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 and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all yes uh may we have a roll call Mr Gorski miss antelis here miss armenio here Mr Braverman here Mr cherella here Mr calman here Mrs col Pano here Mr norstein here Mr Po Mr proso present Mr zareski Madame board president you have a quirm thank [Music] you in accordance with the provisions of the New Jersey open public meetings law the mono Township Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place there of posted
002February 6 2014 one at Old schools two home News Tribune three cranberry press four filed with the clerk of the municipality we have were not able to our our student board members were not able to be here this evening so we will go to our Spotlight on our schools as we have been doing in the past few months tonight we celebrate Barkley Brook and Dr Hamilton I'll turn it over to you okay good evening all this evening we have Mrs Aaron Mahoney the principal of Barkley Brook who will be doing a presentation yes ma'am good evening everyone uh I am fortunate to be the principal of Barkley Brooks School we are a prek through 2 school we house about 400 students at Barkley Brook we work towards the district mission of helping our children reach
003their full potential we are the first school experience for many students so we have the exciting and important job of helping them to understand that learning occurs both inside and outside the classroom setting while we work tirelessly to ensure that we meet the rigorous requirements of the Common Core and District curriculum we are also fortunate to be able to have many other enriching learning experiences we work closely with our PTA to bringing exciting assemblies throughout the year during one assembly this year students had the opportunity to write a song about Barkley Brook the students generated the lyrics themselves and then with the help of the presenter they turned it into music into our own school song so I thought what better way to tell you about our school than through the words of our students
004so in the following slides you're going to see the lyrics of the song and I'll explain about the many wonderful things we do at our school oops were the Barkley Brook Falcons purple and gold in addition to having school school spirit we showcase character education through our school mascot each class has its own Falcon and students work to earn feathers for their Falcon the way they earn feathers is by being respectful to one another showing good sportsmanship and being quiet in the hallways students have the opportunity to Winn different prizes such as lunch with the principal a game with the principal or a PTA donated coupon to the school store students are excited to learn earn their feathers and win and and it reinforces good character smart cool cre creative caring and bold we utilize
005a balanced literacy approach to teach reading and writing we engage our youngest students in literacy activities such as reading around the room which allows them to become more aware of environmental print and helps them to develop a site vocabulary as students develop pheic awareness and site wordss they are leveled as readers and their skills are further enhanced through guided reading and readers workshop at the conclusion of last school year 92.9% of our students were reading at or above grade level we use a Hands-On approach to teach mathematics students develop their mathematical understanding first with concrete representations through the use of manipulatives which is a foundation for our abstract thinking the average scores of our students benchmarks last year was 89. 34% we also teach our students the importance of caring for others we host a
006variety of fundraisers throughout the year to raise money for various Charities one example is our pennies for patients fun fundraiser this was our second year host hosting this fundraiser and after each week we charted the donation total for each class A team of Staff volunteers developed many exciting ways to solicit contributions including a pajama day estimating the number of candy in a jar donating a dollar to cover a picture of me if you can't see um the Frozen princess Elsa and guessing teachers identities through their baby pictures through the generous donations of our families we raised $3,337 181 this year our awesome teachers make learning fun in collaboration with the Monroe Ed Foundation we all we the teachers write grants uh which allow them to extend student learning two examples are our kindergarten penguin project
007and our second grade stardome kindergarten classes adopt penguins and at the end of the unit of study one of the penguins from Jenkinson's Aquarium comes to visit Barkley Brook as part of an informational assembly yes that's a real penguin our stardome is an extension of second grade's astronomy unit of study within the stardome students are provided with a close view of the stars in our solar system and leave with a deep appreciation of our universe our first grade teachers work collabora collaboratively to develop a unit of study on cultural awareness through the holidays around the world unit students traveled to different countries to learn the about the culture and holidays celebrated in that country as a culmination activity the first graders joined in the cafeteria held hands and they sang It's a Small World we
008never stop until we get the job done perseverance is something we emphasize with all that we do a phrase you will often hear from our teachers is when you think you're done you've just begun through writer's Workshop students learn to brainstorm organize write edit and finally publish their work not only does their writing improve tremendously but they learn the importance of working toward a final product we love to learn at Barkley Brooks School one thing that is abundantly evident is the fact that students do love to learn at Barkley Brook walking through the school you will see students engaged in a variety of learning experiences teachers Infuse technology into their instruction and many of our programs contain internet-based resources that allow students to extend their learning at home programs such as Reading Eggs Education City
009provide students with practice activities at their individual levels additionally our students learn to become musicians they learn to become Square dancers they learn to become athletes who demonstrate good sportsmanship and they learn to become artists through the special area subjects where the teachers and the students are so cool whether it's Halloween Dr Seuss's birthday or showcasing ourselves as winter Olympians there is no doubt that the teachers and the students are so cool Barkley Brook rocks Barkley Brook rules stop and look it's Barkley Brook School through PTA sponsored assemblies programs and allaround engaging programs there is no surprise that the students feel that Barkley Brook rocks we never give up we always do our best we're a Blue Ribbon School aren't you impressed yes they thought of that themselves not only do students Dem demonstrate perseverance
010but so do our teachers We Gather and analyze data from a variety of Assessments to identify students academic weaknesses and then we Implement specific strategies that address those weaknesses through response to intervention and the support of our classroom teachers basic skills teachers and reading Specialists we work to ensure that we meet the needs of all of our students we show good character every day and we respect each other that's the Barkley Brook Way we have a variety of programs in our school that reinforce good character one example is our character County Post Office through this experience students learn the meanings of various character traits while writing letters to their friends and teachers post office employees are trained to sort cancel and deliver letters to the mailboxes throughout the School through the guidance of various adults
011in the building children also participate in a variety of programs such as our Palace program and lunch bunches these programs pair typical children with special needs children in structured and unstructured settings and provide students with real valuable learning experiences that help them become caring and compassionate young adults thank you for allowing me to share a glimpse of Barkley Brook with you oops I wasn't ready for that um well I shared the lyrics with the song that the children wrote I'm going to play a little clip so you can hear them singing our school song The [Music] and creative caring and [Music] B aw teers make learning fun we never stop till we get the job done we love to learn at school where the teachers and the students are so [Music] cool rocksy Brook stop
012and look it's barley Brook sing it [Music] again SCH one more [Music] time idea thank you thanks for giving us a little glimpse of Barkley Brook and I know it wasn't too long it doesn't seem like it was that long ago when my children started Barkley Brook when it was a k through six school and now we need two schools plus a part of another one to handle all those children so we're growing okay at this time we will go to number seven on our agenda public forum anyone wishing to speak from the public on to the agenda please come to the microphone and state your name and address for the record and we will adhere to our three minute limit you're always first ready Aaron wherever she is that was one heck of a
013job we finally have another quality principal in this District I mean I was on the board when we interviewed Aon she did one hell of a job and she's doing a great job for the kids so congratulations anyone else from the public wishing to speak to the agenda Lester 44 Avenue y I have a question in general about this agenda and all future agendas items uh This concerns the last January Board of Education meeting uh why did the board suddenly selectively decide on the Tesla hiring hiring vote to enforce the New Jersey statute law at that dis allows Mr zorski to vote and in the past has chosen to ignore the law as well as your own policy number 01 14.1 in which the law cited and allowed him to vote on similar matters you
014want to take this because I could take that [Music] okay there is a statute um njsa 18a 38 -8.1 which outlines the voting rights for a um for a receiving for ascending school district and ascending School District which would be Jamesburg in this case has a right to vote on The Following topics I Mr Gorski I have that right in front of me very good but the problem is you've allowed him in the past and you've ignored the law in on December 18th there was a Kelly Duncan and she was a special ed parah he was included in the vote you had a bills list for the bond series for the new grammar school you allowed him to vote on that there's uh Performing Art Center where we send the middle school and the high
015school children and he voted on the middle school you don't take separate votes so in the past you haven't enforced the statute and now suddenly we're enforcing it now that's uh incorrect in the past we did enforce the statute the vote was cast but the vote was not taken because the board secretaries in the past have gone through and liberally counted the vote and then after the meeting uh looked at each um voting item and if it did not pertain to one of the four items which you're familiar with the vote was not counted in all of those instances that you referenced it wouldn't have mattered uh if the vote counted or didn't count because the majority of the members passed in a great number how can you take a public vote and then say
016it doesn't count later on most most of the votes are by consent roll call and it's impossible or impractical to distinguish out every single item whether it's Monroe or Jamesburg so Jamesburg would be voting yes with the exception of anything that they're ineligible to vote on but it should be it should be separate I know I went online Somerville and Branchburg take separate votes they even ask where the the ascending District uh is eligible to vote or not I'm I'm confident that our voting in the past has been correct and accurate and it's reflected properly in the minutes I will say just just to clarify in the minutes I know we used to in the minutes after each um the uh superintendent report and the superintendent and the ba report there would be on the
017bottom of the minutes um that the Jamesburg vote only counted where it pertained to the high school issues and don't ask him to vote you can't you can't strike a vote after you've made a roll call vote already you can't do that well so you've allowed him in the past to ignore the law no we have not and and we appreciate your comments um we will have on future agendas the fact that the the Jamesburg um rep has the right to vote um we could take a roll call vote on each specific item we have done that in the past it took us hours um and there are times when there is an issue that pertains to both the high school and the elementary and the middle schools so sometimes it's impossible for us to
018delineate specific High School issues can't you can't you uh just group them accordingly then there is there has been no legal issue as to why we cannot continue to do it this way all right I'll take a look at my minutes thank you anyone else from the public good evening IR tar 11 Elliot Drive uh my question is to the close session item uh which is the bullet point is the board will retire to close session to receive attorney advice with respect to school ethics requirements for board members and I just was looking at the um open public meeting act and um if you go on the um if you take a look at the closed uh session um points basically it says um closed session items are matters of confidential by state federal law
019or or rued by Court disclosure would um result in unwarranted invasion of indiv idual privacy or or unless a person's affected um consent in writing Etc I'm sure you know all these but I just want to U questioning um which um Clos session item that refers to and um if there are board members that are violating the ethics acts that should be um disclosed to the public after the closed session because the public I think has a right to know that information if there are clo uh board members that are violating ethics the ethics act ethics acts well m m Mr Tesla um the board today has received an updated agenda so that item is no longer on our agenda we pulled it so that um we would uh like our VI lordy to be
020here to explain some of those issues so we pulled it for a future meeting okay I was looking on one from the website I apologize I know it we weren't able to get it on the website today I think I just got my updated version this afternoon okay thank you I'll hold my question to a future meeting thank you okay what anyone else from the public wishing to speak to the agenda how are you my name is Darla McCully I got a letter saying my son used to go to Mono high school he got put out of school can you hear me yes is this in regard to the agenda um this was a letter that was actually sent to me about I was actually talked to um Dr henneth um Kenneth Hamilton uh like
021a what a week ago about my son Jonathan eligibility of going to stay in rugby school so this because I moved out of I moved out of my parents house you you have to you have to hold that for the next public session okay because can he go to school then still at this meeting at the end of this meeting we have a second public forum this one right now is to answer questions about our agenda okay now when is that what time is that going to start um I can't give you okay no it's okay it's okay it's it's near the end of the agenda okay we will go into Clos session and after we come out of closed session we'll have a second public forum okay thank you so much you're welcome anyone
022else from the public wishing to speak to the agenda Klein s crunch Shaw um concerning the the vote on uh on the person on the Personnel issue that you had even though I missed it I was in rainy Florida uh did see it and I did read about it and in my opinion if you're talking about nepotism and you're going to vote on nepotism there were two board members that had no right to vote and I understand that they voted and their vote counts that's wrong their vote should not be counted they should have abstained or recused themselves they should never have voted that's unfair and that's a mistake thank you anyone else hi my name's Terry mccarten my daughter is a senior at Monroe High School is this a question in regard to the
023agenda yes it is okay I understand that you are changing the date of graduation this is particular um upsetting to me because my daughter is going on a school sponsored trip from Monroe High School that started last spring she will be leaving on the 24th for a uh educational trip in Europe I also sent my son two years ago was a wonderful experience now I understand that they were going to change the date of graduation until 25th their trip leaves on the 24th and that would be excluding between 15 and 20 students that are seniors that have worked hard for their grades and accomplished a lot my daughter herself is paying for her trip she is almost finished and I would like an answer an honest answer why and if this is true I want
024to be told the truth I do not want anyone to skirt around the issue and place blame anywhere else I've heard many stories I'm quite upset about this my daughter deserves to walk down that aisle and get her diploma like every other student in the school and myself and my husband deserve that right to watch her do that I would like an answer on that Dr Hamilton would you like to take sure um first of all thank you for your question um there is a recommendation on the on the agenda this evening to revise the school calendar um actually as a result of the snow days we would need to we would probably be in this place anyway but when it was originally I'm sorry I don't mean to interrupt you but in other years
025they've been taken off of Easter vacation they've been taking off of Memorial Day holidays I'm sorry go ahead um but in this case um we would have made this recommendation even if we did not have the the snow days we had because we were not able to have the graduation offsite on the original date which I think was the 21 can tell me why we were bumped from our date because of a Special Olympics event at that particular venue I understand that that's not the truth understand excuse me truth I'm giving you the truth as I I'm explaining you the truth as I know no one understand it and the venue we were bumped from the venue because of a Special Olympics event there as was East Brunswick um so we have consequently had to
026either consider changing our date and having it at that particular venue or hosting it here on campus um ultimately my recommendation is that we continue to have it at SunBank Arena but again as a result of the snow days we would be here anyway can you tell me why we have $100 million High School why can't we have it here we believe that it would serve the best interest of the kids in terms of the number of tickets they would be able to have and the number of folks they would be able to host by having it off site excuse me I don't mean to be disrespectful to other families but I if that's the decision you're making because they can have 10 extra tickets to have grandmothers and grandfathers and um godparents or whatever
027to attend are you going to exclude 20 decent kids and their families from being able to see them walk down the aisle and and receive their diploma is that the reason why because there are so many other tickets they can have I understand the reason why is that somebody fumbled making the date and they didn't make the date and I can understand that just tell me the truth I don't want to be told that it's because we were bumped off because of the special ed that just doesn't make sense to me but I do understand that you're not telling me the complete truth thank you for your comments your three minutes has has okay and that's it anyone else from the public seeing no one we will close public forum and go to committee reports
028are there any committees that need to report this evening Mr proso finance committee uh we discussed the title use the microphone a little closer finance committee we discussed the F Title One Fund and uh the sa Academy program will be held at the middle school because to that fund we also discussed the rod Grant approval a Mecca update and the Jamesburg tuition update also on the discussion was the budget update and M Mr gski has some information about that Madam [Music] Yes again the board had a philosophy development meeting and because of an increased enrollment of about 200 200 students because of State mandates to replace buses because of facilities that are uh many years over their useful life as far as roof warranties and leaking issues and because of increased enrollment leading to the
029need for an additional child study team uh the board decided to go to the very conservative and restrictive state budget cap in order to allow room for uh the the uh the programs to be initiated and um the district has met with all the principles and directors who submitted their own zerob based budgets for the 1415 school year and when we assembled all of the budgets we were about $2 million over cap and Dr Hamilton and administrators and I went through every page of the budget over the last two weeks and we've made made 33 cuts to the budget these are not frivolous items that are just padding a list these are items that made it through defense rounds already are in accordance with District goals and are are needed and in many cases have
030been deferred years and years from one budget to the next I'll be brief and I'll go through the list because these are no worthy items that the public should understand uh have been removed from this budget to get to the cap a proposed MRA Township Middle School language arched teacher and benefits $63,000 that's due to overcrowding at the middle school that was passed to defense rounds and now it's eliminated reduction of proposed social security contributions in the budget we reduced the estimate in that account cutting it closer to the Bone hopefully uh there won't be a need for new staff or we could be short on Social Security contributions it was $882,000 propose Brookside social studies Tex $14,800 propose Brookside math text $7,300 proposed Brookside social studies text $3,700 proposed Woodland math text $5500 proposed
031Woodland social studies text $177,800 proposed monra Township middle school math textbooks $55,500 proposed monra Township Middle School family consumer science text $3600 proposed mon Township High School language arts e Tex 30 $ 7,182 propos Applegarth social studies text $144,000 districtwide school administrative supplies $22,000 District telecommunication expenses cut $37,000 newly proposed mon Township High School student activities Athletics coordinator stien $21,600 new proposed monra Township High School boys volleyball club coach $2,800 newly proposed mon Township High School Gymnastics Club $1,500 newly proposed Monro Township High School Swim Club $1,500 newly proposed Monro Township Middle School sound system for cafeteria $7,000 also at the middle school a large format printer $2,500 proposed workstation specialist leader stien $5,000 reduction and projected tuition reimbursements to staff $122,400 the lease purchasing of equipment including cluding buses and a facility vehicle that's
032rusted through over a 5-year period instead of an outright purchase saves $11,900 reduction in maintenance supplies $115,100 program reduction of extended school year from full day to half day $150,900 removal of budgeted scanning document system for special education $18,700 scope reduction of carpet and VC VCT Tile replacement Barkley Brook School $34,000 Monro Township Middle School construction scope reductions to create internal space renovations pursuant to the decline from the rod Grant $295,500 Transportation elimination of non-hazardous courtesy busing and elimination of non-hazardous bus stops and consolidation of routes $384,000 reduction in proposed energy rates $180,900 reduction in proposed health insurance rates from the initial Horizon proposal $750,000 that was negotiated today with threats to leave and go to another carrier and and resend on our agreement to pay the termination Reserve elimination of taped broadcast public meetings
033$10,100 reduction in existing non-instructional staff this is an existing position of a staff member with Benefits $74,000 it's a total of 2 $450,000 all of these items again past defense rounds are desperately needed throughout the district and have been cut to get down to cap Mr prosa did the board members get a copy of that Mike um being that this is a dynamic instrument and it was just prepared this afternoon I have not sent it to the board yet but I'll be happy to do so okay thank you are there any questions from board members if I can just um if I may Mike um and what does I know you and I have talked about it before the benefit of the group where are we in terms of our potential calculated tuition rate and
034under over adequacy spending sure because of the the imposed uh cap to budgets in 2010 coinciding with districtwide increased enrollment the per pupil costs especially at the high school level uh which is the report that we were focused ing on have dropped steadily over the last four years the 1112 actual High School tuition rate was $16 16,563 per pupil the 1213 actual High School tuition rate dropped to $15,900 they've been on a steady decline for the last four years adequacy spending went from 17 I'm sorry $13 million over adequacy to $7.5 million over adequacy to $6.5 million over adequacy in the last 3 years and is expected to continue to decline um into the 1415 budget and where that comes into play is the state's adequacy calculation determines Equalization Aid that's the largest most substantial
035type of state aid and Monroe gets zero the average middle sex County districts get over $20 million per year of Equalization Aid and by reducing our over adequacy spending would enable us to better qualify for Equalization Aid and also categorical Aid which is phased out again because of over adequacy status and I think it's um important to note that the cuts have come from all different areas of the budget from transportation from Sports and clubs from special education from um curriculum so that we're looking at not just one area but the the whole budget sharing sharing in the cuts so I so far it's I think that they've done a really good job of trying to have something for everybody Madam cut and just one final note if I may the preliminary budget adoption is
036on March 17th that's two days after the township certifies the ratables and that budget which will be presented on March 17th is due to the county office Thursday March 20th that gives us 48 hours to um produce the budget to the township I spoke to the Township school um sorry the county school business administrator and I told them you know because we're waiting for the extended rateable certification which is usually January 15th and is now March 15th and that pushed this timetable for the preliminary budget adoption to March 17th that only gives us 48 Hours what happens if the board doesn't furnish them with the budget by March 20th and the answer to that is it could affect the certification of the school administrators and it could also jeopardize the entire state aid award that
037the district might be eligible for not just the general fund aid but The Debt Service Aid that comes through and is is also substantial so again the preliminary budget adoption is March 17th the final budget adoption is the latter one where the board has an opportunity to make changes to the budget in the interim that date is Monday April 28th very important dates um in the budget calendar which is posted on the website and we're going to repr uh approve the revised budget calendar tonight right yes ma'am okay and we've also added another Finance uh committee meeting um which I believe is the 19th Mr preos yes at 7 o'clock now any Mr nin first of all I want to thank uh Mr Gorski for all his hard work um that especially that $750,000 reduction
038is quite stellar and I understand that just uh came in this afternoon so that's uh that's amazing and that that's that's just great news um I have a question with the over adequacy um I see we're basically down to 6.5 million in our uh over adequacy budget and we're still not really seeing any gains in our um in our what do they call the capitalization or uh uh in that part of the uh Equalization uh rates that you were talking about what would we need to get to Madam sure um on the state aid award printout which I could I could furnish you a copy with there's a particular schedule called page eqa and that determines your um Equalization Aid and that's where it gets that uh that term from and for the 134 school
039year the adequacy budget calculated by the state and as we've mentioned previously the adequacy budget is a hypothetical model that the state has come up with based upon certain spending categories for what a teacher and benefits should cost how many children should be classified as special ed um calculates that a district with our enrollment that's projected by the state also is 78,500 45 the local fair share that was calculated by the state was 78,3 187,188 so you can see those two figures are very close any additional cuts of of even a few $100,000 could have had an impact making us uh more eligible for categorical Aid and possibly for Equalization Aid thank you any other uh are a committee report or question question Mr CH what what is the uh The Debt Service Aid that
040we receive from the state or how much is it yeah the state um offers districts two types of um uh help when it comes to financing school facilities one was a section 15 Grant which we applied for with this school and that's where you get an upfront Grant in order to um um fund the school's construction and alleviate the need for going for Bond and the other is um section n Grant and that's where the state reimburses you as you make your principal and interest payments down the road and um our annual budget for Debt Service Aid is about uh6 to $700,000 a year and that offsets The Debt Service tax levy to be raised to pay the bonds principal and interest in the next year's budget any other questions are there any other committee
041reports Mr caufman uh yes there was a curriculum Comm meting this evening uh we had a presentation by Michelle Celli On The Rise program it's a uh a fairly local um nonprofit organization that's going to look to um interact with our Avid students to develop programs which has to do with uh community service and Leadership training um sounds like a very good program it will be no cost to the district whatsoever um and the staff uh Michelle Celli and I forgot I'm sorry the other r m McKenzie McKenzie um will be uh providing support uh for the group while they're meeting here at the high school uh so again there would be no cost to the district uh the committee reviewed uh curriculum documents on for cabinet making Advanced Materials and methods for technology photography
042culinary and arts one and two to CAD and drafting we also got an update from Bob muy which is Rel related to a uh effort that I asked the uh group to look at last year as some of you may remember um I had made a recommendation that we take a look at expanding our culinary arts program to see how we can um take all the facility type of things that we have here and we have three uh commercial grade kitchens to try and use that knowledge and that expertise and that capacity to to start building uh uh an Enterprise level type of fund so we could start maybe making some extra dollars for the district um Bob gave us an update tonight that they had started um with a program inhouse to uh provide
043some um fairly incredible culinary Delights for lack of a better term to our staff to allow them to eat either in the beastro or take the uh the food back with them to their classrooms uh We've also asked them to take a look at possibly uh expanding that to uh provide uh food to be able to give to our staff to purchase and then take home for dinner um we do have a lot of people here that are taking the culinary arts program it's one of our most successful programs here at the high school so we're going to look to try and see where this can go there's a lot of different things originally if some of you may recall we were looking at trying to offer catering type of services through this building as
044some of you may know we will host the yearly um teacher appreciation teacher appreciation dinner which is done completely by the staff and it's done here it's an incredibly great evening so um more to come on that uh we also got a co-curricular activity update by Greg berer he provided us some information regarding clubs and activities from the past two years uh so we did see adding and uh deletion of a few clubs uh Red Cross and Latin Honor Society or two of the newer clubs I don't remember the ones that were deleted uh but we had talked about that in a prior meeting so we do have some clubs that have been taken off the roster and for those of the public that wish to know I don't have the exact number but we
045have about $200,000 that the district spends for all schools that would really be the high school and the middle school on these co-curricular and uh after school type of activities we don't really have this type of stuff at the elementary schools um Jeff also went over some Statistics over uh some of you made a call I asked to get uh more detailed level information on the uh school test results Jeff provided us some feedback uh there are some schools within the district that uh you know uh are are going to need a little bit of help to be able to start coming up to the bar a little bit more we're going to identify where the uh the needs are and start developing an action plan so we can get all the schools uh where
046they need to be um I think that was about it I think that's all we covered any questions for Mr Coffman okay any other committees Miss Armenia Mr braan may I as um Vice uh chairperson of the um policy committee may I okay um there was uh several discussions of different policies at the policy committee and uh at the it was a very long meeting and and towards the end there uh three out of the five uh members had a discussion about putting forward a resolution for the a new nepotism policy so I would like um to move that policy and it was given out to people I would like to make a motion to move that policy it was given out to people via the email and I do have copies of it here
047I would like to make a motion I second second by Mr presiosa I can pass this out just yeah just pass it around um any comments or questions on the policy or have you not seen it was emailed to everybody it was emailed to all the board members and I I believe it's not the policy it's just the revision to it's a revision of the policy correct any comments or questions Miss antalis um I didn't support this last time and I'm not going to support it this time just for the same reasons didn't vote on any anyone else m Mr not Stein yeah basically it's my understanding that um a several or actually a few board members had requested that we strengthen the nepotism policy um I think basically the the the things that were
048added to this policy since this is a mandatory policy by the state um basically it looks like it's just going to be uh increased from 6 months to one year for board members uh immediate families to get a job on the on in the district and also it's now going to include um the business administrator board secretary directors principles and vice principls or supervisors um so basically it does strengthen it it it makes it uh more in line with the municipal uh nepotism policy which is uh actually even stronger than this one but this is definitely um uh a real good first step I think it's going to help us um get the trust back between the board and the uh and the public because uh what I'm hearing from my constituents is that basically
049they want to see uh us being more straightforward in the future so I hope that uh we can get behind this policy uh and and support it and like I do thank you Mr bra I I do have question at at the policy committee meeting you told me that the the Township's nepotism policies was was much stronger than ours and I just wonder I think there's a man by the name of John Riggs who was a town councilman how long was it before he became the shade tree commissioner or some other such thing was a week or did he have the job before he resigned I'm not quite sure and then there's there's a rumor going around that an ex councilman is now a paid consultant for the township I don't know if that's just
050a rumor or not but but if these things are true it certainly can't be a much stronger policy than ours well first of all and I'd just like to say that although the policy this came out of the policy meeting we didn't really discuss it Mr uh proso directed Mr Gorski to come up with these things and he then met with Mr Gorski and Mrs Mrs kapano and they met with the attorney to do this up um so it didn't never came to a vote on the policy committee wasn't ever recommended by the policy committee but I think it's fine that you're bringing it up because after you're done with the nepotism you can start working on things that have directly something to do with kids like the boiler and the Apple goth like like
051um so many other kids that we so many other things that we should be dealing with and my constituents say isn't that ridiculous that you people are wasting so much time on this nepotism policy ask a question Mr Kaufman yeah it's really just a question I just want to dovetail on to what Marvin said at that December meeting when this all came up to to head about voting for it or against it we also had a large contingent of parents that were very concerned concerned about the policy related to uh the state championship and the national championship for the marching band and I don't know if it was discussed at the policy meeting but Focus the focus needs to be kids while this is very important that's really important because the end of the day
052whether or not we approve this policy or not I don't know if it would impact anybody immediately yet the policy related to the marching band G impacts people right now right now today so I'm just that's all I got answer to that particular Point um they're doing a a survey on U those Awards and we're coming to a conclusion okay soon I think M Mr Chella I I just have a question about the who can vote on this because there seems to be some question about that I don't know if we could sort that out before we we vote on this the whole board can vote on this it's a policy that affects everything that we all the whole Bo board can vote on all of our policies the only person who cannot vote on
053Monroe policies is The James Bird rep Mr proso getting back to taking care of kids we're trying to take care of a piggy bank here that's our job and if in the future if somebody gets a job that shouldn't be getting a job just in case we're saving money and it's not FedEd the taxpayer if they have to see what we're doing if if we're not stepping up and saying hey let's take care of business first with with hiring and then we'll take care of our kids it's no big deal what are you so afraid of what are you so afraid of I'm not afraid of anything but the fact of the matter is that you're taking care of business and then the kids you don't belong here we take care of the kids first
054where we should be advocates for kids is there anyone any Miss armeno yes um policies are there are nepotism policies as are there other policies because they're necessary so every policy that is in the board's purview I would imagine especially since it's state mandated is a necessity to at least have the discussion um to my esteemed colleague's Point Mr Braverman um we did have the discussion the discussion has been ongoing for several months so I think it's time to put it to rest I absolutely agree that it's time that we have a vote and we have people um you know voting how they feel and how what they've said and it belongs um to be taken care of also um any violations that the township has of their own policy would be a shame and
055and people should be um taking a look at it because a strong policy has to also be enforced so and that's any policy that we put forward so thank you anyone else okay then we're going to have a roll call but before we do um this is the first reading on this policy should it pass um then we would have the second reading at our next board meeting no no no no no no this is a this is a revision it's not a new policy only one reading I can I can address that can you use your microphone please sure yeah there this is a material revision to the policy that was proposed at the prior meeting when there's a material revision to something it has to be reintroduced for a first reading so it
056it's council's view that because the nature of the revision that it it should be reintroduced as or should be presented at a as a first reading and then voted on subsequently that's consistent with the requirements of policy changes okay so we'll have a roll [Music] call Miss an Tellis policy no Miss armenio yes Mr Braverman no Mr cherella no Mr calman abstain Mr noin yes Mr proso yes Mrs colano no madame board president motion for the nepotism policy does not pass okay thank you right is there any other committee reports then we will go to the superintendent Report with Dr Hamilton okay good evening again all um before I get into the body of my report just a couple of things I'd like to share with you uh one is I visited Mikey uh one
057day last week he is coming along very nicely uh his parents will actually be guests on champions of Education next month so you'll be able to hear from them firsthand how he is progressing but the family again expressed their thanks and appreciation to the schools and the entire Community for the way um we you all have rallied around them during this very difficult time but but um I was able to be with Mikey while he was having physical therapy and he is coming along very nicely um also the per performance reports were released last week and these performance school performance reports uh Compares Monroe Schools with schools that are not um comparables or not like schools um however our schools still still do compare very well the data management software which is referred to as
058NJ smart contains some eras with which the state has adjusted however in the most significant area which really reports the number of students who receive free or reduced lunch um we're having some challenges getting the state to make some adjustments to that and I think I Shar I know I shared with you a letter um that I sent to the state asking them to revisit that but the report indicates that Monroe has zero students in the middle and high school who are eligible for free and reduced lunch and that of course puts us in um like districts like West Essex Livingston um districts that also have no students that are eligible for free and reduced lunch so that significantly changes are comparables um so I am soliciting the state to correct this data so that
059we can accurately report how we are being ranked and so that our progress can be appropriately uh comp compared to like District so I'll keep you a breast on our progress and getting that information uh corrected um moving on to the superintendent's report and and listed on the superintendent report of course is our enrollment data we have 19 more students in our district um from last month to this month or at the end of of January now as this meeting has been protracted um and our out of District placement and homebound instruction is listed as well along with the lockdown and fire drills for each of our buildings moving on to our Personnel report under the superintendent section of the agenda this evening Madame board president and members of the Board of Education it is
060recommended that Personnel items a through T be approved by roll call vote we move Mr Braverman second second by Mr Kaufman any comments or questions for Dr Hamilton seeing none we'll have a roll call Miss antelis yes armeno yes Mr Braverman yes Mr Chella yes Mr calman yes Mr noin yes Mr proso yes Mrs K Pano yes madame board president Personnel items a through T passes and moving on to board action items under the superintendent report Madame board president members of the Board of Education it is recommended by the superintendent that board action items a through n be approved by roll call vote mov Mr rman second by Mr nin any comments or questions Mr proso yes what's the uh Oak National Conference say that again I'm sorry Oak o a k e National Conference
061take that one the trips it's a quorus concert it's a quorus it's a quorus convention for Aus students two here for $2,100 each for one day it's for a chorus it's for the I do believe it's for the um for the adviser it's a national conference for the music adviser is that okay Mr proso anyone else just on fella F that I'm on the right spot right with the school calendar that's the right F all right I'm just I want to just yes State again that I'm I know this doesn't this this isn't talking about the venue for graduation but I've talked about it before about bringing it back home and using this facility and I and I understand the reasons why but I just think that we need to be mindful of what we're
062spending and I understand all the weather issues and all the things that can happen but I I just think that that's important and I also think that before we extend the school year we should look at taking President's day and those kind of today's first uh so I'm going to be voting no on f um just just for your information on the Revis calendar um there is a um clause on the calendar that will take President's Day if we need to close school again this week which looks like it's inevitable um so depending on how whether or not the board approves this I'll be putting notice out to parents just advising them since this will be a a have a pretty immediate impact on their schedules um but that is one of the options that
063is listed on this revised calendar Mr nin um in the same vein as Mr chiarella's uh comment um how many days do we actually add we've added uh five days to the end of the calendar is that uh we added three we already had two in the calendar okay and we're adding three um I mean if we if we did not if we took away from say spring break or something um um would you know maybe would that be something we could look into and that could also help the situation with these 20 students um that are going on this trip I need to confirm that data frankly um tonight was the night first I heard that so I don't know how accurate that is quite honestly or what options may be available for those
064students if that is in fact accurate information okay well if we could really do whatever we could to uh to to possibly change that because it really it just doesn't seem like it's a very good situation if in fact it is accurate as was presented um and as far as the uh the venue for the graduation um I definitely disagree with Mr cherel on that I I think that that is uh the last thing we' want to do would be to bring that back here because then we also lose down the road uh the option of uh going back there so I I really don't think that's a good idea but I definitely think that we should uh see if we can look into doing something with the uh the end of those days so
065that we don't have to impact those students thank you Mr bman it's interesting Mr Nordin mentioned that trip um and I understand we're not discussing that trip but we are discussing the the graduation and what wouldn't it have been appropriate for somebody in the at that table to say to that lady when she said a school sponsored trip it's not a school sponsored trip isn't it a trip that some teacher is putting together to go to Europe and if that's true somewhere along the line the the paperwork should say it's not school sponsored and we have no liability I'm not sure which trip honestly the the speaker is referring to we're getting excuse me the this public is the public is not able to speak at this time I understand that um I'm not sure
066which which trip the speaker is referring to um we are going to do some investigation on that but I would not want to see 20 kids omit it from graduation either quite frankly um so we will definitely look at that M talk um and while it might impact 20 children a lot of people do book their trip for spring break and that might impact a lot more than 20 children well we know that oh I'm sorry to your point I have received many emails to that effect actually um I'm getting emails from both sides as I'm sure you can imagine but ultimately my recommendation is to add three days at the end of the year and look at President's Day if we need to add yet another one as a result of impending weather this
067week I think we know with the any change in the calendar at this point um we're going to get people that will be happy and we're going to get just as many people that's not going to be happy no matter what we do so any other comments questions Miss arminia yes board action G the Saturday Academy yes okay um the New Jersey ask uh the grade8 test starting on April 28th my understanding can that start the um Can the start date of the uh Saturday Academy be moved up to maximize the amount of instructional time for students prior to the test you remember why those dates were selected I'm not entirely sure why those particular dates were were selected honestly it may have been a matter of um posting requirements for one and the availability
068of funds quite frankly but if the if the instructional the Saturday Academy might help the students with this testing could it be looked at and just to see if they can coordinate it with instruction before that looks like it starts March 1 so this says effective March 1st through May 10th okay all right so that should do it okay any other questions this time we'll have a roll call Miss anelis yes Miss armenio yes Mr Braverman yes Mr cherella yes on everything except f is that a no on F no on F yes thank you so noted Mr calman yes Mr noin um yes on everything no on F so noted Mr pres ELO yes K panovich yes madame board president board action items a through n passes thank you and that concludes the superintendent's
069report okay we will go to the business administrators report Mr Gorski Madame board president and members of the Monro Township Board of Education it is recommended that board action items a through H be approved by consent roll call so miss anelis is there second by Mr nin any comments or questions from Mr Gorski okay seeing none we will have a roll call Miss anelis yes Miss armenio yes Mr Braverman yes Mr Chella yes Mr calman yes Mr noin yes Mr proso yes Mrs kopano yes Madam board president board action items a through H passes and that concludes my report okay thank you do we separately okay okay we'll go to the board president's report and I will um try to keep this short um I was on the website the other day for the township
070and I noticed a new name underneath the planning board so I believe that Mr Chella has been appointed as an alternate member of the planning board with voting rights so I'd like to congratulate you um I think um and it's it's good to have a member of the board on the planning board so I I think this will be good for all of us not that we don't hear from everybody what's going on in the district but I I congratulate you on that appointment thank I'm sorry that does not have to be a report okay um the second thing and I don't know that if uh Dr Hamilton has mentioned this or not but he was invited has been invited to attend a superintendent Summit in Phoenix Arizona in March it's an invitation only event
071organized by The District administration magazine the purpose of this Summit is to provide participants with a high level networking and professional development in key areas related to K12 leadership which includes technology special education curriculum and assessment and business and finance the cost of attending the summit which includes airfare hotel and meals will be underwritten by the District administration Leadership Institute and it's another opportunity for Monroe to get their name on the map and for Dr Hamilton to um network with others to exchange ideas and programs and I think that's a a great opportunity for both you and Monro town thank you for sharing that sure welome you and the only other thing I wanted to say in regard to the um budget this year is um any of us who are reading Facebook has noticed
072there's been a lot of activity in regard to um the reassessments and re-evaluation of our homes and I've seen where many people are angry because their their taxes are going to be going up a lot other people are very happy because their taxes are going down and it's it's going to be a little um kind of off for the Board of Education this year because we really don't know how the school taxes are going to affect everybody no matter what we do there'll be people that are really happy and people that are not happy but I think you'll have to take that into consideration that not everything is going to be the fault of the Board of Education because there's so many things going on with the assessments so I think we just need to
073keep that in the back of our minds and that concludes my report so we will go to Other Board of Education business is there any other business from any member of the Board of Education Mr Chella yes and thank you madam president because you gave me a good segue here and I and I understand what you're saying when you say you know it's it's not the fault of the board and I agree with that I think that I think that the uh the Board of Ed has done a lot uh to try to mitigate uh increases to try to cut costs and try to do everything that we possibly could in order to still give a a provide our students with a a very good education and I think that we're we're we're still over
074inadequacy there's there are a lot of there are a lot of reasons that we're over adequacy and I don't know that we'll ever get to that $78 million without uh causing IR reparable harm to the district but when you look at the tax burden and you look at what our our taxpayers are paying for for to to fund the schools and to fund the town overall 67% of that comes from us so I think that we've done a lot in trying to get more Aid you know we we've done a lot in cutting we cut busing we did a bunch of different things that we thought would make the uh the state happy and would give them uh give them reason to smile upon us and give us more money and still we end up
075with you know $400 per student which doesn't help when you have what 50 $15,900 per pupil costs $400 doesn't even that doesn't even buy Band-Aids so I think that it's it's time for for us to act I think it's time for us to do something we've worked with our Senator our state senator for to put forth legislation under for s237 I don't know where that is right now at this point um it doesn't seem to be anywhere I know we're waiting and I'm hearing things that things are looking better and and things like that but we don't have time to wait we don't have another year we don't have two years we have people who are uh in a difficult situation right now and we're between we're in really between a rock and a hard
076place because on the one hand we want to fund our you know fund education and do the right things and on the other hand we're we're bearing nearly the full burden for this so I I think that we need to Sue I think we need to sue the state I think we need to take matters into our own hands and fight one of the things that I am opposed to though and I just want to make sure everybody understands that I'm opposed to unilaterally cutting you know where we just say oh we need to reduce adequacy we need to reduce funding we need to cut taxes so we need to just gut and cut our school system that's that that's not what I think we need to do I think we need to fight for
077our share so that we can continue to provide a quality education for our students and I and doing doing it the other way where we unilaterally just cut is going to do nothing but destroy the the school system which is going to eventually destroy real estate values so we're really in a hard hard you know in a hard place right now and I don't think we could wait for somebody somewhere to say okay Monro we're going to listen to you now and I do appreciate the efforts I do appreciate you know the school launch is and you know the uh the things that we're doing to try to increase our funding by showing them that we're not a wealthy Rich District but I think we have to do more at this point because I I
078remember we had this conversation maybe three years ago and we talked about at that time about um suing the um State and it was our attorney's advice that it would cost us a a huge amount of money and we probably wouldn't win and at that point the board had said you know we would be wasting a lot of money to not get anything so and and and with all due respect I remember that yeah and I remember that was I I agreed with that at the time because I figured well we're going to throw good money after bad and maybe spend millions of dollars and then get nowhere but the but the fact of the matter is we we we took an alternate route and the alternate route was to cut after school busing and
079to cut this and to cut that and to reduce adequacy and and none of that is working and you know I'm hearing from people who are who were always hardcore supporters of us of the school system who are now saying to me what do we do I it's getting hard for me to even survive here I don't know if I'm going to be able to live here anymore and these are people who have been here for 20 30 40 years who are now really who are really struggling and again I'm not looking to take the knife to and just and just cut and say okay State just keep keep us categorized as a wealthy district and keep giving us $400 a student and we'll just decimate our eles that's not what this is about but
080I think we need to how much how much are how much do we stand to gain if we do win or at least make the make enough noise so that they pay attention to us and maybe get S 2307 out of the back rooms and back onto the senate floor I think that's what we need to do okay do you um want to make a motion about that or do you want to bring it to the finance committee for discussion there I I don't know what a motion would do at this point but I I think think we just we could discuss well I'm not on the finance committee so I would have to hope that they take it under advisement and look at it but like I said we don't have another year or
081two years to wait for this I mean this is something that I think you know we have people that need relief now we have senior citizens in our community who are living on fixed incomes who are you know with interest rates that are being held down artificially at near zero who aren't making any money on their you know on the money that they're holding they're eating into their principle that's that's a recipe for disaster so I think you know we have to be mindful of everybody in our community and and work together it's we're one Monroe you know at the end of the day when I talk to senior citizens I have not met any to tell you the truth that have said to me I'm anti-education you know I I I but I I
082do meet people that say I'm I need to survive and if I have to choose you know this this is what I'm choosing and and but I'm hearing from parents you know parents of children in this schools were are saying the same things now so I just think that we need to we need to really think about this and we have to move forward okay thanks anyone else Mr proso i' more than happy to put that on the agenda for the finance meeting I think it's something we should talk about yeah and we would probably have to get some information from the lawyer about fees and and how much it would cost and what kind of um what would we be looking to get back for the money we invest in that kind of uh
083a legal suit but thank that would be good thanks anyone else okay seeing none we will go to close session resolution we 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 of the public laws of 1975 njsa 10 4-6 through 10 4- 21 to discuss the following subjects the board will retire to close session to strategize in relation to the Monroe Township Education Association mtea negotiations and student matters harassment intimidation and bullying incidents 26 through 28 the discussion conducted in closed session can be disclosed to the public at such time as it needs for confidentiality no longer exists need a motion in a second to go into Clos session I Miss elmino second Mr nin how long are we
084going to be um I'll tell you that as soon as we vote all in favor I opposed extensions and half an hour about a half an hour there are plenty of [Music] places at this time the board will reconvene into public session and go to the public forum again anyone from the public wishing to speak please come to the microphone state your name and address for the record and Mr CL We Will We Will adhere don't start the time yet yeah there are three minute Mark Klein seven kurew first of all something I wanted to say two meetings ago and it's worse tonight is the fact that this meeting is in session until the end you're having a public section now where people are able to bring up their own concerns Miss Anis has not
085been here and after a closed session for at least four to five meetings Luke cofman who I was going to compliment is not here so I look at it as a resident that these people don't care about us they don't want to hear what our concerns are what I wanted to compliment Mr Kaufman on is when you had to vote on a nepotism he did the right thing he abstained that was the right thing to do miss anus didn't abstain she voted and if she didn't vote then the vote would have gone the other way or if you would have tabled it Doug po would have had a fair chance to vote and you would have I don't know whether the uh um Jamesburg represented would be able to vote but it would have been
086a whole different thing she had no business voting I'm sorry um to bring up to date on that development that was planned Jack Morris on Pineville Road and Route 33 to 749 units that had been turned down by the planning board they are in court getting it overturned and as I mentioned before if you don't need a variance or a waiver you can't turn it down so it's going to be overturned and you can expect that to be built um as far as my feeling of the hearing that we had at the budget and Appropriations Committee to me it was a sham they shammed us that was to get votes for uh Senator Greenstein I hear nothing about it they've done nothing to help us and to me it's a shame um as far as
087uh filing lawsuit against the state St Department of Education they are in violation of the State Constitution if V can't handle it speak to somebody else they are in direct violation to section three paragraph 1 and two for free public education for all residents 5 to 18 we are paying 98% that's not free public education somebody called me and said the contact I'm against the ACLU but they said to contact the ACLU because it's a constitutional problem and maybe they will take it and it won't cost us anything um and that's basically oh I got it all through holy God that's the first I ever did you have 34 seconds left okay so I just want to oh and I thank everybody else here as far as Mr braveman uh when you brought up about
088all of your uh residents to a for education and they don't give a damn about nepotism or anything Mr K Mr Klein no please address your your comments there are many people from Cordia and from Green Brer that I'm friendly with and they have been complaining year after year and more so now about the cost of our property taxes that go to the schools that we're not getting our fair share and they are constantly complaining and wherever we could save we save as far as a nepotism this may be a minor thing but it's something you got to look at you know what happens if you get somebody here and he's got a relative that needs a job and he says well I'm going to create a new job than you Mr kle that's the
089only reason why you want the nepotism that's all thank you very much for your time thank you anyone else from the public don't go like this good evening Ira tesler I live in LA drive just some comments of what happened at the last board meeting in reference to my wife and myself as a board of education member the law states that any relative cannot have a permanent position in a district District substitutes are exempt from this law my wife has been subing in the Monroe for over 1 and A2 years last October she was asked to be a substitute power professional for a special education child at Oak Tree school who is new to the district while the child was being evaluated during the weeks she was respon first few weeks she was responsible for
090the child she developed the bond with the child and an excellent relationship with the staff the Schoolboard election came and went and I lost the election as a result she was asked really begged to to apply for the position since it was determined that this child would need a permanent par professional this seemed to make logical sense and the best interest of the child in the December board meeting learning about my wife's application a board member decided he wanted to change an nepotism policy so a retired board member relative cannot get a permanent position for one year after the board member retires the December meeting came and went and a policy was tabled to a future policy committee meeting so in the best interest of the child Dr Hamilton recommended my wife for the position
091and at the 15 Board of Education meeting when the vote came for approval there was discussion among board members in public about my wife this violates the this the law specifically the open public meeting act which states personel matters affecting employees of public bodies unless all parties request or consent to a public hearing prior to discussion of personnel affected employees must be given notice such as a rice notice which give the employee to write to write to request a public hearing the new board members said they have said the new board members have said many times in the past that we should all follow the rules What Faith Can a public have in the new board members and some old board members when they cannot follow the rules at their first real meeting especially after
092they just came back from the board of education training the result is that 49 of the board voted no even if Mr even after Mr norstein said that he did his research and my wife has qualified job qualified for the job this note clearly violates the code of ethics especially letter H which states I will vote to appoint the best qualified Personnel available after consideration of the recommendation of the chief administrative officer so how is voting no in the best interest of the child if you truly represent the best interest of the children of Monroe why would you turn this child's school life upside down for a policy change that may or may never ever happen in the future at the last meeting Mrs AR IO mentioned about perception of how the board acts in
093this instance the perception is not an nepotism but that 49ths of the board does not act in the best interest of children I hope you learn from this mistake and in the future that you consider the students first and leave your personal interests at the door thank you thank you anyone else from the public please come to microphone I'd just like to make a quick statement um could you please give your name oh I'm sorry Maran Lester 44 Avenue I first I'd like to make a statement you said the nepotism policy isn't a priority matter and you have quote more important matters to deal with concerning the students of the district and while book knowledge is important things like teaching them Integrity is important too because after all children learn by example and then I
094just have one question um other than the principle for the new school is the Jamesburg tuition up to date for our town mrki thanks for the 1314 budget year which we are in right now um the Jamesburg tuition payment that has been made to the district has deducted the interest portion related to the sharing of Interest costs on the bonds for the high school which they utilize um that's not uh a surprise the district anticipated that that's contested by Jamesburg and the matter is now um before the commissioner but the tuition itself is that up to date uh it it's paid with the exception of the interest portion okay and um were the administration contracts signed the new contracts yes ma'am uh what were the uh increases for that the increases were 2.25 for the
095first year 2.0 for the second year and 2.0 for the third year and the the contract resulted in a net savings to the district over the three-year period because of concessions made by the monre township administrators Association okay okay and we can find that on the uh perk the public employees relation commission website after it's signed there's a law that within 15 days it has to be posted so yes ma'am we we've always sent the contracts to them I don't see it online a lot of towns are behind and I don't see our district up to date the school board okay thank you anyone else from the public wish to speak hello again my name is Terry mccarten I live on 242 die grve Road Monroe Township this is again in reference to the graduation
096date and I don't believe that I received an answer what is the question graduate ation date I understand is being changed from the 20th of May to the 25th the graduation is the 25th of June I'm sorry of June correct um there is a school sponsored trip which I understand you asked a question earlier the trip is sponsored by the school it does not mean the school pays for it but this is a trip that's that's offered through um Educational Tours it's Nationwide it also extends through Europe and the high school has offered this trip to anyone in the school who would like to go and that has been for the past four or five years my son did attend two years ago and he went to his graduation and then two days later they
097were on a plane to Europe to their trip and I also want to again let you know that this is something my daughter's saved for for a year she's paid for it herself we are not a wealthy family that's not what this is about what it's about is that she deserves to walk down the aisle with the rest of her class to receive her diploma and I and my husband deserve to be there to watch her and I don't feel that I have gotten any answer at all except to tell me that my time was done ma'am if the event you're referring to is Educational Tours yes that is not a school sponsor trip um and I I don't know I think I answered your question I think could you please let Dr Hamilton finish
098his comment I think I answered your question I think our issue here is I didn't give you the answer you wanted the calendar was extended for three days graduation was moved from that Friday to the following Wednesday which is June 25th so you're telling me that you're going to exclude 20 good students from their graduation and their family you can tell me that you have no other way to resolve this nothing the this $100 million here somebody turned off my mic $100 million in the school are you telling me we can't have it here we are electing to have the graduation off site why the reason stated earlier why state it again Madam board president I think I've answered this question I don't believe you have I do you have children excuse me ma'am anyone
099else wish to speak anyone else from the public wish to speak I'm not done hi uh Bob zagari 162 Tournament Drive before I went to the uh before I arrived at this meeting I was at the council meeting and I was there talking about uh my idea of sore connection fees for school facility Renovations and uh just wanted to let you know that I I I told the Town Council that the Board of Ed has been spending more and more time discussing facilities for two reasons basically you have a five-year long range facility plan that includes 124 projects totaling almost $8 million we're talking about serious money and serious business because one of the project is a partial re-roof of uh the middle school and for about 1.6 million and another is a window replacement
100project for a million dollars uh you're also talking about the fact that you're experiencing uh uh classroom overcrowding because uh your population growth rate uh as stated by you has been about 200 a year we all know that uh with more students come to need for more classrooms and you got pent-up demand as um evidenced in your document budget Philosophy for fiscal year 20145 which you approved in um November of 2013 which should include a $2.2 million project entitled renovation of the middle school for capacity generating classrooms to address the overcrowding issue and you were looking for a rod Grant or uh a regular operating District Grant and unfortunately it was denied I'm sorry to hear that but I and another uh word that I've heard is referendum uh and I I highlighted your dilemma
101the fact that you'd um you're relying on budgeting for new classrooms in your general fund budget which is one operation one way to fund these things or do go to a referendum you could do things quickly if you budget it out of your current expense budget but you really can't do you can't keep up with the you can't you can't build the classrooms when you really need them you can't fix toilets you can't fix heating systems when you really need it because you can't take 30 years to do it um so I'm back to my idea of SE connection fees and I brought it back to the township Council and told them to share at least a small portion of the millions of dollars generated by SE connection fees that the township Council uses regular
102to balance their budget we're approaching by the way about $50 million the $50 million mark for over a 5year period I told them if they could find $600,000 of this money a year for the next five years a total of $3 million it would go a long way to help the board uh utilize that money as part of their local share for these regular uh operating District grants and told them how it would be beneficial to taxpayers because when you get a a rod Grant 40% of that uh Rod Grant is funded by state aid that's a form of state aid that this District can get anytime it can find the local share for it so if the if the township council could help you come up with that local share taxpayers would definitely be
103uh affected beautifully as well as the children and the board of bed thank you thank you anyone else from the public wishing to speak blue Masters n Michaela congratulations Mr chel for your appointment just wanted to say that the only question I have is did you Mike or Mr Gorski sorry um when you were talking about the cuts to the budget did was the Middle School the 10 classrooms was that part of that yes in in part um the district applied for a rod Grant um Regular operating District Grant to cover 40% of the cost of the internal Renovations at the middle school which we've referred to in the past as the stop Gap measures um the state has denied that project therefore the district would have to budget for the full amount so we
104have scaled back that project to um the approximately about a $250,000 range for the total project how many classrooms would that get us uh a few I would say about four to five those are the non I don't it's changing the the science labs into classrooms splitting up the art room still if you want more information specifically about that you're welcome to speak to Mr T that's right but it's a shame we had to scale back that project because that is really one of the most uh imperative ones that we get to because we're we have in Spain's constraints at the middle school I agree I think it's a bad idea uh I think that's it uh have a nice night thank you [Music] lo line S cruncher that's a source subject you read in
105the papers while I was on the board South River needed two roofs paid for full Grant from the state Woodbridge they needed two or three roofs full grants from the state Addison if you remember added eight classrooms and two or three science labs for I think it was $900,000 totally paid for by the state and they won't give us a penny to do anything to help our students it's pathetic the state is pathetic our Representatives at the state are pathetic for them to do that to this district is pitiful thank you Ira Tesla 11 drive just one quick comment um about when the um nepotism policy was brought up um I believe uh the nepotism policy you have a right to vote on any policy you want of course and any policy changes but I
106believe it should have been put on the agenda for the next meeting so if the public uh wanted to do so they would have a right to comment on it uh being introduced the way it did um the P public had no U pre- knowledge of the vote pre- knowledge of that this nepotism policy was brought up at the meeting uh and uh we didn't have a right to comment on it because the public form was already passed and by the time the second public for came around we it would be too late so in the future you obviously you can vote on anything you want that's fine no have no problem with that uh but if a policy should be put on the agenda and be put on the attachments so the public can
107review it before and in this case it should have been uh brought up at the next meeting so the public would have a right to comment on it before vote thank you well take that under advisement anyone else from the public okay seeing no one we will close public forum Miss Armenia did you have a question may I just make a comment sure a very quick one um I fully agree about pursuing our our options with the state but uh as Mr zarski said if we do that with the state maybe we can also pursue our options with the municipality um and let's discuss it because um in the past we've talked about um shared services with municipality I would think that this would go under shared services we should have an open dialogue and
108I'm sure the public would be in favor of that type of um shared services option with the township so I thank Mr uh zagari and I and I think uh you know for doing all the research and everything that he's done and I do believe it was asked at a a council meeting and there's no prohibition to asking for the funds to be shared with the board of educ education so I'd like to see that Pursuit as well okay thank you thank you Mr knin in that same vein where what would be the next step in that should we bring that up at a a finance committee um to kind of look into the implementing uh those ideas because uh I mean Now's the Time to start thinking outside the box obviously um I think
109that's a great idea I don't think based on what I heard at the council meetings also it doesn't appear that it's a it's not that it's uh not illegal and I just kind of wondered instead of just talking about this what would what could we do as the next logical step to possibly look further into this I think probably if I may Madam president I think probably the most appropriate thing for us to do um if it is the pleasure of the board is for us to um have a conversation with the mayor and president of the council and and talk about how that conversation should go and what the next steps should be and then come back and report to the board would we have to make a motion to ask you to do
110that or can you just do that board president can say Mike K go over and meet Mike Canen go go over and meet okay thank you no we don't need a motion from the board to do that anything else okay seeing no one uh the next scheduled Board of Education meeting is Monday March 17th 7:00 p.m. at the high school for the preliminary budget hearing motion to adj so move Mr nin Mr Braverman all in favor I opposed extensions meeting is adjourned [Music]