001good evening we're going to call our meeting to order today is Thursday March 21st 2024 this is the Monroe Township Board of Education monthly meeting please join me in our pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Miss Allen may we have a roll call please yes Miss Alvarez Miss Belco here miss Bora here miss depan here miss Fabiano Mr Goram here miss Ratner Miss Scott here miss gerby here Mr Tano we have a quarum thank you um in accordance with the provisions of the New Jersey open public meetings law the Ro Township Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published an electronic notice provided by having the time
002date time and place thereof posted September 15 2023 and March 19th 20 2024 at all schools on the district website home News Tribune cranberry press and filed with the clerk of the municipality thank you the next item on our agenda is our close session resolution be it resolved that the Board of Education of the township of Monroe hereby moves into close session session in accordance with the Sunshine Law chapter 231 of the public laws of 1975 njsa 10 4-6 through 10 4-21 to discuss the following subjects harassment intimidation bullying matters protected by a CL attorney client privilege including proposed confidential settlement agreement involving student number 94443 confidential Personnel matter superintendent evaluation following the closed session action may be taken the discussion conducted in closed session can be disclosed to the public at such time as
003the need for confidentiality no longer exists can I get a motion mve second okay all those in favor I all right we'll be in our Clos session until approximately 7:15 thank you good evening we're back in our public session coming out of close session we do have a resolution to read whereas a dispute has arisen regarding the special education program for student number 9443 and whereas the attorney representing the board on this matter and the superintendent have recommended resolution of this matter pursuant to the terms set forth in a settlement agreement and whereas the settlement agreement calls for the expenditure of board funds for the 2023 24 20242 and 2025 26 school years towards the cost of tuition and related services for an outof District program and whereas the board finds that resolving this matter
004pursuant to the terms set forth in the settlement agreement is in the best interest of the district now therefore be it resolved by the Monroe Township Board of Education that it is hereby approved the settlement agreement in this matter may I have a motion to second second all right does anybody have any questions no Miss Allen may we have a roll call please yes Miss Belco yes Miss depan yes Mr Tano yes Miss Scott yes Mr Goram yes yes or no yes Miss Miss Bora yes Miss gerby yes motion passes thank you okay okay the next item on our agenda is the approval of minutes and I get a motion to approve the minutes for the public Board of Education meeting from February 21st 2024 motion second does anybody have any questions or Corrections all
005right seeing none all those in favor I I any opposed any extensions okay the next one is the Clos session meeting of February 21st 2024 can I get a motion to approve second okay are there any questions comments all those in favor any oppos any extensions okay great that's our meeting minutes our next item on our agenda is our student board member report good evening good evening how are you today yes I'm doing good I hope you all are doing well um so we'll just get started with Woodland Elementary School um in celebration of read Across America Woodland School professional staff coordinated a portion of their teachers favorite book to share with families the link to their favorite book video clips can be found on the school website and is still available for families to
006explore and access for reading suggestions with their child or children in addition Mrs dusich coordinated with the manur township mayor's office Council Board of Education superintendent's office administrators parents and Guardians to read to the students as guest readers Miss deskovich coordinated with the media teacher at mil lake so that Woodland students were able to read to the students from Mil L remotely Woodland also invited their own munter Township middle school students to read to their Fifth and fourth grade students which also allowed for them to share their experiences as a new Middle School student to their Upper Elementary students they ended their week as a community of readers reading together in the hallway as a school Community for the last 15 minutes of their read Across America celebration Mr Schultz schedule Jump Rope for Heart
007with the students this event raised money for the American Heart Association and teaches children the benefits of cardio Fitness for the heart Miss wer and the Pal's group created a rainbow Arc that had to hold a cup of pennies for the hundredth day of school in observance of Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month students participated in a Spirit Week PTO coordinated Mur Township teachers playing basketball with the Harlem Wizards on Sunday March 17th in alignment with Woodland Elementary's Lego log rewards the school earned the reward for the month participating in a classroom cahoot to identify a representative for the building reward for March Woodland has 10 students ready to compete in their schoolwide cahoot focused on Woodland and Monroe theme trivia next up is Oak Tre Elementary School um the month began with a weeklong read Across
008America celebration as well each day was a themed event that matched a Dr Seuss Story the week ended with guest readers and their schoolwide reading train on March 7th Oak Tree hosted a maker space night for grade 2 students and their parents grade two students also took a field trip to Jenkinson's Aquarium on March 6th and 7th on March 15th winning classes from the pta's Friday frenzy event were able to pie a teacher or Silly String the principal at a schoolwide assembly the event with the entire School singing our new oak tree Anthem oak tree teachers played again against the Harlem Wizards on March 17th at a PT fundraiser as well oak tree students will also attend an aliens alive assembly on March 25th courtesy to the oak tree PTA the month will end with
009grade three students dancing the dance at Oak tre's annual March Madness basketball tournament on March 28th next up we have Applegarth throughout the month month of March students from mths under the direction of simmeron sing former Apple Gart student have been teaching a public speaking mini course to Applegarth children and they are loving it the Monro Marvel's interviews are in the process of being scheduled as a schoolwide service learning project in collaboration with the Monro Senior Center their students are interviewing some of monro's amazing senior citizens students will write their biographies which will be published in a book the book will be donated to the mun Township library and copies will go on sale all proceeds will benefit the monor Township senior center Applegarth is also celebrating Wellness week students and staff with support from
010their food services department are celebrating living a healthy lifestyle and making positive food choices Applegarth is also celebrating disabilities awareness week with different themed activities every day to encourage appreciation of all friends March Madness frenzy has also set in Applegarth their students are researching colleges and preparing for the March Madness basketball tournament coming up next week the March Madness Tournament runs in conjunction with their spring food drive can donations help students to earn points in the tournament thank you to all the families for their donations and best wishes to all of the appleg Guard students in the tournament Applegarth went through a rigorous interview process to be recognized as a national school of character thank you to the community members who participated in the interview process and they'll find out in May the PT ta
011has sponsored multiple events this month Applegarth had the Scholastic book sale a green Bagel day and read Across America day Apple's PTA arranged for community members to come in and read to their students at the school the PTA also sponsored their Friday frenzy assembly after a month of activities at Applegarth students were able to pie their teachers in the face and saely string their principal thank you to the PTA for all their efforts Applegarth celebrated maker day on Friday March 15th where students rotated in the cafeteria on the early dismissal day using in inunity and creativity with various Station activities several Applegarth Stu staff members participated in the Harlem Wizards game as well on Sunday March 17th and additionally Applegarth has kicked off its annual fish tank competition students student teams are busily designing activities
012to help improve climate change problems now moving on to Barkley Brook Barkley Brook celebrated read Across America week in the beginning of March with a week of theme school spirit days and the week began with a schoolwide reading train where all students joined in for schoolwide deer drop everything and read and students wore clothes that represented different Dr Seuss books throughout the week in preparation for read Across America week the students spent the month of February listening to five specially selected books selected for their grade level during this week each class was scheduled for a battle of the books in the library where they had to answer questions about each of these stories the students received points for each correct to answer the battles are very close and very fun it was a very funfold
013week celebrating literacy grades 1 and two students have been following a rotating schedule in the media center where they have engaged in various stem activities gr grade 1 students recently learned how to code using an app called light bot and grade two students learned to code using a codable robot route Barkley Brook schools also celebrating disabilities awareness month with school spirit week that began today and during the next week students will be invited to par participate in themed days to celebrate All the Way students are unique next up is Brookside Brookside celebrated read Across America week as well with a variety of activities which included theme days Battle of the books and a March Madness book challenge they also had an author's visit on February 27th in February the 3rd fourth and fifth grades participated
014in the spelling be the students have continued to do a great job supporting each other and the students earned their second School reward which was a schoolwide cahoot booket game the student council at Brookside had a dress up day on March 14th teachers dressed like students and students dressed like teachers Brookside is collecting for the replenished food drive during the month of March as well next we have MTM mtms February 28th munter Township Middle School hosted its annual art show students in all three grades displayed their wonderful artwork to show off their talents March 7th and 8th the middle school held its annual hoops for hearts to benefit the American Heart Association thanks to miss Misty Drake we raised to we raised $32,400 this year for the American Heart Association last year we were number
015five in the nation and apple and mtms is hoping to surpass that and possibly be number four this year March 8th through mtm's career Grant they held a career Cafe focused on the engineering vocation Engineers zoomed with their students to give them insight into what the engineering careers can look like March 21st to the 23rd mtms Productions is presenting the performance of Shrek Jr as their spring musical they hope to see you all at one of their performances this weekend and last but not least MTA mths the Juniors completed their ngj GPA testing last week and spring Sports have started in full swing this week Additionally the rppa national social studies Honor Society is hosting a voter education week and voting simulation for seniors in collaboration with the middle County Board of Elections and the
016League of Women Voters on Tuesday March 26th and March 27th senior CL Health classes will experience a concise presentation covering topics such as the voting process voter registration and much more following this presentation students will engage in a mock election using actual voting machines this hands-on experience aims to prepare students to participate in upcoming elections lastly tonight mths is hosting the CG CJ a band festival and on March 23rd is hosting the Winter Guard home show in which our amazing band students are performing in thank you all for listening this evening and that is the end of the student District updates for this meeting thank you seaj that was very comprehensive and um detailed of what is going on in our schools and as you can see we have so much wonderful things I just
017want to touch on a couple of things that you said that I think is amazing we have such a wonderful uh parent associations in our elementary schools and throughout the district and our uh teachers and our staff really engage with our parent volunteers and together they rais so much money that's put back into the schools so I I think it was incredible on this past Sunday that all of the elementary school U parent organizations participated in the Wizards game to raise money for each of their individual um parent organizations and the amount of staff administrators involved in that was really heartwarming to see how many of our staffs from across the elementary schools and across the district um participated in that so it really was wonderful thank you for your report and thank you for
018bringing us all everything every month that goes on in all of our schools it really is great to hear so much from my pleasure thank you you're welcome our next item on our agenda is our public hearing of the 2024 2025 final budget um I turn that over to Miss Allen okay good evening at our March 5th board meeting we presented the tenative budget and held a public hearing we will not repeat that presentation but just touch on some of the highlights the presentation is available on our website on March 7th the budget was submitted to the county for review for review both the executive County business administrator and the executive County Superintendent have reviewed an approved our budget including the additional spending proposal as explained on March 5th by maintaining the status quo and
019including some additional enhancements such as teachers and security our budget exceeds the 2% tax levy cap there are no new programs being added because we are exceeding the 2% tax levy cap we must ask the voters to vote on April 16th on the additional amount which is the additional spending proposal only the base budget will be will be voted on by the board tonight it does not require voter approval the base budget is capped at the statutory 2% tax levy increase plus an allowable Health Care adjustment the base budget totals 151 m951 710 and includes the general fund in the amount of 139 milon 294 829 the special Revenue Fund in the amount of 1,465 710 and the debt Serv service Fund in the amount of 11,1 19171 the additional spending proposal which totals 2
020million 586 requires voter voter approval on April 16th it will appear as a separate question on the ballot if the additional spending proposal passes this amount is added to the 2% tax levy and those programs and staff are added to the budget they are not currently in the budget the total combined tax increase including the additional proposal to a home with an average assessed valuation of 332,750townhouse are not included in the budget and statutorily we have no ability to re to reallocate them for the 2526 school year I'm sorry the 2425 school year um the school election date is April 16th my report there's no present no okay okay um at this time I will open the um hearing on the budget anybody wishing to come and speak uh regarding just the school budget you
021can come up to the podium if you have anybody that has any questions or comments this is only regarding the uh final budget anyone good evening even sh min9 Nathaniel Street um Monday uh you had a finance meeting that was a half hour meeting I believe and I'm just wondering how in a half hour because a lot of the deliberation is no longer going on at these public meetings to I think to our D's detriment of the public but how do you have a half-hour Finance meeting before the final budget on4 approximately if if the um the proposal goes through how do you do that in a half hour for the people of this community with $150 million operating budget miss armeno the budget that we sent to the county County was adopted by the
022board of education on March 6th that's correct there were no changes discussed at the meeting by the board members or requested that budget was sent to the county the county did not send back any changes correct Miss Allen correct there were no changes to the budget so the budget was as the budget that we have tonight we're voting on the final budget has not changed at all since it's been presented to us previously and the presentations you know didn't go into enormous details so I my I maintain my question that all from the from the beginning of the presentation of the first budget until tonight I think a lot of detail could have been uh uh exposed to the to the the public you're again you're asking us to go over cap you're doing we
023a half hour on again on 154 million doll budget isn't enough even if it stayed the same you could have gone over uh in more detail some of the important aspects of the budget I just feel that the transparency has been being diminished in the last few years of this Administration it should have been like a three-hour you know $154 million that you're asking the community to to uh pay which most of us want our educational system to be top grade but out of respect we should really know exactly what's going on in in real detail and I maintain that 150 uh uh that 30 minutes of I don't know how well budget discussion went I I actually didn't understand um the timing and I got here at 7 I think it was over by
024S so that's another thing the times for these committees keeps changing um it's all over the place the the committee dates the timing it's just people don't have a handle on what's going on and I think you're asking a lot of this community and not giving us enough information thank you I I do believe that our presentation um was very thorough and detailed with what we were presenting the budget process began back in the fall and I know that it has been spoken about at various meetings including many finance committee meetings everything that we do discuss here as a board on a monthly basis and in committees is go into the creation of the budget um I believe what we were presented was very detailed the information was all posted to the website that evening
025we had handouts I believe I don't believe we've given out those all of the handouts um previously um to the public during the presentations and it's been something that has been requested of members of the community that come here that say I've come here and I shouldn't have had to print out the handouts so we actually made a a great effort that evening to ensure that anybody that came to the meeting actually had the handouts that were on the website to begin with so I do believe we are trying to explain to the community it's been discussed at various meetings various committee meetings and our committee meetings are recorded they are posted to the website the schedules are there and I just want to let the public know that we are not required but we
026continue to do it we're not required to have the public at our committee meeting it's not a quorum meeting it is not an official Board of Education meeting it does not even require that we tell the community when we're meeting this board has been very clear that we wanted to be transparent with what we were doing we do have discussions at committee meetings in public we publish a public a public notice to the community on our website and on our Facebook page when we are having committee meetings and we're meeting and we do invite the public to come to those meetings is there anybody else wishing to speak on the budget all right seeing none we will close the public hearing on the budget alen do you have a resolution to read be it resolved
027by the mon Township Board of Education that the 20242 general fund budget be adopted in the amount of 39 milon 294 829 and a general fund local tax levy in the amount of 17 1,447 992 and a special Revenue fund budget in the amount of 1,465 710 and a Debt Service budget in the amount of 11 milon1 1911 171 and a Debt Service local tax levy in the amount of 10,99 834 whereby the 2024 25 budget totals 151 milon 951 710 and be it further resolved by the Monroe Township Board of Education includes in the budget this the appropriation of surplus in the amount of 3,1 18674 be it further resolved that the Monroe Township Board of Education includes in the budget the adjustment for increased cost of health benefits in the amount of 477
028912 the additional funds will be used to pay for the additional increases in health benefit premiums whereas the Monroe Township Board of Education has been notified of state aid amounts and whereas such state aid amounts are for 2425 the categorical special education Aid is 7 million 593 810 and for 202 2425 the categorical security Aid is 681 73 and for 2024 25 the categorical Transportation Aid is 3,999 704 and for 2024-25 The Debt Service Aid is 281,000 A- 7.3 provides that the Board of Education shall establish in the annual school budget a maximum expenditure amount that may be allotted for travel and expense reimbursement for the 2024 25 school year now therefore it be resolved that the Monroe Township Board of Education hereby establishes the school district travel maximum for the 2024-25 school year at
029the sum of 165,000 500 and be it further resolved that the school business administrator shall track and record these costs to ensure that the maximum amount is not exceeded and be it further resolved that members of the Monroe Township Board of Education authorize and approve a transfer of $400,000 of anticipated retained earnings from the proprietary Falcon care fund Early Childhood enrichment fund as a revenue Source in the 20242 general fund budget and whereas due to the priorities of student and staff safety maintenance of current programs and staff and capital Improvement needs as set forth in the board's budget philosophy resolution the board is budgeting to maximum spending Authority be it further resolve that there should be a separate proposal to raise an additional 2,769 586 for General funds in the same school year 2024-25 these
030taxes will be used exclus exclusively for the retention of courtesy busing per njsa 18a colon 39-1 students who live less than 2 miles in grades K through 8 and less than 2.5 miles for students in grades 9- 12 after school busing athletic Transportation School sponsored co-curricular extracurricular activity expenditures and school sponsored athletic supplies and materials the separate proposal also includes the addition of one autism teacher one autism par professional one ESL teacher one ESL par professional one business teacher one Tech technology education teacher one security officer design of roof replacement at mil Lake Elementary School and phase two of special services parking lot refurbishment approval of these taxes will result in a permanent increase in the T District's tax levy these proposed additional expenditures are in addition to those necessary to achieve the New Jersey
031student standard learn student learning standards now therefore let it be resolved that the superintendent of schools and the business administrator board secretary filed the required documents with the executive County Superintendent whereas the members of the Monroe Township Board of Education have approved the additional spending proposal ballot Lang language to be as follows resolved that there should be an additional 2,769 586 for General funds for the insu uing school year 20242 these taxes will be used exclusiv exclusive ly for the retention of courtesy busing per njsa 18a 39-1 students who live less than 2 miles in grades K through 8 and less than 2o Miles for students in grades 9 through 12 after school busing athletic Transportation School sponsored co-curricular extracurricular activity expenditures and school sponsored athletic supplies and materials the separate proposal also includes the
032addition of one autism teacher one autism par professional one ESL teacher one ESL par professional one business teacher one technology education teacher one security officer design of roof replacement at mil Lake Elementary School and phase two of special services parking lot refurbishment approval of these taxes will result will result in a permanent increase in the district's tax levy these proposed additional expenditures are in addition to those necessary to achieve the New Jersey students learning standards can I get a motion to approve moot motion second motion made by Miss belel second seconded by Miss cor does anybody have any questions right may we get a roll call please yes Mr Tano yes Miss Belco yes Mr Goram yes Miss Scott yes Miss depan can I make a comment before I give my answer no I president
033I asked for questions or comments oh you didn't say board questions or comments questions com I asked the board no she feel like anybody wanted to public form open you asked if we had any question I asked if anybody had any questions I thought you me anybody else I didn't no that but that public hearing was I misunderstood make comment we're in the middle of a vote if it's short yes it is very okay okay um after the last meetings I attended on Tuesday I went home took the board budget looked at it and felt that something didn't feel right I had concerns now that I didn't think that I had I didn't have a complete picture of what the budget entailed there is nothing more important than supporting students by providing robust mandated programs
034as well as ensuring those programs take place in a safe secure environment the proposed budget punts the responsibility of ESL and special education programs to the voters instead of taking the responsibility of supporting these programs in our proposed budget additionally if school security is recommended by the superintendent we should not be gambling with this recommendation we need to make arrangements now in our budget by supporting these student achievements and safety items and signal to to the community that how important these are for our children asking the community to vote on these items is irresponsible and I can't support punting that responsibility we just need to do a little bit better so I'll be voting no um misss Bora yes Miss gerby yes motion passes thank you all right the next item on our agenda are
035our committee reports any committee is wishing to give a report Mr Tano the bg& me uh meeting was Tuesday uh the first item on the agenda was the esip discussion with Honeywell Caroline Jackson and her team from Honeywell did a second presentation in regards to the ES esip program the members of the bg& were in favor of the program but wanted to afford the finance committee the opportunity to review the program before making a motion to proceed the board president miss gerby uh wanted all bases covered before making this decision for our district so hopefully U Miss bua will put that on her committee next month okay second item on the agenda was the appleo school project update Mr tag informed the board that this summer the roof on the 1936 building will be completed
036and partial work on the electrical system will be performed he also stated that all work is slated to be complete on Apple goth uh in September or October of 2025 uh the third item on the agenda was the high school digital sign Mr T informed us that at first uh it was uh thought that it was a hard software problem but later determined that the um that it was a module issue the manufacturer does not make parts for this sign but is willing to look into finding a module for us that is needed if they can locate the part a new sign will cost approximately $60,000 the committee stressed the importance of a sign at the on the high school grounds uh Mr T will update the committee of any new information pertaining to the
037sign issue that was it does anybody have any question questions for Mr Tano all right do we have another committee report I have two I'm reading um ades and car's okay on I have an objection to her reading Carmen's report she's not a member of that committee I was I'm just stating that for the record Carmen asked me to I was I was present that night because they you don't need a quarum for a committee meeting you're not on the committee okay up to you madam president I mean her report is here uh I'll allow it all right I'll read um Katie I am on that committee on this is the legislative action commit legislative action and Community engagement committee met we discussed a recent we dis is that better we discussed I lost my
038place we discussed the recent njsba County meeting where Senator Vin goal spoke to us about teacher short and issues with Fair funding he seemed to take a pretty adamant stance that the formula needed to be changed especially since a lot of the districts in his area and he's in Mammoth County were negatively impacted this year we discussed issues surrounding the teacher shortage that we noticed such such as certification procedures and Miss Ratner provided various updates from the legislative committee she mentioned that a Statewide portal will be possibly for formed for substitutes and certified teachers she said there was also a discussion about s429 where it was stated that they wanted to make April election similar to November it was also said that there was a discussion about allowing for putting a second question on the
039ballot for the following year and that's that report can you want me to do the other one does anybody have any questions on that report no okay sure this is the policy report yes policy committee 319 the commit committee met to discuss the policies listed in alert 232 the New Jersey state board of education reopt at njac 68- colon 7 managing for equity and education with revisions njac 64 col 7-1 do1 sequential provides rules governing equity and educ educational programs to guarantee each student equal access to all school districts equal access to educational program services and benefits of their educational District regardless of the students housing status socioeconomic status or immigration status in addition to any protected category previously included an njac 668 col 7-1 do1 for pares a njac 6A col 7-1 do1 parentheses
040a also includes the protected classes listed in New Jersey's law against discrimination njlad such as race Creed color national origin ancestry age marital status civil union status domestic partnership status effectual or sexual orientation genetic information pregnancy or breastfeeding sex gender identity or expression religion disability a typical hereditary cellular or blood trait service in the armed forces of the United States or nationality this revised njac 6-7-1 period 1 parentheses lowercase a expands the list of the protected categories that were previously included and njac c6a colon said 7 -1.1 parentheses lowercase a and now includes the additional protected categories currently recognized in njlad at njac 10-5 do1 ET to align directly with the revisions of njac 6 A- col 7 Strauss Esme has removed the list of all the protected categories throughout the policy policy and regulation
041guides and replace the list with the phrase the protected categories listed on njac 6a colon 7-1 do1 in parentheses a this also avoids repeating the complete list of all the protected categories in multiple places throughout a policy or regulation guide and avoids the need to revise these policy and regulation guides if the list of protected classes is revised in the future many of these these policies and regulation guides are mandated as they are required to be adopted by Statute or Administrative Code or by the New Jersey Department of Education comprehensive Equity plan C needs assessment as required documentation or evidence to sub substantiate compliance with the provision in the c a total of 18 policies were discussed and are on the March 21st 24 2024 board agenda for the first read in the interest of
042time regulation 5440 honoring student achievement was tabled for the April policy committee meeting thank you thank you does anybody have any questions if I may um I have a question for the legislative action committee um I was watching the video today and um there was a discussion on the way the question is I think Gail just mentioned that there is a possibility that they will allow that question to come in November but just pertaining to us right now I heard your comments uh Mrs scurby saying that if that question does not pass my understanding was because this is fairly a new bill so we are all still trying to understand my understanding was that it does not allow us to go to the town but I heard you say that we can go to the
043town and ask for help for the $ 2.77 million is that did I hear you right in well what I had said and I had asked this question of our board attorney uh Mr Gagliardi was where exactly can we get the money if the voters do not approve um that question it cannot come from our budget we cannot appropriate any money in our budget we are allowed to get the money for that to fund that from any other outside Source including our municipality is that correct Mr gaglardi so while we we we cannot reappropriate money inside our budget to to pay for any of that if we got donations or sponsor or we could go out and ask our municipality to um with us perhaps go out to bond for 2.7 million doll to restore
044our busing and the other items that were listed in the resolution that would not be able to be uh funded and is it also a possibility like we got the $1 million from Senator Greenstein for Apple go is that also a possibility where our Township government and the board government can ask the state level or the county level government to help us and can they donate money towards us well they can appropriate money and I was going to talk about this in my board president's report this week I testified as well as I know Miss Ratner um did and um Dr Chanley was there I think there were some members of our public that did Mr perab or Dr perab um we I did go to the Senate budget and Appropriations Committee meeting and I
045gave testimony about um our needs here the difficulty staying under the 2% cap due to inflation rates and various other reasons um as well as the lack of fair funding um and I did ask them specifically to appropriate 2.7 million to Monroe um for our needs and I also asked for um fund for uh kindergarten as well because the estimate that the administration had told me when I asked was approximately $15 million to bring full day kindergarten to Monroe and obviously if we can't fund what we currently have in our budget and have to go out to the voters we don't have $15 million to bring full day kindergarten Here in our budget so I did ask the senate committee budget committee to please consider that in this in this budget that they're going to
046be approving is appropriate uh money to our district there were several districts there as well as many other groups asking um for Appropriations in the budget so I think it was great that we had representation there this year um asking them for the money as well I know last year um when the referendum failed uh Senator Greenstein added in a resolution into the budget um appropriating $1 million to Applegarth that kind of that coupled with the rod Grant was what was the precipitous for the shared services agreement with the township so we're we are doing our part I'm very um excited that we created a legislative action committee and that we followed through with what we said we were going to do all year long which was put out a letter writing campaign and wait
047until the um website opened up and put our names in to go down and testify it's a very it's a very um it it seems as a very formal process that they have where you have to put your name in and they tell you on the website that you cannot come unless you are selected and they will get back to you however we did have many people that put their names in and were never contacted uh by email and then that day they were calling their names because I was watching they were live proceedings and I just had it playing in my kitchen all day long um listening to all of the uh testimony and um they did call people that I knew from our community that weren't there and when I reached out they
048said I never got notification um one of them was was Dr P and he actually got in his car and drove down and he was the last person to testify yesterday which was good but I think it's really important um that the committee does continue to um let everybody know what legislation's up and when we can go and testify and members of the community can go testify that that's the best place that we can go to ask for for consideration and we're not the only district there so the fact that we are there and we're are in front of them we're getting we're getting our voices heard thank you you're welcome does anybody have any other questions for mray uh you have your committee report Miss Belco sure curriculum committee oh yeah I'll start with
049curriculum so um curriculum committee met on Tuesday evening uh meeting started at 5:30 and um was another robust meeting we did take the full hour I I like to thank that committee for for all their time we did uh review a few things uh first up was uh Mr Gail Snider and he gave us a report on a new curriculum for the uh middle school and it's a class called um Theater Arts and it will be an elective that will be allowed to be um taken or buddied up with um some music curriculums that are there allowing our um talented theater students to uh participate in both music and theater and the class is um going to really go through some theater Basics some acting skills lots of theater ele El understanding the science behind
050the different theaters and the different things that are there understanding understanding Shakespeare um they will be putting on a production including scene design and um basic scripts and then they'll also be taught uh audition tricks and trades uh we have a robust theater program in the district both at the middle school and at the high school so this will serve our students really well and they're very excited about it and um it opens up the door for the students to also participate in the High School theater Productions as well as the curricular class at the high school as well as there are theater clubs throughout the um through the district so we're very excited for that class to be added to our um Middle School uh choice for uh things the other thing that um
051Mr Schneider gave us an update on was the interest in the trip that we were invited to to Hawaii with our but not not just our band who went many years ago but also our core students and there were over 140 students that showed interest in that trip so we're very excited that Monro Township uh High School um will be represented in Hawaii again for and you'll have to forgive me but I do forget why they were going Dr Layman can remember what the it's it's a particular celebration and it escapes me because it's on last month's minutes um the Department of Defense invited us as a part of uh recognizing veterans uh in Hawaii yes okay and that that would be March of 2025 so that'd be a year from now so the uh
052they we were given a report about what it would what the bottom line cost of the district would be and it's actually going to be well under $5,000 out of pocket expense for the district and that's to provide the chaperon and the nurse that needs to go on the trip and things like that so it was a very um much more detail can be found if you go on the website and and watch the committee meeting um so that information was good then we had a a curriculum presentation by Danielle drust who um is we are taking a biotechnology class and we are moving it from a halfe class to a full year class and the um the units are going to include a lot of um different things with in the biotechnology realm and
053we talked about um the the some of the units are going to include infectious and chronic diseases medicines and vaccines genetically modified plants and animals um ethical consideration and Longevity I think they go hand inand with genetically modified plants and animals um career Readiness and preparation as well as um uh an economic impact and the role in pop culture so we had a nice discussion about that curriculum and they're very excited to be offering that as a ful year uh program we did discuss about bringing in with biotech New Jersey has a large um industry in biotech here and it would be great to reach out to the businesses that we do have in the state that do biotech and bring them in so um M trust was very open to that idea and very
054open to exploring that so we're excited for that and hopefully um some of that can come through the other thing that was brought um up for curriculum for um Chemistry Grade 10 and basically uh this was so that our chemistry program is aligned with the latest standards which are the 2022 um science standards in the state of New Jersey we use um the nextg science standards which is National and we're we are we always meet those and we sometimes do exceed them and they'll do be doing um chemical reasoning structure experiments there's a program called um fet simulations and I forgive me I forget what the acronym stands for however it's where they can actually watch a lab experiment happen I on right on you know the computer and they can see all the different
055steps and we would do that in instances where it would probably not be safe to those experiments in here in the high school or in the classroom with students around so um I think that's kind of an awesome um an awesome class as well chemistry um chemistry is fun um if you know anything about chemistry is definitely fun the other items we talked about was the um we were given a presentation by Dr Higgins from the high school about our final exams and what we've done to um in look at our final exams look at the data for our finals exams and drill down so we uh just for um information sake we had 13,417 finals taken last year they broke those things down into content and subject categories grade categories teacher categories and student
056categories and they looked at all the details of what those things did we put some things U some implementations this year in place to um sort of mitigate some of the issues that were brought up at at previous curriculum committee meetings one of them them was um we tightened up the uh scheduling of people into higher level classes um making sure that we're putting children who are appropriate into the higher level classes if need be giving them those opportunities because of our space issues and because we don't have the ability to just say oh well this this AP or honors class is a little too much and we're in September and I don't think I'm going to be able to pass I I I want to go to the regular class we don't have the
057room and so we have you know so when people pick the classes we have to do that not to say that there aren't mitigating circumstances special circumstances if a student needed to the principal and the guidance counsel would work together to see what we needed to do but that was one of the things um the other thing was um they're doing spiraling lessons throughout the year in the um in the high school and Dr Higgins reported to us that the uh students he meets with on a regular basis talked about the spiraling lessons and really thought that that was a great way to allow them to kind of go back and say oh yeah this this we we learned this but this is now related to this and this is we this is the foundation
058we built on keeping that knowledge and that information current and know and ready for them so that as they take their finals this isn't like oh my God I learned this in September and I don't remember it relating everything back so I that is a great thing to do um for them as well so it's um I'm excited to see what's going to happen in June with our students for the June um exams then we had a a report and this you can see more details on this on the uh on the meeting is we had a report from um Mr morala from our signs that we do outside so we have that information as to how we're doing and um our sponsors and we have several sponsors um from our district that are um
059professional partners with us either have signs up or they've sponsored certain programs in the district and um we have the information for that we um advertising and sponsorship revenues about $10,000 our enrichment programs about $3,000 in our club Co um for which is I believe projected profit because that program is just getting started it's a mid school year program am I right um yeah I mean that's what it'll be yeah it's just happening now yeah it's happening now so we have proection of about $6,000 on that program for um total projections of about $20,000 for those so those programs that we're offering are not costing the district money but they are giving us incredible um enrichment programs for our students um for the summer as well as also um during the school year so that's
060great then we also um had some information about what classes are going to be offered for the preliminary schedule for summer of 2024 and there will be some new offerings some different things so we had that report as well more details can be found on the committee meeting and that's my curriculum committee report Mrs scurby thank you does anybody have any questions or comments for Miss Bel all right are there any other committees that need to report oh miss Finance I'd like to report on the finance committee so the finance committee uh we reviewed uh a few things with that we would reviewed our uh attorney invoices uh for December we had some invoices uh the invoices for December was were about 15,000 um and then the January invoice which we saw a nice decrease
061in about half was about $88,000 we had a lot of special things that were going on um in 2023 2024 that are starting to get resolved so we'll see a lot of those invoices be um reduced uh for uh for us we also reviewed the bill list and um that was uh there were some very good questions from uh Miss pay and those questions were answered please watch the uh Financial committee report as well as we um Miss Allan talked to about to talked to us excuse me about our um shared service agreement with the server for the township which we're really excited about it's going to allow um the meetings our meetings to be out there uh and for the public for anybody who may not have cable may not have Vios may not
062have Comcast the different channels so we're doing that up again and it's going to give us an opportunity to do a few other things and again Mr morala gave a really good explanation of a lot of that that I would not do it justice if I tried to explain it here we have a gov deals update we sold some buses for the tune of about $10,000 no a little more than that sorry I can't remember I didn't write for some reason I didn't write that number down my apologies thanks Gil so we um we have Bus Sales we sell the buses after they're no longer usable for transportation for the students and then um we did review the school photography contract for the High School for the undergrads and the grads and that is up
063on the agenda for tonight for us to review um and vote on as a district and that's my finance committee report does anybody have any questions I do have one um sure m b the the the contract for the school photography the new company is there but there were blanks in it so is there was there any and I did watch the meeting today to make sure I kind of I don't believe any amount was mentioned there was a general comment that this is cheaper than the previous one but was there any comparative number shared with the committee I think there's no sitting fees there so there which is previous we've had like for the senior pictures there's no sitting fees there's um packag $200 I think yeah there are um there are a lot
064of packages available on they have prices which are less than 200 oh I see that I see 94 all right that's it that's the winner does anybody have any other questions and I think that's a a testament to you know what the board board members do along with the administration you know that was something that was brought up was the cost that parents incur for pictures at the high school um many of us our parents you know had experienced that and we brought those concerns and questions to the administration and they went out and they found um a a quote for us that is cheaper with uh another company so that is that is exactly what we as board members are supposed to be doing and working collaboratively with the administration to do that so
065I I think this is very good especially even through curriculum as well um you know we had heard from uh parents and community members about final exams and we raised the questions in curriculum and Dr Higgins came and did um he spoke to us in September he said he was going to do a deep dive into it and he gave an update at the curriculum committee meeting with what he found and what they're implementing this year so it really is a um great collaboration between the board members requesting things and the administration following through with it to to make a real difference in in our schools so does anybody have anything else on our committee reports I have the personal oh yes Miss B I'm sorry no that's all right the Personnel committee met on
066March 18th uh the board members in its attendance besides with me were Mr Tano Miss Scott Mr Goram uh Mrs scurby and the administrators uh in attendance with Dr Chanley and Dr Layman we reviewed the current openings in the district at the time of the meeting we had 11 vacancies one due to a leave one due to retirement three due to transfer within the district and six due to resignations of the 11 open positions it is notable that four are for bus drivers uh there were three exit surveys reported for this month and all stated retirement as a reason to leave the committee started the discussion on the contract renewal for the mtbo educational support staff Association uh we had the director of HR join us briefly in this meeting to give us some clarifications
067on the existing contract this is a work in progress um Dr Chanley proposed a new schedule for staff contract renewals going forward this would help spread out the work of HR over three months giving them ample time to complete and offer 1,200 employment contracts employment offers as and as per the schedule March Personnel recommendations will include non-affiliates Central office administrators and administrators April P Personnel recommendations will include tenur certificated staff and may Personnel recommendations will include non-tenured certificated staff par professionals drivers security mtea secretaries mtbo EA mtbo SSA and Teamsters if that negoti contract negotiation is over by then otherwise that could be pushed to to June uh the committee saw no no concerns with this schedule and as as a result the first set of renewals renewal approvals are on the agenda tonight um
068some community members reached out with concerns about the staff renewals uh being done before the budget vote next month I would like to address that and emphasize that these positions are in the budget that was approved tonight this is the part of the budget that meets the tax levy cap and is not going to change as a result of the outcome of the vote most of the increases in salaries are contractual increases the vote next month will impact the programs listed under the $ 2.77 million question which is courtesy busing after school sports and clubs Etc and that are considered over adequate by the by the state if this budget question fails we cannot move money from administrative staff salaries towards this program and I you just reconfirmed that for me um we will need
069to find this money out outside of the school budget to continue those programs and offerings so I will re reiterate to the community uh that this committee and the board is very cognizant of the budget situation and this scheduled change is not going to impact the present state of the budget or programs uh and that concludes my report thank you does anybody have any questions for Miss uh Bora yes mray well miss Bora and to Dr Chanley the people that were approving this evening the administrators were all their evaluations done already I know they have to be done before we can that is correct thank you very much does anybody have any other questions okay thank you for your report Miss Bora the next item on our agenda is our public forum this is for
070agenda items only if anybody has any questions or comments or wants to address the board on anything on our agenda for this evening please come to the podium you have four minutes please state your name and municipality for our records good evening good evening Joe Dean Monroe I got a question on your separate question you you say athletic Transportation what are you talking about the late bus uh Dr Chanley did you want to answer that so it answerers directly to your question it would not be the late buses although I'm gonna further respond it would not be the late buses what athletic Transportation means transporting our athletes when they're not practicing or have games matches or meets at home however if I may expand upon that after school busing is part of our clubs and
071extracurricular activities that is also part of the special question I just want to clarify that for you you're not talking about I'm a football coach and another thing when we go just the football team I'm am talking about we have eight buses plus anything else but you're you're talking about hey practice is over if I'm getting this right practice is over you got to get home now there are will be no after school transportation for sports we don't we don't currently currently do that right now our athletes home practice right now athletic Transportation only includes when we go away for a meet competition for event all right so then unless I'm really not getting this your football team has a game they're going to go Like Us in North Brunswick how the kids get in
072there they will either be driven by the parents or if well you're opening yourself up for a big lawsuit no no and we because everybody's soe happy so if because what's going to happen four kids are going to get in the B on a car come on I'll take you they have God forbid they have an accident you're really thinking and something just came about today this this is something good at ruter they get a they a give back day everybody from the college President to the ad to the professors to the cafeteria workers all threw in money to Athletics to help out it's an idea how because you said we got to figure out how to get this money just put it out there start from the top everybody give x amount of dollars
073yes you might be able to fund all this stuff but my bigger question was the Athletics how you getting the poor kids there thanks and and I think our answer is perhaps the community can support us can support the referendum if they choose to give for an average assess House of $330,000 I believe the increase in annual taxes is $24 for the entire year and and that covers that that busing as well so you know hopefully the community sees the value in that as you do thank you for bringing that up um and if the community Val values that we hope that they will um vote accordingly and the increase in the taxes for all of that for the busing the transportation for the Athletics for the courtesy busing um for the clubs activity supplies
074and the list of staff that we want to increase it's not we're not looking to cut any staff and that's really important to understand this would be the these were new Staffing um uh the list of new staff um but like I said on average test house we asking for an increase of $24 for the entire year uh per family so hopefully our community feels as strongly as you and that they will come out and support it thank you good evening good evening jge Torres from Jamesburg New Jersey it's not a comment on the agenda but is this public forum is only for agenda items only I know but I wanted to ask kindly is is a comment on the agenda we the meeting has start super late and it is parents here that were
075able to arrive and want to see we can do public comments I just wanted to ask kindly the board if it's possible like said because we have parents here and I know it's going to be super late and the meeting is start late so I want to see if there's any possibility that we can have public comments before unfortunately we have a policy that dictates our agenda and I would have to follow the agenda this evening this is our public forum for agenda items only we do have another public forum um our meeting did start promptly at 6:30 as scheduled um so it was on time this evening all right thank you you're welcome is there anybody else wishing to speak on agenda items only good evening good evening okay this is about the Committees
076again um in the past now not everything uh needs to stay in the past um but there are things that are done well and if we find things that aren't done well I get it that we change them and make them better however commit meetings um the board members for years have previously noted that 1-hour scheduled committee meetings were insufficient to discuss school districts and matters of Finance curriculum policy buildings and grounds um I I was the the committee meetings have also been that the board president was able to have five people at each committee which can spread out um all of the members of the board so everybody has an impact in representing the community I mean all of the board members on this board represent all of the people in the community so
077having five members go to having five members um appointed to each committee is essential for the public to be represented and it was also for many many years probably for decades that alternate was selected on for the Committees so in other words if someone because it happens frequently has another um obligation and there will only be four members or less on the committee an alternate would be called so they can attend because it's about representation of the community not about a small majority always having always making all the decisions it's about everyone and every board member has equal value on each committee and the fact that someone wasn't on a committee wasn't named to a committee but there were I think there were two or three I I went to the committee meetings uh on
078Monday and there were I think less than four people at that committee meeting and another memb decided to sit in there is nothing wrong with that in fact I appreciate uh Miss depay for taking her personal time and sitting in to be a WI witness to the deliberations that are so important to this community so to say that someone isn't on the committee isn't scheduled on the committee to me is an anatha to our oath and to the representation of this community so having said that um the transp uh transparency again and respect for some board members and members of this community seems to be devolving with this Administration uh reducing the public ability to witness the function and deliberation of this governing body um we're leaving too many um decisions to a small majority
079and and keeping uh the minority out uh on a on a lot of things um the board meeting I'm sorry I have the floor I believe Mr Tano um we some of the other things that the the transparency is is being um taken away from the community there used to be multiple cameras for public meetings where where people in the community could see the speakers now you only see our backs so it diminishes the the quality of the speaker the speakers that come up here we remove the ability to copy and download and preserve public video meetings um presently again the board has uh reduced the Committees to 30 minutes when all when we're getting bigger and bigger and we have greater needs and the again I would like to see reinstated alternates on the
080Committees uh for when there are less than five and that alternate could be taken thank you thank you Miss armeno and I'm going to address some of what you've said because um this board has again as I've said brought a lot of transparency to our District before I was elected to the Board of Education committee meetings were held in a very small tight conference room at the board office they were not recorded there were no minutes taken since coming on the board here and came came back out of covid we I as the policy chairperson brought forth the policy and asked the committee at that time and the board to change the policy to record all committee meetings and have them posted onto the website that is something that we continue to do now there
081is a there when I became board president there were a lot of things that I saw that the district was not lawfully doing and I brought these um to the attention of the board one of the things is we have to ensure that we do not reach a quorum at our committee meetings we have Miss Scott as our Jamesburg representative to be our representative for high school um issues I High School matters if we are discussing in commit committee things that do not span over to the high school our Quorum is five that is why we have different numbers on different committees something as such as curriculum finance that goes across all of the schools in the entire District we can have a higher number of committee members at there are times where we have
082four members because we don't want to have five because we're not discussing something that we would have would be a quorum of six so so that is something that I know I have discussed with the board attorney when I took over as a president that that was a concern and that's how we have managed our committee meetings our committee meetings are at the discretion of our committee chairs we are not required as a board to have committee meetings monthly if the chair decides that a meeting does not need to take an hour we have been reducing that there have also been times where we have scheduling conflicts you have to understand we have our Administration that we have at these meetings and everybody has scheduling it's very difficult to schedule 10 board members or five
083board members at a time and the administration everybody has things going on in their life and to try to get everybody together on different days um sometimes it's challenging generally we have two nights of committee meetings there are times where the administration has asked us to consolidate our committee meetings into one evening and if um necessary could we reduce those by a half an hour I do believe the Committees do their due diligence in bringing issues forward and having robust conversations I do not believe that we are a less transparent I think we have seen a huge increase in transparency of what we do um I do know that when we when we attend um other meetings in our Township you know the cameras are in the back of the room to capture what is
084happening in the entire room so I don't know why the um camera use is is a issue of transparency we record our meetings we have them live streamed and they're up on our website um they are on YouTube that is downloadable I think that was brought to our attention and was questioned at a previous meeting and was explained they are on YouTube currently because of the server um issu that we had and any video from YouTube is downloadable um is there anybody else wishing to address the board Vanessa Forest mon Township um I just have a couple questions about okay so how do ethics complaints affect the budget is this on the agenda does it is it already built into the budget for um the cost of defense or whatever I know that when we
085have an ethic it's like $5,000 $5,000 and then is it billable hours after that to handle the situation we have our budget includes uh uh line items correct U Miss Allen for legal fees correct so it's like it's already built in that's part of the budget we budget for legal fees Insurance fees and and we're build and it's builds like um like billable hours it's not like a when there's an Ethics complaint it's just not one cost it's billable hours no the complaints are sent to our insurance carrier and there's a um uh deductible thank you okay all right thank you you're welcome is there anybody else wishing to speak on anything from the agenda all right seeing none we'll close the public forum the next item on the agenda is our assistant superintendent report
086Dr Layman sure I wanted to start tonight by highlighting some professional development opportunities on the agenda um the one I'm going to highlight particularly is uh covered by title funds this year uh many of our harassment intimidation and bullying Specialists will be taking part in an Hib specialist certification program this opportunity for our staff this is an opportunity for our staff to be trained uh it's an additional layer of training and support for our already trained uh Hib Specialists um not every one of them is taking place uh this certificate program is a series of five different trainings and some of them have already done some of those trainings so it didn't make sense to have them do the entire package um so if they have something they need to fill in the gap or
087whatever we'll certainly get them those individual trainings as needed um in terms of our Hib cases this year we see our see them proceeding in a consistent trajectory as in previous years um where on track we see no more or no less um in terms of our hibs in in the in the district um they're consistent throughout the schools um you know our students are certainly learning uh but they're also they make mistakes and you know we work with them and uh go through this process and support them the the offenders the victims and their families uh as we go through uh another highlight I wanted to make was uh tonight tomorrow night and Saturday afternoon we have Shrek Jr the musical taking place at the Middle School uh it's in the Performing Art Center
088tomorrow night's performance is 7 PM uh and then Saturday's performance is at 2m so we invite you as a community to uh join us in recognizing celebrating watching our amazing middle school students perform the the musical and then we have another highlight here this was from earlier in the month I didn't not have an opportunity to talk about it at our last board meeting but uh we welcomed the return of an internationally recognized band composer Mr William Owens to our schools Mr Owens visited our district from the Dallas Fort Worth Texas area he spent two days in Monroe Township he happened to be up here for uh a a Statewide event and Us in another District were able to uh take advantage of his travels here uh and kind of invite him to come to
089our district so what he did is he worked with um students at the middle school and the elementary schools they uh the middle school band performed one of Mr Owen's compositions and received direct feedback and critiques to refine their overall sound and technique that's a very unique opportunity to actually have the composer listen to you play their music and then give you feedback about how they envisioned and thought about how that music was written and designed um and addition to that uh they provide General music instruction applications uh Mr Owens offered students further insight and context into the inspiration that drove his creativity when composing the music that we've played from him um after working with the students he conducted a professional development session for our entire instrumental music staff on the topics of successful
090vertical teaching and creating a positive culture so um he happened to be in the area coming up in the area uh Mr Schneider was able to leverage that travel and we we uh could engage him for two days to really have an exciting experience and we've worked with him before um and we're always excited to have him come back to the district so it a very Wonder wonderful experience and that concludes my report thank you anybody have any questions or comments for Dr Layman all right the next item on our agenda is our superintendent report Dr Chanley thank you very much good evening everyone Welcome to our Board of Education meeting we have had um a very busy week as you heard through committee reports um and I'm going to highlight some of them but
091first I'd like to go back to um piggyback on what seaj had said regarding the um March month in which we celebrate Dr Seuss's birthday and read across America I had the pleasure of being invited to read um and I was invited by the ptas and PTO I had the opportunity to go to Woodland mil Lake and Oak Tree I I dressed in the Garb and the kids loved it looked a little bit like one of uh Dr Seuss's following it was a lot of fun I was able to turn a lot of the reading um of the books into activities being a former English teacher it was pleasurable for me to go into thematic um thematic areas in which we discuss different genres furthermore I have to compliment our children at all different grades
092levels that they really understood the five paragraph essay and we talked about thesis statements and topic sentences and I was beyond blown away and impressed by how bright our children really are and and how much fun it was I also had an opportunity to go into one of our self-contained classrooms and read to our children and to see how important it is to have that contact and the socialization that was taken to the next level when I was invited by the Educational Services Commission of New Jersey superintendent m r o she invited me to join her as both her and I read to the children at the Academy Learning Center it really puts things into perspective when you have an opportunity to go into one of our um schools in which some a lot of
093a lot of our children do attend and it really shows us how fortunate we have we are and we should not take for granted simple simple things like being able to communicate with the kids children being able to walk children being able to talk and uh it really opened my eyes to what's important I think sometimes we forget um through agendas politics whatever it might be that it's it's about the kids it really is and you walk out of there it's just saying thank you and that we're thankful for for everything that we have it was it was an incredible incredible month just being part of these activities I was able to then um continue with activities as I was invited to the what has now become annual monach middle school health there it is
094one of those culminating activities that we do where we invite in um Professionals in the healthcare industry from Princeton Healthcare uh St Barnabas various different organizations come volunteer their time and it's something that we're able to do in collaboration with Jamesburg so Dr volani and myself attended on the same at the same time um since I became acting and then became superintendent one of my um one of one of my goals one of my um personal personal um goals was to really just have our Jamesburg students become falcons as early as possible so we would like to start um sometimes in the seventh grade but definitely in the eth grade through various different activities a few years ago they were able to join us on one of our trips and now we make in addition
095to being invited on the trip we do in invite them to come and join us at our hometown because they are our neighbors and and soon they will all be one when they hit ninth grade so it's very nice to see Dr valani there and some of her supervisors as well as the teachers and the children additionally as um Miss gerby touched upon on Tuesday of this week I believe it was Tuesday on Tuesday of this week we went ahead and I accompanied her as she um gave testimony at the Senate budget hearings she actually went into details that she did share Regarding why we're at a loss how the funding formula has affected so many different schools so many different school districts had an opportunity to hear it was a very professional environment um
096it was a very serious environment and um we did request of $2.7 million we then um continued with that request when I attended the assembly budget hearings where I gave testimony specifically to the $2.7 million and change and discuss what um the needs were for our children you know we can only hope that perhaps we will wind up with some money but if you don't ask you don't get so we did ask I'm sorry all that being said it was a very very eventful week because one of the reasons why we moved all of the all of the committee meetings to one evening was because we were very excited to begin our strategic planning process our strategic planning process occurred last evening where I gave a city of the district address to talk about where
097we are at with our programs our children our staffing and so forth and then it was followed up by group interaction it was a great evening it was absolutely um it was actually a little fun and it was pleasant we were joined by some board members and we were joined by um staff Administration teachers and of course were joined by some community members the next one is on April 25th you do not have had to attend last evenings to be able to attend on April 25th so if you are available we have um a website section just like we have for our budget we have a section on our website that talks about strategic planning please by all means come everyone is welcome and uh we're very excited to move forward with that process before
098I go ahead and ask for my approvals regarding recommendations I'd like to just acknowledge our retirees we have five retirees our first one is Katherine turo she's a high school teacher of Spanish for 19 years Deborah Force our middle school nurse for 29 years who I personally work with 20 of those years Irene Bara Barkley Brooks school psychologist 25 years she's also been in other schools in the district she worked for many years here at the high school Patty gendra is the oak tree principal's confidential secretary for 15 years and Santa a Bru grusa who I also work with was our middle school custodian for 15 years as I always say we wish them well on their next flight AS Falcons on the newest Endeavor it's very exciting when people have an opportunity to put
099in years of service and then be commended with those years of service and move on to the next part of their life in retirement so we wish them well without exception on that note under a 10 member vote under Personnel it is recommended that the board approve the attached personal items a through V can we a motion to approve second all right are there any questions or comments for Dr Chanley right seeing none may we have a roll call please yes Mr Tano yes Mr Goram yes Miss Belco yes Miss Scott yes Miss dep um yes but no on Q okay Miss Bora yes Miss gerby yes motion passes thank you don't see my just one moment as I find my n member vote Personnel thank you under Personnel for a n member vote it
100is recommended that the board approve the attached Personnel Board action items W through a motion second are there any questions or comments for Dr Chanley right may we have a roll call please yes Miss depan yes Mr Goram yes Mr Tano yes Miss Belco yes Miss Bora yes Miss scurby yes motion passes thank you thank you next under board action items 10 member vote it is recommended the board approve the attached board action items a to G can I get a motion to approve motion second I have a com please sure miss B um and I apologize because this was such a quick last minute meeting so I did not get a time to send my questions I'm sure you missed them but I just wanted to comment on the field trips um because we
101just had the discussion on the Hawaii and uh the trip to Hawaii and the cost that we would incur for the district I observed that the cost for the DECA trip the international Deca competition was $112,000 and I'm assuming that's the sheer own cost because the students pay for their own so I just wanted to kind of put that out there the $122,000 is most likely the cost that we pay for our sta correct and that's budgeted annually in the high school $1,000 for a for a club's competition trip so definitely not 140 students so I want to we need we might need to revisit that discussion of what that amount for ha looks not that we're holding we just have to be prepared for it I'm I have full support I'm excited we're going
102to but we just have to plan for it well in advance because if this de trip can cost $112,000 I'm assuming Hawaii will cost more I it's only going to California of Anaheim California from what I the the difference is the Hawaii trip the chaperon costs are covered by the travel agency it'll be cheap so oh we get discounts no they're covered completely so our cost for the staff is the contractually overnight stien and then meals and incidentals as opposed to anything else yes that makes sense okay anybody else have any questions all right Miss Allen may we have a roll call please yes Miss Belco yes Miss Scott yes Mr Goram yes Miss depay yes Mr Tano yes Miss Bora yes Miss gerby yes motion passes thank you under nine member vote board action
103is recommended the board approv the attached board action items H through L can I get a motion to approve motion second I have a question okay question Miss B yes the the um agenda item L about therapy dogs I'm just curious um it's for M Lake School what's the what's the background on that so this is the second time this uh group has come to the school it's a program that their uh guidance counselor and their support staff have uh kind of piloted um what we do is before they come in we make sure that their bard approv to come in and the previous visit uh those those therapy dogs visited uh some of the special programs rooms as well as some of our younger readers rooms um and it's it's something that it's no
104charge to the district and it's a relationship that uh they're seeing what the benefits in pros and cons from both sides are as as the therapy dog side as well as us as a school district that is um that's really nice to hear but can can we do that in other schools also or we do okay okay any other questions right Miss Allen may we have a roll call please yes Miss depay yes Mr Tano yes Mr Goram yes Miss Belco yes Miss Bora yes Miss scurby yes motion passes thank you that concludes my report I'd like to just wish the community and everyone um because it's it'll be our last meeting for April uh happy and healthy holidays and um enjoy your family and your friends as we have our OPP to go on
105our Spring Break um the week after the next that concludes my report thank you very much thank you next item on our agenda is our business administrator report Miss Allen yes um I just want to mention um on this report is the um shared services agreement with the township and again how much we appreciate that um from the township so under a 10 member vote um it's recommended that board action items a through F be approved by consent roll call motion second second okay does anybody have any questions I have a comment Mr sty sure M um I want to give a shout out to for the agenda item F I want to give a uh shout out to Tarantino's automative service for donating for the MTSD robotics uh robotics program they're donating $1,500 in
106cash that this board is uh approving um thank you and I hope we continue to see that from the community and and I want to um I think we'd be remiss if we didn't um thank uh Mr moraldo for his efforts and and bringing this forth to us I know that he has been out there heavily recruiting sponsorships and advertising in our district and this is something that we as this board in the last couple of years changed the policy or added to the policy and and actually allowed us to go out and advertise previous boards and administrations would not allow allow um advertising on our school ground so you know the the board recognized the um bringing in our community to be part of our district and through that sponsorship so yes thank you
107very much to Tarantino and to all of our sponsors gby yes I want to thank yeah I want to thank um Dr Chanley for something I brought up to her a while back about the cost of the pictures and uh she did go and I think with Dr Higgins and we got a good price for the senior pictures and for the individual and I guess individual pictures of the underclassman and we got a good deal so um thank you for trying to bring costs down um for our families especially I talked to Miss Belco especially us that have twins we wanted one price for twins and I don't know if that was negotiated but or she has triplets I have twins wins but anybody that has more than one student I think there should be
108a discount for that but that's something I know you'll try 100% so I just want to thank you for you know fulfilling that it was great right anybody else all right Miss Allen may we have a roll call please yes Miss Belco yes Miss Scott yes Mr Goram yes Miss depay yes Mr Tano yes Miss Bora yes Miss gerby yes motion passes um it is recommend amended the board action items G through H be approved by consent roll call under nine member vote can I get a motion to approve second right are there any questions comments right may we have a roll call please yes Miss Belco yes uh Miss depay yes Mr Tano yes Mr Goram yes Miss Bor yes Miss gerby yes motion passes that concludes my report okay the next item on
109the agenda is the board president's report um I just want to thank again Miss Allen and her staff Dr Chanley Dr Layman and all the staff who worked diligently for many months on putting together the budget um I do want to wish well all of our retirees I want to wish a very special um good luck and happy retirement to Patty gendis um I met Patty when my oldest who is now 22 entered oak tree school when oak tree was first built um she has been there for many many years and she has really helped that school run efficiently and effectively as the confidential secretary to the principal and I know um the parents uh that have been there um will miss Patty very much um and I just wish her a very happy retirement
110um as I said already this week I testified at the Senate budget Appropriations Committee meeting asking for more state aid I was very disappointed um um that the um Vice chair of the committee of the Senate Appropriations Committee is is our direct representative um Senator Greenstein I was very disappointed um that she was not there um at that meeting I thought that was a very important meeting for senators to be at um specifically that she was the vice chair I was looking forward to um testifying and giving testimony um with her there um and I was I was deeply saddened that she was is not there I I have to say um I do hope the community will come out and vote um I know the administration is working on getting more Communications out to
111the entire Community um I just think that we all need to do our best um parents community members board members to get out there and spread the information to the community why it's um important to come out and vote um and I just want to mention you know all all board members received the budget um you know in the beginning of the month we had ample time to look at it bring questions to March 6th um and and you know ask questions so I I just wanted to to make that statement that we knew what was in the budget we had ample time to ask questions and come here and vote this evening on the final budget that concludes my report the next item on the agenda is Other Board of Education business does anybody
112have any business Miss Bora I'm I'm going to continue on the track that you were on I want to thank um all the board members the administration and all the community members that did go to the um legislative committee hearings and representative Monroe thank you for the time that you took out of your personal lives to do this this is very important for us and I'm hopeful that there will be results I want to speak for a couple minutes about the process of coming to this budget and I want to address Miss armenia's concern and also Miss's comments about um her IDE you know her views on that budget budget didn't address what it was supposed to address um yes it was an ample time I want to say that it's a very tight time
113frame and we as board members are expected to go through all that's presented to us and deliberate and come up with questions for the administration question them on what they have proposed and try to change it if we do not agree and there was time for that uh when we met on March 5th we all have had all of us had seen the budget for at least four days prior to that we could go line by line on revenues and Appropriations which is what I did and I'm speaking to my personal process on this budget um when we met on March 5th was when we were supposed to ask questions to the administration the public also had that line by line item budget document that they could look at and deliberate later on their own
114as well but a lot of us board members asked questions that night and that was our opportunity to ask for changes if we did not agree and I honestly my personal opinion on this budget was that we were cutting more than adding if you were comparing last year's budget with this year's budget I had concerns on supplies on some you know uh textbook questions wherever we were really cutting the money and that to me was glaring I did not see us increase the budget on any line item that was worth questioning or if there was one I'm sure I did ask Miss Allen that this year's budget is maintaining everything that we have done in the past year we are not supplementing it with new programs or new administrative positions as people are you know
115trying to make that the story of it we are just maintaining our programs and our current staff with the exception of courtesy busing and after school athletics and clubs which is considered over adequate by the by the state and so when they have to balance the budget those are the things that they can take out without being without being said that they're not following the law so each one of us had the chance and I want to go back to last year's budget deliberation when on the night of the preliminary budget I made a request to the business administrator that I will not vote Yes on this budget if we did not put in some money for Apple guard and between the preliminary budget and the final budget that money was put in and if
116you you were there at the bg& meeting Mr T said that we use that money and if that money came handy even though we got that Grant and the shared service agreement because we had that money in the budget we were able to do some um engineering you know work beforehand so we as board members had the opportunity I'm sure the community members who had the bo the budget on the 5th could have sent questions to the administration in the email and questioned any line item that they felt was something that could be taken out to put the busing back in or to put the Athletics back in and they would have gotten an answer as to why that was possible or not possible I as a board member did not feel like I was
117not heard or I did not have the opportunity to put these programs that we are now taking to the taxpayer in the budget I looked I tried to break through it and find an opportunity I think the administration did everything possible to to make it as you know as black and white as possible so in my opinion we all had the same opportunity we may have different perspectives of looking at it but I I I would think that I would only say that this was not right after I had asked them to change something and they did not change it I had a conversation with Miss Ratner also after March 5th saying if you're not happy with something we need to reach out to the administration now before the final budget hearing in the next
118week or two so we all have opportunities um to make changes and it's not always guaranteed we can ask and it may not happen but to to say that this is not right but not take an action towards it not propose a solution is not right we all have to we all have to if we coming if we complaining about something we have to add a solution to it and I I don't think that all of us are treating this problem like that we are going out to vote on April 16 and I urge the community members the parents the seniors who support education you know everybody to think about what it is it is $2.7 million it's busing for after school activities it's busing for children who live within 2 miles and 2 and
119a half miles let's let's as a community do that please because otherwise we will have to as a board go out and look for those $ 2.77 million because we are not going to stop doing this work we were we have done the work so far and we'll continue to look for that money but I think $24 an average assessed home for a year is is something that we as a community can come together and agree to do for the sake of our students thank you thank you Miss B M gby yes Mr P I just wanted to make a statement um a disclaimer actually uh for the remarks I made on on the budget that was presented this evening I wasn't speaking as a sitting or elected board member I was speaking as a
120taxpaying senior citizen so that's where I came from with my comments this evening thank you Miss Bor can I make a counter comment Mr P while I respect that comment but you're also a sitting board member who has access closer access to all the documents and the administration with a phone call or an email to get clarifications to suggest things and I think that would be appreciated if you did that because you would then become a part of the solution you are now on the you know you're not just a taxpayer but you're also a a person who works towards a solution elected by the community members but I spoke as an individual taxpayer this and I appreciate that I I just want to make clarification when we're sitting up here thank you and we're
121H we have a roll call taken of board members we are acting in our official capacity at this table as board members you in the in in in the middle of the Roll Call vote of that item you were absolutely speaking as a board member in my opinion because you were at the table and you asked to make a statement before you made an official vote so when we are sitting up here we need to be cognizant of we are here as board members representing those that have elected Us in the community and we are speaking as board members Mr gorm I'd also like to thank the uh representatives from our community and from the board who went uh and fought for our tax dollars okay and brought this up the the situation has really
122gotten out of hand and when you look at the funding that we get as as a community in Monroe Township it is really ridiculous and if we were just even given close to our fair share we wouldn't be having this discussion tonight okay our budget would be would be fine okay we would be in good shape that being said and I mentioned this at the last meeting we are in a situation where we have what we have okay okay and we are just trying to maintain that we are not trying to you know add things or embellish things and even with that with inflation and all the prices going up all over the place we fell short and we fell short by $2.7 million the average assessed home in Monroe Township will be affected by
123$24 a year $2 a month now if you do have a child in the school chances are between clubs and extracurricular activities and sporting events your son or daughter is going to be affected by that that means that you're going to have to provide transportation or you know carpool or find a neighbor to help you like we did with sports when we volunteered outside the school system but I can assure you it's going to cost you more than $2 a month to accomplish that so you know when we look at things and and we get into a situation where you know uh a meeting only lasted this long or that long and and and we argue about things that are really not really substantial the substantial thing is what we have and what we can
124do with what we have and I believe that we're really doing that unfortunately we are not getting the help from the state right now but we do have people who are going and are fighting for that money fighting for the students of Monroe Township and I applaud their efforts thank you thank you Miss I just like to comment on you know fortunately you know I don't own a home in Monroe I own a home in Jamesburg but I do have in-laws that own a home in Monroe and how important especially uh the courtesy busing that people need to get out there and vote for this budget because and they really need to understand that the courtesy busing means all busing to and from school for two miles within GES grades K to8 and 2 and
125a half miles 9 to 12 so you know there's a lot of schools that are you know think Schoolhouse Road right down the road here that's a rural road that's within you know within 2 miles of the middle school they're not going to be able to get bus to school the kids from Jamesburg that's within two and a half miles they're not going to be able to get bus to and from school so that's going to put a lot a you know a large burden on the parents to have to figure out a way to get their kids to and from school if we can't provide that so it's really important that people get out there and vote and hopefully vote for the budget because it's not just the after school busing or for sports
126or for drama course this it's the courtesy busing is really that is huge for all of us absolutely right anybody else Miss Belco I just want to I want to thank our retirees for all their years of service that um is amazing um Deborah Force I worked with her a few times and um she you know the middle school nurse that's a tough one um but she was great at it she really was great at it and um so she will be missed I'm sure um at the middle school um also um I just want to I just want to say that it when you're sitting at this table you are representing the town's people who elected you to this position and those that didn't elect you right those that maybe voted for somebody else
127but you are representing all of them and you can't have it both ways you can't say that out on Facebook you have to do this disclaimer that disclaimer because you're not allowed to speak as a you know when you're out there in the public you are a board member and you should do this but when you're sitting at the board table you are not speaking as a board member that to me is absolute double standard and I think that that is a absolutely just blew my mind so I think that everyone needs to understand when you're sitting at this board table you are a board member and you're speaking as a board member and if you can't speak as a board member then you don't speak at all if you want to relinquish that ability
128and to just speak as a taxpayer and then relinquish your seat and sit out there because I think that that's just unbelievable that you that that was even a statement I that's my opinion on that and thank you can I add a couple comments please sure to um to the point that you were trying to emphasize I the board was given the number I sorry I don't remember it correctly but there are over 1100 students for sure anywhere between 1100 to 1500 student that will be impacted by the courtesy busing which is if they're living than 2 miles or 2 and a half miles of they high schoolers and I also wanted to uh to Mr goram's point it's 2% overcap I want to remind everybody the inflation alone last year was was hovering around
1297% so we have maintained our programs with a renewed teacher contract that that allows us to retain teachers where we've we've given more than we've given in the past years and we've still kept everything within 2% except this 2.7 million million dollar it's because of lack of surplus we do not have any surplus previous administration has used a lot of the Surplus we're out of it we were warned about this since 2020 if you're looking to find blame and put the blame on the people sitting here I want to assure you that this situation does not arise overnight it has been we've been leading up to it for years we were warned this would need be needed in 2020 and we thanks to the that we got postco we were able to tie a couple
130more years but last year despite the inflation and everything that we've done in terms of you know facility you know stop Gap projects and everything with the inflation we've still had just this $2.7 million which I wish we had a magic one in the Surplus to do it but we don't it's $24 per household and given everything you know given the current economic situations I I urge the taxpayers to look at the budget again to see and convince themselves of how fiscally responsible it is and we're only looking at $2 per household per month for an average assessed home to be able to give our children courtesy busing to continue our excellent Athletic program because you were right Mr dep when you went came up and said that it how many kids will be able
131to do that how many parents will be able to drive their kids to the gate or to their Club competitions every day they're working parents they will not be able to do that so there'll be a lot of kids dropping out of those programs and that impacts the the Monroe uh that we know you know our Sports and our extracurriculars Define our school spirit just as much as our academic Excellence so I urge everybody to do their research please show up on April 16 to vote for our students thank you and and one other thing um is as well as the inflation I know that we did receive less Aid this year than we had anticipated I think we had anticipated um getting uh $1.5 million and we only received $1 million so it was
132it was that below as well with the the less the less Aid that we had gotten and something interesting is that you know the the um legislators have put together a bill that they're trying to push through very quickly right now where um dist districts that were affected by the S2 uh legislation which reduced their amount of state aid because they should not have been getting that amount of aid for that long and what S2 did was decreased it over time to the to the um to where they should have been with the formula with the formula calculation so now districts um are petitioning for the ability to go over the 2 % cap without going out to their voters only S2 only S2 districts affected by S2 and um Dr chane and I had
133a conversation with the superintendent of of um South Brunswick and he had said you know he was there and and he he was very um confident that this legislation will probably get through and he was there to speak again about this legislation and I turned to him and I said well that doesn't help Monroe I said it's really not fair that this is only going to help districts who were overfunded and now the state is taking back the money I said but we've never gotten the funding that we we should have in the first place and you know now we have all of this that we are asking our community to please come out and support but it's an unknown of of what's going to happen on April 16th where the legislators are getting ready
134to put forth this bill to allow other districts like South Brunswick to go over their cap and not bring it to their voters um and when he you know he mentioned about the aid that they lost I said you lost aid but you still get more than we get and he and he kind of looked at me like I was crazy and he goes I don't think so what do you get and I said we're getting 12 million and he goes oh we do get more I said we know you do so it's just interesting to and and really frustrating really as as a resident here of Monroe to see how the the state legislators and these bills really do impact us here as a school district and and the importance of getting out there
135and speaking on it I I think it's great that these districts if this um legislation goes through will be able to maintain their programs and not have to go out to their voters but I had mentioned this um previously as well I wish that bill could have been amended to include districts like Monroe that just want to keep keep the same programs that they had in place last year because for that we would have that would have helped us here that's all I have to say anybody else have any comments yes say I just wanted to say from a student perspective as well that this issue not only affects me for example a lot of other friends and peers that I work with but also younger siblings that I know that I have um because
136they have a bright future ahead of them at Monroe and not only you know extracurriculars clubs and sports buses but for the sake of like courtesy that our normal busing um I know I live pretty close to the school it's difficult in the morning to find people to carpool with and it's not safe to walk at all on the main road to the school there are no sidewalks built for that to happen so it is unfortunate that this wasn't included in our budget but I guess just from a student perspective um I hope that the community we can solve this together um it is unfortunate this had to happen in the first place but I thank you for bringing it up and I hope everyone comes out to vote as well for this very important
137issue and I and I would like to maybe Tas you with something as our student board representative um take this information back to your peers at the high school and let them know that if they're 18 or older and they're registered they should be coming out to vote as well this is a great um civic duty of ours when we turn 18 years old to cast our vote so um let all of your your peers know at the high school and have them also let their parents know and and really spread the word about what this actually means because you sat here this evening and you heard the real impact of it and and what we're actually talking about and I know that the um all of the schools the principles are sending out uh
138messages through email to the parents um but hearing it from you as a student and as their peer would would be very beneficial so if if you could do that for us that would be greatly appreciated to as our rep I surely will thank you for all the encouragement and I have learned a lot by sitting at this meeting today it affects us the students too so it sure does thank you anybody else right seeing none the next item on our agenda is our public forum anybody wishing to speak to the board please come up you have four minutes please state your name and municipality good evening good evening my name is David shreer Hamilton New Jersey I am vice president of un Latina Aion New Jersey it's an immigrant rights organization and I come
139here to recommend that Michelle Scott be removed from as the representative for Jamesburg on this board based on the remarks that re are attributed to her on on Facebook now I don't know Miss Scott I don't know if she's a racist but if the statements attributed to her are accurate the statements themselves are racist talking about an infiltration of immigrants um this is this is not good I I was born in the USA but my wife is from Colombia she's an immigrant she came here in 2003 along with my stepson and my stepdaughter none of them spoke English today my stepdaughter has a BSN from felan University she is an RN my stepson is a doctor of Pharmacy they are productive members of society now uh uh so uh I was born in the USA
140that doesn't give make me any morally Superior to my wife who was born in Columbia it's an accident of birth and the types of remarks that that I read that are attributed to uh Miss Scott are dangerous for IM imants uh they they can hateful words can leave to to hateful actions and violence and I don't think that we want hate we don't want violence towards the immigrants uh the their children that go to our schools um so I would I would I was I'm 71 years old I was born in 1952 that's two years before round versus Board of Education it's before the Montgomery Bus Boycott it's it's when when I was born segregated lunch counters and Whit's only bathrooms were were in in the Jim Crow South now there may be some people
141in society today that think that those were the good old days but we are not going back we are not going back so I thank you for your time thank [Applause] you good evening everyone I will be translating for her uh Castro so jamor my name is Guadalupe Castro I am a resident of Jamesburg I'm here to express my concerns and a lot of my and a lot of my concerns Peter uh against the social media comments from Miss Michelle Scott and Peter that have been commented on on our social media and she has spoken against our community in Jamesburg and as a resident of Jamesburg I cannot accept that these racist comments be said about our community this incites uh inequalities and also incites that we have hatred and violence Jamesburg and she is
142a member of the board of Jamesburg education and we also believe that as a representative here she is not the person that should be indicated that represents our Jamesburg community these comments also have um gone to the students and the students can now uh bully the other Latino immigrant students with these racial remarks we were in Jamesburg we will not have these divisions and we will not permit that someone divides and excludes us that's all for now thank [Applause] you they gonna say the same thing 40 minutes anela R organ Latin hi my name is anela Ramos and I am an organizer with and I'm here in representing the committee of parents from Jamesburg we are here today raising our voices because we don't want Miss Scott to represent us anymore and you might wonder
143why because she has been one of the people that have given comments that have been negatively posted saying that these uh funds are that these funds are given to support our children immigrant children when us as immigrants we are also taxpayers and responsible citizens we pay taxes and that's why we're here today demanding that she be removed from that position because we feel that this position is not adequate for [Music] her with those comments that she has made made it has proven that it's inciting hate and discrimination and that's why our children are also part and suffering from bullying that's why we have seen shootings in schools and that's why sometimes our children lose their lives when we are asking that board members and representatives uh promote equity and empathetic and this is the total
144opposite because nobody is better than anyone nor less than anyone thank you thank you good evening Jorge Torres and from Jamesburg I was a son of undocumented parents uh I graduated from high school and then I graduated from college and then now I'm a director of a nonprofit organ National nonprofit organization that fights for immigrants rights I was the first Latino elected in Jamesburg on the bo of ucation of Jamesburg and I'm I'm sick of of Michelle SC laughing at us and taking this as a something that she never said I think everyone here saw the Facebook comment and it's is racist is dividing our community and I know she's going to say that she didn't mention anything that she says there that she that she talks about uh the immigrants that never pay or
145doesn't pay taxes and the she talks about taxes in 2023 according to the IRS more than 2.5 million million tax returns were were failed using the iting number the iting number is a it is a number that that that the federal government gives to the undocumented workers to be able to pay taxes and not to claim tax taxes back that means that nearly $6 billion doar in taxes we pay $6 billion in taxes in 2022 a Social Security Administration estimates that payments from unauthorized workers accountant and uh for about 12 billion in taxes revenue for Social Security the undocumented workers never get back this is a serious comment I don't think it's about being laughing about this shootings 80% of shootings National shootings in the schools are happening because of hate comments this is going
146to the schools in Jamesburg it's going to the schools and the classes classes here in in Monroe school and students are here scared about this races and divid in comments I think it's about time for the board to take it seriously this is not something that we should be laughing about we don't have no political uh agenda no one control us we are independent this is parents I live in Jamesburg I own a house I have a daughter in Jamesburg and we have dealing in Jamesburg because of every single board meeting we used to have a lot of bullying and a lot of problems with bullying we've been doing we we've been having worships with parents because of the bullying that we saw that our students our kids suff in schools this is real students
147happen because of hate uh uh ha or because of hatred so I don't think it's a wow is this super disrespectful as a board member to be laughing she did the same thing in Jamesburg so Mrs es Scott we are asking you to Reign if you have some face if you have some blood in your face we have more than 300 people in a petition asking for her resignation and and the other thing is that we asking the PO of Jamesburg to revoke her representation we don't we don't feel represented by her she's laughing at us she's laughing at parents she's laughing at at taxpayers as well she she she said that she represent parents of Jamesburg she doesn't so I'm asking today the Board of Education of Monroe having accountable is something happens tomorrow
148because of hate it's going to be in your hands and it's going to be on your responsibility because as a teachers teachers parents and students are super super worried about this hate comments it we should not be taken as something that was posted on Facebook yes sometimes we act as a board members or we Act as a taxpayers on social media but it's also our face and it's the face of this board this is the face of this board when you do something outside of the board or you make comments in social media we should not just take it as easy it is to put a comment in Facebook so I I ask the board to please please take this in consideration we will not stop because we are so worried you're over's going your
149time is over sir I'm going to it your time is over I'm sorry you're going to have to com ucation to take this seriously and for her to start laughing about uh Community me I'm sorry sir your time is up Miss Scott would you like to I would like to say something thank you very much um Jorge Torres you know you were a board member and I think you showed up about half the time because that's how much you actually sh uh cared about the schools in Jamesburg um you have no idea the dedication that you know we put in I that I put in personally that all of us put in Excuse excuse me I am replying to you because you want a response to me you the man who sat at a board
150meeting and said we need an African African-American board member meanwhile you were looking at one right in front of you you are so ignorant that you didn't even realize that I was Afric African-American because what you think that we pick we pick board members based on skin color ex excuse me sir you're out of order first of all Miss armenio I I Miss armenio you're and I offered Miss Scott the opportunity to reply to our speaker first of all to clear things up as I'm sure this is going to go on for another 40 minutes as it did last week at my Board of Ed meeting the comment that I made was in response first of all was in a p private group it was not a public group okay it wasn't like it was
151smeared on some public page on Facebook so everybody get their fact straight it was in a private group on Facebook the comment regarding taxes was not in regards to income taxes but real estate tax dollars and school funding as we've been talking about at this board meeting all night long on the lack of funding that Monroe gets and the difference that Jamesburg gets that was where the funding comment came from it was regards to the real estate taxes that are paid in our towns which 80% of our real estate taxes go to fund our schools 80% on an average home in Jamesburg you're paying $10,000 on a th000 square foot house so that means eight grand a year that family is paying to support the school districts in their town in a little town like
152Jamesburg now my the comment that I made I didn't speak anything to disparagingly against the Spanish Community other than I commented on the amount of illegal immigrants that have been coming to this country and the amount of illegal aliens excuse me you think that that is a illegal alien and illegal immigrant are not racist when you come into a country and you break the law you do something illegal if I if I steal a car that's illegal if I break into this school that is illegal so I'm sorry I'm a law-abiding citizen I'm a citizen of this country I come as a descendant of immigrants that came over here legally from Lebanon and for you to have the nerve to say that I'm a racist against immigrants when meanwhile 50% of me immigrated here from
153Lebanon you got some freaking nerve and that's what I got to say and if you don't like it too bad I do excuse me excuse me you're out of order if you would like to speak you can come up to the podium and have your four minutes good evening hi good evening um well good evening to everybody good evening to everybody again I'm over here too backing up um the remark she said um here on the in the message that she sent she said we could quote it um she said going um to Mr tufano going to try to be as precise as possible but we're becoming overwhelmed by Spanish speaking illegal aliens between the dams who keep their heads in the sand and refuse to wake up the slum Lords the slum Lords who
154have renters with God only knows how many people sleeping on mattresses in a one-bedroom apartment our one square mile town is getting taken over and people need to wake the the F up to the immigration issue in this country um again those remarks like everyone else is saying is considered um hatred and races against you know the Spanish Community she did you know post it like she said privately but again it just I guess leaked and went to um to everyone else and including students so once students I have students in school here in Monroe and once they feel you know that hatred again like every B Elsa saying it causes problems in the school itself for everyone and then they don't feel safe they feel bullied you have uh other kids that are not
155Spanish coming to them and U making remarks the same way as she just mentioned it in the in the um in the message and I mean we can send it over to you guys or print it and have you guys see the rest of the stuff she said but again they are racial remarks and we don't feel that she could represent the board or take um um any decision makings when she has those feelings towards other people that the majority create of the community um here in Monroe and in Jamesburg and as a parent you know I do feel the same way as all the other parents feel for her to resign or the board to take a decision and um taking her removing her from from the board itself so she doesn't have any
156decision making to [Applause] do um good evening board members I'm a student of at Monro high school and as a student I believe that M cut should be removed from the board member position because she's a a Restless Restless person this is our home too and we have the right educa um to have education I hope you as um board board member you take necessary action against to M Mr Mrs Cod thank [Applause] you good evening again my name is Anna I'm a resident of James ber and I'm also the director of unid Latina we're a Grassroots organization that fights for the rights of not only illegals like we are said right now but human beings right because we think and we know that we all breathe the same oxygen we all breathe the same
157air so today h as you have heard there's a million reasons why we could tell you what has happened and why it's not correct but I feel deep with within your positions and your Authority that there should be something that the Board needs to do in Jamesburg I've also appealed to the whole board we are petitioning for her resignation she perhaps will not do it on her own because she doesn't feel that she did anything wrong but that does not mean that the whole other community needs to continue to ignore this fact this is how a lot of violence is cre created this is how a lot of bullying is created and this is how we need to take action so I as uh a Jamesburg resident do not want Michelle Scott to be my
158representative especially of my student that is my daughter that is in uh JFK School especially not coming to Monroe High School in the future and I also would like to have and since there was a reply back how will you guys as a board member react to this thank you is there anybody else wishing to address the board Vanessa Force Monroe and I wasn't I had no intentions addressing this but I'll tell you that when I was a child in Jamesburg I was a victim of um racial violence my mother was from Puerto Rico I had crosses burns on my front lawn they had racial riots you can look it up there was machine PE people with machine guns on top of De Breezies there was I had a police escort to and from school
159every day and they burn crosses on my lawn because my mother was from Puerto Rico so these things escalate pretty quickly and you may not see it today but especially when you have have young people that mimic their parents when they go to school because I'm sure it wasn't just on Facebook I'm sure this is how she feels at home this is her conversations with her friends and I'm sure in front of her children so this will end up in the school system if it hasn't already and that's sad so she should step down you know and admit that she she made a mistake you know and that what she's saying is absolutely wrong she said that to go on um to give our hard-earned tax money to pay to educate educate the children of
160illegals crossing the border well my kids don't get an ounce of financial aid as Citizens it's called the birth Lottery that's what I call it wherever you're born as children it's not your fault and Par and the parents are only bringing them here because they're escaping violence where they come from okay so and then they come here and they get demeans and you know and they're children okay I'm done with that okay I just wanted to say in response to multiple Oprah requests the district has rep repeatedly refused to release evidence that um superintendent Chanley has earned um her uh doctorate instead the district claimed it has no evidence of the doctorate and even if it did the evidence would be confidential personal record District policy 8321 requires School District employees to provide the district
161with verification from the institution of higher education for the receipt of the degree or certificate for which the letters are registered before appending letters to their names why is um she allowed to put use doctor if she hasn't provided the documents okay um where we know in previous years prior it was just she used it and it was false because it was in year books where she said she had you know she was put in there as Dr Chanley and she didn't have a doctorate at that time furthermore please note that um does not fall under the Personnel exemption of this degree is the basis for Chan's contract renegotiation promotion um according to the case law in kovalic versus Somerset County prosecutor's office 206 New Jersey 581 parentheses 2 uh 2011 if there is a
162certain training certificate license or degree that has been obtained in order to hold uh or receive a raise then the public is entitled to access documents that prove whether or not the employee meets those requirements in fact other school districts including Ron Bridgewater school district has already released a copy of the diploma of one of the school administrators and I have it okay it's outrageous that this school award awarded uh Chanley a one superintendent Chanley uh once I see hard doctorate I will do whatever you know I'll call whatever coms I'm almost no I'm sorry your your time is done I'm sorry I made my point Thank you and I would like to address that Dr Chanley has received her doctoral degree I know I have seen it hanging in her office I know that
163it was presented to our human resources department this board voted on um the contract extension with the knowledge and the proof that she had received her doctoral degree so that is another false accusation made yet another month here against Dr Chanley it is a false accusation I'm sorry what what is allowable under the Oprah law is handled through our Oprah officer if you want to dispute that there are Avenues to dispute that but to sit here and claim that the document doesn't exists is false thank you and anybody else wishing to speak hi my name is Richard Bor I live here in jamesw and she transl I would like to begin by saying a phras that when someone is able to give be given rights we're also giving rights to ourselves and to our country
164is John E Kenny ex president the u USA I'm also here to say that we were checking the ranking of all the schools in the nation ring the bullying and the bullying incidents in the school New Jersey we are not in the higher rankings of this in the state as a state J there's 41 states without New Jersey we do not want to be New Jersey does not want to be part of that ranking for bullying we want to uh combat and go against bullying because it's our enemy also uh going against discrimination also going against bullying in the school so that young children are not committing suicide that's our enemy really we are here today to to have respect to get respect and to give respect especially for our community and our children and
165it's your responsibility that New Jersey not be part of the 41 other states that have bullying in their States thank you very much thank you thank [Applause] you good evening everyone we are here today like parents because we are very worried because we are very concerned with the comments that Miss Scott made and we know that for her it's not very a it's not a big deal but our children in the schools they fear all of this please we ask you as board members and also parents that you take action in this matter and don't [Music] permit and people like mcot with racial thoughts and feelings makes us that makes us feel less than anyone else here living in this country just because we're immigrants but we're here to provide and do good for the
166country gracias thank [Applause] you is there anybody else wishing to speak uh Sarah aiz M Township um before uh the the board president Chrissy scurby became our board President we had uh an O the our Oprah officer was also our business administrator um someone with a college degree who had lots of experience with Oprah lots of training with Oprah and since then we've uh the business administrator is no longer responsible for for OA and the part-time secretary doesn't have the credentials that the previous Oprah officer had and nor does she have any prior Oprah experience before she was hired um this sets us up for lawsuits and I don't understand why we're paying $40,000 extra for an Oprah secretary when like most other districts we could have our business administrator do it at no extra
167charge so um I mean this is fiscally irresponsible and to have to be fiscally irresponsible and then ask taxpayers to approve a tax hike um you know it it doesn't really Inspire public confidence um you know other districts um you know have released copies of their diplomas of their school administrators like a raron Bridgewater school district and uh you know if if a if a school district employee has a degree and especially if it was paid for by taxpayers it is a violation of the open public records act not to release it other districts do it so you know we should be concerned about um being compliance with Oprah and uh being fiscally responsible and I want to know why the business administrator cannot also be our oah secretary or Oprah officer thank you thank
168you I believe when we created the position of a part-time oper officer it was recommended To Us by the administration because of the overwhelming amount of time that was being utilized from our business administrator to fulfill opras I know Miss Allen has a very very busy schedule and she's responsible for the finances of this district and the recommendation was to hire part-time oer secretary who I know has been trained so to sit here and disparage any employee again saying that they don't have the proper credentials or training is very disappointing and is demeaning to our staff and I can assure you on behalf of this board that when we voted to approve that we did our due diligence through the Personnel committee to ensure that we were voting to hire a qualified part time oah
169secretary is there anybody else wishing to speak to the board good evening good evening my name is uh Steven I'm a student of Mor St High School I would like to not just to speak to to miss Scott but to the whole board because on behalf of all the students that I know that are from speaking Spanish country we all feel offend ended by her comment and it's not just saying oh illegal aliens I'm pretty sure that she knows because um she turns around like she's not facing this way she knows that cumes on her face it's like she's facing her phone instead of paying attention she doesn't care about what we say what we think and you misconstrued what I said and you keep going on the same thing over over EXC me excuse
170me excuse me I'm talking man' I'm shut up did you just say shut up to the the president of the Board of Education it was you it w talking you tell me to shut up excuse all I have to say is uh if you guys don't take any actions in my behalf I will not be attending to a school where we permit a a person like Miss Scott thank you good [Applause] night schooles pesl imp [Applause] so what we what he's saying is where from the m school we think that their position is very influential for many people and many students and for many it it was an impropriate act science it it is caused by bullying and hater of others this generate several problems in school science creating fighting and shootings we we as
171a student and teacher we we respect our rights as a person because that that is Who We Are people regil of our language or where we come from we are human we're not animals we're not nothing so we want like we want to you respect to us no matter where we are we just need respect that's it thank [Applause] you is there anybody else wishing to speak okay evening good evening again Joe deepame Monroe you know I sat in the audience and I listened and I watched now the young girl who that kid does a good job every meeting gives you a report both you and the superintendent asked her why don't you go to the school tell the kids get out and vote help us out look what we might lose now you just
172had some people come up for the one lady that came up the superintendent if she could have ripped her water bottle she would she crumbled it and couldn't rip it so she put it on the table but you just had some students come up from the same school that she goes to so if we're going to do a civics class right now you should say okay I'm going to take this under consideration and we're going to do this right now we're going to ask the lady to step down in the best interest of the future of the school and the town because you don't want to be on the front page and you don't want the reporters here you know I I'm 71 I went to high school New Brunswick High School during the riots
173and you know who we had there every day we had the reporters we had the state police we had the police your director of security his father was was a captain then he was in the charge of all his guys you don't want to go to school like that because it's not a good environment so just like you told this girl let's do the right thing why don't you to say for this group of the audience and you young kids took them a lot of courage to come up here you know one the one boy that spoke you know I I forgot most of the Spanish I learned in high school hopefully he was talking about you know the Yankees and with SoDo and everything like that don't know what he was saying but he
174got the point across you guys should do all the same thing you know it it's I would side with any of you if you were getting $10,000 a year to do this but you're getting Zippo and a lot of flack so it's not that hard to say let's take a vote here or near and just get it done is there anybody else wishing to speak seeing none I'm going to close the public forum and I am going to um thank everybody for coming here this evening and speaking and having your voices heard that is part of our great Freedom here in the United States um there is no place in our community for racism and I did hear and appreciate the students coming here and speaking this evening if you don't feel safe in your
175schools and you are being bullied I would suggest that you please go down to your C s please have conversations with the administration and let them help you there is no it is not okay for anybody to be bullied for any reason in our schools um I do want to make this statement we as board members cannot take a vote to throw anybody off of our board there is a state procedure for that Miss Scott is a representative of the Jamesburg Board of Education the residents of Jamesburg elected her to sit on the James Jurg Board of Education Jamesburg Board of Education selected Miss Scott to come here and be our representative the Monroe Township Board of Education does not have a say in who is sent from Jamesburg I know this because I had
176requested in the past many many years ago um a change in a Jamesburg representative um when I was in the public and many of us felt that um the Jamesburg representative was not fulfilling his responsibilities um and I was told that that is not a Monroe Township um residents responsibility to ask Jamesburg who to send and it certainly is not the Monroe Township Board of educations um in our purview to ask for a specific representative so I do hear you and I do appreciate you coming and making your concerns voiced here um I would say you would need you should and um it sounds like you did bring your concerns to the Jamesburg Board of Education unfortunately our board is not it is not lawful for us to take a vote this evening to unseat
177any Board of Education member that is not what we are legally allowed to do correct Mr gaglardi that is correct so thank you all for coming out here and again to our students thank you for being brave enough to come up to the podium and share your um concerns and we in in this community do not support racism bullying or any anything um of that nature if you do feel like you are being bullied or targeted please reach out to your school counselors and and and bring that to their attention and I know our schools have bullying uh coordinators and many counselors here at the high school that would absolutely help you in in any concerns that you have with that our next scheduled Board of Education meeting is on April 17th 20 24 can
178I get a motion to adjourn motion second all those in favor I I thank you and good night our meeting is adjourned