Monroe Township Board of Education 04.09.14 Regular Meeting

001good evening the meeting of the Monroe Township Board of Education will come to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the stands Nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all may we have a roll call Mr Gorski miss antelis here miss armeno here Mr Braverman here Mr Chella Mr calman here Mrs kapano here Mr nothstein here Mr Po here Mr proso here Mr zareski here Madam board president you have a quarum present this evening thank you in accordance with the provisions of the New Jersey open public meetings law the mono Township Board of Education has caed notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted March 28th 2014 one at all schools two

002home News Tribune three cranberry press four filed with the clerk of the municipality and at this time we will have our student board members reports good evening um on April 2nd schools around the district wore blue to sh to support and show their tolerance for autism awareness and April 2nd was also National Autism Awareness Day at Oak Tree a great deal of learning takes place outside of the classroom on April 9th 10th and 11th the envir mobile will visit the school and the students will learn more about how to take care of the earth through the township fun program author Daryl Cobb visited Oak Tree on April 1st and talked to the students about life as an author oak tree will be host well will be attending a walk for autism on April 27th at

003the middle school where there will also be a carnival and a day of fun oak trees work on their community garden will begin May 10th at Woodland they're taking place in drop everything and read a national monthlong celebration of reading designed to remind students to make reading a priority in their lives and that's starting on April 11th and Tuesday April 22nd is Earth Day and Woodland loves to celebrate this time Mr Reinhold the PTO and his students will be preparing an environmental center for planting crops good evening ladies and gentlemen uh the schools will be closed on Monday April 14th to April 21 1st for spring break the mths drama club will be performing The Wedding Singer as a spring musical this year performances will take place from April 26th to no 24th to 26th

004uh at 7 p.m. and April 27th at 3 p.m. come see the show and support some of the best performers in the school it's going to be amazing I know it a Monro staff versus Monro police police basketball game will take place on Tuesday April 22nd at 700 p.m. in the mths gym to support Mikey Nichols come donate $5 watch the game enjoy food prizes and the halftime Hoops contest and the NJ ASK testing will take place in the Middle School from April 28th to May 2nd thank you thank you very much this time we'll be go to number six on our agenda the Henry rickless Holocaust Memorial committee and I'm going to uh turn it over to Amy and Tellis and I'm actually going to turn it over to Dave Rothman who is the

005chairman of the essay committee thank you all pleasure to be here once again um the Henry rickus Holocaust Memorial committee's Mission is basically to promote Holocaust Education that the goal that this tragic historical event never gets repeated uh I've been coming here now four or five years and each year I say to you something like we've topped last years I don't know that we could ever do it again so 3 years ago I came here and told you we had 132 essays out of your freshman class and they have so much else to do finals everything else the fact they took the time we were impressed and then the year after was 160 and you know we know it's going to come at some point it's going to reach a number where we're going to

006be lower than the year before but that's not this year 232 of your entire Freshman Class took the time to write essays we were amazed blown away and had a lot of work to read through all those essays um number were really outstanding we have 11 winners that we just felt were Flawless and it was hard hard to Fathom the the sophistication of these 11 freshmen that we have I've asked one of the students um because I've been told you have enough time for one reading so I've asked one of the students to read her essay and she's here this evening and right after we'll give out the awards or and I'm sure I'm doing this wrong vashi sarar would you please come [Applause] forward listening to the voices of the Holocaust Survivors no not

007survivors these people are Beyond survivors before I listened to these stories I'd referred to them just to be Holocaust Survivors but after listening to their personal accounts I realized today that they were Champions they were warriors and they were winners although I will never be able to describe what these winners had went through I will try my best just to think of the unimaginable horror pain and fear that these people faced surpassed my belief I can sit here for hours maybe even days trying to absorb how this could have happened sitting there wondering how much hate has to go through someone's mind to conduct such a heinous crime to speculate this event is horrifying imagine being a toddler watching your own mother dying Imagining the woman who gave birth to you who has been there

008at every step of your life suffer because she gave up her meals for you being a child that hasn't even seen the world yet and going through this horrible nightmare is alarming being a human all the steps you have to take to develop relationships solidifying yourself as a person even as simple as learning right from wrong vanish just just with a single blow of one person the strength that it takes to hold on and believe that everything will come back to normal is incredibly hard to contain but these people did have that willpower and they believed that they could love again the Holocaust targeted people who were imperfect or non-germanic every single person on this Earth is is different not one person on this Earth has the perfect personality the perfect skin the perfect hair

009or perfect life it is what is different between us that brings us together the Holocaust only demonstrated how discrimination failed and accepting one's differences is a better better path to take although this is a cliche it is universally true from this experience there was one lesson that on the face of this Earth there are two types of people good and bad the only way to differentiate between them is to look into into their heart by no means should there be any discrimination based on race color or orientation it is true that we learn from our mistakes but this one mistake caused millions of innocent people to die these people had fought the battle between love and hate as always love prevailed these people have faced the absolute extreme of what a human can go through

010throughout the mere 15 years that I've lived on this world the most remarkable World words I heard I've heard I've heard today just to think about what these people have seen experienced and felt gives me heartache and tears but to think that these people can come back and tell us to love is what makes you stronger as a person you would imagine that these people would have become cold-hearted stubborn but instead they are happy to share what had happened and pass on the lessons to our generation today these hero these Heroes these Warriors and these winners have built up a wall that that had once been destroyed they have learned to love again they have learned to forgive and also to trust but they have learned to never forget you can't say anything but wow

011when you hear that I want to mention as well two important people Matty philippus Bonnie caletto have just been instrumental in making this seamless and I want to thank them and and thank the board for having them work on it so appreciate it as well and now the best part let's hand out some awards uh question one what would you do or say if you came in contact with the Holocaust denier Alexis land and Marissa Grasso please come [Applause] forward thank you okay question two could something like the Holocaust ever happen again and here in the United States EMT [Applause] Patel thank you question three from what you learned today through the survivors as eyewitnesses Have you shared this information with other people and what was their reaction we have irim and I believe her

012last name is Yasmin and Christopher cerniglia I believe his brother is standing in for him thank you thank you mat question four why is it important for students to learn about the Holocaust and how do you carry these lessons into today's world uh we've just spoken to ers shavei sarar come back up and Connor [Applause] Smith seems to be a popular question we also have S sha and Karan randwa and I'm sure I'm messing that up thank you will you also have same questions Sarah mcgraff and Gina albergo are we missing someone uh are you Sarah or Gina Gina Gina so Sarah Matt wins that thank you that's our presentation for this year June 2nd your new freshman class will have the program again so thank you again thank you we've always had a really

013good partnership between the rickless foundation and the school board and we thank you and we look forward to reading the rest of these essays M we have the copies these are yes you can give those out to the case anybody in the audience would like them over here thank you okay at this time we will go and continue our Spotlight on our schools and we will have uh the high school today and Dr Hamilton would you like to introduce sure the principal it is with great pleasure that I present to some and introduce to others our high school principal Mr Rob Goodall thank you very much tonight is the high school's turn to showcase our students our programs in the past we've been here uh highlighting our AP courses student outcomes our AVID program uh

014the oneto one iPad initiative I thought this year we'd do uh some things a little differently uh I worked with the students over the course of a couple of weeks all of this is student produced with the help of Mr helic I just followed along their cues uh and tried to do it in one take um but we're GNA have a video that highlights a lot of the elective courses that our new facility uh allows us to do for students and interacting with the teacher and uh the students but first our again our greatest resource is our students so we're going to have a um student performance and I'd like to bring up Mr Bob Burns our drama director to set the stage for what you're going to say all right good evening uh we're

015going to do a a scene from uh our spring musical The Wedding Singer if you're familiar with the movie then you some idea what's going on uh this is the song uh if I uh told you takes place in the second act the main character Robbie The Wedding Singer has been in love with Julia Julia's engaged to marry Glenn Julie really re has realized that Glenn is a jerk and she loves actually Robbie so this scene takes place uh Brianna Bryce plays Julia Gabby tammina plays her mother Angie they will be over here which is Julia's bedroom Robbie will be over here which is a park on the stage they are actually much further apart okay uh also in the scene are U Robbie's two cohorts in the band Sammy played by Peter Toto and

016George played by Xavier uh oh crap Peter Toto and zavier Polo something like that faing out at the audience oh okay stay here while they're getting ready just know that um we will go right to the video presentation right after they're finished for the sake of time okay good evening everyone just perfect what's wrong you don't like the dress because it's too like to change your mind now no the dress is fine it's just oh thank God you scared me Mom do you really like Glenn what's not to like he's Rich he's handsome he's Charming he's rich and now he's really got it all cuz he's got you honey what's wrong I just I don't know if I'm in love with him anymore why what happened I just don't know if he's the right man

017for me and I've been spending a lot of time with this other guy Robie har The Wedding Singer you're thinking of leaving Glen for The Wedding Singer I don't know what I'm thinking I'm confused I know sweetheart you're just getting cold beet it happens to every bride at some point it happen to me of course I should have run screaming down the street instead of marrying your father Glen he's different he's a keeper you're going to marry Glenn on Saturday and you're going to love him and everything is going to be wonderful you know what'll make you feel better your Veil I'll be right back sweetheart hello pleased to meet you I'm Mrs Glenn gulia hi I'm Julia gulia Julia Kia Julia Kia hi nice to meet you I'm Mrs Robbie har Robbie and I

018are so pleased we come to oured don't worry about our reaction man just go full kamakazi what's wrong look how happy she is I can't ruin her life I have absolutely nothing to offer her word come on Sam [Music] world [Music] out [Music] of will [Music] ch [Music] turn back now if she can't tell her I told [Music] you walk away I [Music] will [Music] I just [Music] be not not too [Applause] than good evening everyone my my name is Rob Goodall and I'm the principal of Monroe Township High School first of all I'd like to thank Mr Burns and all of the actors and actresses who took the time out tonight to give us a sneak preview for our spring production let's give them one more round of applause here at Monroe Township High

019School we celebrate Student Success and in the past we have presented to you a number of different programs and highlights that are important to us at the high school we have presented to you in the past our iPad one:1 initiative our AVID program the extensive AP course selections for students our overall student outcomes and many many other co-curricular and athletic activities tonight we want to want to focus on something different some of our career-based elective programs aimed at giving students a career Focus or potential major in college that will translate and transfer out into the workplace for them why don't you come with me and I'll show you what's available to our students I'm currently standing outside the Monroe Township High School Performing Art Center where we enjoy many wonderful performances from our students and

020within the community today we are going to look at the activity Labs that were constructed within our new High School for students to enjoy career based and focused career opportunities so I'd like you to follow me now and let's go check out our engineering and design lab as well as our construction lab I'm standing here in the construction technology CL room an activity here in the construction tech class the kids learn elements of construction and also civil engineering which is a really upand cominging component of being an engineer in the 21st century at this time I'd like to introduce their teacher Mr Dan Lombardi hi Mr Lombardi thank you for allowing us to come into your classroom today what could you tell us about the class and what the kids learn the kids learn all

021about the con construction field they learn about uh ra uh framing they learn about Plumbing they learn about electric they learn about uh Roofing uh siding sheathing everything that has to do with the house basically they learn about and how has um since we transitioned over to this new lab um the elements of this classroom contributed to what the kids can learn has it been a good thing oh it's been great they have a nice outside area where they can L they can work they can be safe they can work in the in the lab and go out from here and it's just all around A great experience for them well Mr Lombardi We want to appreciate everything that you do here thank you for allowing us to come into your classroom I'm currently standing

022in our engineering lab in our principles of engineering and design course which is the first course offered in the Project Lead the Way sequence which is a coalition of uh pre-engineering design students all across America that um do obviously engineering activities um that will segue them into a uh engineering major when they get to school and then eventually um a career path in the engineering field I'd like to bring in the teacher Mr Mark snow Mr snow what do the kids learn in this class uh this is the second level engineering course it's all about trying to get more Hands-On skills and applying them to their design that their design skills that they get the first year uh we also go over a lot uh higher level math science that sort of thing and kind

023of integrated it all together and then we sort of WRA that up into Hands-On projects so uh we can let uh Matt here kind of go over and explain something that he's working on okay so the general idea is a a generator powered by the bike the alternator is going to provide the power which is going to charge the battery and what we did is we add an extra change into the bike and we're going to weld the gear onto here so this chain when we pedal the bike will spin the alternator and charge the battery well I want to thank you for allowing us to visit your classroom today and now off to our next Lab I'm down here in the Monroe Township High School Culinary Kitchen here with our Chef M Amanda dockerty

024who's been with us 3 years since we've come to the new building and uh tell me a little bit about our culinary program I start out as early as the ninth grade when uh lots of our students choose to take the foods class uh which is really training kids the very basics of how to read a recipe how to um do your basic knife Cuts how to learn about different types of food and food preparation techniques then they go on to if they choose they can do International Gourmet where they learn food from all around the world and they really get to step up their uh their cooking skills they can also choose to take culinary arts uh which is where they get to work in this St state-of-the-art kitchen um this is the nicest

025kitchen I've ever worked in in my life the most well equipped and it's it's such a pleasure to be able to work in here in in culinary arts the kids learn how again they're they're working on their skills they're learning how to serve customers how to do catering events and we really get to work with uh teachers and different events that are C catered by our program how about um the students themselves do you see a trend those kids who are involved in the program be going towards the service industry once they leave here we have some kids that go on to like uh Johnson and Wales or um or they'd certainly be eligible to go to The Culinary Institute of America we have kids that are going on to restaurant management um for a

026restaurant manager to have cooking experience as well as management experience is going to be absolutely invaluable to them in life well I could see right from uh this that you have a lot of experiences I've overcooked mine and yours looks perfect so per on that on that note we're going to um talk to one of our students Who's involved in the culinary program all right I'm currently here with one of our current uh culinary students Alicia who um is in her second year with the program and she has developed a expertise in the area of baking Alicia how has these classes helped you um as part of something that you may consider doing in the future well since my first class CL that I took here um I've actually gotten a job at the bakery

027and um I've been connecting the things that I'm learning in this class with my job outside and just the class itself it's been showing me even things outside of the bakery that I could possibly advance to and so do you see potentially you doing this after you graduate from Monroe Township High School yeah definitely it's definitely one of my higher up options I enjoy it and I look forward to it every day okay well here's a great success of our culinary program and you can catch her down at boker's uh after school working there she's one of their best employees I'm standing outside our wing that houses our three business classes in which is is part of our business law and government Academy in the business law and government Academy we've assembled a um basket

028of business classes for students who are interested in business uh not only are students required to take personal finance and economics as part of the requirement to graduate we also offer a number of electives in accounting business law Finance entrepreneurship and for the first time this year um we are offering AP economics as kind of a Capstone uh economics class for potential business majors and future entrepreneurs as they exit Monroe Township high school so let's go take a look at what's going on in Mr maral's AP economics class hi Mr morala oh hi Mr thank you um for allowing me to uh come into your classroom today I kind of set the tone of what I was going to talk to you about when I did the opening outside your classroom so we're in your

029AP economics classroom and I know this is the first year that we're offering this how did that develop and what are the kids do in this classroom that will help them as they transition out of here one of the things we've uh noticed over the past few years is how the enrollment and business education classes have increased substantially so one of the things we've also done within our department along with our supervisor Mr mey is take a look at ways we can continue to accommodate this desire to study business education at the high school but also in a challenging way and the first thing that obviously came to mind was we offer AP classes and when trying to decide in what way we would offer that AP class we looked at what would be the

030most beneficial to students at the Collegiate level and economics obviously was the first class that came to mind because you know one of the things we've always believed is that economics is the foundation for all of business education well Mr moraldo I want to thank you for allowing us to come into your classroom today and um I want to again point out that Mr moraldo does a great job with this course we're very very proud of him in particular because not only is he a great teacher here a very popular teacher but he's also a graduate of mono Township High School who came home uh to be a teacher here and also a coach so thank you for all you do thank you good afternoon guys Mike uh Pascal is going to be the spokesperson

031for this group so Mike what are you doing with this particular project um well today we're working on a review project for monopolistic competition we just finished um our I think chapter 11 it was and at the end of every chapter we work on review projects so that we can refresh our memory before the test next class he splits us into a couple groups and we all get a different topic we got monopolistic competition okay so you feel how do you feel so far I know we're about 3/4 of the way AP economics different level in terms of rigor and challenges as opposed to some of the initial elective courses you took yeah it's definitely more challenging but like it's a faster pace and stuff but you learn more and um I think it'll help

032me in the future okay Mike thanks for talking to me today I'm currently here in the fashion design classroom with Mrs Pamela valano who spearheads the Fashion Design and Merchandising program here at the High School Mrs valano thank you for spending a few moments with us since we moved over to the new high school how have you reconfigured our fashion design and fashion merchandising program so since we've been here it used to be called clothing one and clothing 2 and now we changed the name to Fashion Design One fashion design 2 and we've also added a third class fashion merchandising for those students who are more interested in not just the sewing aspect of fashion design but also the the business end of it and since we've moved over here do you see more interest

033in potentially uh your students going on to college to study fashion merchandising and design yes since we uh introduced the new class we actually have two sections this year year and also I have about five students going on to fit next year Well I want to thank you for spending a few moments with us and we're going to talk to a couple of your students as well thank you we're standing here with two fashion merchandising students Julia and Danielle and Danielle is actually our student twoyear student council president but I want to ask you in terms of fashion design em merchandising how has this program helped you and what are you going to do um with what you learned here when you leave the high school well taking Fashion Design 1 and fashion design 2

034really helped me get a background knowledge of creation of garments and it helped steer me to the business side of fashion knowing that that's what I wanted to do and then the fashion merchandising class really helped um hone my idea of what the business side would entail and what I wanted to do in college fashion design and um merchandizing really do go hand inand so I'm glad that I took both classes and took them for 2 years and it did it exactly what Danielle said um helps you kind of find exactly what you want to do so miss valvano's expertise and um experience in working in that field really comes into play when she's working with you ladies yes yes um I think that her knowledge about fit and uh colleges for fashion really helped

035guide us into doing what we wanted to do in the right school to go to for that yes I would have second that during the college process if we had questions we could always ask Salan when she knew a lot about fit and also about life in the fashion industry after college as well well certainly U not that I know from experience but uh from what I've heard fit is the place to be in terms of the Fashion World so uh congratulations to you ladies and M valano thank you for continuing to help our students our next segment brings us to the Falcons Nest Preschool longest staple of the elective course offerings here at Monroe Township High School for over 30 years prek students from within the community come to work with our high school

036students in a classroom setting our students often Envision themselves eventually being Elementary School teachers and the program has been a great success uh and we added a fourth year which includes teacher mentorship within the mentorship the students go out and work with our elementary students in our elementary schools but today let's see what's going on in the preschool I'm sitting here with two of our Monroe Township High School students Jordan and Raina and they are part of the working with children program ladies thanks for uh giving me a few minutes um this is uh almost the end of your first year in working with children why did you join up for this class to begin with well I took it in case I want to go into a career of teaching and to know the

037basic needs of children and how to help them when I grow up I took it cuz I wanted to be with kids and just to like get a taste of teaching and we're almost at the conclusion of the school year how has the program helped you and what have you learned during the course of the Year well now I know how they actually like their uh their skills and like what they're able to do and now I know like them better and I can help them in future references like what Raina said you just got to deal with them and just know how like to act okay well I appreciate you taking your time now you want to get back to your students they're currently on the playground I might go out there and go

038down uh the slide I'm standing here with Mrs rosadi this is Susan rosadi who was recently named or teacher of the year for the year 2013 2014 congratulations thank you and she does a wonderful job with our preschool program we're standing outside here on the playground while the kids are playing off on the slide can you tell us a little bit about what the program is about it's actually a four-year program that we have that the high school students can participate the fourth year is actually where they go out to the elementary schools and work with a a mentorship teacher and um the other three years is where we have the high schoolers work with actual preschoolers where we teach them Child Development um usually up through about five or six years old and then

039we also teach them how to be teachers so that we've actually had some students here become uh teachers in Monroe a they've graduated college well this program has been a staple here at the high school for over 30 years and we hope that it continues Beyond in the future well thank you Mrs rosadi and again congratulations thank you it wasn't your turn on behalf of everyone here at the high school I just want to thank everyone for allowing me to present tonight and uh for you to spend some time seeing what our students enjoy every day in all of the exciting labs and classrooms uh that are a part of our career-based uh elective programs here at the high school I want to give a special thanks to Mr helic and students in his TV

040production class for assisting me in producing uh this video as well as Mrs peepe and her students for some of the special effects that um were part of the video as well it was a lot of fun in making that I want to thank you again for allowing me to show off what we have here at the high school and uh have a good [Applause] evening so again thank you for letting me present again and um the kids did everything thing the production TV production uh all the special effects the telami which I really really appreciate made me look 20 years younger I don't know if my head is that large but uh I'll you have to take the good with the bad so I just want to thank you for allowing me to Showcase

041a lot of the teachers who usually you don't hear about and see the great things that they're doing down there but thank you again for letting me uh do that any uh questions or anything or thank you for your patience I know it was a little long but we could have done that for 7 hours thank you very much because it gives all of us um a chance to see exactly all the great programs and the opportunities are kids have in the high school that many of us don't really have an idea and a lot of that we didn't have over at the older building so the new facility allowed us uh to come over here and provide those programs so and thank you again for your continued support one more thing the 24th 25th

042and 26th at 7:00 The Wedding Singer and a mattina on Sunday the 27th at 3 p.m. those kids were amazing their kids are amazing amazing that's why I brought them here I think we'll all be out there to see them okay thank you thank you rob okay at this time we will have an iBooks presentation I believe Dr Gorman is going to be handling that good evening everybody um about a year last year we conducted a um a digital textbook um research project with in collaboration with um Pearson research and efficacy group and the Board of Education supported that endeavor and tonight we'd like to Showcase and highlight uh the results of that quantitative study so uh tonight from uh Pearson we have um Marcy Bogman Mark staloff and Maran pilik they'll give you about

043a 10-minute um presentation and entertain any um questions that you might have based off of the results of the survey okay Marcy I am short so let me figure this out oh well it was a hard act to follow after everything you guys just presented and then this um so thank you for having me tonight my name is Marcy Bachman and I'm the director of um the program efficacy group at Pearson Education and I was very pleased and um and and grateful to partner with you all last year during the 1213 school year to examine the iBooks biology program um we partnered with you all and a school that was in South Carolina so you were part of a more National e e um to examine how the iBooks program impacted student achievement and um

044as Dr Gorman indicated tonight I'm going to share the results with you so the goal of the study was to look at whether print biology programs had a differential effect on student achievement motivation um and teacher and student feedback when compared to an iBooks biology program if you're not familiar with the iBooks biology program it is um this one was a Pearson program it's the Miller and LaVine book that was available through the iBooks format in Partnership with apple um and so we had two teachers that participated in the study u m lambaz and Ms Bruno um they were fantastic teachers by the way and they each selected one section of their students to use the print biology program that you're currently using and one section of their students to transfer to the iBooks biology

045program they chose that over the summer and so the students began the school year with their respective curriculum in every way that we could make it possible the student populations were similar to each other so that we could determine the impact of the different um presentation style of the content versus um you know having other things that would impact student achievement we wanted diverse populations so we partnered you all with a Science and Technology Charter School located in South Carolina um where we had a teacher that had a a very different student population than you all um that participated in the study and um because of that I'm going to present the results that I found for just your population and then the results I found for the your population combined with the South Carolina

046school so the first question We examined is does the presentation style of eye books have an impact on student achievement for just the Monroe students and what we found was that indeed yes and it was a statistically significant effect so if you look at the um the kind of light orangish colored uh bar the it's the 5c it indicates the 52nd perent on a Stanford Achievement Test that was taken at the beginning of the year by all of the students um so we a Stanford Achievement Test because it's a nationally Norm referenced assessment that assesses General biology content and is fair for any type of program that's being offered um and what we found was that overall in Monroe the biology students scored the 52nd percentile at the end of the year the students who

047had used the print condition stayed at the 52nd percentile and the students who had used the iPad had moved up to the 60th percentile so if you're not familiar with percentile ranks it does not mean that your students in the print condition did not learn it just means that they did not learn any more than is typical that you would experience over the course of the school year however the students in the ey books condition had learned significantly more than you would expect over the course of the school year and so they were able to increase their percental Rank by eight um eight points this was a statistically significant effect and in education is quite meaningful because as you can imagine it's difficult for students um to change percentile ranks over the course of the

048Year unless they're doing something different um so they're doing something different to impact their learning or their education status so that they're able to grow their knowledge above and beyond what you would expect we also found this when you looked at the entire study sample so this is you all combined with the South Carolina group and and the reason I'm showing you this is so you can tell whether this is your local Trend or this is a larger Trend perhaps and what we found again was that students who use the print biology programs actually when you're combined with the South Carolina students they saw a slight decrease in student achievement um so what we did was we equated the groups at the pre-test and we just looking at post- test scores um so while your

049students didn't see any decrease in achievement in the print condition the South Carolina folks actually did um and the students using the eye books had the significant higher post test scores at the end of the school year so we saw a local Trend as well as a national Trend favoring the iBooks presentation style student motivation we had a biology motivation questionnaire that we gave to students at the beginning and the end of the year because we've heard that high school students um over the course of the year can become bored sometimes with their curriculum or content and we were wondering if the more interactive features of the iBooks would enhance student motivation and what we found was that in Monroe the print biology students showed a slight decrease in motivation from pre-test to post- test

050on the biology motivation questionnaire where the iBooks biology students motivation stayed the same um we also found that if you had equated the beginning of your scores for both the print and the iPad or the iBook students the iBook students would have had a significantly higher postest score um than the print students and so we were talking to your teachers and trying to figure this out and and what they shared with us is that indeed the interactive features of the iBooks um did help to retain student motiv or student interest and engagement um which ultimately we believe may have impacted how they responded on a student motivation questionnaire at the end of the year and we saw a similar Trend at the national level when we included the South Carolina group so the print students

051had a decrease in motivation the iBook students um had a slight decrease in motivation but it was not statistically significant um and at the end of the year all of the bu Book Students had a greater postest score we wanted to look at subpopulations because we know that we need to serve all children equally well um and so we did look at subpopulation differences on both both the SAT 10 and the the motivation questionnaire and we found that um the only place where we had large enough sample sizes at Monroe was with gender and ethnicity and so males and females whites and then non-white students performed equally well on a Stanford Achievement Test meaning it served both all of those cohorts of students equally well um sample sizes were too small to look at differences

052between ESL and nonl students or special education versus non-sp special education but we did look at that nationally I'm sorry first we looked at ESL uh and non-l for motivation um at Monroe specifically and what we found as you can see is that ESL students um in the iPad group actually had a um significant increase in their motivation from the beginning of year to the end of year now keep in mind this is a very small sample size um but we were able to see a significant increase in their motivation um from beginning of year to end of year compared to the print group where you saw a significant decrease in their motivation from the beginning of year to the end of year um when we interviewed not only your teachers but I'll present the

053national results shortly we found that the teachers were saying that the interactive nature of the iPad was helpful but also that indiv individualized experience with the iPads was extremely helpful for ESL students so they were able to seek out additional assistance without having to raise their hand or call attention to themselves within the classroom and that was a very powerful motivator for them and it also ended up helping them stay engaged and motivated throughout the year um and then when we looked at the national population this was amazing to me as a statistician as a researcher because I never see this um ESL students who use the iBooks perform significantly better than their ESL peers using the print biology programs so on the right hand side our iBook students end of the year with a

054a ranking of 64 percentiles on the SAT 10 whereas the um print students ended the year at a 45th percentile however what was really amazing to us is that the I ESL iPad students significantly also outperformed the nonl students and so there is something very special that's happening with ESL students in the iBooks presentation style frankly we don't know what that is yet because all we've been able to do so far is interview your teachers and the teachers in South Carolina and just try and delve into this a little bit more but based on these indicators Pearson is going to do a much larger study with ESL students to try and determine what is going on um that is enhancing the learning environment of ESL students so that we can further try and zero in

055on that and offer this um to ESL students more uh widely um student motivation was impacted by usage of the ey books when examined by attendance rates so generally what we found is that there's a negative correlation between number of days missed and the total motivation questionnaire um for the print condition so as students in a print condition Miss more classes their motivation continually decreased however we didn't see that negative correlation with the iBook students and so again during questioning we found out that the iBook students were able to keep up with their coursework um specifically students who were out on long-term medical leave because the iBooks um we had some teachers they were able to bring them in Via FaceTime via Skype they were able to send the content home to them easily the

056students could basically have access to all of the content and the ures while remaining at home um so this seems particularly powerful for students who have to have frequent absences or may have long-term illnesses um and we saw the same sort of um Trends whenever we looked at the the national study sample so um this is again something that we want to look at in terms of offering additional exposure to students who are dealing with medical um difficulties um although we are focusing on the quantitative results because frankly they're the ones that I can speak to most powerful powerfully we did have some qualitative findings we wanted to share with you we asked um oh my heading got cut off we asked the students in your um iBooks classrooms to give a one-word description of

057the iBooks and the word that they most frequently used was interesting so the words that are bigger and Bolder are the words that are most frequently presented to us and so as you can see um they thought that the iBooks format was very interesting challenging informative exciting boring um easy and then a multitude of other things what we also asked was their favorite iBooks feature in one word and most of them noted things like the pictures or the videos um or highlighting and these are all features that are unique to the eye books in the sense that the pictures are um interactive you know you can like zoom in on a picture um you can zoom in on a video you can stop it you can pause it you can fast forward you can do

058all sorts of things that you're not able to do with um a print condition and so we noticed that those are the things that were called out most frequently as a favorite feature by iBook students and then we asked if they preferred learning with an iPad or a print book because all of these children of course have had exposure to print books and the majority um around 88% preferred the I iBooks however the 12% that preferred the print book um typically said they didn't like having to charge it um they likeed the physicality of a print book or it was easier to find a page um of those that preferred the print or the iBooks there were things uh that they liked like the iBooks features again the videos the pictures a highlighting or the

059physicality um a really popular answer we got was that it's not heavy and everything is in one place so biology books tend to be quite burdensome and this made it very easy for them to access their content um I would just like to give a a very special thanks to miss Bruno and Miss lambaz they uh spent a lot of time and energy on this study they submitted monthly observation um or monthly implementation logs they allowed me to observe them um and they answered endless questions and so so we're I'm deeply appreciative of their dedication to this project and also frankly as you guys know it doesn't matter what content we provide if we don't have good teachers and from my perspective they were amazing teachers so um we were very proud to partner with

060them we'd also like to thank Mr Goodall and Miss um Miss Burke and Miss dress and and especially Dr Gorman um and you all approve this so if you don't remember um I'm just going to give you a big thanks now and say it was a pleasure to work with you um and your your colleague do you have any questions how many uh students Al together were in the Nationals study in the National study there was almost 300 students and so that extended Beyond New Jersey and South Carolina no um you all contributed I think around 150 students and the South Carolina site contributed around 150 students okay uh in one of the slides it looked as if there were only three students in the ESL here at Monroe did I misunderstand that oh uh

061no you did not misunderstand that you had a a very small ESL population here which is why for the achievement we didn't want to disaggregate um you know for just the Monroe we had um overall the ESL sample was only 12 students for the entire study sample so it was quite small um that being said because we had used the Quasi experimental design and we had seen such a strong Trend we felt that it was a worthy to note but B worthy of further Exploration with a larger sample size yeah okay thank you MH Mr Coffman uh thanks for coming out sorry I don't think I'm ever going to lose this cold um having a publisher of iBooks is very important to come to a school district because we get to ask questions sure and

062knowing that your cost to Market as we move forward in time with the iBook platform is going to at least cut your costs 80 to 9 90% because you don't have to print paper anymore I'm going to expect as a school district that we're going to see well maybe not 80 to 90% drop in cost of the material cuz you know you know I understand that you're going to need to have licensing and all this other stuff sure but what I want you to keep in mind is I'm I'm also a big fan of using the public domain for a lot of information as well I mean if I need to learn cellular mitosis I can get 50 sites in 2 seconds and we can move along and go forward so if you can take

063a message back to the Ober goobers back at Pearson um keep in mind that we're very cognizant of being able to not only use iBook technology because we know the modality is going to work and the kids are going to gravitate to it we just want to make sure that you keep in mind that we're very costc conscious that it we know that the technology works if you want us to keep buying the books from you guys we need to start seeing costs start to you know drop because we know that this is going to get popular more districts are going to go here and your costs are are going to drop so we need to get some of that yeah absolutely you I I appreciate the cander and um the feedback we do um

064collect this type of information as the research division so we can present it back to our um directors you know and so um I will certainly share that and and make sure that they know it's critically important thank you than you miss armeno U what would be the frequency of updating the I books as opposed to the uh print book a great um do you mind if I ask my colleague I I just represent the research division so um my colleague Mark will be able to answer that for you so to answer your question a typically a print book can be used for six eight or 10 years with a digital format I'd see probably more of a move to every maybe two or three years for updates based on the improvements in the technology

065and the results we see from feedback from people who are using the books in the classroom okay so and it could be more frequently than that if some wonderful technology comes to the FL like you can you do it Midstream in the in the can you add to an iBook during the year we're always we always consider it of the school year so if we're going to make a big change we try not to make it during between September or may or even between August and in May but over the summer that does give us the opportunity to introduce changes and they would be available okay thank you anyone else okay thank you thanks so much hey we have one more presentation uh we will have a board discussion of space for special services and

066professional development needs I believe Mr T will be giving that presentation is that correct Mr T is our director of facilities good evening everyone uh to provide an overview of where the district stands the board currently has a lease with mobile lease modular for the trailer Building located at Applegarth school it is made up of eight classrooms storage and toilet rooms it's a 5-year lease that expires this summer the monthly lease or rent cost on that is $6,599 at the last building of grounds Transportation committee meeting uh the board directed that we consider terminating that lease and moving both the special services operation and Dr Gorman's staff development Training Center to another location Mr Gorski and I spoke to representatives of mobile leas modular to see what we could do to Poss possibly extend the

067lease they presented a couple options one was that if the board wanted to continue with the same building for another 60-month commitment that they would offer that to us for an amount of $7,400 per month from 165 down to 7,400 when we talked with Dr Gorman and marett riela from the special service department about what their needs are the building is about 9,600 ft and their needs are about half that currently that's 5,000 ft so we went back to mobile e modular and said what could you do for us if we cut the building in Half we'd let you come and take half of your trailers back for that they said they could reduce their price down to $5,600 a month so those are options that the board uh has considered the board has also

068talked about the possibility of leasing office space either in this community or Jamesburg possibly purchasing a facility or a lease purchase option of some sort Mr Gori and I have conferred with the board's legal councel and they've indicated that the board is able to negotiate a lease for up to a 5-year period should that be the direction that you want to go in so you have a lot of options before you based on the direction we received at the last meeting we notified the trailer company that we would not be continuing the lease so that means this summer they're going to come and pull the trailers they actually have another District that they're going to recycle them to and Dr Gorman and Mr need a place to go so the board is going to have

069some dialogue tonight about options okay so you you need an answer tonight from the board on where which direction we want to go as to using the trailers or getting rid of the trailers and looking for um leasing space actually at the committee meeting the direction was to release the contract so we notified the contractor of that and they've put in motion the process of you know getting ready to remove the trailers so come this summer what we have in those trailers is on the street if we don't have anywhere for it to get okay so now we're we're looking as to where we wanted to move them uh like leasing a facility correct okay um does anybody want to make a motion to because we need to have a motion in a second before

070we can have a discussion so moved second what's the motion I mooved we talk about it okay I'll second we talk about it all right it was good it was good right yeah very good motion on the floor to talk about where we're going to put the Personnel pupil Services is there any discussion uh have you brought us any options I I know that we had talked about possibly looking at buildings for rent for lease to purchase to we have talked to several Realtors and leasing companies as we talked last time and the options are endless there's a lot of property to lease in this town if that's Direction board wants to go there are also several buildings for sale we've looked at everything from the Jamesburg post office to the commercial office building that's

071next to it uh the board has inquired about the former Jamesburg High School uh there's also some property on Applegarth Road um your options are endless it really is a matter of do you want to move to a lease do you want to move to a lease purchase do you want to move to an outright purchase well I think that that's hard for us to really decide until we actually see some numbers in front of us have you seen anything that you think would be viable that if the board wants to lease there's plenty of plenty of property that we have seen in the forsgate Commons area that is available we have seen properties that range from as low as $2,000 a month up to8 to $110,000 a month depending on the size and the

072amenities that you want in the facility Mr proso at $2,000 and up what's the square footage that they we're looking at for something like I I know you said that we could get half the trailers for $5,600 a month we looked at a 1500 square foot um excuse me 1500 we've looked at between, 1500 and 3,000 foot those range from $1,700 a month a former Physician's office on the Applegarth Road strip mall in the forsgate Center Drive you're looking at $7,500 a month for 3,000 square ft um it's all over the place it really it really depends on what the board wants what direction the board wants to go in you have many options Mr Gorski Madam uh one thing for the board to consider that we discussed in the bg& building rounds Transportation committee

073is that uh We've explored we haven't really um in depth visited and seen a lot of commercial space that's available but we know that for a fraction of the almost $177,000 a month that we're paying now for the trailers you know somewhere in the four five $6,000 range you could go to the landlord and get a custom space to fit exactly your needs and it's and it's basically move in ready when you start talking about um least purchasing a building or constructing something it's unlikely that the time Horizon that we have with the trailers being removed this summer uh we we'll be able to accommodate that so um you know we could you know one thing for the board to consider is to explore leasing commercial space and um doing so at a fraction of

074what we're paying now Mr Bo um I'm not clear on these have have we determined how much space we actually need you've said how much space is available commercially but but in terms of in terms of our needs how how much square footage do we actually need Dr Gorman and Miss Rella addressed the committee in February and I believe you're looking in the 5 th000 foot range to meet current needs and about how many rooms oh I'm sorry I thought you were done and uh how many square uh foot feet are available in the annex at the Mill Road uh mil Lake School none currently that's used as the but I mean if that school were available how how many that's in excess of 5,000 square F feet okay because I think uh before the

075board could make any decision we need to look at and I had once I had previously suggested Ed that this uh this information be developed even though I was not a member of the uh the building and grounds committee uh I had suggested that we have a study done in terms of uh the cost of of the the mecca program that we have operating and what's it bringing in in terms of how many years it's going to take to uh basically absolve that loan that we made to them uh as opposed oos to Simply vacating the mecca program and using that for this uh this project that you're talking about and I think you know we would be remiss if we did not have that information uh so I would I would like for us

076to have that information for further consideration I I'm also a little disappointed unless I misunderstood uh it sounded to me as if uh you have notified the the trailer leasing company uh to remove those trailers is that correct as directed by the board yes as directed by whom the board at the building ground did the board actually vote on that at the buildings and grounds committee meeting but I didn't think the building and grounds committee could make any decision I didn't think any committee could make any decision so I'm a little disturbed by the fact that it seems that we've already taken action uh prior to board approval to grant that action be taken so I I just bring that to your attention thank you Michelle did you have a question I have a couple

077questions um I was at the buildings and and grounds meeting and I know it was on a discussion and there may be a time frame Factor but I do agree that the board as a whole should be discussing it and voting on on the actions taken um also uh I I do think that before we can take any further action uh we if we want to take action tonight about and it may be too late or it's already in process about the trailers I have you know perhaps we can put a resolution on but uh aside from that I think we need a lot more detail about where to go why why we're going and is if there any anything else in any of our current facilities that we can use to to adjust to

078give us space now the other question I have is of the 5,000 square feet that we need how many will it serve students actual students will be in that space or is this just office and administration ative defer to Dr Gorman on that I don't know if children ever the professional development is for all the teachers continuous adult learning throughout the year so those are those are ongoing throughout the year ranging from first year teachers to mini courses to workshops um from out of um district and in District trainings by supervisors principles that's an ongoing platform that that would be that would suffice in with like a conference room type correct we use we currently have two classroom setups with six tables of about four um circular tables four chairs and the appropriate technology and

079an office space for the staff developers and a refrigerator and water um and basic needs there in a bathroom and then miss Rella I think um Miss Rella services are Ken you can speak on that where mar mar I I certainly think it's time to get get rid of the the trailers it's for sure time to do that good evening um for the pupil Personnel Service we have residency which holds our person and lots of information and files and we do have parents who come daily to that we have four team members four secretari L staff myself and the supervisor that andh houses that um I would like to just say the importance of this move uh deals with compliance with all the issues that go through PPS office because there so many pieces that

080besides special education we have residency we deal with homeless we deal with 504s we deal with out of District students so this is an ongoing office so the thought of this move in for July 1st and not having a place would be a tremendous burden on all of those areas that are housed within PPS okay so I just have a couple more questions so at 5,000 square foot about how much do you think an estimate the lowest estimate per month $3,000 a month possibly okay as compared to what we were paying with the trailers which was about 16 you said $177,000 or twice the size if you wanted to go with that same comparable with the current trailers the offer that mobile Le made was $5,600 604 so it's a savings of $5,600 no I'm

081talking about what are we paying per month now for the TR 165 about 16,000 so to go somewhere else at 3,000 that means we're saving 13 we would save about $113,000 a month correct correct okay what I don't understand is why would we end the money-making Mecca program and not save just go and save the 13,000 and pay a cheaper rate still still have the mecca program that's a money maker uh I don't know I'm just confused about that I think that uh we need the space we need the program I think that Mecca and the other program are going to be bigger money makers for us in the future once this loan is paid off I'm gonna let Mr Gorski speak and then um Mr proso and then M to um to to DV

082tail on Miss anel's comments um we're going to present at the next finance committee meeting a u Mecca uh financial statement update for the 7 months ended January 31st 2014 and there is a profit of $ 38,8 182 for the seven months to Mr Po's comments before about uh the loan repayment as of January 31st the current balance in the loan is about 305,000 so that would take 61 months at $5,000 a month to repay that unless if that payment schedule was expedited because of uh improved cash cash flow com Mr proso as the mecca program grows and the kindergarten program aren't we going to need more space if we're looking to take over and grow and expand um Mecca has a the building has a capacity um for students so it is not likely

083that we will be able to grow the program beyond what the building is is capable of accommod ating in terms of kindergarten programs that opens a whole another uh discussion that is much broader than mil lake or the annex well then if that program's going to grow we're going to make money on that we should think ahead and maybe that Annex Building is going to be available for human resources again because we're going to have to get out of that building if we're growing and we're making all of this money so maybe we should think ahead and say hey wait a minute instead of going out and renting something or keeping the trailers again for five years let's think about what we're doing here uh there's a possibility that we might outgrow the yanic building

084or what do we do then Mr Mino well I mean has has the the mecca program reached capacity already Yes okay so we so that's so we're not and and I'm sorry I'm sorry no you go ahead I just want to qualify my answer I can't see you there we're having a little there are still room for in the infant room there's still room for how many I me what are we talking I'm not sure I don't want to because I I'm not sure of the number of cribs that are in there so so it's it's again I have two comments one it's it's not a money maker in my opinion unless the loan is paid off I mean if we want to talk about it's making money the 38,000 we're talking about once again

085we're talking about operational costs is that correct it's paying its operational costs it Madam it's meeting its operational costs and returning a profit above that of 39,000 for the the 7 months ended January 3 where is that profit going that $38,000 is going to be used for what well the profit goes to cash and then the cash goes to pay off a balance sheet liability for the loan to the general fund just to the loan it's just going to the loan that balance how much has been paid off since January $5,000 a month since December since December okay and that's a non-mandated program still correct I believe so okay and the other thing is when we talk about rentals on private um Office Buildings the rental may be are you talking about a $3,000 rental

086and then the additional things like I think they call it um trip net where you're still responsible for paying all the utilities uh all of the and that's in addition maintenance and all kinds of things so we're really not just talking about $3,000 about $3,000 plus all the ancillary cost that it go that goes along with uh renting an office building or a private building is that correct true but you also have ancillary costs where you're at the trailer you pay utilities at the trailer you pay upkeep at the trailer yeah and and the trailer I mean conceivably we wouldn't be paying six and again I'm not suggesting we keep the trailers but conceivably we would be paying a minimum if we're going to talk about weighing the different values we could use the trailers

087at $5,600 a month sure we're getting rid of the trailers at $116,000 a month but the minimally so if we're going to talk about any savings we should we should do it from a perspective of $5,600 a month as opposed to this the 16 because minimally we we we could get remember the 56 is based on half of the trailers that are currently there and that's all we would need if we went forward with any any of the trailers correct for the current need unless do well that's what we're talking about current need right well the the one thing I know um is that both pupil Personnel Services and professional development have been moved so many times that I think it's important to give them a permanent space and if we continue to leave them

088in the trailers that would be fine but it's that's only a temporary fix I I I agree I I think so but what but what we're doing it seems to me is we're moving very quickly into a place we haven't had all of the details worked out and I know we have a time constraint and I think we should move quickly on it but I don't think tonight's the night to to make those de that decision Mr cofman I believe you had a questionin okay um couple of things I just want to touch on couple board members mentioned the growth situation and if we you know exceed the capacity of the uh of the mecca Center um this is not mandated we control the growth if we have a capacity that's the capacity if if

089you want to control it anyway increase the cost that's what business would do so that's how you're going to get and by the way you'll be able to get more money to come back to pay the loan back faster if you take the mecca program out of the center then all that money will never get repaid it'll be a complete loss of funds right so there would be no opportunity to get that money to come back um a couple of other things that were mentioned before about time is of the essence right if if we if we're pulling the trailers out of there I'm hoping somebody brought up the fact at b& that what are we going to do about the students that are coming to Applegarth from Oak Tree where the third fifth third

090graders right where are they going to go now what's the solution there because they're coming we're worrying about moving the the the our staff members out of the building to find 5,000 square fet or whatever we need it's pretty much I mean maybe I'm missing something you're going to have to find something quick as in a lease maybe a one or twoe lease to put these people somewhere if the trailers are physically not going to be there anymore right so I think we just really have to focus on what are the immediate needs if the if Mecca is making money is it making money yes sir okay if it's making money it's going to return the cost that we laid out to the program to begin with growth is not an issue because we control

091the growth the other issue is once we decide to take over the before and ask for school program depending on how you deploy that you may have space opened up at Mecca because now it'll be decentralized right it'll be at all the different schools so you'll have more room for the other kids which will bring in more money the other way you got to start thinking about the whole picture the hip bonees connected to the thigh bone here you know we got to figure out what we need to do for these guys for September right let's focus Mr not Stein is is next um uh just to kind of follow up with a little of what Mr uh po was uh was is getting at I think um if we had not done this Mecca

092program as of June 30th we would be looking at a $200,000 drop in our costs is that an accurate statement because the trailers were only mandated to June 30th so they would go away because pupil services and um professional development would be where Mecca is if we had not done the mecca program correct I believe that's correct when you consider immediate need yes that's correct immediately you could send the trailers back and if Mecca was not in the annex at mil Lake you could host special services and I think have ample space for Dr Gorman is that correct doctor I'm basically saying if we never did Mecca if we left everything as it was we were mandated by the trailers by June 30th that was our lease agreement June 30th they were going away so

093if we did not do Mecca we would be seeing a $200,000 increase or or reduction in our costs that's accurate correct that's fair to say yes okay so so based on that we really need to look and see how much Mecca is making Because unless it's making $200,000 a year now we are actually losing money now it's a little bit of a circular logic I get that but if a business plan was done at the time that Mecca was introduced we would have been able to project this out and we wouldn't be sitting here where we are now however we are here now so I just want to make a point that we need to to notice that when we talk about banding these $200,000 around that we're already spending we really wouldn't be spending

094it if we didn't have Mecca that's all I'm saying so we we um we really need 00,000 to and the $300,000 loan too we wouldn't have so um Mecca really isn't as profitable as it appears so maybe we need to uh rethink how we're doing this and I think as Mr proso mentioned about possibly expanding Mecca um if if if we need to make more money and if we're looking for facilities this might be the time to start thinking along those lines kind of like what Mr uh Kaufman said Mr Po uh the conversation reminds me a bit of a similar conversation that took place back when Mecca was first being established uh where there was a rush to make a decision because we had to hire certain people and get certain things going and

095um I just can't believe that here we are again we're having to rush to make a decision because the trailers are leaving this summer now we have known that for years that we were facing the end of this lease for years and here we are with a couple of months left and we're have to rush to make a decision I say shame on us that we let that happen there should have been more foresight this should have been being discussed months ago so that we're not in the situation that we're in now that we have to hurry up and make a decision without having all the information that we're asking for uh I I simply want to bring that point out I'm not opposed to the mecca program and I certainly understand the need for

096space um but I think we need to look at as Mr noin has mentioned here I think we need to look at how much is Mecca bringing in as compared to what these other alternatives are costing us a and what is the difference you know are we making money losing money uh is it is it a draw I mean we don't know that right now at least I don't I don't see it on paper you know and I I'm a visual person that likes to see it on paper uh so I just bring those points up but I I am greatly distressed that one we've we've made a move to remove the trailers without board authorization to do so and secondly we are now being rushed to make a decision because those trailers are gone

097this summer Mr T what would happen if the board decided not to to get rid of the trailers could you go back to them and say that we're going to keep them you have that option the board has a contract that expires this summer there's nothing in the contract that mandates the contractor extend the lease to them Mike and I went to them to get rates and I've been waiting on Direction what to do we could go back to the to the trailer company tomorrow and say the board has changed their mind they would like to keep them they might change their numbers well Mr Gorski sorry thank you um I would just like to say from a financial perspective the option of keeping the trailers is probably one of the worst in my opinion

098because we we've seen these trailers dismantled after they've been in service this many years and um it's it's not in the condition that you would really expect a facility of ours to be in uh they're not meant to last that long they're energy Hogs uh they're subject to mold and and in this case these are costing almost $177,000 not even considering the um utility costs so it seems from a financial perspective that the the choice to send the trail trailers back at this point you have a lot of better options to replace them with and we act on um a motion so if any board member wanted to make a motion to get rid of or keep the trailers they can do that now we can have that discussion and if I may Kathy um

099I'd like to just just I think I would be remiss if I didn't uh just bring something to your awareness um regarding Mecca uh since the Inception of Mecca there has been um discussion about its efficacy it's its feasibility Financial feasibility and one of the things that that we are challenged with is the perception about the support of Mecca by the board and its fate so that there are people who have expressed interest in enrolling in Mecca but they're apprehensive because they don't know if they will be put in a quandry at the last minute that Mecca will be closed because it's not supported by the board so while I the discourse is the the discourse is certainly um a a good discourse at some point uh it would be advantageous if the board is

100going to support Mecca to pledge that support so that the program can grow and so that people will know that it's supported by the board because otherwise we're creating a a a potential situation where we're losing the opportunity to raise more Revenue because there's conflict about the support from the board and whether or not the program will be left uh intact which means that if the the board decided to close Mecca folks want to quandry because now spaces are so limited for for youngsters and people it's not the kind of thing where you can just call up the next day and you have an option for for child care it takes time to research and and find viable options so I just wanted to put that on your radar Mr knin unfortunately as Dr Hamilton

101stated about the board support or non-support of Mecca that is an inhering problem when a board goes ahead and does something like this um there's no guarantee that in the next election we're going to get people on this board that don't want MEC and it's gone so pledging the support is only as good as the board that's currently here and that is an unfortunate situation but again that's what happens when you do have an Enterprise uh type of a project like this I mean nothing can be you know guaranteed more than the next election so um you know we I understand and I feel the the pain of the people that want a you know five or a 10e commitment but we can't give them that that's just not realistic unfortunately so Mr armeno yes

102I I would like to agree with Mr Kaufman about the whole picture and I think that's That's essential we need the details of the whole picture however not the abstract of the whole picture I think one of the things that um if if Mecca doesn't survive it's primarily because the details of Mecca and the and the business plan was not set forth originally and it was not clear to either the public or uh the board I think at times so uh I agree that we need a fullblown picture of what our needs are what our our financial position is and and we need to talk about things as a whole as Mr Kaufman said not compartmentalize these things each one of them in a compartment has its own Merit we need to see the the

103the pros and cons of each thing as a whole because that will give us uh our our financial basis for making a decision and and the details so I I totally agree with getting the big picture but a detailed properly constructed budgeted picture in order for us to make good decisions for the future because the again we keep spending money spending money um that I think we need to be more responsible about how how we put these programs forward and try to think either the unintended consequences or the potential consequences before we make these financial decisions thank you we're just totally off track we came here to talk about getting rid of the trailer and getting space for these people that trailer is horrible if anybody has ever been in there and I've been in

104there there's no heat in there in the winter we ask parents to come register their children in a place that has no heat they're sitting in hallways the floors are buckling we came to talk about this tonight we didn't come here to talk about Mecca we didn't come here to talk about space and and plans we came here to talk about getting space soon for these people to keep these trailers would be a waste of money so why don't we get back on track and start talking about renting space for pupil Personnel Service Services M armeno the problem is we keep talking about things in crisis and I think that if we want to talk about getting rid of the trailers that's one issue I can vote on that tonight but if we we we

105keep talking about things in crisis and it makes our decisions that much more difficult and I think that much more um problematic for for the future for future decisions mrin Mr T would it be an option to get to dismantle those trailers I I agree 100% with Miss anelis they got to go they're they're horrible um would it be a possibility to have them to spend the 55,000 that's going to cost us to dismantle them that's part of the the dismantling fee and have them bring in half the amount bran bank and new and then lower our costs per month based on that we get brand spank and new trailers we got a five-year lease and we're better off is that an option we can inquire I'm going to bet the rate's going to be

106at that $718,000 month be half the size I don't think it'll be the the 5,000 though I don't think we'll be that lucky it might be a little more than that right now you're dealing with a lease extension if you're talking about a full-blown new project there are Bid laws that would have to be dealt with you'd have to put together a bid package on that go out publicly bid it as a new project couldn't be done for this summer and the cost would far exceed if you started from scratch with a new project if I'm correct Miss anel I believe you're the chair of buildings and grounds that the the buildings and grounds committee unanimously vote voted or said that they would want to get rid of the trailers the agreement um it was

107not voted on but the consensus was that the entire committee wanted to get rid of the trailer so if somebody wants to bring missus who what was the consensus I didn't hear anybody say they didn't want to get rid of it so isn't that mean that the consens is that everybody wanted to I never heard anybody speak up and say don't get rid of it that's what my impression was that everybody had said at that meeting that we should get rid of the trailers Mr nin yes but of course as you know at a committee meeting since it's not an announced meeting no formal action can be taken and will ever be taken so that's why I'm asking if anybody would like to make a motion one way or the other this evening ex well

108I make a motion that uh based on the committee uh the bg& committee consensus that we remove the trailer last second okay now we'll have discussion on just removing the trailers does anybody have any comments or questions um just one Mr Kaufman what are we going to do with the kids where are the kids going the we'll have space at Oak Tree you know oak tree Applegarth is outfitting additional classrooms there the two science classrooms are being or wood shop classrooms are being outfitted so we'll we'll be fine for next year how how how many years will that buy us um we also have space and oak tree so I think we based on my projections which are a little different than demographers suggest uh recommendations I think we're probably going to be good for

109about two years there and then we're going to need another plan and also aren't we talking with the Rog committee about redistrict absolutely so there there are options for the that will take us maybe two to three years anyone else okay then we will have a roll call on removing the trailers miss Mr Po I do have a question is it possible to extend the lead on the trailers for one year could be requested ,000 a month no no it's not that much it's 56 it's 5600 a month that's taking half of it away but we don't need that other half but it costs us to take it away well we're going to it's we're going to pay to take it away one way or other fac I could just clarify the 5600 is based

110upon the board agreeing to a 60-month term years so I would think that if you went back to them with a lesser term that the rate would increase they won't Li but we don't know what that rate is no Mr proso did you have a question no more questions we'll have a roll call roll call is to remove the trailers at the expiration of the lease Miss antelis yes Miss armeno yes Mr Braverman yes Mr seski yes Mr calman yes but can he vote on that one no but there's always a disclosure in okay yeah we took care [Music] okay actually I believe he may okay yes services do serve Jamesburg sorry Mr noin yes Mr proso I'm voting no because I would like to know if we have other options so noted Mr Po

111uh no for comments that I've already made Mrs kapano yes madame board president motion to remove the trailers at the expiration of the lease passes okay now I'd like to make a motion that we start looking for rental space of 5,000 square feet for pupil Personnel Services second and um professional development and professional development sorry okay second by Mr Kaufman Now comments or questions Miss armeno um I I I don't know if it's um with Robert's Rules if we could table this until we get uh more information on on all these things I I I cannot see voting for this just today M the motion to table is a priority motion we need a second and then a majority second okay so there's no conversation so the motion to table this conversation until we get

112more information and we'll just have a roll call on that okay motion is to table the conversation about seeking rental space moved by Mr armeno second by Mr Po Mr discussion on the table no no no no just goes to V discussion on table no Miss anels no M armenio yes Mr Braverman no Mr zareski no Mr calman no Mr nosin yes Mr proso yes Mr Po yes Mrs K Pano no madame board president motion to table does not pass okay so we're back to the original motion about having um space looked at whether we lease space lease to purchase and then have I would don't want to put words in Miss Ellis's mouth uh to come back to the board with some information regarding that comments or questions Mr nin is this something that

113we should be doing in Clos session um because obviously discussing money we're discussing real estate and I'm concerned with uh people knowing that we're in the market um the the question um well because we bore that to the attorney the process of looking we can talk about in public session when we get down to the final legal aspects we cannot discuss and and I believe that's correct any Mr zareski my voice the way it is I make this really quick we look at all the spaces that we have here in Monroe the rental spaces these trailers after five years eight years they fall apart I've heard plenty of comments from people around that they do fall apart I think what we need to do is find space for these people I think all reality we

114look for a year twoyear lease so where and then look for in that meantime look for a place to purchase at this point because when you look at moving people around it's a big inconvenience not only to those people that work in the facility but to the children also that they're trying to help so I think a year twoyear lease somewhere to accommodate their needs and then look for a space where we can actually purchase in the future looking at the long term let's not look at next year or the year after let's look at 5 years 10 years down the road and there's a cost every time we move someplace there's an additional cost to us any other comments or questions so we will Mr cof I was just going to say so we're

115really looking because you're going to need something in September right because you don't want to be intense I'm assuming so really we're not going to be able to build anything by September so the question is lease or buy don't have any money in the budget to buy it you didn't anticipate this right got a couple million line around lease purchase there's always option um Madam yes sir yeah we discussed in building grounds Transportation the potential of lease purchasing a facility um a 5year lease purchase which as we understand from speaking to our construction attorneys uh can extend up to five years so let's say for example you lease purchase a building for a million dollars you would be putting 200,000 plus interest into the budget each year for a lease obligation which is not dissimilar

116what you're paying now for the trailer rent do okay um excuse me can I just uh comment it's not September it's July uh PPS is open all year round it's not that we have no children we have esy that will begin we have our out of District students residency we have lots of people who will be coming for uh our new residents and any other residential issues that we deal with we also maintain a lot of legal paperwork at that time and we are dealing with compliance so as we receive our mail is very important so we are really thinking that we need something in June for us to move because it does take quite a bit for us to pick up everyone that I did mention before and prepare that facility to receive residency

117to receive information on the students if there's an added District student as happened today and school was half day parent wasn't home they are sent to PPS so we will then at that point in time take care of that child until we can get someone to come and pick that child up and that happened to us today so that is ongoing for us we do not when you think of school you know everyone ends at June and the administration is usually the only one in the building we continue we have parent trainings for us we have certain things for students there's some professional development that continues in the summer so I would ask that you be mindful that um it's not September it's when these trailers leave in July 1st and it's very hard for

118us we've moved four time in six years and it's very difficult to just pack this all up in one day and that's kind of what really happens and it puts us at a disadvantage all of the um issues that we have within the department thanks anyone else Mr Coffman I'm just going to ask a question only because we are so the basement at the board office is is full of filing cabinets no yes it is well M we certainly have we certainly have our Sher of filing cabinets but there are offices down there too for facility supervisors and there's a newly renovated um um so we don't have 5,000 square feet in any facility anywhere okay just making sure I mean Mr Po yeah I I just want to clarify something Mr Gorski said that

119did he say that uh there is an option for lease purchase and it would run Mr G gors well the the way a five-year lease would work is basically excluding the interest 20% of your purchase price would be a lease obligation in the current year budget so if you least if you purchased leas purchased a building for a million dollars you would pay a lease payment of 20% of the purchase price each year plus interest and and then you would own the building at the conclusion of the lease a million doll building would be approximately 200,000 plus interest each year which is about the same as what you're paying for the trailers now just to give you a perspective on it Miss armeno um this building is available for expansion is it not correct this

120High School it was built to be expanded yes it's built to build um classroom space well in lie of classroom the need for classroom space at the time can we put well you have you say there's two classroom type facilities that the group is in now can we just make classroom space is it a third floor uh or is it just a second floor where why can't we use this building is what the question I don't think there's any space are we out of space in this building entirely yes but when we built this building it it was my understanding that you could build onto this building easily yes okay so what would be the cost involved in that and that would be ours it would be referend it would have to be a ref

121how much would it cost to put 4500 square F feet on we would need a referendum for that 5,000 square feet do you have any idea well it I'm sorry it just doesn't sound practical in terms of adding uh okay 5,000 square feet of the building I if we had a referendum where we were were expanding to include additional classroom space and the building has been designed for that and we wanted to incorporate space for these services and the training then that would make sense but just to make an addition for uh what is it 5,000 square ft uh I thought the space was there we just could no I I believe there's a footprint built into the plan the original plan that would would add a thre Story Tower for classroom space if we

122needed more classrooms and how when is when are we going to need that I mean if we're going to need it in 12 months let's talk about it now if we're not going to need it in you know if we're going to need it in five years conversation that we're having at ad hoc what are we going to do with facilities well again because we're doing everything in crisis I mean we that that should be on the table also discussion about that okay thank you anyone else then I think we're having a roll call on getting information to bring back to the buildings and grounds Committee in regard to leasing lease purchase or buying space what what is the resol um I believe I believe the the motion on the floor was to investigate rentals

123for 5,000 square feet to host special services and professional development or purchase how about lease or purchase or lease you want or lease purchase yes or lease purchase s purchase would you like because I don't want to narrow Us in if if Jerry finds something that we could possibly purchase all right so now we have to vote on the amendment I'm letting it's a little complicated but we have to vote on the lease purchased or whatever may just said rent or lease purchase yeah I'd like to know exactly what I'm voting on go ahead so we're going to have our roll call on that on the amendment Miss armo no I just want him to read what I'm voting on it is an amended motion um for the investigation of a rental unit of 5,000

124square feet to host special services and professional development or similar lease purchase option okay aren't we voting just on the add the addition to the amendment okay so it's just the addition part which is the lease purchase to the amendment and then we'll vote on the amendment on on the whole resolution do you does everybody understand that okay Miss armeno yes Mr Braverman yes Mr zareski yes Mr calman yes Mr noin yes Mr proso yes Mr Po yes Mrs kpano Madam board president motion to amend passes and now on the floor is the motion to investigate rentals of 5,000 sare ft to host special services and professional development or at least purchase option for similar Mr Po is the floor still open for discussion yes okay uh as Mr Coffman pointed out and and as

125I think we're all well aware we probably don't have funds in the uh in the upcoming budget for a leas purchase for this coming year but my my my thought is if we uh if we do a lease for this coming year and then during that year consider a lease purchase for the subsequent years where we could incorporate it in the budget in in a more logical and realistic time frame uh I think that's something we should keep in mind Mr Gorski did you budget for the continuation of the trailer till the end of this year yes ma'am well then the money is in the budget he budgeted $116,000 a month until the end of this year so if we don't have the trailers as of June the end of June we've still per put

126that money in the budget so why wouldn't we have that money to do to put a a lease purchase well because I don't I don't think 16,000 a month for 12 months uh would necessarily cover that cost how close does it come well in the budget um which I worked on intimately with Mr T we have approximately $300,000 that was to cover the lease obligations and also the tear down of the unit any option wherever you're going to go we have $300,000 in that line item which would well cover a lease purchase for a year had we B purchased something for under a little under a million doll we're come very close to it any other questions then do you want to read the motion again before we vote on it motion on the floor

127moved by Miss anel second by Mr calman is to investigate rental space of 5,000 square F feet to host special services and professional development or consider similar lease purchase option okay is that correct yes Miss anelis yes Miss armenio yes Mr Braverman yes Mr zareski yes Mr calman yes Mr noin yes yes Mr proso yes Mr Po yes Mrs K Pano Madam board president motion unanimously passes M armeno um I'm thinking of a motion to re-evaluate the mecca program in detail and see if there's any need to cancel the program or at least that let's re-evaluate it in Li of uh talking about well Mr uh Gorski said he was bringing it to the finance Comm committee next month do you want to wait for the recommendation of the finance committee well if no one

128wants to Second it that's fine but if someone does we can I can put it out there a motion I made a motion to rec to re-evaluate the mecca program in lie of the space needs of the board I second okay now it's open for discussion so Mr not this is uh we kind of had gone over this in the finance committee I know that they were talking about making some changes um with the Fe structure of the uh Mecca program and um I think that uh we requested at the committee level that we actually try to do an evaluation of our actual costs so I think we're already doing this um but I mean I just want to let everybody know that we we were already thinking along the same lines so and I

129oh go ahead pardon um Dr Hamilton and I worked on those figures and we have those ready for presentation at the next finance committee meeting okay so um I I could withdraw that for until we get them okay you're withdrawing your motion un well I'll withdraw it with one caveat that the finance committee meeting be open to the public so all of the members can go so if you publicize that because I would like to hear that I don't want to wait until the board meeting to hear that so if we can do a uh we would have to get a legal opinion on you don't have to get a legal opinion all you have to do is notice notice the meeting in accordance with the open public meeting act you would just have to

130advertise it as a public meeting and then it would allow the entire board to participate in the finance committee meeting okay I second that well I don't think that withdraw my motion with that c I don't know if can I do that no but you can withdraw it and I think but then we'll reent Okay C that's noted okay I will withdraw it do you agree to the withdrawal yes okay any other discussion on this topic which is Mr tages I think there's one other point that should be brought up to further on Mr Po's frustration about um leases and when you're going to have to take action on them the board should be reminded this has been brought up several times that you do have another property under lease which are six classrooms Barkley

131Brook School this board has extended that lease several times that lease expires next June so you have something to think about next June you have six classrooms at Barkley Brook coming offline you have extended that lease two times as the committee knows and the board knows as we've reported that trailer has deteriorated several times we've had the contractor in to rebuild sections of it I think come next June is going to be the last renewal you're going to want to do for that so be forewarned that that is out there okay thank you thank you thank you thank you okay moving on with the agenda I think we're up to 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

132we will adhere to our three minute limit hi stepen Ryback 23 Riviera Drive um I'd like to talk on the discussion that was just made you have three minutes okay I first first I'd like to thank um Robert Goodall and his staff and his students for a fabulous um presentation and uh I'm looking forward to attending that play um when we talked about Mecca a while ago the the reason why people Personnel Services was displaced into the trailers is because of Mecca and yet you don't count the cost of the trailers against the cost of Mecca you say Mecca's making money but you're not considering the rental the trailers against that now you're looking to find per a different more permanent space and rightfully so they need they need someplace for pupil Personnel Services and

133professional development but are you going to count the cost of that rental uh against the cost of of Mecca is Mecca going to be self- sustaining enough to pay for those uh the rental or the taxpayers paying for it and finally uh when we talk about facility use we know that from your own study within the next 5 years you can expect over 900 new students and yet we are we're having a uh a program that's not mandated displace um Personnel causing extra costs are we going to be asked to build additional classrooms because Mecca is using classrooms currently using classrooms I mean what's going on here are you're not uh you're you're saying we're having a profit but you're not not counting the costs of rent of rentals against the cost of running that

134program you're not it seems to me you're not considering uh the possibility of added space caused by this unfunded program so I think you have a lot to consider and I think you have a lot to uh be very open with with yourselves as well as the public as far as costs thank you Mark Klein 7 cruncho something that was not discussed uh pertaining to Mecca is when does the don't answer until I finish so then I got my three minutes when does the contract with Basque expire the reason why I'm asking right now they're paying us $100,000 in order to make Mecca profitable we had to take students away from their program so I'm sure if we took students away from them I don't think they're going to want to pay $100,000 next thing

135as far as the the ey books um the report that the young lady gave and I don't think she's still here um I believe she said they handpicked the students for that study uh if that's going to be like it was with the iPads every time the iPads were demonstrated it was always top-of-the-line students why they don't test it with middle of the road students then you have a true accounting of which book is whether the book is better or the U the iBook is better the other thing is when they were trying to sell when I was on a board and they were trying to sell the iPad I asked if we go to the eye books and of course there was never any books available I asked with the eye books how much

136do we save because I was told it'd be a great savings and I was told by uh Dr Gorman that it was about $5 a book well since then what we have found out is you don't buy the books once that every year you have to renew so if you if you're going to pay for 400 books one year then the following year you're going to have to pay for 400 books again and then he updates so let's really get down to the facts on that uh the third thing which pertains to uh what you have on the agenda I would like to know how do you pick the teachers to go on these professional leaves and professional development and the reason why I'm asking is I see again that there's a board member's daughter

137that was picked to go that's my questions okay would you like to answer the Basque question yes take uh Madam it's my understanding that the bass contract ends June 30 of 2015 one more year yes sir other no answers Dr gourman answer the IE books the I book study was not topof the line it was uh two teachers and it was all of their biology sections there was one section of honors and the rest of the sections were um Regular biology classes so they compared two teachers some of the classes used print some of them used electronic books but we don't know which group used the I books yes of course we do that was designated in the presentation okay was that the top of the line student no no there was one section of

138honors with print one honors with iPad and then the other four sections with print the other four sections with iPad so it was an equal both ways it was apples to apples and oranges to orang the only other question is pertaining to the cost of these books yeah I I I never quoted you at $5 ever the initial price was $16 a book were $1599 that's from the iTunes Store since then in the last two years um in the last year actually um Apple has released the products to Pearson and we can now negotiate for the purchase of these books on a yearly basis and you'd have to purchase it every year uh yes but sometimes you could lock in for three five six year components that's less money than what I thought um the

139other the PD component that you were talking about yes was done on a pure raffle basis it was Title One M money so we we chose one person from the elementary one chosen from the middle and one from the high school um and it was on the common queer state standards and part of the return on that is that they have to train and TurnKey the training so what I did is first person to email me at exactly 7:00 at night on Monday according to the time stamp that I received on my email from each level went first and so it's not possible that somebody on the board could have let their daughter know to make sure they impossible because I told everybody that exactly at 7:00 the first timestamped email I get would be

140it from the Elementary from the middle and the high school and that was in collabor collaboration with the entire staff and the teachers union respect I I could show you the picture of when they're received by me but that's fine anyone else wishing to speak to the agenda uh L Masters n Michaela um I have four questions not questions one great High School presentation by the way up till the point my wife said I looked like the bald Avatar which I didn't think was very funny um she's back there uh Amendment D the Comcast now that is um the funding will be by the park special Park funding is that 100% sure that's increasing the um yes that's in a the business administrator's report and that's the letter D it's to upgrade the services um

141to provide bandwidth I understand that will suffice the park requirements and park gave us $10 per pupil this year about $58,000 so the statement that the services shall be provided on or after July 1st 2014 the district will be utilizing Park funding awarded by the state for these Services uh we cover this and then some 100% 100% of this yes number three I don't know this one this might be a Personnel F board action f is there any more detail that could be given about a reinstatement of an employee I knew you were going to say that number four is about the I the iBooks presentation the I guess the only issue I have two issues with it um I think it's it's great that it's working uh the first issue I have is that

142Pearson's doing the data collection right and all the data mining but they're also selling the product correct they are separate departments it's a research and advocacy Department that you had actually interviewed them with so you know remember but it's same company okay um and the second thing there's been a lot in the news about privacy and I know um we give them information on the students um do we filter that do they filter that because I don't want you know somebody some kids numbers getting out there and the parent turns around and sues the district for a million dollars because of a privacy violation yes there is and no students names were released in and there's no way to figure out yeah and the two teachers gave permission for us to just say great job

143I'm G to hold you to that when I see my son's night uh I think that's it I really enjoyed the uh conversations tonight thank you hi I know but it's hi I feel like I'm standing up green I'm Michaela Court I'd like to say I did not enjoy the conversations tonight you basically wasted 55 minutes not talking once about any child or any educational program that's ridiculous um but also with the data collection I just spoke with the Pearson woman outside she said that um the Pearson collects from any information the teachers want to give as far as test grades Etc and the students names and the students ID numbers so my question is do parents have the option just in general to popped out and is there a form yes there were forms

144signed by not not in regards to the study just in general as far as upcoming there's no General anything this was an agreed upon research study um that the board approved all permission signed consent forms were put out anybody that didn't want to participate didn't have to participate okay but like as far as like Study Island goes things like that like we you know usually have to sign things so and for Pearson though there's nothing there's no policy no not in that that was just a pure research study okay and then my second part is regards to policy um 8020 the school day and the closing was that changed at all or I mean I went back and read it real fast I didn't see anything school closing school day school closing it's it's actually

145up on the website yeah I had it I was read um and I think there are some some minor changes in it nothing sub okay and then um how about the the child Abus neglect one uh there are some minor changes in that one as well okay and then my you're going to love this now but um with the controlled communicable disease and the other one the care of the injured mil persons you know where I'm going with this right the pediculosis now number 17 states that you know uh the student does not have to be Nit Free to return to school the schools were check upon return to school but then you go to the next policy with the control of communal diseases and it says if the child has nits they will you

146know pupil with will show symptoms of any of the following communal diseases they will be sent to the school for valuation but now how do we know that the nits are in the children if they're allowed to be in school with the nits and that they're not hatching while they're sitting there during the day unfortunately we don't know that okay so what why can't we work on changing that the this policy was actually reviewed by the school physician the school district physician okay and the policy was made to comply with the standard operating procedures as prescribed by the American Medical Association right so those are the standards that we think are pretty high standards and consistent with the mandated policy right um but there is no absolute way quite frankly that would be we would

147be able to tell you that there is it's totally impossible that these things could right so as as the classroom teacher then they should just be sending them to the nurse every hour to have them looked at I mean because I don't want my kids sit next to anybody with nits that could be breaking out all day long I mean you think of it you're in six and a half hours you're sit next to the same kid the odds are something going to hatch you in there right well I'm going to ask marot Mrs Rell I'm sorry who's worked integr on this policy just Roes me out I come up from so many different um this has been something that we have talked about at the board level and I know it's been a parental

148concern I will say the nurses if they are aware and they usually are made aware of it they do check them that frequently every hour okay I I will say that because there are not that many cases you might say to me well how can they check a student every hour well it's limited amounts and you know when the nurse right is there a certain number that if you know the classroom hits six that a letter goes home to every or why you have to wait there there is certain things in the policy when things should be sent through the health department not specifically well it wasn't there wasn't really anything specific to that you have um and I I can talk to you but you have to go underneath a specific area and then

149it's on the Department of Education when the nurses to contact the health department so it's not part of Rose policy it's part of the statec it would be the state okay so if six kids in a class have life we don't have to talk we I for the rumor well I don't I can't say that that's what you'd have to wait about but would say that we would have our nurse your three minutes are up oh is my three minutes are up too I have you can have all you like Mr anything else I'll be more than happy to talk to anyone else from the public okay seeing none we will go oh Mr boy we're closing public session well Madam president uh since we've been sitting here for over two hours could we have

150a five minute recess just so we can get up out of these hard chairs you like to make a motion to have a five minut I move that we have a five minute recess a second all in favor have to come out of public session I did I just closed public session all in favor I nobody wants five minute recess all right all in favor I oos then we'll have a five minute recess this time we will go to number 11 on our agenda approval of the minutes for the public Board of Education meeting of March 17 2014 mov Mr Kaufman would somebody like to second that second Miss analis uh any additions or Corrections Miss Mino yes I do on um the minutes of board action where we talked about um the deliberate let's

151see where it says a motion board action where it says a motion was made by Miss antelis and seconded by Mr Braverman the do you have a page number there is there a page number does this say 22 so that Mr Gorski can find it doesn't have page numbers on here but it is last meeting oh on paper the minutes of the March 17th meeting it's the March 17th we only have one it's the board action it's the first one on board action second paragraph Okay um where it says after much deliberation among the board members a roll call was taken um there's no mention of what type of deliberation or what questions were answered so I feel it was not sufficiently comprehensible and the public really was not being informed of The Facts of

152this deliberation so I would like that to be re redone or that's my objection to it I can't find it Sor men I'm having difficulty finding that spot um paragra beg pardon you want me to show it to you please I have two so I'll show you both also while we're on that one um I feel the next one was here there was no mention and I'll say it in public yeah I'll say it in public I just want other board action business I'll be talking about that do you want to respond to that we don't have that I just wanted to point out where it was okay so we know where the first one is yes ma'am proceed please okay and the second one is Other Board of Education business where Miss Intel's presented

153a tape recording clip of recent Township council meeting and there is no mention of having contacted the board uh attorney who contacted them there's there was a statement made that attorney was rendered an opinion there's no discussion of what that opinion was and I think that's critical to be put in the minutes um you review the tape there was a discussion about that I think that's that's that needs to be um put in there for for you know the the public has a right to understand and have comprehensible minutes during a deliberation Madam uh in my opinion um as a business administrator um with the responsibilities of keeping the minutes I believe both these reports are reasonably comprehensible uh to reflect the the essence of what happened during that exchange now you could have a

154Verbatim set of minutes which would capture everybody's comment back and forth and we could we could have a court stenographer come in and and have several pages of minutes to reflect that that uh entire meeting in its totality however I believe the reader of these minutes would have a good understanding of what happened and most essentially um the action that was taken afterwards so I respect Miss armen's position on the matter but uh mine is that I'm I'm comfortable with the minutes and unless if the policy committee would like to review the matter and and want more more detail and perhaps a Verbatim transcript of what happened which by the way is available on the video that the public could refer to if you wanted more detail I was going to ask um the public

155can Oprah a copy of the tape if they wanted the tape they if they needed but that is not the official record this this would be go this would go down the official record so where in this parag graph does it state that the board attorney was contacted which would which would mean a a sum would have been there was a cost to contacting our board attorney reten retainer or not and there is no indication here that the public would would be I would be identifiable that the that the board was charged money and that taxpayer money was used and all to respect there are many items in our agenda probably even today that the board attorney has been contacted in regard to and we don't put that in that's right but this is specific

156and it had to do all specific well then we we might need then my point is in order to I think fairly approve these minutes that should be added in that's it I disagree because I don't see in here where it says that Mr norin wanted a second opinion I don't see where it says that you wanted a second opinion on this which would have caused taxpayer dollars um I don't see that in here either I don't think we can be that specific Mr noin just point of correction uh what I was suggesting was not going to cost a penny it was an advisory free from the school board that's all I'm going to say that's all I need to say see and that's that's not in there and obviously she misinterpreted it too and

157I believe Mr Gorski follows the rules for do you want to explain how you do them or have we've done it in the past yes um because I believe this has come up before as Miss armenio is well versed the American Civil Liberties Union um dictates what the minutes should be kept as and question is in their materials what kind of meeting minutes are required public bodies must keep reasonably comprehensible minutes of all their meetings at a minimum the minutes must reflect the time and place the members presence the members present excuse me subjects considered actions taken and the votes of each member I believe and I believe that I have in the past had the attorneys go on our website to check our minutes and and um reflect back to me if they feel

158that this meets the reasonably comprehensible threshold they felt that I'm providing more information in the minutes than is this um threshold so again while I while I certainly appreciate uh why members would want more information in there for the purposes of keeping minutes there could also be a liability to that to have verbatim transcripts on every single deliberation that goes back and forth I believe this allows the user of the minutes to understand everything that's required by the ACLU but your comments will be in the minutes for next we'll see any other comments or questions okay all in favor I opposed I I'm opposed closes we have to one moment please I got to we have got to go back here sorry okay okay uh Mr calman first Miss anel second right so all in

159favor um Mr Mano is opposed very good and is there any extensions okay approval of the minutes for the closed session meeting of March 17th 2014 so move Mr nin second second miss analis any additions or correction to those minutes okay all in favor opposed extensions I abstains and Mr pres also abstains I can abstain on board action correct on the on the on the approval of minutes for the closed session you were you were not there right so he's standing okay so noted now we'll go to committee reports there any committees that need to or wish to report this evening sorry had a buildings and grounds committee meeting on April 1st um the first topic was the Applegarth trailer I don't think we need to rehash that one um the second topic was an

160Eric North Safety Grant which will be item C on the business administ ministrator report tonight uh we were awarded a grant in the amount of surrounding the varsity baseball stadium but that the original 1972 back stop is in need of replacement and approximate cost for replacing the structure of $25,000 the committee directed Administration to proceed with this project using funding that is forthcoming from Pur reimbursement and then is section 15 Rod grants Administration provided an overview of the Middle School roof replacement project that is scheduled to be completed in the summer um and then we uh the committee authorized um proceeding using the architect of record The Design Group to prepare plans and bid documents for roof replacement during the summer 2015 for a fee of 39,500 the end of my report are there any

161other reports okay seeing none Dr Hamilton would you like to do your superintendent's report surely good evening all uh before I start my report I just want to take a moment to congratulate three of our high school students who were accepted to the New Jersey governor school for 2014 uh 2014 um and the reason this is noteworthy is because there are so few seats available for um this particular program and for us to have three of those seats is pretty prestigious um one student will be going to the governor school for Sciences at Drew University and the other two students will be going to the School of Engineering of Technology at Ruckers University School of Engineering so congratulations to those students and moving on to the superintendent report uh enrollment records along with out of

162district and homebound in homebound instruction is listed in your agenda along with the fire drills and lockdown drills for each of our buildings for the month of March and moving on to Personnel item on the superintendent's report Madam board president members of the Board of Education it has recommended that Personnel items A through Z be approved by roll call vote so move second by Mr nin any comments or questions for Dr Hamilton on X uh the non-certified staff follow is that yes I'm sorry say that again X page nine um what is the account the count number fund 20 on eight for the Avid might fun 20 that your that yours um I could I could help with that um that particular expenditure is charged off to a federal or state Grant with is which

163is in fund 20 fund 20 host is a fund which hosts um Grant monies from the federal and state government so that particular Avid teacher is paid or charged to the grant is that the Saturday Academy Grant um um 123,000 specifically there is no Saturday Academy Grant um I'm not sure exactly which federal or state fund this is charged Title One title one thank you doctor it's a title one yes okay because just just very quickly looking over the um the budget um I saw that addition where would the 20110 two I'm sorry $210,500 of additional teaching sections on under Avid in the Avid budget where would that be that's a is that a yearly expenditure I didn't see an account for that in the budget in the the new budget for next year yes

164Avid teacher salaries are charged to regular instructional salaries I believe yeah I'm looking I'm I'm trying to find where on the on this it's not on here but when when in the budget I I was just trying to figure out where the funding came from which was the reason for my question on eight M you want me to wait no do um got the the um the sections would be charged to the grade levels of the teachers that they're performing the teaching services so we're budgeting 210,211 new yeah if if it's new it would be in the same account for instructional salaries depending on the differentiated grade levels and that's not necessarily just Avid there's additional sections and okay because it because it just said Avid in the budget so I'll talk about that next

165week then thank you any other questions or comments okay we'll have a roll call Miss antelis yes Miss armenio yes Mr rman yes Mr zareski yes Mr calman yes Mr nosin yes Mr proso yes Mr poy yes m co Pano yes madame board president motion Personnel items 8 Z passes unanimously and 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 I be approved by roll call vote so move Mr Braverman second second by Mr nin all comments or questions Mr proso uh on the workshop location titles uh pltw core training what is that I'm sorry what are you referring to on the list of trips approved oh okay eel trips bltw Project Lead the Way Mr preo that's

166part of the stem Academy training excuse me Project Lead the Way it's part of the stem Academy High School training for a teacher it's got nothing to do with the Core Curriculum right of course yes it's it's tied right into the common course standards as well does that conclude your yes Mr Po did you have a question uh yes on Item B uh which deals with um uh field trips uh I noticed that uh we're being asked to approve uh a senior brunch on one day and a senior picnic on another day and the cost is being borne by the district the bus just the buses yes okay so the students themselves are paying for the brunch uh there's a a Pur student cost for the brunch and the picnic correct we don't pay for

167that okay all right um well I'm I'm glad to hear that because I I would not want to see board funds being expended to uh to feed the students and I somewhat question the necessity of having both a brunch and a picnic uh it seems like Overkill when they also have the senior prom about that same time it's just a awful lot of celebrating the end of their 12 years but that's just a personal comment thank you and I do have questions about the policy uh this is under item H uh the care of injured and ill persons as well as the control of communal ible diseases uh I believe I heard but I'm not sure and I I would just like to have this clarified uh these policies I know they're mandated uh but

168there's a lot of specificity in them and the people who actually have to implement those policies I would assume is largely our nursing staff uh so before these policies are simply automatically uh uh uh whatever the word is reopt it uh have we uh requested any input from our nursing staff in terms of has this caused them any problems is there anything else that needs to be put in here before the policies make it to committee um all the appropriate folks or supervisors and in this case directors um are asked to review the policies and take them to their constituents and get their feedback so that happens in and that happened in these particular cases which is actually how Dr zanta ended up being contacted as well well okay and this is somewhat tangential uh

169what is the status of our uh aeds our our defibrillators in terms of because we're in the midst of spring season we've got kids all over the place out there I am very concerned that we have a kid go into cardiac arrest and the defibrillator is sitting here in the building and it needs to be somewhere else outside we have we have inventoried the defibrillators and we've ordered additional defibrillators to go on fields okay good good thank you Mr proso Page 11 uh H policy 8453 uh I've been reading it and I don't see anything for Tech it's not a mandated policy I don't see mandate are we protecting our kids with the contact sports like football and wrestling do we have anything in place for that that would be covered under communicable disease policy

170um there's I'm not sure I really understand your are you asking are we protecting kids from getting HIV ages disease and if we have wrestling and if there's any blood spilled or anything is there any safeguard for our kids that are on a wrestling team or even a football team I'm not entirely sure how to answer that honestly because I don't know um the communicable disease policy covers um pathogens that are potentially dangerous and the protocols for how to handle those things are addressed in that particular policy the hi policy really addresses how to handle uh students who may have the the disease and the protections that are afforded to those individuals so that they're they're two different issues I guess is really what I'm saying right but it says that they're allowed in the

171regular school program they are they're allowed in sports then they are my issue we have nothing to protect our kids that are in those SPS programs I'm not sure how to respond to that Mr proso you're not you're not suggesting that we exclude kids who have not suggesting anything I just want to know what's in the policy I I would think that the HIV or 8453 would be how to deal with those children it is and the the disease itself comes under the policy 8451 communicable diseases M Raven it specifically follows the law any other questions comments Mr just a quick comment on the um in school suspension list I asked last week if I could get a list of the uh abbreviations that are under category disability eligibility category we have Ed O I

172CI C you know MD just a just a point of clarification does not tonight whenever I actually have a copy of it in my office for you unfortunately I wrote Mr Po's name on it oh okay but I have it there that a compliment anything else okay then we will have a roll call Miss antelis yes and recuse myself on item a a is an Apple so noted Miss armeno yes Mr Braverman yes Mr zareski yes Mr calman yes Mr noin yes Mr proso uh yes on everything but item a I I do not approve the Common Core trips and on item h no on policy 8453 so that's a yes except that's a no on a and a no on h45 3 correct correct thank you Mr poy yes Mrs K Pano yes madame

173board president board action items a through I passes thank you that concludes the superintendent report M thank you uh Mr Gorski how about aous report be happy to Madame 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 but before we vote I would just like it noted for the record that the travel resolution contained in my report which is letter e Mr proso has contacted me today and as disclosed there's no fee for New Jersey school boards Association members for the workshop that he wishes to attend and Mr proso wishes to wave his his right to the toolls mileage parking reimbursement for $6.20 noted nice guy is there a motion second so moved second miss Mr nin

174any comments or questions from Mr Gorski Miss almino are we talk can we are we discussing the um fee arrangement for the architect also in this at this time it's under your report f f i just have a quick question about the 3 $9,500 for design fee for the roof for wood Woodland yes okay it says plus reimbursable expenses could you just be brief on that that means in addition to yeah in addition to the fee uh most professional contracts have a provision for reimbursement rights to expenses in this case I would imagine it could include blueprint photo copying and things of that nature do we have a limit on that like would they have to come before us no we have to like after 500 no no no limit on reimbursement costs thank you

175any other comments or questions if not we'll have a rot oh Mr Po yes item F uh which deals with the partial roof replacement uh did we include that in our applications for a rod Grant we did not we did not we did not we did not because the Woodland School roof was not a priority at the time when we made all of our Rod gr applications which were far-reaching as the board recalls the Woodland School roof in particular took a beating this winter unlike any winters of previous the roof is beyond its useful life um however has held up fairly well until this winter it's caused a great degree of buckling because of the the flat nature of the roof and it was recommended by Mr tag that we consider this stage of the

176roof replacement project meaning the architectural work now because it has to preced the actual um construction and budgeting for the roof so if I'm understanding what I'm hearing and I'm checking on that understanding uh at the time that we uh made application for the rod grants we were not aware of the condition of the Woodland roof in terms of it being so severe yes uh my comments were that this winter has really exasperated the need for replacement of the roof it's caused an extreme warping we had to shovel the roof repeatedly although it's it's not in uh any danger of structural failure it needs to be replaced in the uh in the review of the professionals okay and and have we I understand that we were going to request from the state or state department

177that that administers these Rod grants to transfer one of those grants from the Middle School window project over to this have we heard any anything on that yes you cannot transfer a project the projects are individually approved and reviewed by the state however we understand that there may be more Rod grant money coming from state representatives in which case we could apply for a rod grant for this once they become online again okay but and once again checking understanding we have we have uh have we decided that we are not going to uh do the window replacement at the middle school that was the recommendation from the committee uh from the onset that window replacement project at the middle school was not a priority um it affects energy in the school and comfort but it's

178not a health or safety um related project which we have others that we want to address first okay and and and I'm not questioning that but I am questioning you said it was recommended by the committee does that require however board approval there was no recommendation from the committee to bring that to the board I I don't believe so because that project was never budgeted for we we got permission to apply for the grant we applied for Grants liberally um based upon discussions at building grounds transportation and uh that's not one that made it into the budget because again it was not a priority a priority not determined by the board but a priority determined by Administration and the building grounds Transportation committee review Mr T and our our Architects um are intricately involved in

179recommending the projects on health and safety mannerism first keep in mind that the rod grants you only get 40% from the state you still need to budget for 60% and come up for that in the in the in the budget I I understand that I guess I'm just a little confused about the procedure here does not the board have to vote to accept the rod Grant once it's been made the board I recall passed a resolution to apply for those specific Rod grants okay and so if we if we decide not to proceed with one of those grants it doesn't require board approval no okay no it's just like a uh any other Grant uh you get permission from the board to apply for it you could apply for it you may or may not

180recommend it to the board to uh accept the award and proceed with it in this case we very liberally applied for grants that uh you know we're within the long range facility plan and um this never progressed to the point where it was considered for the budget Mr norstein just a clarification on what Mr P is saying um basically I think that it would have had to go to the full board if we decided to go with the grant correct correct the fact that we didn't that it didn't need to because we're not expending any money correct again Administration got permission to apply for all these various grants um only the ones that we determine were health and safety and could be accommodated in the budget were recommended to proceed with and another point of

181clarification on the uh the roof um for the school um keep in mind that this is actually being proactive um the architectural design for a roof um as I understand from Mr tag is such that if we don't do it next year or the year after the year after we have the design we can we can uh you know pull pull the trigger anytime we want to go ahead with that project that's an accurate assessment that's absolutely correct the design work does not have um an expiration date it can be carried forward thank however like Mr T represented to the committee um there are some some um limitations on that the current roof design is flat and the Department of Education is no longer approving that style of roof this design can be carried forward

182for several years forward at least any other comments or question questions K seeing none we'll have a roll call Miss antelis yes Miss armeno yes Mr Braverman yes Mr zareski yes Mr calman yes Mr nosin yes Mr proso yes Mr Po yes Mrs K Pano yes Madam board president motion passes and it concludes my report thank you I had asked Mr Gorski to prepare an update to the board and the public on our fight for additional state aid but it's rather lengthy so I figured we would hold that off to the next meeting don't moved you're welcome my decision okay um so we will go to board president's report and I just have a couple of things um one uh there's an honor for one of our board members this evening from New Jersey School

183Board Association in fact there's two um the first one is to miss anelis it's congratulations on serving on your local board of education for 20 years your commitment to education in your community is Honorable and crazy you were invited and that was me that was not in the report um you were invited to the middle sex school boards association meeting to be held at 6 o'clock on Wednesday May 7th in South Brunswick to celebrate your dedication to the advancement of student achievement and they're inviting the entire board and the superintendent to join with you so 20 years is um you you've seen the changes in this place I think that uh we couldn't have imagined 20 years ago so congratulations on that achievements I don't know if anybody else will be there 20 years the

184second one is to miss antelis uh congratulations I am pleased to inform you that you have earned sufficient credits under the New Jersey school boards Association board member Academy program to receive your master board member award you have satisfied all criteria including earning a minimum of 40 credits through attendance at Academy programs the annual workshop and a variety of County programs and it goes on um so that go get a raise yes you get I think triple when you get your Masters because I know some of us have have uh gotten our certified board member membership and um it's been a lot of work to go and get your master so um congratulations on that it's well deserved so good good for you then I have um my board president's report continues on March 19th

185I attended a Workshop given by New Jersey school boards association's legal department on the code of ethics for school board members and conflicts of interest to me it was an excellent and very informative presentation and it touched on subjects such as participation in negotiation chief School administer hiring and evaluations Personnel issues breaching confidentiality acting for the board without permission micromanaging to name just a few and since this board has been struggling with many of these issues for months I think it's been a valuable to bring this program into Monroe for board training um although all of us sign an Ethics form at the beginning of every year it wouldn't hurt to reinforce what our roles and responsibilities as board members so I'd like to bring this program to Monroe and I know I've been talking

186to Mr zareski who is if people don't know it the new president of Jamesburg Board of Education about doing this jointly so that we can have uh shared services and doing this at one time so um if there's no objection to that I think I'll have Mr Gorski set up something so we can pick some dates and see what the majority of the board is is is available in working with Jamesburg um also uh during this school year it was the intention of this board to Showcase one of our schools and their students at each one of our board meetings to introduce to the public many of the Great programs that we have in our district um a lot of them are not even know by the public what we do and unfortunately I think

187that these presentations seem to have gotten lost in board discussions on nepotism ethics violations legal issues the township master plan our fight for stational additional State funding and preparing for next year's budget and while all these issues are really important I think we've forgotten or we've lost the real reason why we are here and that is students the responsibility of the board of education is to educate every child that comes into this District we don't have a say in the planning of the community but we have an obligation to meet the needs of all of the students in the school district so I feel um and I know Dr Hamilton has mentioned it and I know that we've heard from many people in the community that we really need to have a board retreat and

188get some badly needed training so that we can talk out our differences we can resolve our issues and so we can finally spend a lot of our board meetings talking about education and students and not all the other things that I've mentioned so again I'm going to ask Mr Gorski to set up you could set up one meeting and have um both of these done at the same time nobody objects to um having this done I I really think it's important to do so so we'll get some meeting dates and get back to everybody and see what works and that will conclude my report okay we'll go to Other Board of Education business is there any other business by any member of the Board of Education Mr off been sorry can anybody tell me where

189we are with the marching band award uh the policy was the recommendations came from Mr B buers at the last policy meeting um pretty lengthy discussion the policy the current policy will remain intact until the June 30th year this year concludes June 30 and the new policy will be adopted effective September 1 so what's happening with the band members this year here the policy they will be in terms of how they're being awarded for their recogn um whatever is in the policy I I don't know which category they fit in but whatever in the current policy is what they will be getting and is that what we were talking about the last time is that in line with what they were looking for no those those recommendations that came from the survey will go into

190the new policy and the reason the committee thought that was appropriate to make that appr uh effective next year so I didn't want to Retro applying a new standard to awards that already been given so it would start the new year off with those new Awards yeah kind of hate to have a policy that comes in the middle of a school year that affects one group one way and another group another way so they decided Well it be fair to start it in September with the new school year okay Mr Po um you were uh recognizing certain members of the board I would also like to mention that uh Mr seski uh was recently elected vice principal of the middle sex County uh school boards Association vice president oh vice president what' I say vice

191principal okay I always exchange those two sorry about that Rob okay uh and uh I did attend uh a meeting of the subcommittee of the planning board I think that was last week uh it was very informative it was uh about a 2 and a half hour meeting very very informative uh lot of uh comments were exchanged uh members of that group uh welcome the communication with the board uh and they have suggested that we discuss having some subcommittee of this board join with that subcommittee uh going forward uh so that's something we're going to have to consider whether or not we want uh to do um I thought the the presentation done tonight by the students uh that are going to be in the upcoming Musical uh I thought it was really great and

192I hope the community supports it I was quite impressed with the quality of the uh the voices on those two students that young man and that young lady I thought they did a super job and uh I really thought uh that the video that uh Mr Goodall put together along with the students I'm sure that worked on it to me it was excellent because I I it really helped me to better understand uh the elective program that we have here and how that does help the students to understand uh possible career choices or college majors as they move forward uh I thought it was a very well done video though in for in in terms of informing the board uh about the curriculums which we do approve uh and it was focused on the elective

193program which uh often doesn't get that kind of attention but is it is a very vital part of the program because sometimes it's the electives that the students most like about coming to school and I want to commend Mr Goodall for being such a good sport uh putting on his various uh paraphernalia and I was amazed that he could get down that slide thank you anyone else okay seeing no one our close session resolution be resolved that the Board of Education of the township of Monroe hereby moves to go into Clos session in accordance with Sunshine Law chapter 231 one of the public laws of 1975 njsa 10 col 4-6 through 10 col 4-21 to discuss the following subjects one legal advice regarding the Jamesburg tuition two harassment intimidation and bullion incidence 33 through 36

194the discussion conducted in closed session can be disclosed to the public at such time as the need for confidentiality no longer exists so move Mr Kaufman is there second business Mr nin all in favor opposed extensions and at this time we will move into closed session how long do you think this would 30 30 minutes about 30 minutes at this time the board will move back into public session and I believe Mr Gorski has a resolution to read it is recommend Ed that the Monroe Township Board of Education authorize and Direct business administrator board secretary to demand of the Jamesburg Board of Education delivery of a school warrant for past due tuition to the Monroe Township Board of Education pursuant to njsa 18a colon 38-23 so moved second mrin and second by Mr braan any

195comments or questions then we will have a roll call we have a board member missing yes us I think we should wait well wait a minute neither am I this is where we play music so she can vote V after doesn't have to be in order Mike Miss armeno yes Mr Braverman yes Mr calman yes Mr nosin yes Mr proso yes Mr Po yes Mrs K Pano yes madame board president motion passes and I will take Miss anel's vote for the record upon her return okay so I guess we're going to the public forum anyone from the public wishing to speak please come to the microphone and state your name and address for the record oh here comes miss an before we start yes um Miss antelis yes the motion was it is recommended that

196the Monro Township Board of Education authorized and Direct business administrator board secretary to demand of the Jamesburg Board of Education delivery of a school warrant for past due tuition to the Monroe Township Board of Education pursuant to njsa 18a colon 38-23 your vote ma'am yes Madam board president motion passes unanimously okay thank you now we will go to public forum and we will adhere to our three minutes if we want to get out here fast I'll give you a minute I'm only kidding blue Masters n Michaela two quick really quick questions um you can I'll just ask them and then you can answer them the finance meeting I heard you say it was was that converted to a regular board meeting because you're allowing all board members to participate and the second one is what

197is a from what you just said a school warrant thank you would you like to answer yes I believe that the board did recommend to advertise the finance committee meeting that is scheduled already um which I was directed to do which would then open it up for the full board the public is also invited to that meeting um but does not participate in the meeting unless if the chair so chooses to change the rules and the second question um the statute is not entire clear but a school warrant in our opinion is similar to a promisory note anyone else wish to speak give the rest of IA tesar leel drive i' just like to uh make the board aware and congratulate the Monroe uh uh competition cheerleading team uh the last meeting I mentioned they

198want their won the state competition in more than uh first time in more than five or six years or something like that they participated in a national competition in Florida uh they won a national title two years in a row uh and also I believe Mr uh po saw the video and uh on of the competition which is really good they also won a grand championship which means out of all the high schools attending the competition Monroe got the highest score so uh that really put Monroe on the map for that Sport and I like to officially congratulate them and make you aware of that thank you Cory Masters I'm Michaela Court I just want to know what the plan is going to be for children whose parents opt them out of taking the state

199testing what they're going to do with them uh we will make Provisions for those youngsters to be supervised if parents elect to exercise that right okay in a non- testing environment okay um how will that go as far as attendance if I decide to keep them home and then send them in when the testing is over uh if they're here for less than half a day they won't get credit for the day okay so by noon or 11:30 o tree apple that would be apple starts 10 minutes later so yep that that would constitute a half a day okay 11:30 or 12 o' um I would have to calculate it because it varies you know because of the start and end I know that's they have to be there four hours for the day to

200count they have to be there four hours okay yes and then as far as do you know how many sections of first grade you're planning on for oak tree for next year right now the yeah because the kindergartens are pretty high right they are right now um we planned for seven sections for next year but we're already looking that it may need eight okay so then are you going to take a teacher from another from like Barkley brook or M lake or you're going to actually hire we don't know that yet we we haven't completed our placements for next year yet okay thanks you're welcome anyone else from the public Mary and Lester 44 Avenue I I just have a quick question I was in the pharmacy and I noticed a flyer and it's called

201active kids of Monroe and it's for an a summer after CARE program for a month after the Monroe summer rec camp and they are charging for that program and the after care is going to be located at one of our facilities mil Lake School are we charging them for that facility or can you explain this that is I have no idea I would like to see the materials if you don't mind um and I could reach out to you or send you an email to uh give you an answer you don't know nothing they they have one of our facilities they're using and they are charging rates for that I don't have access to our school dude program right in here to be able to answer that question all right don't you have to vet

202uh our school facilities through the board if we're going to be that's a negative no no no anyone else from the public Bob zagari 162 Tournament Drive the Monro Township Council introduced its 2014 budget last Monday evening a hearing of the on the budget and tax resolution will be held at the municipal complex on May 5th 2014 at 7M anyone interested in seeing a full copy of the municipal budget can log on to Monroe township.com go to the uh Department menu uh then the administrative pay uh I'm sorry the administration page and uh you can find the budget there I do wish to point out that um that the $51 million 2014 municipal budget once again relies heavily on the use of sewer utility Surplus the water and sewer utility department I should say as

203a miscellaneous Revenue the amount is $5.3 million that's $5.3 million previously the township Council has taken advantage of the water insur utility Surplus generated by sewer connection fees as follows 2010 9.5 million 2011 14.6 million 2012 9.9 million 2013 6.8 million 2014 5.3 million for a total over a 5-year period 46 m93 837 as I mentioned previously new n on AG restricted housing developments generate new students we all know that we have pent up demand for new classrooms and for facilities repairs I've been hearing about these um roofs that needs to be that need to be replaced the board is scrambling to find money for classroom space and for facilities repair it's only going to get much worse I believe the board of education has the right to share some of that water and so

204utility Surplus generated by sewer connection fees mostly from new homes being built in Monroe which will generate students they can use that money for to help build classrooms and to repair facilities I believe it is not just a matter of good governance but I believe it is also a matter of fairness it's my hope that the board pursues this issue with Council before the township Council spends it all down and there is nothing left for our students thank thank you anyone else from the public okay seeing no one our next scheduled Board of Education meeting will be held on Monday April 28th 2014 7:00 p.m. at the high school for the adoption of the final budget motion to adjourn Mr cofman miss anelis all in favor oppose extensions meeting is adjourned