vulnerable innocent liberating unassuming blindsiding denial Freedom Pride World Trade Center unsuspecting quiver then September 11th 2001 scrambling suffering Chaos heroes and lad hatred rebuilding uniting praying aware vengeful life in America September 2013 thank you very much M missaki could you just turn around so that the board could yeah but everyone of
008the stud the the words on the top half before September 11th were all words contributed by their parents and then the words on the bottom half were the words contributed by my students so it was a nice exercise in helping them to feel a little closer to what had happened and we can leave this here okay thank youcome and thank you thank you the students okay we will go to the public forum anyone from the public wishing to speak to the agenda please come to the microphone state your name and address for the record and we will adhere to our three minute time limit of course Mark KL 53 turnburry Drive talking about the Clos session and we discussed it when I was on the board the closed session should be held at the beginning
009of the meeting between 6:00 and 6:30 call meeting to order making it legal and then hold the closed session last month I sat from 6:30 through two closed sessions until 10:30 and with only two people left along with myself if you have a closed session after not a Clos session if you have a public session after your Clos session if there's nobody here no one can answer ask questions and have them answered um I tried to clear up misconceptions and false information provided by the board concerning the two new Jack moris developments I had not planned to use my three minutes for this information but was providing a service to keep all up to date on the applications being that no one from the administration attends the planning board meetings I am then rudely cut
010off after my 3 minutes when all that was left was the explanation about the respon resp to the letter I received from the governor no one was going to ask questions so as in the past I could have gotten up again to discuss the response but I chose not to because all I heard it was too late if I may the letter that I gave all of you at the last meeting was the letter I sent to the governor's office I received a phone call from his head advisor concerning the inequity and funding that we have in this district and what I was told is number one which we know Mike knows is the um property value per student which is ridiculous because we have 50% adults with no children the other thing they fall
011back on is the formula which they can't even explain and lastly is the fact that uh the governor's been trying to change the Supreme Court to put people in going to follow the Constitution that was the answer I got I still have not given up there's things in the works but that's all I wanted to add last time for a minute and I wasn't allowed to speak the minute thank you thank you anyone else from the public wishing to speak Madam president my name is Ellen Noel NM Road Jamesburg New Jersey I'm here representing our members and especially seven cafeteria Associates who are not rehired by the new food service provider Mets culinary we're calling them the Monroe 7 I am asking that you as a board intercede and investigate why Mets culinary did not
012rehire our seven cafeteria Associates who have been serving our children breakfast and lunch for Combined 67 years that's 18 13 12 10 65 and 3 years as cafeteria Associates here in the Monroe School District we ask you to write to write a very Grievous wrong and require Mets to rehire the seven we ask you to require mits culinary to honor the promises they made to us mitz culinary promised on two occasions that all the associates would be rehired the general Council of Mets culinary in a phone conversation with our Nea representative in mid July stated unequivocally that all Associates would be rehired Council foret stated that the company did not want to disrupt the employees the union or cause issues in the community Unfortunately they have the second broken promise was made by the Vice
013President of Mets at our first negotiation session with our committee president representing the association and Bob oen Bob Mets vice president and food I'm sorry food service director Nancy mitac all the start of the meeting on August 14th the VP responded to our question was it the intention of Mets to rehire all of our employees his answer yes but that was not to happen for after short interviews by the company reps LED were issued to all Associates on August 28th seven Associates were not rehired as promised all others were rehired through many had a change of jobs and some a reduction in hourly rate of pay we met with the Mets on September 5th to demand the company to live up to their promise they declined to do so and that is why we are
014here tonight to seek your assistance and so that the Monroe 7 can continue their careers here in the Monroe School District One More point we filed to complaint under BD policy 9130 to the superintendent asking the relief from this situation since it related to the operation of the district he declined claiming he lacked authority to intervene and that the board had no say in the matter we disagree Mets manager Chad rockovich stated that these decisions not to rehire the seven were made in consultation with the food service director Nancy mitac a school board employee these decisions not to rehire position changes were done by their gut feelings quote unquote according to rockov and with involvement of the board representative Nancy mitac and so we request that under appeal process the complaint be brought to your
015attention to properly resolve this dispute it is extremely unfair for me and our union members who have dedicated so many years to their jobs in feeding our children developing relationships we ask that you help us so that we may have a satisfactory resolution I'm going to have our board attorney respond to that okay I I've been asked to to communicate to to to the to you and and to the public uh that the board has no ability to tell uh the the the Mets food company uh what to do in terms of hiring people there's there's a contractual relationship as you know uh I believe between the Board of Education and Mets uh the the contract was uh awarded as a result of the proposal process uh there is simply is not the ability of
016the board to require Mets to take any action I think that's was one of the items that that you asked U the uh the board to undertake with respect to your reference to the policy we can certainly look at the policy but in the F and and and carefully look at it in that regard but Mets operates independent of the Board of Education with respect to its hiring and other Employment Practices uh if you will the board simply doesn't have the ability to do this under the terms of its contract with Mets well isn't it right that on uh page 20 of the agenda the contract hasn't even been signed yet let's look at excuse me yeah please go right [Music] ahead on June 19th 2013 the board passed a resolution authorizing and appointing the
017Food Service management company being Mets tonight's a formality as part of the Child Nutrition application to the state to have a certified resolution of the final contract that's being presented to the board tonight as it's just been approved by the state of New Jersey but the appointment of the Food Service management company mets has been made in and authorized and approved by the board already with all respect Mr Gorski I had a meeting with you you asked me to come into your office when I was picking up documents and you had told me on that day that you would be uh pushing for all of the employees to be rehired excuse me but your three minutes are up so if you would like to have a conversation with Mr Gorski you can call his office
018and he'll be glad to speak with you because our our excuse me we I'm treating everybody the same way um our board attorney Miss lordy has already responded to that and and well that's fine but if I got replies from my emails and my calls then I wouldn't be so upset about this but I don't get replies so you know it's all well and good but when they don't reply because well if you call Mr gorsky's office he will reply to I've tried that thank you correction I spoke with Miss Noel about two years ago about a completely separate issue before the RFP process had even begun I don't know what she's misrepresenting here but I tell you that you contact I believe it was according on Beth Gavin I believe it was on and
019that wasn't two years ago we're not going to continue this conversation right now is there anyone else from the public wishing to speak Robert Road J team your field Boulevard I have two questions uh my first question deals with uh board action item D says is recommended that the board approved the attached list of student teachers for the 2013 2000 school year I would like you the board to read the names of all those teachers and the second question is uh the business administrator report uh e eate funding and you you're just getting around to approving um who was it on Tech Consulting for the 2012 2013 year which is you know as we well know we're into 134 I wonder why we're just doing this at this this point in time there are my
020two questions Mr Gorski and then Dr Hamilton will answer the other question yes um Mr Roos as far as the E rate funding as you astutely noticed there's two appointments on here e and f e is a correction of a typographical error misrepresent in the year which has already been presented to the board it was typed um 1112 I believe and it was supposed to be for 1213 so it's a correction of that typographical error and also the approval and appointment of eate funding for the 134 school year thank you Dr Hamilton is looking up the information you request thanks see that's one of the problems when you indicate an attached list and you know we don't see anything so makes it difficult for the public to understand what's going on list would you like
021Mr tesler is going to read it would you like Mr Tes that will be fine Mr tesler you can please read that list good I you're on the ball uh let's see hopefully I I apologize if I botch any some of these names but uh there's five number one Rita uh M A R A from Georgian Court uh Dena p o c h o p i n from Georgian Court uh Frankie VI i n from Keen Joseph dinora from keen and Francesco D Stefano from Keen thank you very much thank you anyone else from the public wishing to speak to the agenda good evening Steve Ryback 23 Riviera um I'd like to address the Strategic plan goal number three uh you mentioned that you're going to assess current and future facility needs I think it's
022something that is so important and I really applaud all of you for doing that uh you know we've talked about about the uh I'm going to call uncontrolled growth in Monroe and the impact it's having with all these new students coming to the schools uh you know I know Mr Po brought this out that uh when Builders do demographic studies and present their plans to the planning board Etc they don't consider available classroom space I would ask that you in some way keep an ongoing communication with the uh town so that they understand what they're dealing with when they seek to give preliminary approv approval excuse me to a builder's plans when no one's considering how much space is available in in the school thank you anyone else from the public Robert noell NM Road
023Jamesburg in reference to the question the before um regarding the Mets culinary contract uh you indicated that there's a resolution to operate but the contract has not been finalized and signed is that correct Mr Gorski is that correct um for clarity I'll read the resolution approved by the board on this is not going to count against my three minutes correct no thank you it is recommended that pursuant to njsa 18a 18a hyphen 5 a22 the Board of Education approved the appointment of Mets culinary management as the board's Food Service management company for the 2013 2014 school year in accordance with Met's culinary Management's proposal which satisfies the board's specifications and request for proposals for S Food Service management program and includes a guaranteed Financial return of 95,5 18260 for the 2013 20104 school year superintendent
024of schools and the business administrator board secretary and the board attorney acting on the board's behalf are hereby authorized and directed to take all necessary steps to implement this action of the board I'll take my time back now so then you're actually indicating that the contract was not signed but it was approved upon the RFP the RFP was returned to the uh independent entities yourself your attorney and their attorney review to sign by their corporate officials the contract technically is in effect you're operating in a a contingency on that on the agreement under the resolution correct that was a lot of statements you just made I'll try to uh address them as as holistically as I can uh this resolution appoints food uh Mets culinary management is the Food Service management company it authorizes the
025superintendent Business ministr board SEC attorney to engage in contracts with the company and uh approves them to begin Services what has not been formally approved yet is the final contract that was just approved by the state of New Jersey Child Nutrition department and as a formality that's being presented to the board tonight and then will be sent to the state once it's executed with the certified resolution of tonight uh for the Food Service renewal application excellent okay so there was no contract you're operating in contingency that everything will be approved and everything will be signed as was agreed upon in the RFP and the board's decision-making process yeah I mean the the the are the as you know sir and I I do know I've been in I've been in public for a long I'm
026trying I'm just trying to make a statement when as I know as a man of speaking that's that's fine I know it is uh as you know I I believe the The Proposal folds into right we're all bound by The Proposal if the proposal is accepted by the board which the board accepted as you as you know uh so that the the board pursuant to the terms of the RFP let alone The Proposal itself which was responsive to the RFP doesn't have the ability to tell the the vendor in this case me who to hire who not to hire may I ultimately I don't think this counts towards your time anyway it shouldn't um ultimately it's the vendor that makes the decision about who to hire and who not to hire so we just don't
027see the ability of the board to engage and say you must rehire this person or that thank you you took it exactly where I wanted where I wanted to take it but okay if the vendor doesn't if if the board of vet has no say in the hire and fire then why did the Food Services director tell Mets who to fire because it's not Mets that knows the the the individuals it's the Food Services director who's an employee of this board that's where this needs to go it wasn't Mets that terminated it was the board that terminated through the acts of of the supervisor and that was what statements have been made so that's why I'm asking would that life were so simple in that way and and I what I mean by that um
028is that you you've drawn a straight line that really doesn't exist if you will and that is and and this is what I'm mean what I mean is that Mets makes the final decision whatever consultation there may or may not have been with a board employee with respect to the operation ultimately Mets makes the decision the board doesn't the board staff member the board itself doesn't have the authority to let's use the word veto the decision of Mets with respect to hire someone don't hire someone but they make a presentation to that and they have to be held or should be held responsible and should be as requested before looked into as to what was used to make that decision well a board rep somebody represented this board and said that that's why well and
029and this is what you you've been told that Mets said or you perhaps you you've heard it said by a representative of Mets but you know we can certainly look at that but the reality is that irrespective of what anybody said on behalf of any staff member for the board may or may not have said or let's say may have said to Mets ultimately the board staff member the Board of Education doesn't make the decision the decision is Met's decision I just asked for clarification and I appreciate that but like I said we asked the board to look into if somebody misrepresented their Authority or gave false information to for personal purposes or means is what I'm saying now that now that that may be a reasonable question and that that certainly I think could
030be reviewed But ultimately it's not going change and I mean this respectfully ultimately it's not going to change the bottom line as we well the bottom line it's not even as we understand it the bottom line is that the vendor makes the decision not not the Board of Education understand thank you thank you sir good evening um members of the Board of Education superintendent uh my name is George saletta I'm a representative of for the Monroe Township uh employees and I'd like to uh make a statement perhaps get an answer to a couple of questions first of all as best as we know every previous vendor in Monroe has who took on an acquisition of the account has rehired all employees that's number one number two we put a complaint in and the complaint read
031that the seven employees with 18 years experience 15 13 12 six and five were not rehired after being promised to be rehired I'm the one who spoke to the general Council of Mets culinary Brian buffalin I spoke to him and I said Brian in July our folks are a little bit upset about whether they're going to be rehired or not would you let me know what the status is and secondly who will be the representative for Mets because we want to bargain a contract few days later he got back to me he said George we will be rehiring all of our people and to paraphrase Brian buffalino he said we don't want to upset the community the employees or the union I took that as a good faith statement by The General Counsel of a
032company that has 5,000 employees and put that word out to our employees our Associates secondarily we meet with the vice president of Mets culinary Bob augen back at a negotiating meeting on August 14th and we say Bob our first concern is are you folks Hiring Our People back all of our people answer yes not just to me but to my entire committee now those promises are significant and you have to look at that irrespective of whether you have no Authority or not there is an element of unfairness that you just can't let go by with respect to um council's uh statement about we have nothing to do with the hiring or firing I disagree with that the RFP has in it a statement that's very significant and if I can take a moment it says
033that let's see here the Lea Board of Ed may require enr writing the removal of an employee of the Food Service management company who violates Health requirements or conducts him herself in a manner that is detrimental to the physical mental or well-being of students and staff that's in the RFP there's also a question in the RFP that says would you discharge Mets culinary would you discharge or transfer any employee at the request of the Lea without Interruption of service the answer to that your time is up and I will let our our attorney answer to that all right the answer to it was yes the vice president of the company said yes that's how we responded so based on our complaint and based on the unfairness it is you folks have to at least talk
034about it and give us some relief to the extent that you can I'm sorry you wanted to interrupt me and no I certainly don't want to interrupt you okay but I understand the time is the time is expired that's what I'm told and we thank you for the information we've heard I certainly have heard you okay I appreciate that thank you anyone else from the public wishing to speak to the agenda not the agend to the agenda gel armeno 9 Nathaniel Street candidate number five for the Board of Education elections I would like to ask uh about the retroactive hiring um can you explain why there are so many retroactive hirings on V SE page seven following non-certified Personnel on the following step guide I mean it's pages of some retroactive it goes on to
035eight nine uh generally the retroactive um start dates generally happen between board meetings and in this in this instance because the start of school happened since the last uh board meeting we needed to get folks hired and so they are being approved back to so that they can be paid back from day one it's only a few weeks since the last board meeting what two weeks we hire up until people take other offers and uh sometimes offers aren't acceptable so that's not at all unusual so how many many new hires have there been since the last board meeting please I wouldn't be able to give you that off the top of my head okay um will there be anybody on the board currently that will have to recuse themselves from any of the voting resolutions
036this evening Mr Kaufman Mr Kaufman okay else anyone else no okay and can can uh it explain can you explain why Mr Mr Koffman will have to recuse himself from um Mr Koffman would you like to answer that is there somebody on the agenda family member on the agenda that that uh you will have to he has a family member he has a family member on the um payroll okay um also on resolution uh page the close session resolution item 16 I believe it's page 20 uh very often we have uh Grievances and that's a pretty non-descriptive issue for closed session can you elaborate on that that is the um description that we got from our board attorney govern what repor are you um referring to Clos session resolution and the only thing it says
037is board to receive attorney advice in relation to board grievance issues that's very vague governance governance issues oh sorry governance issues oh governance issues I apologize I still want the question answered why does that rise to the level of a close session uh Madam you want me to answer this or the reason I would rather the attorney answer it since it's a legal issue I I think I think the appropriate decision with respect to who uh should answer a question should be uh maintained by the board president and I understand she's asked Mr Gorski uh to to respond I'm not shy about responding but I think just want to follow the rules okay uh when the board receives attorney advice um it rises to a confidential standard that is a closed session uh item and
038uh this particular one is for the board to receive government's issue advice from the attorney and that is a closed session eligible discussion how how the board receives governance so in other words how the board is supposed to behave specifically with respect to governance implicitly when used in this context means with respect to appropriate legal excuse me procedural issues and the legal uh piece of that okay so that's sort of my point a procedural issue should be able to be discussed in public it doesn't seem to rise to the level of a closed session uh I mean I have the law here and it doesn't seem to be one of the exceptions of the clo uh open public meetings act what is an exception to to the open public meetings Act is receiving attorney advice
039and that's one of the what's going to happen here this evening with respect to a number of matters okay and then will that will will you be completing that this evening will it be resolved issue in your estimation discussion whether there's a resolution tonight will be seen well if you whether there's a resolution or not if you complete the discussion and it's over my question is will it be able to be deliberated and spoken about in public the answer with respect as you probably know with respect to um closed session discussion is when the need for confidentiality no longer exists right you know then it's then it's released to the public the I don't know when that's going to be that frankly the Judgment would be made based on uh the the circumstances at the
040time so I can't tell you that it would I don't a I don't make the decision I give the advice obviously but uh B uh whether or not it would be released at some point would depend upon when the need for confid it no longer exists okay thank you very much thank you ma'am anyone else on the public speaking to the agenda Tom notein 15 Nathaniel Street um in regards to the closed session there's always a concern with closed session resolutions because this board as it knows has been sued in the past and they lost so when it comes to a closed session there is a a very tight standard that needs to be followed I disagree with the board attorney quite respectfully when she says that any type of advice from an attorney is
041closed session that's not accurate according to the op uh to the open public records I mean the open public meetings act the advice has to be uh such that if it was public it would harm the board such as real estate transactions um Personnel issues uh anything of that nature that has to be kept private simple advice to a board does not necessarily have to be kept private additionally on the agenda it has to be such detail that the public can actually access information such as a docket number if there's a court case pending Etc could you please respond to that concern the obviously the board isn't going to talk in close session this evening about particular pending litigation because if it were the docket number the name of the case uh and the venue
042in which it was pending would be on the agenda or should be on the agenda but there are a number of issues involving if if you look at one of the Exceptions there are is an exception with respect to matters uh involving uh individuals and matters of privacy that don't get out into the public and there are sometimes uh situations in which uh like this evening there those matters are matters as to which uh attorney advice may be sought uh we have uh determined to call it more broadly governance issues but I've more specifically described it to you now so it's a Personnel issue more so uh not a Personnel issue because remember if you're going to have a Personnel issue you're going to have to Rice whoever you're you're going to be talking about
043and and that's not what I'm saying but it this could also involve matters with respect to um board member issues board member uh issues with Visa privacy matters and the like okay thank you thank you sir and with all due respect we um had attorney advice before we put this on the agenda for a closed session anyone else wishing to speak to the agenda Maran Lester 44 Avenue I I have a question on page 13 under the uh adult education um for example the first one watercraft and safe boating um you're paying him $55 per person that signs up is that correct no oh may I of course uh no the fees for those instructors are paid by those who register for the course the board is not does not pay for that oh okay
044because it just says $55 I thought that was Purp person because the person signing up is paying $80 and I was wondering where the additional $25 is going those those the cost of the adult ed program is sustained by the people who take advantage of that so what's the 55 for again the $55 is the registration of the the fee that is charged for the participants in that course okay but in the B sure it says $80 there may be a registration I don't have that in front of me but there may be a registration fee associated with that which app fores there is not every single one but a lot of these are they're saying $505 per person and in the actual brochure when you go online it's $80 I was just wondering where
045that extra money is all going and there's quite a few that that applies to can somebody find out for me be glad to okay thank you Mr Gorski do you have do you have that yeah I might be able to help um the the res the action item I is a recommendation that the board approved the following classes instructors dates and salaries for the adult ad full session so those uh salary amounts are for the instructors if that doesn't correlate exactly to the charge per person for the course there are other overhead costs involved such as supplies um the use of building charge in general the adult education program is designed to be a community service to um whereas the revenues received from the class participants equal uh the costs involved so that the board
046does not contribute any general fund monies towards the program okay but it's this is then the extra if they make any extra that would go towards the cultural commission that extra overhead even if it's being held say in the school um if they make any extra it just goes to cover all the overhead including supplies that may be consumed in the classroom process or the that goes to the cultural commission not to if we're supplying say a classroom for something you don't get the extra money this the school doesn't the cultural commission gets that money if the if the use of building venue is the monor Township school facilities we would certainly keep the the money and you build them for that at the end of these every then every yes yes yes okay I'll
047take less than three minutes Michelle armeno again um the uh New Jersey sa 10 uh 104-112 when it talks about uh any matter involving employment appointment termination of employment Etc it also talks about that the individual um well let me just say let me just read it Current public officer or employee employed or appointed by the public body unless the individual employees or appointees whose rights could be adversely affected Ed request in writing that such a matter or matters be discussed at a public meeting I think you fail to say that and I want the public to be assured that if someone who if someone's going into close session and they choose to have their matter brought before the public that they indeed have a right to do that under the open public meetings act
048ma'am that's ABS that's absolutely right and that is specifically what I referred to when I said earlier a rice notice the the ca the the language to which you're referring or or or you reading uh arises from a Superior Court case involving an employee named rice I don't remember which board of education which public entity was involved and in a rice notice the board of education has an obligation to say the board will will uh conduct a public meeting on what's today September 11th and during the cour 2013 during the course of the meeting the board uh will retire to close session uh to uh to discuss a matter that may affect your employment status period the board has no Duty under the under the rice case to say and if you want it in
049Open Session you can have it in Open Session that's implicit it's it's an implicit right of the employee but you're absolutely right but it arises what I mentioned earlier with the rice case is my shorthand for saying what you just said well that's sort of my point the employees very often or whoever is going you're going to close session are usually not aware of their their right to have that deliberated in public so I just think that needs to be made clear that's a good point but most of the employees in my experience not all but most of the employees in my experience are represented very ably uh by the appropriate uh labor Association and have received that advice but you know I think you rais a good point Thank you and the last thing
050I'd like to say with again all due respect to our uh attorney that during uh Mr uh noin mentioned uh path versus Board of Education in 2007 our attorneys as able as they are did lose the case so we do have sometimes you know there's a attorneys on either side so just asking attorney for their position doesn't always mean it's the right one so I'd like to take that I think your Point's well takeen attorneys being human beings are not always perfect having said that uh the case the path case to which you uh refer was before my time and I will tell you that we take matters of closed session discussion very seriously and the rice requirement for example extremely seriously well thank you and it was no had nothing to do personally that's
051fine this is this is a very good dialogue and I thank thank you for it thank you anyone else from the public very quick uh your strategic uh what do you call this thing strategic plan strategic plan uh I I see in the beginning that Robert roach by the way te mfield Boulevard uh you have roles of PE uh people you have the roles of the parents the roles of the community I think it would be nice to see what you perceive the role of the Board of Education to be just as an addition to your strategic plan thank you anyone else from the public okay seeing no one we will close public form and go to the approval of the minutes for public Board of Education meeting August 21st 2013 I wanted to speak
052but it was not to an agenda item well then you have to wait for the second public forum yes Mr Mr Tiel Mr Masters any comments or questions all in favor opposed extensions miss anelis abstains m pres a second there um Mr Masters master and Miss yes the closed approval of the minutes for the closed session public meeting of August 21st 2013 so move by Mr cherella second second by Mr proso all in favor I opposed abstentions Miss and Tellis um we'll go to committee reports are there any committee reports that need to be reported this evening I guess Mr Master you have one it's a very positive committee report so I jumped right on it uh we had a buildings and grounds uh two days ago over at Brookside I had a couple of
053good things I'm going to go into it a little depth here so bear with me now the first one um we've heard a lot of time especially a certain person in the audience tonight uh that we don't go to the state or other uh Avenues to acquire external monies so we are listening and then in June when the state actually made available over $400 million in Rod grants we actually applied for four of them I'm going to read the four that we applied for uh project One Stop Gap measures renovation of capacity generating 10 classrooms to address overcrowding at Monroe Township Middle School total project costs 2,239 215 the 40% Rod Grant contribution if we get the rod Grant $895 686 which would leave us with an obligation of 1,343 529 project two Monro Township
054Middle School windows and Associated hazardous material abatement total project cost $1,744 uh the rod Grant contribution $42,988 Our obligation $644 74 the Monroe Township middle School partial re roof and site upgrades in general project cost $1,592 181 the rod Grant contribution $637,000 the district obligation $955,000 $6,195 District obligation $174,200 you me to repeat any of those so we did submit for all four we've made two the buildings and grounds and transportation has made two of those budget priorities for the 145 and they are the stop Gap measures for the Middle School to um decrease the overcrowding and the partial re-roof and site upgrades now if those grants go through that'll result in savings of over a million dollars to the district uh in the 145 budget so that's a that's a big win for the
055district number two we did get our draft demographic report now how it works is they use the numbers from the October 15th enrollment correct now since it's not October 15th yet we took last year's numbers we do that's why it's still a draft we've opted to wait for this October 15 numbers and we're going to get uh hopefully shortly after that we'll get an updated October 15 2013 uh numbers but we did get the demographic report we did receive an excellent report about the school openings and uh there was a lot of issues and and things that we got in um over the summer and and the staff did a great job I'll read a couple really good ones um they upgraded the U the entire um fiber Network between barook and Brookside schools and
056oak tree and Applegarth uh when the kids weren't there uh complete interior voice rewiring installation the Voiceover IP ISDN telephone system which is a huge uh upgrade uh renovation of the multi disabled classroom at the middle school great uh rekey the entire District so we have a districtwide great great Grandmaster keying which I find hilarious um as a name uh we installed controlled access door card swipes at Woodland mil Lake Barkley book Brookside oak tree so now every employee does have their own District this is all part of that security um agenda we had a while back and it goes on and on HVAC upgrades a lot of great stuff that we did that we didn't do that the staff the administration and and the teachers did um so good job for the school opening
057we ALS o had uh we removed a piece of playground equipment on Applegarth from the advice of the principal it was deemed the hazard um that's a minor one and then we also had a really good um citizen come in a Mr Mike pedo now he asked us he's got an initiative that he's calling the Field of Dreams initiative of course it's involved with baseball uh and I'm just going to read a statement about it um the initiative will look to engage Community involvement towards upgrades and enhancement to the baseball fields at the middle school in Oak Tree on a year round basis currently in case you notice the operating budget only provides for field grooming to game ready standards during the high school baseball season the initiative looks to have these fields game ready
05812 months a year to allow for greater school and Community use in addition to soliciting local contractors and skilled parents to donate Trade Services it's similar like what they did with the uh the garden at Oak Tree Mr pedo and accomplished advertising executive will also spearhead an effort to get paid advertisements at the baseball fields as a revenue stream for field upgrade projects such as new dugouts score scoreboards fencing Etc we we asked the administration they looked in they assured that we have the necessary insurance coverage and it's place for all the volunteers to this effort it's authorized by the buildings and grounds committee at the last meeting um so we're setting up a program whereby the high school industrial Arts students also will be using as a curriculum based project they'll construct most of
059the storage sheds and anything else we need for the fields so it'll basically be a zero cost to the district I think that's it it's a lot but thanks any comments or questions for Mr masters m oh do you have a com oh go ahead Mr Kesler I apologize so just a a couple more points I want to drive home about the um the 10 additional classrooms at the Middle School uh the 10 additional since everybody knows you know our town is growing by Leaps and Bounds again um the 10 additional classrooms uh at the middle school that project will be paid 40% as long as you get the rod grants by the state we'll fund the rest but that also will push off the need for putting trailers back in the middle school for
060quite a few years and when you put trailers on there basically you're leasing it it's not a good uh use of funds so uh the 10 additional classrooms we net will you know get we in when we get that it'll be paid 40% by the by the state and then 60% by us saving us money and also we're going to be doing this in the general budget and not going having to go out with a bond referendum and not putting us into more debt so those are a lot of positive things about that project I think we also have to recognize our director facilities Jerry tag and our excellent custodial staff for the outstanding job they did in getting all of our facilities ready for the first day of school so thank you Mr Masters
061for that report anyone else Mr uh Coffman sure uh we had a curriculum meeting this evening uh where we received a demonstration of a um I don't know whether it's the product Jeff or keep me honest or the company uh relative to uh this tool called gizmos which is being proposed to uh help uh deliver uh subject matter content for the Middle School in both Math and Science we've already completed a pilot for this I believe in math or science science science company's name is explore learn Explore Learning is the company Gizmo is the product uh we are uh also actively following up with our technology folks uh after this presentation uh to ensure that the existing equipment that we have in the district uh will be able to support delivery of this content but
062I have to tell you from the uh demonstration while it was very brief uh it's pretty exciting the level of information that we can provide our students with the ability to possibly eliminate the need for textbooks um which is absolutely incredible and students will be able to have hands-on experience with equipment that we already have so we wouldn't need to buy new equipment uh in the school and they would also be able to do work on the same tool when they get it home uh so again if we can save uh buying textbooks I believe the cost was somewhere in the neighborhood of about $4 a seat uh per year and the content never goes out of date so it's refreshed every year so it was a pretty interesting demonstration and again this would be
063for the middle school students um we also approved some um line items for the content material for language arts and a few other things um if anybody needs a complete list of the approval stuff I can uh certainly give it to you it's about eight items but it was a really good presentation thank you anyone else Miss antelis we had a finance committee meeting on September 9th um going to bypass item number one it was about a video distribution proposal for 113,000 almost $114,000 um until Reggie Washington can come before us and explain what it's about as the committee was split on it uh I believe the next meeting Mr rski did he say he would be able to talk about and we'll go to the full board September 25th meeting okay and and that
064item will go before the full board for discussion uh a Mecca update uh Dr Hamilton and Mr Gorski presented the most recent enrollment numbers as of September 9th Mecca had 32 children going over the goal of 31 to make a profit and the early childhood education program has 42 children enrolled and while we had uh had the cut off at 40 the reason we have 42 is there's two children who are not going full-time uh and Mr gski you also presented the financial status of Mecca and uh at the end of September when the numbers come in we'll start talking about the repayment of the loan uh the June 30th 2013 audit status Mr Gorski updated the committee on the status of the financial audit as of June 30th transaction testing significant items testing Minutes
065review and excess Surplus calculations were performed to date and the insurance opt out status I'm going to let you speak about that Mr Gorski because that is a significant number and you have more of that information thanks the board of education's uh negotiating committee uh which was made up previously of the board president Kathy kapano Mr John lirry uh retired from the board Mr Ken Chella um and facing the of the three-year mtea contract and trying to satisfy uh all of the requests uh within came up with a A Creative method of offering um employees an option to opt out of all insurance and receive a stien $4,000 topped out of a family plan 2500 for a single plan and um the the um initiative was proposed to have about 10% of the enrollment opt
066out maybe 75 individuals to break even and cover the cost of the agreement to date 101 staff members have opted out at a savings of 1,776 243 net of uh stiens to the employees and that the important Point here is that has more than paid for the increased costs of the collective bargaining agreement um not only for the mtea but the administrators the teamsters and a central office support staff so uh basically because of that initiative the cost to the taxpayers from that last NE collective bargaining agreement was savings thank you and I applaud the negotiating committee because I remember for years we were never allowed to do this and uh to the um I guess the easement of some of the laws um it looks like it's really been worthwhile now these people don't
067have are going with no insurance correct they're going on BB a spouse that's absolutely correct Mrs D our benefits uh coordinator makes them provide proof that they have Alternative Insurance um so that they don't do without thank you that completes my report thanks I think anytime that we can negotiate a a race for our um staff and still not have a cost to the district or the community I think that's a win-win for everybody and like Miss Anella said really good negotiations uh anyone else have a committee report okay seeing none we will go to the superintendent report Dr Hamilton my pleasure thank you um before I start my report I want to take this opportunity just to reiterate what you said um and give my thanks to the staff especially our incredible custodio team
068for one of the best school openings um ever uh our school opening was excep uh no glitches very few Transportation calls um but a very very good opening um I'd also like to share with the board that we received our final NJ ASK and HSPA scores yesterday principles are confirming the data now and we will have a full student achievement data report for the board at the September 25th board ofet meeting now moving on to the superintendent report Madame board president and members of the Board of Education it is recommended by the bo by the superintendent that personnel items a through X be approved by roll call vote second Mr tiella Mr Masters are there any comments or questions for Dr Hamilton seeing none we'll have a roll call Mr G Miss anelis yes Mr
069cherella yes Mr zareski yes Mr calman yes all recuse Q accuse Q so noted Mr Masters yes Mr Po yes accept no on item W for uh noose and Tren so noted Mr proso yes on all no on W so noted Mr tesler yes Mrs kapano yes yes madame board president Personnel items a through X passes thank you moving on to board action items Madam board president and members of the board is recommended by the superintendent that board action items a through I be approved by roll call vote Mr tiella second by Mr Masters comments or questions seeing none we'll have a roll call Mr Gorski Miss antelis yes Mr Chella Mr zareski yes Mr calman yes Mr Masters Mr Po yes Mr proso yes Mr tesler yes M kapano yes Madam board president board
070action items a through I passes and that concludes the superintendent's report then we will go to the business administrator report Mr Gorski Madam board president and members of the Monroe Township Board of Education it is recommended that board action items a through G be approved by consent roll call Mr Chella second by Mr Masters Mr Masters you have a question question the um the aces thing I remember because that sticks out in my head the name is funny to me um sorry you're right right the aces uh which is B on the uh on the buildings administ report what is that we discussed that a bunch of times I think it's a it's positive right not prepared um yes the aces is a purchasing Consortium for electric and natural gas and um it's an energy
071aggregation program of the New Jersey school boards Association New Jersey Association of school business officials and the New Jersey Association of school administrators um ases runs aggregate P procurement programs to save money for over 400 districts through bulk purchasing of electric and natural gas so they put these uh Commodities out the bid and uh various energy providers um bid on them and then the bids awarded by law to the lowest bitter uh the the savings to the district from the aces program is that um last year for electric Savings of 35% below um the standard rate which is provided by in Monroe's case jcpnl was achieved through this bidding process with the Consortium 35% lower rates than through jcpnl their base rate and this year uh the rates are 18% lower than the standard electric
072rate for natural gas it's a little more difficult to um get a handle on it because it changes so frequently but uh at a look back for last year the aces rates for natural gas was 6% below that of the local standard for um for natural gas you wouldn't Hazard to guess on the dollar amounts or no I I'd have to calculate that very sir this this is like the um the middle sex Regional Education same thing for yes it's a purchasing Consortium um to buy in bulk for these Ser services and in this case Commodities um and the purchasing power of over 400 uh districts uh enables much lower prices than um elsewhere so that would be considered shared services it certainly is and it's part of our budget statement and it's reviewed by
073the county um a business administrator every year because districts like Monroe are strongly encouraged if not required to engage in as many shared services agreements as possible and this is one great example that we've had in the district for a few years where we're achieving really handsome savings anything we could do to save good job Mr presos question yes Michael on item e and f p 19 are we approving both of these or because I there's very little change e to F the eating yes um uh that was addressed earlier the E rate is a correction of a a a typo um what's being approved here is for the 12 13 and 134 school years for eate oh okay and eate is another uh wonderful initiative that the district has engaged in to save money
074if I may add um whereas we H we have a fee or percentage of the savings paid to a provider and um on everybody's electric and um technology bills uh there's a a a tax imposed by the federal government and this taxes divy it up to school districts who participate in this e- rate funding and last year I believe we saved about $200,000 by participating in this program okay anyone else Mr Tesla I just real quick what's a d what's the web media hosting what what is it hosting item D um [Music] yes um we have a a TV channel that's another p a shared service agreement with the Monroe Township municipality and the fee for that annually for the web uh program hosting is $2,988 and it's shared equally between the school district and
075the municipality valid that's another shared service agreement that's delineated in our budget statement think you that's like for posting the Board of Ed meetings and the town meetings that's the hosting for that yes okay thank you any other questions then we'll have a roll call Mr Gorski 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 kapano Madame board president board action items a through passes that concludes my report thank you uh this time we'll go to the board president's report and I have a a few things um we had an opening day convocation and it was a really great opening day for staff on Tuesday September 3rd I the morning went really well everyone was really excited about being
076back and positive about the upcoming uh school year and we even had some entertainment when Dr Hamilton started the convocation off with a song and Ira refused to sing so um if that morning was any indication of how the school year is going to go it's going to be a really good school year I would just have a good feeling um board goals we held a board retreat on Saturday August 24th where the Board of Education set goals for this school year and one of the goals which we adopted at the um superintendent report was to develop a budget philosophy parameters and framework for developing the 2014 2015 school budget that budget philosophy conversation is going to be held by the members of the board at our September 25th board meeting and the results of
077that conversation will go into the making of the school budget for next year we had a similar conversation last year during a special board meeting but the board decided this year that we would have it during one of our regular meetings so that more of the public will be able to attend uh njba which is school board's meeting Mr Christopher Jones who is with the njsba government relations department has scheduled a meeting with Senator Linda Greenstein and the board presidents from those towns represented by the senator the purpose of this meeting is to familiarize our legislators in this case Miss green Sen Greenstein with the New Jersey school boards and the school districts that she represents to forer good relationships in line of communication and to make them aware of some of the main concerns
078that we have with policy coming from the state concerning education and how it affects our districts unfortunately I will not be able to attend that meeting so Mr poy has graciously said he would be attending in in my place and I'm sure that you will have a um information for us at the next meeting so thank you very much for doing that and lastly some other good news coming for our district is dror Hamilton has been asked to be part of a select team of educational leaders from New Jersey and New York to visit China to explore the possibility of a language Exchange program China is looking to examine the feasibility of sharing educational resources via technology to infuse the English language into China and Mandarin into the United States this trip is exploratory and
079no commitments will be made the American International Organization is sponsoring this trip and will fully fund it so there'll be no cost to our district I I believe having our superintendent attend this really important and exciting Venture will add positive exposure to Monroe and um I'm sure that you'll be giving us more details as you go about it yes thank you for sharing that congratulations excellent it is really really good um now we'll go to Other Board of Education business number 15 on the agenda if there's any other business by any member of the Board of Education Mr Po uh yes and and I'm glad that uh our board attorney is here tonight because uh she may be able to uh help us uh understand whether or not there's anything illegal about what I am
080uh asking the board to consider uh as as many of you know I uh ran for the board last year for the first time and uh it was quite a learning experience in terms of how difficult it is for a candidate uh to become known to the residents of the community uh we do not have our own uh newspaper although the Sentinel does somewhat serve a very useful Service uh and those newspapers uh do a rather nice job of covering the township uh but unfortunately not everyone gets the Sentinel uh some of the other newspapers uh don't run statements at all of the candidates I know last year none of the newspapers ran statements by the candidates um and roughly 50% or more of our registered voters reside in um our adult communities some of
081our adult communities are essentially closed uh you cannot leave information there in their club houses you cannot leave Flyers uh you cannot distribute flyers in those homes so many of our and and I think those of you who pay attention to this would know that a very high percentage of our adults uh that live in those communities do vote uh and yet they have no access to information uh so uh I'm not running this year but but as I said I became very much aware of how difficult it is for a candidate to become known uh to the voters of the community and uh that is why it's not much of a surprise and I heard this even before I was the election occurred that it's usually the top three candidates that get elected and
082we know why the uninformed voter they see uh 8 12 15 names on the list boom boom boom they do the first three nobody else gets considered uh and there could be other people that are quite able and would be a good member of the board so I was I I've been giving this quite a bit of thought over the last couple of weeks uh because we're now approaching another election some of our board members are up for reelection and I think alog together we have 13 different people uh in the community that are running this year how do they get their message out there uh occasionally our PTO uh one of our pto's uh will have a public forum which I think is great and that is moderated by the League of Women Voters
083uh but unfortunately uh it occurs uh last year when they did that I would say it was maybe 100 to 120 people there it was a good turnout but still it was limited when you consider all the voters we have so I was hoping since uh we do tape our board meetings and those are then played on Channel 28 since we do tape Municipal meetings and they are displayed on Channel 28 I was hoping that somehow uh we can find a way that uh if there is a public forum uh if if the PTO or somebody else is running a public forum somehow that could be videotaped and then that videotape be played on Channel 28 uh you know on a regular basis ongoing basis between the time of the meeting of the Forum and
084the actual election uh I just think it's it's a good thing to do uh particularly in this community that we live in and I wanted to bring that to this board because uh that taping might I don't know I don't know who does the taping for the M municipality uh I know we have people here who do the taping but there would be some expense involved in that uh when I thought about it I says well I don't think the board would be doing anything wrong here because we're not advocating for any particular candidate uh and we're trying to present all the candidates for the public to consider uh so I'm I'm bringing up this idea and as I said I'm glad the attorney is here so that maybe she can look into it or
085give it some thought or give us her opinion on it and then maybe at the next meeting which is September 25th uh we would be in a position to actually say this is what can be done uh relative to this I don't know if anyone else has a comment on this or not but that's my others let Dr Hamilton respond to that okay um we do as you know have an interlocal agreement regarding um Channel 28 and that interlocal agreement prohibits its use for a political function uh political purposes however um the access channel can be used if all candidates are participating and all candidates are asked the same question and all have equal opportunity now how the funding for that would work is not addressed in the inter local agreement and maybe um VI
086can give us some direction on that but the channel can be used for that within the guidelines established within the interlocal agreement by yeah I'd be happy to look specifically at the issue uh of whether or not any board funds could be used for the purpose of supporting a form because I think that's what you're uh asking Mr Po to to to put a fine tune uh to to the what's essentially the issue that's raised uh we know that for example with respect to a board election uh the uh board is limited the board budget let me let me refine that with respect to a board budget the board is limited to expending funds to educate the public with respect to the substance of the budget but can't for example uh publish a newsletter that
087says you know the cheer leads for the budget and says go out there because if you don't vote for the budget bad things are going to happen there's actually case law on that the precip shy Hills case I litigated a case for a school board years ago in which a school board was um accused of uh spending public dollars uh seeking to have the public vote favorably for a budget and we prevailed because it was merely an educational newsletter uh why am I raising that I'm raising that because there are very circumscribed limits with respect to how board funds can be spent uh during uh an election season which you know coincidentally happened to be the time when budgets were uh approved on under uh generally under the old system so I'd like to reserve
088uh and and take a look at that and have an answer for you for the next meeting I certainly will have it well before the next meeting and I can give that information to Mr Gorski and you can have it before that but to the extent there needs to be a a public discussion of it or a a public representation with respect to it certainly uh the board would be in a position to let the public know about it at that point I I appreciate that and I would like to add uh I'd forgotten it until I was listening to you there I did reach out to the New Jersey school boards Association just to see what they might tell me about this and uh it appears that there are school districts are there are
089well let me put it this way there are communities where they do just the type of thing I'm proposing where all the candidates have an opportunity to make a statement uh possibly uh it's being moderated questions are being asked that is taped uh and the the field representative even mentioned that quite often these are hosted by a PTO uh which means that it is being being held within a school building uh but it is being hosted by the PTO so there are communities that can do this type of thing uh and I would just like to see us do it I I think it would be a it's it's a healthy Democratic type of thing to do the the uh and I think that's true but let let me say that I think that the
090definition may be right there and that is the PTO in the in the situation that you're describing did the funding apparently the the presentation and the funding and used the school facilities or the board's facilities for that purpose and probably went through I'm conjecturing here the appropriate process for purposes of reserving a school facility and the real issue in any event is how much what if any um dollars and this is a rhetorical question what if any dollars would need be spent in any event in order to support um or make such a presentation other than perhaps uh renting the facility I don't know that the answer to that question but we can certainly take a look at it for you sir thank you thank you anyone else Mr Masters if Dr Hamilton is going
091to it's an exchange program you're going to be in China are we getting a superintendent from China that was actually a joke it didn't work out too well I thought it was in my head that was hilarious I don't know we'll all laugh for you thanks s you want to read something uh but the other thing is I'm I'm so I just want to again thank the teachers and the staff at how smooth this week has been so far it's been it's it's a testament to the yeah thanks I just jinxed us all of the hard work and the dedication that the staff and the support staff and the administrators and even the students have been putting in so far it's been quiet which is great it's a just a great job and also the
092the kids that sang in case anybody didn't know this actually used to sing in high school too and I really appreciate how hard and how talented they are to do that and that was excellent um and again the um what what's our high school ranked again in the Star Ledger didn't you have those numbers from last sth was it sth in the county in the county all right I just want to again bring that up on how great the high school is performing that's and on the list of schools to watch anyone else like to speak okay seeing No Other Board of Education business we will go to the close session resolution be resolved that the Board of Education of the township of Monroe hereby moves to go into closed session in accordance with the
093Sunshine Law chapter 231 of the public laws of 1975 njsa 10 call en 4-6 through 10 colon 4-21 to discuss the following subject board to receive attorney advice in relation to board governance issues the discussion conducted in closed session can be disclosed to the public at such time as the matters have been resolved I need a motion and a second second it's the Chella Master's day um Chella Master second uh all in favor opposed abstentions at this time the board will go into uh close session hour uh should take half an hour 30 to minutes at this time the board will reconvene into public session and we will go to the public forum anyone wishing to speak I'm going to let this young man with the glasses speak because he's been waiting a long time
094anyone from the public wishing to speak please leave give your name and address for the record thanks uh Shan O Conor one Julia Drive I'm a alumnist of the High School class of 2008 and a full bright scholar um I just want to say I um I want to applaud the board of education for taking this step being one of the first high schools in New Jersey to roll out iPads and Technology across the entire school um I I think it's great what you're doing I just want to urge you guys to take the next step and to go a little bit further this year we're going to spend $400 $38,000 on the Lenley program for the iPad last year you spent about $66,000 on textbooks this year you've budgeted to spend $883 189 and
095that's an extraordinary large sum of money that I think might be able to be cut from the budget without harming the students there's a lot of resources out there now open- Source textbooks from Open Stacks the California open- Source textbook program College open textbook books Mero Project Gutenberg and these are quality textbooks that have zero cost there's no marginal cost with reproducing these and the creators of these textbooks have given them under a creative common license for free for educational institutions to use in addition to that there's a language program called du lingo which is more effective than Rosetta Stone and the most effective language learning software available able and it's completely free and I think it would be a great benefit to our students to have it preloaded on iPad so that they can
096continue to work outside of their classroom on this and just one more um project that I've been involved with it's called Krypton Community College It's a combination of a book club meets a TED Talk and they four- week classes that you curate with your friends completely free and I would love to make those resources available known to the students so that after hours they can kind of take control of their own learning and I want to know if you guys have been considering open- Source Technologies around textbooks and what the district has done for that I'm going to let Mr Coffman answer this because this is his area and then if you'd like to speak to Dr Gorman after that he's our you know assistant superintendent of curriculum after the meeting yeah um I'll take
097the first shots I'm going to be brief um I don't think you could have have probably well you could have probably timed your question a little better if you were literally here the board meeting just before this one last month um and I would definitely encourage you to go online and and review the video we and he he'll keep me honest have been aggressively looking to get out of the ties of textbooks we keep hearing because we IRA and some of the other board members have heard even as early as you know when we went to this new program on how little even the textbooks we have today are being used by students being a former students I'm not going to tell you something you don't know yeah we are to answer your question is
098we can't get there fast enough uh we have even gone to the next level of uh you'll see in the preview from last month or last week two weeks ago whatever it was uh Courtney Pepe one of our uh teachers here at the school has already published I believe three course materials to I University that we have built here inhouse that is directly connected to our curriculum the way we teach the way we deliver material and we are in addition to the open- source concept that you're talking about we are looking at every Avenue possible to to grab uh Tech information that's out there in the internet uh I've I've expressed this to my fellow board members here I happen to have um a child who is a school at ruer he's at the School
099of Engineering and I don't think anything gets me more frustrated than to see him come home and sit down in front of YouTube and see an instruction from a professor and I've asked him several time why are you do I'm paying ridiculous amount of money for you to go to ruter why are you on YouTube and unfortunately the answer is simple a lot of times the professors English is a second language especially in the engering curriculum and it's tough for him to understand what the professors are saying so it infuriates me as a parent as as and as somebody who's spending money at ruter to have this level of Education to see him on YouTube what's up with that right so uh we are aggressively looking at every technology available out there to both lower
100cost and increase education across the entire District not just for the high school we talked about Gizmo today for the middle school and we want to figure out the best way to efficiently move forward because there it's a balance right we want to give the technology everybody likes technology but there's a cost a big one and it's the hardware and everything else in the infrastructure so we want to make sure we when we do it we do it right and we we we we move forward in the most efficient economical educationally advantageous way possible and Jeff you can jump in after that um take take Dr Hamilton's card set up an appointment with me and let's sit down and talk talk about all those other options we have we're very eclectic in our approach of
101content creation and sharing of content and uh we're always open to um especially free re resources um but there's lots of different um um barriers to get to um the the you know place where we want to go to so we have to take that into consideration as we move forward but i' really am very interested in sitting down and and talking to you about that great thank you very much uh just on a side note I would like to urge the board to maybe get pictures of water and get rid of the water bottles I spent the last year living in a country where they're plagued by our country's waste and water bottles when we burn them they they get shipped outside of our country and burnt we you know use about 30 million
102barrels of oil a year producing water bottles just for our country so just food for thought thank you very good thank you like this guy mul Klein 53 turn I'm going to repeat again as I did last time and I'll do this every meeting until the election Michael kleene who's running for the school board is not Mark Klein so I want everybody to come out and vote but I want you all to know it is not me uh now it is very very important for Kathy Dr Hamilton and Mike Gorski to attend the next planning board meeting Thursday September 26th at 7:00 it's going to be all public they are weighing the impact to the schools the three of you can sub uh supply all the pertinent information about the problems that we're having Mr
103Masters yes I have to congratulate you for doing a fabulous job in representing this District at middle sex County Education Services Commission your predecessor did not I would also like you to speak to Dr finlin about the transportation Department he did make an offer to take over our transportation department saving us upwards of $100,000 a year um Doug poy two years ago while I was still on the board we asked that the administration write a column every month that would go into the newspapers of all the adult communities keeping them up to dat as to what goes on on the board our community you've been doing the only way the people in the Senior Communities are going to know what's going on is if there's a column written every month and that's easy enough to
104do the last thing and I'm sorry she's not here I am fed up with false rumors and I'm glad that the attorney is here false rumors being spread about myself and my girlfriend by somebody on the board now my understanding is if I was a public don't cut me off if I was a public elected official they can say whatever they want about me I am a resident the person that's spreading these rumors is a board member the rumors are lies they are false and it has to stop and it's been done by her before and she gets away with it she is to be reprimanded as she did to other people on the board in past years nothing happens she gets away with murder when she states that I started dating my girlfriend 4
105days after my wife died that is pathetic and she said it to somebody who's very responsible who's willing to come to this board or this close session and testify it to everything that she had said this has to stop she has to be reprimanded in public and something has to be done to protect me and my personal life I have done absolutely nothing wrong in fact the lady that I dated my wife picked out and we'll let it go with that thank you very much for the time without cutting me off you're welcome anyone else from the public Deborah Schneider 8 Regal Court I am candidate number two on the board of ed elections um I have been a resident of Monroe since 2002 but it was a part partial year in 2002 and I
106pulled out my back taxes and in 2003 my school taxes were $3,054 my present tax bill my school taxes are $1,172 quite an increase in the August 22nd meeting uh Mr Po stated that um there was going to be a demographic study done because of all the new housing that's going up the 749 units in um Route 33 pinville and the 522 in Mount smeltz in addition to that we have North Point Estates another 167 homes we have 130 Homes at Monro Chase where are we putting these children and how are you going to hold the costs down so that my school taxes in 5 years are't $20,000 and I can no longer afford to live in this town no comments no thank you for your comments as I said um earlier in the meeting
107we will be having a board philosophy discussion at our September 25th meeting a lot of that information will be part of the discussion anyone else from the public Steven Ryback 23 Riviera I just want to pick up on where you left you mentioned that you going to have a meeting with Senator Greenstein um on the issue that uh you just heard about as far as the overdeveloping and the high density population and and what's happening to the schools and how are we going to pay for this uh she's very well aware of the problem because I and my committee which represents five developments in Monroe have met with her um so you can certainly if you would express your concern about this kind of development and go to planning board meetings and voice your problem
108I know this has to be not only uh for Monroe it has to be in other communities as well and I'm sure you could join with other boards of Education uh as I suggested in the past and have a much larger voice and maybe a commitment from some Senators I know assemblyman D'Angelo is coming on the 26th to um support the taxpayers of Monroe against all this out of control development I'd like to see some representation from the school board as well thank you thank you anyone else Mary Lester 44 Avenue I I would just like an update on the total amount of legal fees we've accured for the Jamesburg lawsuit do we have M Mrs Lester that information is not readily available it's going to have to be compiled by segregation of the bills
109and the hourly charges from Jamesburg and uh that takes a bit of of uh leg work and when will you have it for me can be done um will we have it by the next meeting yeah sure we'll have it by the next meeting okay and I just have one other question was a high school teacher fired during the last school year 2012 13 out right fired repeat your question was there a teacher fired during the 2012 2013 school year yes why that's a Personnel matter that we're not at Liberty to discuss public okay was the person fired for being a possible endangerment to the welfare of a child it's a Personnel matter and we're not able to discuss that publicly so you're not answering that question that is the answer to your question thank
110you anyone else from the public okay seeing no one will closed public forum and our next scheduled public Board of Education meeting will be Wednesday September 25th 2013 7:00 p.m. at the Monroe Township High School motion to adjourn second miss anelis Mr Kaufman all in favor opposed that's the only one that I Cans meeting is adjourned without having to be