Monroe Township Board of Education 09.21.22 Regular Meeting

001okay we've had one more board member arrive so we can begin the meeting I'm going to call the meeting to order this is Wednesday September 21st 2022 and this is the Monroe Township Board of Education meeting um our first item we stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I'd like to welcome our student board reps um to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance this evening I pledge of allegiance to the United States of America to Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible for liberty and justice for all thank you U may we please have our roll call Mrs tle Farah miss armeno here miss Belo here miss bearman miss Bora here Mr Chella Mrs Fabiano here Mr niik atinsky Miss Ratner here miss Scott here miss gerby here Madam president you have

002a quorum thank you in accordance with the provisions of the New Jersey open public meetings law the monot tantri board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published an electronic notice provided by having the date time and place thereof posted September 16 2022 at all schools on the district website monroe. k2. nj. us published in the home News Tribune published in the Cranberry press and filed with the clerk of the municipality right thank you we'll move on to our approval of our minutes we have our close session minutes for August 17 2022 can I get a motion to approve motion second are there any questions comments okay all those in favor I I I I I oppose okay Miss armino opposes I recuse and Mrs Fabiano recuses I also recuse and Mrs

003Ratner recuses okay our next one is the public minutes for the meeting on August 17 2022 can I get a motion to approve motion second okay are there any questions all those in favor I are there any recusals recus okay Mrs Ratner recuses any extensions okay all right our next item is our student board members report I would like to welcome this evening our new uh junior uh board member student board member um hety ther welcome and we also have um our other uh board member returning Shian Kat Pa thank you again for taking on this responsibility um for the student body and being a representative and their voice here at our Board of Education meeting um so this evening we encourage you to um speak with us and give us your reports um accordingly

004all right so first off for Barkley Brook on Friday September 9th Barkley Brook held their first school spirit day where students and staff were invited to wear red white and blue in recognition of Patriot Day on September 11th um the school day began with a moment of silence to remember and honor the sacrifices made by the men and women of our country as well as those made by our veterans and Military Patriot Day allowed the school to be filled with patriotic school spirit um another event is that during the past week Barkley Brook students are learning what it means to be a great kid um in the school using the acronym great to represent the core values of growth mindset respect empathy acceptance and Trust students have been learning what it means to be great

005in all areas of of school beginning in October Barkley Brook will recognize and celebrate students who demonstrate great behavior for Brookside um we're excited to report that Brookside has had a fantastic opening the teachers did an excellent job setting up their classrooms for the first days of school and the excitement that the students have for being back in school is very noticeable and seen in school each day in the upcoming weeks Brookside has many events planned um one event is brookside's back to school night scheduled for September 22nd um another event is that fourth and fifth grade students will be partaking in start strong testing on September 21st and September 22nd Brookside school week of respect will be from October 3rd to October 7th and the focus will be on promoting kindness and inclusivity and

006celebrating uni uniqueness and diversity uh Burks side will be promoting the recognition of fire safety through a third grade visit to the fire safety house and a fire safety assembly for fourth and fifth grade students on October 13th uh for Oak Tre on September 9th Oak Tre students recogn ored Patriot Day and wore red white and blue and had a moment of silence for 911 um on September 16th all classes attended a behavior expectations assembly in which students learned about expectations in different School settings like the playground cafeteria hallway and bus it ended with classes competing against each other to answer what do you do scenario questions uh September 20th was back to school night for oak tree which proved to be an incredibly informational night as for upcoming plans oak tree is scheduled to

007celebrate a week of respect with theme days occurring each day from October 3rd to 7th um for the Middle School the middle school is happy to report that students are doing very well finding their classrooms and buses as well enjoying lunch and recess with their new classmates um the first two weeks at the middle school have been very SM smooth and a schoolwide push has been enacted to ensure that all students have an ID card visible at on them at all times on September 12th 13th and 14th back to school nights were held with each grade and administration met with parents each night uh School pictures at the middle school took place on September 16th and 19th um October will begin the Middle School's after school activities um with the start of tag Mac and

008academic lab furthermore clubs will begin in November great thank you very much shoban at Woodland oh at Woodland School opened on September 6 2022 in honor of Patriots St all students and staff were red white and blue the WL ml PTO meeting was scheduled on September 12th 2022 they had their back to school night on September 15th 2022 the Fourth Grade B Band presentation was on September 16th 2022 introducing the band program to the fourth graders and interested fifth graders coordinated by Miss Tiana zarelli and Mr Yale Snider we had a virtual author's visit for a strong that was for a school that was coordinated by Miss Trisha rudford and the school will also start the NJ start strong testing on September 20th September 21st and September 22nd second at Apple guard many of the

009classes did activities to commemorate 911 and they conducted a schoolwide moment of silence their back to school night was at was is going to be tomorrow September 22nd for both grades four and five our their first PTA general meeting will be held on September 29th at Oak Tre Elementary School the chorus and Band program started zero period practices on September 19th their character education committee began to plan for the year and multiple classes began to Global read aloud with the book Thursday mil Lake over there at mil Lake on the first day of school mil Lake welcomed all 471 students as well as their H hundred staff members with a colorful ribbon with individual names written on each one and they were hung from all the trees surrounding mil Lake School our their PTO PTO

010also adorned our their front hallway with a beautiful balloon arch they were very proud of their country yard which was spruced up with new Landscaping to complete their very warm welcome and yesterday September 20th was pirate day for Mid Lake kindergarten students and at Mid Lake they were having their week of respect during the they will have their week of respect during the week of October 3rd and some of the events in this week of respect will include dress in your favorite Jersey wear bright colors and superhero day and the Middle lake school with Lim P will also kick off their Raton on October 10th and it will run all the way for 18 days through October 28 and over here at the high school on September 15th the high school hosted a back to

011school night allowing for parents to learn more about their details about upcoming plans over the course of their students year this week starting from September 19th to September 23rd the high school has been participating in a school spirit week in anticipation of the homecoming football game on Friday and they're doing everywhere from pajama day to purple and gold day and students also have a variety of opportunities to Showcase their school spirit with this week of course and additionally school pictures are occurring on the 21st and 22nd and on September 29th students will have the opportunity to particip SP Club Rush where they can attend a variety of virtual club meetings and further their extracurricular involvement great thank you very much and I just want to encourage you both um as you hear things around our

012high school and you're their voice here our students voice here always feel free to bring anything um to our monthly board meetings and and bring up for discussion here Welcome to our board again and we look forward to a great year with you thank you you're welcome our next item is our committee reports we have any committees wishing to give a report Mrs Belco I have two committee reports this month um I have the curriculum committee uh which was another spirited Lively committee uh we had eighth grade mathematics presentation by Mrs Gasco and also the accelerated math program um for grade six uh discussion ensued about what um of these programs what these programs entail and the different uh perspectives that they can that the teachers can use different topics that there there The Accelerated

013mathematics program is a feeder program into the um honors programs and the The Higher Learning uh level uh algebra classes that are given in the middle schools as well as uh getting into the high schools they're uh they are aligned again with the New Jersey uh State learning standards and they uh meet the skills and the documentations for career Readiness life literacy key skills computer science and Design thinking uh Miss Gasco gives a very much better uh demonstration and talk about this on the video so please Avail yourself of her uh presentation on the video for math the next thing that we had up on our agenda was um from Miss Danielle druss the US History 1 and honors US History 1 uh very interesting uh studies that are doing again aligning with the New

014Jersey state um learning standards for social studies Career College and Civic life and and it's a they do a lot of social study practices they'll be promoting Thinking Beyond the classroom they'll um do some understanding of how the events of today were shaped by the events of the past and um that is both in US history 1 and then the honors history is um U honors history us one goes into more depth the students are expected to provide more um more information and do more research and provide first oh I forget the term but miss drust will be able to share it with you it's the uh they provide different writing tasks and have a Le a higher level of expectation what I found very interesting about this was the fact that we are connecting

015to events today and that the students can do things like political cartoons create an Instagram account of Uncle Sam and um do primary source documentation I knew I'd find it here primary source docum mentation for their papers and um they also can create um visual um virtual Museum exhibits and um different things they have um the thing that that struck me and and I'll just make this as a statement is one of the examples that Miss druss gave was how um comparison of women's rights back in the early US history and women's rights today and I'll just leave that at that the next thing on the agenda we we talk talked a little bit about the cricket team club and there's a lot of student interest for this and it was um student driven that

016was brought to the athletic director and we did ask for some additional information to come back to the committee so we'll have more information about that um and they did have a presentation uh that they gave us which was very interesting we also had a very spirited conversation about turn it in and um Dr Higgins did an excellent presentation we as the um Financial committee and the curriculum committee asked for a joint investigation about turn it in and its usage and some data information about turn it in because we wanted to make sure that we as a board knew what we were spending our money on and where we were going and we very thankful and I know I saw Dr Higgins earlier but I do want to give him another shout out because um

017he himself from the research that we had asked for had learned a lot about what was involved with turn it in and turn it in has changed a lot over the years they've added a lot of Grammar and Writing skill reviews and um what was discovered was is that the district and the the high school teachers were not using it to its full potential which was I think was a really great find for for the board and for the administration and they are working diligently this year to do some more professional development increase this the um uh student use of it because there wasn't a lot of student use of it and also to in increase and disp spell the culture that this is just to catch people cheating because it's not it's not about

018that and that's not what anyone's concerns were when we did bring this up to anybody there so it's this is um a excellent program we felt that since the um and having conversations with Dr layman in between meetings which is my uh Duty as the chair of the curriculum committee we discussed that right now the middle school will be taken off the table until we can get some data and some information the uh principal has assured me that he will be uh giving additional information as the year goes on just to see where we're at so that we can see what the teachers are doing I am one for excited for this and the curriculum committee has um you know brought this forward for approval for tonight um once we received the um information that

019we did we have some very very interesting um PowerPoint from uh Dr Higgins so again I want to thank him and his staff for the due diligence that they did to give us the information that we needed to make the uh responsibility and the decision that we needed to make that we need to make tonight so that was all we had time for at the um curriculum committee because we did go over 10 minutes into the um into the finance committee so we um will discuss some of those other items next month and I know there's been some concern about there being the length of the curriculum committee maybe being extended we'll do some talk about that and we'll figure that out so that we have ample time to discuss all these things in curriculum

020like we want to does anybody have any questions yes Miss B thank you Mrs kby um Mrs Belo you just gave me the segue to the comment that I wanted to make so this um N9 months being on this committee we've always had a full agenda and we've there have been moments when some of the administrators have had just four minutes to put the agenda across and get you know get approval so I I would like to make a case for the correct committee meeting time to be extended if possible uh one of the items on the agenda in this meeting that we could not get to um even though we you know we were trying really hard to rush through it was the board goals discussion for the curriculum meeting and um the board

021has through all other committees and through Mrs sc's work put up a goal you know board goal presentation for discussion today and it's pretty extensive but I did want to bring this up that um one of the challenges that our district has faced which would be a discussion for the curriculum committee and for for people who are not aware curriculum committee just not does not focus on academic but it focus on co-curricular Sports everything so there's a lot on this committee is played and um one of the one of the responsibilities of the board one of the major responsibilities is Student Success everything is geared to Student Success and that's our North Star and um I feel like as a district has exploded uh in terms of our strength and our Administration has been playing

022you know to the best of their ability to manage the increasing student body and address every student's success there do seem to be some gaps which might need some review or audit and I don't think that um we've been able to get to those in the N9 months that have been on the committee because there's just always agenda so full we've differently abled students across um the and the ratio of counselors to students to teachers is not always at at a same level everywhere I'm sorry I'm ranning on but my point tonight is that um if we could find the not as a board goal but generally as a goal for this committee to analyze the processes um that our teachers our counselors and our administrators are following to advocate for every individual Student Success

023even though we are a big school district but we have the ability we have excellent administrators we have um you know um excellent staff members it's just that with time and with the nature of growth of students some of these processes took a backseat but if we just put through the job of the board Focus back into those things parent advocacy is needed but before parent advocacy there should be teacher advocacy counselor advocacy administrator advocacy and then it then the parents should be stepping in that everybody did the best they could but yet my child is not getting what they're getting so there have been some U you know um issues that have brought been brought to us in the past few months and that's the reason I brought this up that if um we

024could extend the time of this committee there are SE several issues that could get addressed um in and not in a rushed manner so that was my comment thank you for hearing me Mrs rner uh yeah I you know I obviously agree with Miss Bora you know I think every committee is obvious vious ly important or we wouldn't have it I do feel that the curriculum committee is one of the ones that directly impacts our students very much so because of the discussions that are held um I know that the bg& committee is the other one that tends to run a little bit long but it's at the end of the night so it's not as much of an issue and it doesn't take away time from the other committees so I don't know if

025it's a revision to the schedule that's something we can look at or starting earlier I know people have work also so obviously something we can discuss um um you know you also had brought up about you know counselor advocacy and I just want to say that our district has done a great job in increasing the number of counselors however we are still compared to many other districts at a much higher counselor to student ratio of of the ones that I've been made aware of just through my own studies and so you know it can be really hard sometimes for counselors to reach out to every student you know especially let's say in the elementary school when they're the only coun celor um or you know even honestly all the schools because our numbers are just

026continuing to increase and you know I I know from the counselors that I've dealt with they're fantastic um but they have to be given the time to work with each of the kids um and then the other question I just had regarding turn it in was I know that we're putting it on the table for um the middle school is there just so parents are aware is there a program similar that Middle School teachers use um that assist students with their writing if they're at home um like I know I use grammarly for my own personal benefit obviously they can use their own things but I wasn't sure if as a district we have something that they can utilize Dr Layman please so the the purpose of turn it in for the middle school was

027specific to uh working and managing our benchmarking process it had nothing to do with the similarity report or even um the the daily turning in and passing of assignments it was really a when you do a writing piece and a student types it in Google or they handw write it logging tracking sorting filtering data based on strengths of that writing um is extremely labor intensive so you you know you have 150 400 in a grade level writing pieces if you want to see where our strengths and weaknesses are in certain elements of writing that's a manual process going into each document looking at rubric scores and things like that turn it in one of the features of turn it in is through the digital handling of that and the the scoring digitally of it the

028teacher goes in and makes comments and things it then has the ability to pull that data and then we can sort and filter so that was really the primary focus uh they were not going to use it for anything else um it was specific like they're all answering the same prompts so there would be similarities between everybody's writing so it wouldn't it wouldn't even serve a a simulat report kind of piece to it so that was really really the purpose but stepping it back cleaning it up at the high school uh making sure it's uh implemented in Fidelity at the high school then we can kind of Step it back and kind of consider pushing it into the into the middle school um that's really kind of the the purpose of tur it in in

029terms of like digitally submitting something to like a grammarly style program um you know it's it's the traditional what's in Google that would you know those are the kind of things that would be picked up um again the teachers are interacting with the students and providing feedback and things and that's still happening um but the role at the middle school forun and specifically was managing the the writing prompts and benchmarks and things along the way okay yeah that's great to know thank you for the clarification I appreciate it okay anybody else um and I just want to reiterate um what Katie had said our committees our committee meetings are our working meetings of the board and our curriculum committee meeting this month is an example of how positive change can come from working together collaboratively

030with the board and the administration um so I I think we had great conversations we asked great questions we brought our concerns back to the administration um I want to reiterate what Katie said thanking Dr um Higgins for coming and providing all the information he did and that is what the board of education is supposed to be doing we are supposed to be here to ask questions on behalf of our students our parents in our community to make the best possible decision when we're taking a vote and I believe that working collaboratively together on this we made a very positive change for our high school so thank you Mrs Belco um for all of your work and the committee for all of their work as well on that committee and you want to do your

031second report uh yes I was uh blessed with giving the report for the Personnel committee so um I have the um leaves and the transfer reports and we looks like we have just about every position that has a leave or transfer filled I did not count all the numbers and I apologize for that um I'm more than happy to pass it around we had a resignation and the exit information report so we had five certificated folks um leave the district three of those positions went to another district one of those positions was a career change and one was for personal reasons we had five other resignations three of them were Paris and uh two of them were custodians so that's the report I have on that I don't have exit information on that we did

032talk about uh two job descriptions the security guard basically changing um school security officer instead of security guard so school security officer um is replacing the term security guard in that and then we had the secretarial job description and that one somehow didn't come off my printer so I don't have it in front of me can you talk about about it please I'm sorry no problem so um we had a um a par doing a a clerical par that was located in the pupil personnel's people Personnel uh area working with Miss Rella and she had reached out and regarding her needs we were able to um actually save some money in the district so it was not an additional cost and change that clerical power position to a position that would then be a part-time

033secretary without benefit so it is uh a savings for the district and it also will help Miss ruella be able to work work at a higher level with her needs in her particular office so that's all it was thank you that's all I have to report about the Personnel committee does anybody have any questions okay um any other committee chairs wishing to give a report yes Mr Fabiano I also have two reports uh the first one is the community engagement committee met on the 13th uh we discussed the chain of command and how it was uploaded to the website we also talked about how the we are now going to be using Sprout social to manage all of our social media accounts to link them all together um the district app is no longer going

034to be utilized we also began discussing communication ideas for the referendum and we'll continue at our next meeting to discuss more ideas uh was also mentioned about the bus transportation um tracking app and that it would be brought up with Miss McDonald for next year and we lastly discussed our board goals which will be presented tonight that does anybody have any questions for Mrs Fabiano okay want to do your next uh report and then the other uh report is for policy so the at policy we had one policy and one regulation which was policy number um 2425 same for the regulation the emergency virtual or remote instruction program um we we mentioned that this was completely independent of the root forward document and they are not related in any form this policy um and regulation

035is with regard regards to any event that would close the district for three or more days and is a plan for us to be able to Pivot to Virtual or remote instruction um in case that happens so that was the end of the policy committee okay Miss armeno yes um first of all thank you Miss Fabiano for taking over that on short notice while I was away also thank you very much I'm sure um you presided over brilliantly um is was there was is there a plan presented yes at that meeting yes the point of the regulation and policy is that you must have a plan and um it we had one last year as well so it basically we we met together and we worked on the plan and what we did was we

036made sure to see what was current what was applicable and anything that was no longer current or applicable was removed and I wasn't able to look at so that was uploaded it's updated okay no no that's fine and we're going to approve it's on for approval tonight uh as a FR read um the policy and regulation policy and regulation okay but what about the plan doesn't the plan have to be submitted to the state by September 30th yes but I think it has to be approved by the board we were given the deadline 4 days before the meeting from the state that it was required so we just moved forward with it so we'll have to submit it um I guess the attorney could speak on how it works so because it's in a first

037read it still has to be submitted but there is one that exists from last year so what happens is similar to a contract I would assume that it it would roll over that would be my understanding well so the So the plan can be submitted the policy itself will go through the two reads yeah that's the problem but does the plan have to be approved by the board before September 30th I thought based on the policy it said that it had ad it had to be submitted but it doesn't have to be approved by the the board So the plan is attached to the board agenda and it's on there for no I know the okay yep okay yep thank you Miss Bora so I had a question um about a policy that's in the

038agenda for a second read today can I ask that now or do I have to wait for the agenda question to come up it's up for a second read vote today so I did need some clarification on that yeah it was discussed at the meeting so can I it's a faciliity it's use of school faciliity so it was discussed at the meeting before that so um and Mrs arminia you were away last week and that's when we had this discussion on email so I figured I'll just ask this question today before we voted um after the policy change there have been a few organizations that have been affected by it and one of the concerns was brought up uh to a few members of the board and so I went and read the policy again

039and there's a couple things that I just want to read out really quick so organizations are classified as one two and three there is a point on the class class one users that they could be Municipal Recreation and or other groups defined by the superintendent that is class one um and any nonprofit group that is not included in class one then becomes a class two and there's another point in this policy that says that the director of facilities in conjunction with the business administrator will determine the classification one two or three of the applicant and the fees and cost of any to be charged for the use of the facility will then be decided so we had an issue where an organization has been using it for some time it's for educational purposes um my

040question before we voted on this was that the parts that I read where the superintendent seems to have some sort of discretion on classification um does that allow the superintendent to evaluate what that organization is nonprofit being used for education I can classify that as wanted to what is that what this language means in the policy well I I believe that would be up to the full board's discretion and to give the authority to the superintendent so that's what's in the language of the policy so I would imagine that interpretation would be that the superintendent has that discretion now is it open discretion on everyone I mean that the board has to be cognizant of that so if I may so there was two specific organizations that reached out but in the past there were

041other I was not the superintendent but I was I was a principal in the crowd and other people have come forward other organizations have come forward and under the fact that they are non-for-profit and they are a form of Education they feel that they wanted to have no fee at the time for a few or the fee adjusted I do think it's a topic of conversation I'm very comfortable making a decision if that's the decision I need to make but I definitely think that we have to be cognizant and very open-minded that who how do we Define the concept of Education if the education because many many things are even from a social or emotional really fit the really fit the definition of education so I'm comfortable with having that conversation I think it would

042be a very appropriate conversation for facilities you know we could do it under policy because I want to just make sure that I'm not splitting hairs with what I would deem because I I do recall an individual coming to the podium and asking and they were denied I do recall this I was not the superintendent or the acting and they were denied and then a few groups was I think two different groups that reached out to me within the last few weeks also so I just want to make sure that we're fair and equal across the board and and we we just have parody for whatever we decide and my purpose of asking this question was only to understand the leeway we had in having a discussion and that's all I need I'm not asking

043for one way or the other decision I just wanted to know well first of all it wouldn't be my decision I don't make unilateral decisions I'm just the chair of the committee but um I think that we have to be very careful of broad interpretations of things because what will'll happen is it will just delude the whole purpose of the three uh types of classes and um as as the superintendent said we we can we can just call about just about anything educational so um I think we have to be very careful uh the purpose of this is really to uh not necessarily bring funds into the community uh into the district but to make sure that we are just not using all our funds for a broad range of things that we would that

044would that would just continue to be expanded because again you don't want to insult one group or another that is not the purpose but to answer your question in terms of this policy as a second read if we we can change the language tonight if if members of the board choose to then we would have to reestablish a first read however we can pass it tonight as an approval and then go back to having specific discussions about it again again in conjunction perhaps with facilities I'm not sure that the facilities is is the real issue or the having the facilities available is the issue I think the issue is more subjective about what class each group falls into and that's where I think our responsibility lies to the intent of the policy and if I

045may I think the wage of the policy seems to be very um it's it seems to support the the issue that I had so it I don't think a change in verbage is needed I was just confirming that what I understood it to interpret it does that the superintendent does have um some sort of decision-making ability in deciding uh besides the municipal Recreation which other groups can be defined may I offer an example I think that would be very helpful so I I would I would agree so I think by allowing the superintendent to have that Authority just thinking out of the box perhaps it would be a local local school maybe a private school that for whatever reason had a major catastrophe or had something positive and and was able to you know their

046roof was being redone and they had to relocate so when you think of that perhaps I'm just thinking out of the box maybe that would give the ability for that particular one not to pay at the same high level of fee they are an educational institution it is a temporary situation when you look at the other tiers once we start saying educational non for-profit I would say that almost all of them exactly in that are non for-profit so I don't know how we'd be able to delineate so I was just thinking out of the box that perhaps that would that would make sense like even maybe a CH maybe a preschool all of a sudden had a flood and they needed to relocate and instead of paying at a high rate and I could be

047wrong but this is how I'm thinking you know the spirit maybe of it's their way before me so maybe the spirit of having that in there allowed the superintendent to be able to say wait a minute this educational organization doesn't have a home for their children for the next three months they're going to be meeting when we leave so that was just maybe my thought maybe that's why that's in there again I I don't know that it should be like subjective and arbitrary because and I think it puts a lot of the burden on the superintendent and then you may or or any superintendent may be stuck with well if them how how about me and again that's not the intent of the policy so if we do it judiciously I certainly agree that for

048the most part the superintendent has the authority to make these kinds of decisions but also the board is setting this policy for a reason we found that we were falling short um you know and our responsibility to our own district is to um you know make this policy clear enough that that we protect our district and if I if I may I I think the the questions that have come before the board um and and the um district office hasn't been we did not change the class of any of the users that has remained intact the issue was the increase in in cost so it's not a group saying I think I should be a different class it's saying I paid a much lower fee and now you're increasing the fee so it wasn't it

049wasn't a distinction of which class they were in um it was more of can we go back to paying the the original price that we paid because it would be detriment to our program if we had to incur this larger fee well that would that would still be my argu my argument would be you can't you can't adjust that for one party and the request was denied by by business it's unfortunate and uh we have to ask our you know forgiveness uh of the of the public but clearly we were one we were very behind the uh calculus for the the cost of our our facility so we have a responsibility as Mr GLE already often tells us that we have we cannot spend public funds recklessly thank you well thank you for the discussion

050you're welcome anybody else M Ratner um yeah so I actually had a question regarding this policy too I guess since we're bringing it up now um I just wanted to clarify because um I know it mentions that scouting groups um would be receiving um the usage without any payment of custodial security service fees all of that um I guess the district would be covering is that regardless of of what area of a building is utilized um just from personal experience I know that back when there was a world Thinking Day program for the Girl Scouts they used the High School auditorium it was a major event obviously there was a lot required but there had been charges accured um the service unit manager had actually came to speak about that so I just wanted to

051clarify if a scouting group or any of those groups that's in um class one is utilizing any part of our buildings that they there's no charge at all to that organization if that's what it states that that is the policy I don't know what happened in the past that would be as the applications come in through the business office they would be appropriately told what the fees were and class one does not have fees with it so okay that's good to know I will I will certainly let them know because that was an issue that had been brought up in the past so thank you you're welcome anybody else okay uh Mr cherella unfortunately um is not here right now um he was I thought he was on his way um but he has the

052bg& committee report um as well as the finance report so I will do my best to um remember what we had discussed and um let you know I know BGN we discussed uh referendum process progress I should say and Mr tag let us know that um the information is all been given to the estimator um so we are waiting for that to come back to to get the final cost the plans they submitted all of the plans to the estimator and we are waiting for that to come back um and then that will be presented to the board um the entire package of the cost of the referendum um we also discussed the turf and um track that is complete now um very excited we have our advertisements I passed before they are up there

053I think we have five or six up there right now currently yes I can confirm four and if there are a couple those that came in today I was driving by so there's four signs and we have adverti with us sign so that would be a fifth if there are other ones maybe they came in today and we just hung recently great so that was one of the initiatives that came out of the CE in C committee last year brought through buildings and grounds um and very excited because that was a revenue initiative um that has now come to fruition and hopefully we will have more um businesses and business partners that come forth and advertise on our stadiums um this weekend or this Friday we have our homecoming dance and it's going to be

054our official ribbon cutting um of the new turf field and track um so everybody is invited the entire Community to come out and see that um what is yes Miss Bora plans were shared for the new bleachers um oh yes we had a discussion about um relooking at the bleacher project we talked about um the proposal last year when we were going for the turf and track field um the bleacher project we had put on hold because um I guess a was one one thing was the price and and the second was that they still the current bleachers had 7ye life um left on them um we talked about um the new if we were going to look back at this the bleachers the home bleachers would be on the other side where they are

055now so right now the home bleachers are further away from the high school they would be closer to the high school there would be storage underneath there would be some type of tunnel that these athletes would go through um so we we had discussed that and I had mentioned that in um discussions with uh mayor Delina and thanking him for the shared services agreement um and how the board was very fiscally responsible in that project and we went with the lower cost um for the track and the field um as well as um part of the conversation was to let him know when we redid the policy that we were keeping the um Community groups still as a tier one and they were not going to be changed tiers and we were not going to

056be um they would not be incurring the cost to use our facilities um which he was very thankful for the board for doing that um but I also did mention that that is at a cost to the board because it's it's not bringing in the revenue that it could um so I mentioned I discussed with him again to bring back up the bleachers and he said if we got him a proposal he would be willing to bring it back to the council and talk to them again about maybe another shared services agreement um yes Miss Armenia um there there was a proposal written up last year the year before so that there is documentation for that and the business Mr T was going to go back and yeah he was going to go and just

057ask them um to relook at the quote and just adjust it at no cost it was going to be no cost to reach back out to the vendor and just have them update the numbers but that document is available yes we have it that we saw in the meeting he shared the exact same document yes and then we discussed about um our facility needs um we talked about let me remember this the middle school has the chillers the need for the chillers and the two handlers and we discussed about taking because we don't have the money in our um General budget to cover those costs um as we're going out for the referendum and seeing as we are making updates and upgrades and Renovations as well as the addition to Applegarth I made the committee

058made the suggestion that maybe we should put that into the referendum as well as an addition and a renovation to the Middle School um Mr T was very happy to hear that that we would go that route and I believe we are we are able to fund is it the chiller the air conditioner there was something we were able to the conversation was because there's such a demand Supply challenge there's a 44 to 56 week time gap between when we order and we get it so Mr T's recommendation was that we put it in the budget for next year and through the contract with Omnia I think we would be able to start the process right now so that we have it in time when we have the money right yes so the funds are

059committed now does anybody have any questions on that yes I wanted to um first of all um say that I agree that's a great idea um because it makes us um become more fiscally responsible to the community that we're not just you know looking at expansions but also at really I don't want to say like you said renovating but like you know fixing the problems that are there as well um I also just wanted to ask in regards to the referendum because I know this was a discussion that had come up um and there was the discussion with um either mayor Delina or the um business administrator at the township that there would be no future building that they could foresee um however I know that there was concern in the community because with the

060master plan there's a fair amount of potential homes mentioned there I was trying to do do some research as to whether or not those are only active adult communities or if it incompasses uh children as well it looks like it's a mixture of both um I don't know if either miss armino or Miss gby if you know whether or not the master plan is for five years or 10 years but looking at that without obviously having exact numbers I'm wondering how we I guess utilize that information when planning for the future because obviously the last thing we'd ever want to do is work hard to get this referendum passed and then in 5 years have to look at something again because of the fact that these were being built and it was in the master

061plan but we were not able to use that information at the time if that makes sense well and that that is the conundrum that many Board of educations face is that when you're going out for a referendum and expansion of your facilities you can only plan out 5 years um so the demographer report was looking at the numbers in for the next 5 years um I know at that point they did say they had provided us with what permits were pulled at the time um what had not come through yet I mean maybe that's something that we can look into um Mrs Chanley or Dr Layman um has that changed have any of those permits um been pulled now and has anything come before the planning board and um we could certainly take a look

062at that but the demographers report that we did were we're bound to we can't go out for 10 years we we have to that that is the state law we can only go out for 5 years okay like just and I'm obviously not going to read the entire master plan or i' be here all night but I I try to at least find what I could in it and it does say aside from currently approved and pending projects there's limited room but as of the writing of this plan which is now there is a projected um maximum of 2,440 additional housing units that could be added through Green Field development so again we don't know if that's in the next 5 years for sure but the master plan wasn't here when we received the demographers

063report so I just think it's important for us to do our due diligence and find out whether or not this information is something that we should be considering when looking at our numbers well yeah and I I don't think it's you know it's a it's a reworking of the master plan it's not a brand new master plan so there was there was development in the old master plan as well um but again our numbers our demographer sat down with the township um and went through everything Miss armino did you want to did um as a matter of fact next and I was uh a little bit disappointed that more um uh community members did not come to the planning board when they presented the master plan uh I I myself and a couple other people

064were there um and we spoke to that however based on some of our concerns uh next Thursday on the 29th um and I believe it's going and I'm not sure if it's going to be in the library or in the municipal building they are going to talk about water our water allocation because let's face it all the buildout is going to affect our poble water and secondly um they never address the affordable housing which could be as high as 6,000 units because we owe 1,133 units of affordable housing but that's only one in five because they can they can have four units to everyone affordable housing so do the math um but that will be presented next week the 29th I believe it's at 6:30 and forgive me I'm not sure if it's the municipal

065building but that is going to significantly impact and that 2,000 is something entirely different Green Fields than the affordable housing and they've always as as much as I appreciate Mr Delina but prior to him they've always kept the affordable housing numbers very very close to the vest because they are so enormous and they are going to impact our schools okay does anybody else have any questions on that okay and then the finance report if you saw me looking at my phone earlier that's what I was trying to pull up just so uh oh I can if I can read it off that yeah it's better than the phone absolutely okay so this is from the finance committee the committee was provided the July 2022 attorney invoices for review totaling of $15,512.71 Oprah secretary progresses review

066of the bill uhoh what did I do sorry whoops hit the wrong button for give me sorry forgive me I clicked the wrong button is this it yes okay uh the committee was provided and reviewed the bill list from August 16 2022 to September 22nd 2022 checks processed for this period were 6,833 50066 the finance chair requested backup on random selection of items for oversight and best practice and discover no issues inquiries were made concerning jamf software for $9,250 Mr Felman provided explanation on that contract covers a cloud serice that allows for management of the district iPads status of the 2122 audit Miss Allen updated the committee on the status of the 2122 audit all is tracking timely for the calendar Milestones as we continue with the same firm but a new audit team Falcon

067care ECE financial statements as of 63022 EC reports a profit of $ 49,74100 reports a loss of $ 48,8 2821 the 2223 budget anticipates $200,000 in returned earnings as a revenue Source enrollment is up 38% from 2021 to 22 Mrs carallo was also invited to the October finance committee meeting to follow up on her previous presentation of potential initiatives to help support continued recovery of these programs after the pandemic derailment so we we can rescure high higher numbers of Revenue no public school aid Miss Allen or non-public school aid Miss Allen provided details concerning handling of nonpublic school aid with local Child Care Learning Center this is similar to last year where the district facilitates the aid coming in from the state to a non-public school and works with them on where to spend the

068fun funds accordingly this is a task the district must perform but does not impact the District budget or Aid um and just going on with that the the money that we get in the non-public school applies for and it has to be sent to the actual School District where that non-public school resides so the money that comes in is not our state aid um it has to be given to that non-public school and any monies that they do not spend the district is required by law to send that back to the state uh discussion of board goals the committee discuss board goals the focus should be on support to referendum passage and continuously highlighting District initiatives for Revenue opportunity beyond the local taxes in state aid sources advertising Falcon care ECE summer programs facilities use

069Etc the community should be alert to the district's ongoing prioritization of cultivating additional Revenue so the perception isn't that we are just relying on being able to pass a referendum or increase taxes to meet our needs and that is the finance report does anybody have any questions questions yes Miss Fabiano I just have a sorry um you said there was a $448,000 loss for Falcon care ECE I was just curious if we knew if there was a breakdown between whe there was more of a loss with Falcon care versus ECE yes so F have sorry so fan care had a loss of I think was $49,000 and ECE had the profit of of about the same amount so it was a wash thank you okay Mr Ratner um just in regards to Falcon care I

070know last year we had briefly discussed I think Dr lman you had mentioned with Mrs carello the idea of um combining like sort of an after school club with the Falcon CARE program is that something that's still in the works or are we tabling that to look towards next year for so that's something that she can discuss when she comes to the finance committee meeting next month she going to be invited to talk about her vision for the program moving forward yep and our enrollment is up 38% from last year so the break even point was last year's numbers we already looking better heading into this year thank you very much okay does anybody have any other questions okay does we have any other committee reports I think that concludes our committee reports yes okay

071our next item on the agenda is our board discussion on board uh and District goals um so like I had mentioned um to all the committee chairs and and the board members um New Jersey school boards was not able to accommodate our meeting schedule um to come she Marian fredman is taking our new rep around meeting with a lot of the district so we're hoping that they will be able to come to the October meeting but she did say that the board was welcome to um discuss and deliberate and come up with their own board goals um she said the normal is between three and five goals so I had asked all of the committee chairs to bring it up at their committees and have a discussion and try to come up with some ideas

072for goals I took all those ideas back and I put it into a presentation form and we can have a discussion this evening on that um our first board goal that I put together through our collaboration is the board of education is committed to addressing all facility needs of the district the board will achieve this by continuing to focus on the April 2023 referendum plan to address the overcrowding needs of our facilities addressing and planning for facility infrastructure projects and supporting stop Gap projects that address facility needs this was one that came out directly of bg& um with the recommendation for the addressing and planning facility infrastructure projects coming from Mr take um does anybody let's open up a discussion on do we want to talk about that board goal anybody have any questions comments

073additions just one thing um I agree very much with all the goals that are listed I just want to I don't know if we want to add this or just think about it when we're doing it when it states like supporting sta got projects that address facility needs I feel that we should make sure that those are being done without um hurting our educational um goals which obious obviously it's something that we know we would want to do I just don't know if that's something we would want to add in there in the wording yeah I think that would those come the the projects come to us as recommendations from the superintendent um and the administration so I would hope that that is something that they would be looking at before they bring us a

074recommendation for that I mean we could maybe you know put something in there but I wasn't sure sure Mr Chanley I mean it could be in writing but to be responsible because our first priority our only priority really are the children any and all stop Gap projects that are come are are really thoroughly vetted so they are they are in in Con in consultation with the building level Administration we bring in the supervisors conversation about if we are taking something away to add something else who if anyone are affected by what's removed so I can't imagine moving forward any stop gap for as long as I've been here unless it assisted children okay yes and you know obviously that's what every you know all of our hopes would be I just I know some of

075our projects recently um because of the numbers and because of mandatory things that we've needed obviously but has put some of our special classes on a cart which affects all the students potentially in that school um and obviously you know art or music coming to the classroom on a cart doesn't give as beneficial an educational experience um sometimes as if they were go to the classroom where there's a number of resources available and things like that so and of course sometimes we need it and it has to go that way and this is we're not the only District where that happens but that's why I sort of thought of it when I was looking at the goals just to make sure that that's something that we're also looking at that's really all that that came

076from yeah and and I think the the classes that go on a cart aren't necessarily wouldn't be classified as a stop Gap project usually stop projects usually want to I'm just thinking back to most of the the stop gaps most of the stop gaps usually enable the classes to come off the cart and wind up having an extra space that can be utilized intermittently with the other classes so and I'm you know I I don't want to be quoted and say all but from from memory the few stop Gap projects that I'm thinking of have given extra opportunities for additional classrooms for those that are on a CT which is usually in the elementary school okay thank you okay anybody else okay board goal two this came out of the finance committee discussions the board

077of education has committed to supporting Financial fiscally responsible Revenue driven initiatives the board will support and highlight District in initiatives for Revenue opportunities beyond the local taxes and state aid sources advertising Falcon care EC summer programs facilities use Etc this ongoing priorization of cultivating additional Revenue demonstrates the district's understanding of the importance on not simply relying in on being able to pass a referendum and increase local taxes to meet needs does anybody have any comments on that one yes Mrs Belco um I for sake of visual can we build Point these down and then come up with what is our measurement going to be like I'm just thinking like advertisement we started last year with the advertisement um you know initiative and okay so this year we've got four advertisements so what do we have

078for you know and and where do we see our growth in that area like I I'm a I'm a big data person right so I like to know where do we see our growth in that area and what what are we expeced what is our goal is our goal to get to 10 advertisers by the end of the The Fall season or to have 15 and did we meet our goal um for Falcon care what is our goal for how many students we want enrolled in Falcon care um or ECE um if we start this this you know Club program which we we did have present to us last year what is going to be the goal for that I think you know to have a broad goal like this is great but when we're

079going to talk about the specifics I think we should have you know smart goals that give us what we're looking for and just so that we can see because how else do we know whether something's working or not right if we sit at four advertisements on the football field and we continue to put it out there it's on our website we all talk to whoever's you know whoever owns businesses you know here in the in the local area their kids come to our schools and we're still not getting that advertising dollar then we should rethink how we're going about that what are we doing to you know do that same thing with Falcon care what are we not doing you know to to attract the people to come to Falcon care which we want them

080to do Falcon care is a great program I used it myself in the younger years um you know what well what my kids are no longer teenagers now but um so I just would like to see us be a little more specific with you know we'd like to see a 10% increase from what we started at now if we have four advertisements we'd like to see a 10% increase by March I'm listen we could leave that up to the the math people um the business people to come up with those kinds of things but I think we should be um for this particular goal we should really hone it in and really say this is what we want to do yeah I I think and you know maybe miss armenio you can help me with

081this a little bit help us with this since you're been on the board um the longest some of that sounds more like it's part of the district goal um our you know the board of education is committed to supporting fiscally responsible Revenue driven initiatives we list some of those um I think the measurement at the end of the year of how we've met our goal would be just what you said how much did we increase our goal is to support the district initiative to bring in other Revenue sources we're not the board isn't going out and saying we're going to sell 10% more ads that's that's the the district would be doing that it it's it's there's a fine line between what a board goal is and what a district goal and and I I

082was very careful when I was writing this to make sure that I wasn't saying we were the board going to do this because it would be you don't want to have a goal that would look at as though you're micromanaging or running the school district get it there is a fine line to that but um but I I I understand what you're saying and I think at the end of the at the end of the year where we're supposed to the board is supposed to go through a self-evaluation of the board that that's when we look at our goals and say what have we accomplished and and look at that and the goal you know for the district I know we've brought it up through um CC and buildings GRS and finance and um all

083over that we we are looking to we want the district to be looking for additional Revenue opportunities for us so that is something that we the board has been has given to the District administration but I I can change this up and you know put different bull you know break it down into bullets of what we're looking at Miss armeno uh could we include in this um some review as as you did with turn it in uh we talked about reviews of clubs uh reviewing the board encourages review of uh our you know progam yeah let say it through the mic because I didn't have to review of our current programs for you know fiscal responsibility utilization to its Fidelity similar to what we did yeah so that would be uh to M Belco like

084a bullet point so if you can make that bullet point I also think that that's easier to understand easier to read um and that works for that yeah that I would encourage that because we have to be very careful of how we we we're not um we can't go out and um solicit business if you will um that's not our our our purview really but we but we can we can be physically phys fiscally responsible with what we have in and in review of that yes absolutely okay I will add that and uh send that back out um I just had one quick question before sure we're moving to goal three um so understanding both sides I also just because I know the public has asked us before about acronyms um Miss belel I can

085certainly understand your idea of smart goals with um what that stands for for those who may not know specific measurable attainable relevant and time based um so that's a way to judge whether or not the goals are met at the same time I certainly understand the difference and making sure we're not performing the one that we're not supposed to be doing as a board um I also know that this had been something that I believe the three of us as new board members when we were doing our orientation um had brought up a possible Revenue creation committee with members of the public there are certain people in the public who may have expertise on ways to um bring in Revenue additionally again I don't know if that's something that we can do as a board

086or if that's overstepping and then when I was reviewing our agenda for tonight I also had been on the njsba website um and saw that there's actually Grant support that's offered as part of our membership and they actually have a grant search program on there um the link is upstream. Grants office.com I briefly looked at it and you can literally just put in like Energy Efficiency and it comes up with you know hundreds of potential grants I know we have a supervisor of Grants I don't know if she I'm assuming she would not have access to the Schoolboard association website I'm sure she has her own software that she utilizes in addition to Mr T and all of those who sort of look at Grants but as a board again without overstepping because we never

087want to do that I'm wondering how and maybe this is a question for our field rep um we can utilize this software to look for grants that will help us save money as a district without overstepping our responsibilities as a board well yeah and I think that is a common um theme Mrs Ratner with overstepping um we do have a um a supervisor of Grants and I'm sure I mean we can have Mrs Chanley confirm with that um what she does have I know that she actively searches tirelessly for every Grant possible that we could get um I know that uh like Mrs Bora when she attended that um seminar she was very excited and said wow now look um I'm going to go back and I'm going to tell them about this and Mr

088T had already applied for it so yes bringing information to The District administration to the superintendent um you hear something and you bring it nine times out of 10 the district is probably already doing it um so I wouldn't want to say that we are not actively looking for all the grants that we could possibly get I do understand your point um I don't know if that was a member only section of New Jersey school board they do have a lot of information um that you don't have to and I would imagine maybe within the district because we pay for that subscription um I would imagine that we would probably have people in the district that have membership access from M Tagle Affair is shaking your head yes yes both um the grant supervisor and

089Mr T okay so our gr to that Grant search through School Board Association okay that's that was my primary question just cuz I know I had to log in as a Schoolboard member and obviously we want every possible opportunity to get I don't want to say free but money that you know is not already allocated to us to save our money if we can yep and that is a definitely a um an initiative that we have always had I think in in the district of looking for all the possible grants that we could possibly get and we've done so many great things throughout the district at our schools with um some of the grants that we have gotten okay board goal number three the board is committed to negotiate a new teacher contract with the

090mtea and a new administrator contract with the mtsa focused on the financial and educational goals of the district where Student Success is at the Forefront um I know uh the contracts are up both of them June 30th of 2023 um so we had discussed as a board previously uh renegotiating obviously renegotiating those um contracts and I think that is a goal and I would hope that we would be able to successfully negotiate a contract as a board um with both of these uh unions and not have our teachers work without a contract for years like previously it happened so I'm hopeful that we could um come to some sort of um contract negotiations and settlement um by the end of June I think that should be our goal as a board to get that done

091this year Miss armino I I would object to this as a goal I think it's a normal course of business I think it's our responsibility to do this so I'm not sure that we should take up a a position of a goal for this this is something I think that has to happen regardless of whether it's a goal or not so I would object to this as as a specific goal I would hope that that would be the intention um and it seems to have been the intention of every board going you know in the past and hopefully going forward so I I think we'd be wasting an effort of of calling this a goal I think it's it's a necessary and our responsibility as a board to do regardless whether it's a goal or

092not so I I just don't think it's an appropriate as a goal thank you you're welcome I did take a look through school board's website I did look at other districts goals um there was a few that are renegotiating teacher contracts they put it on as a goal that was one of the reasons that I did I put that there if we don't want to put that as a goal I think that having it as a goal sends a positive message to both our administrator and teacher unions that we are committed to negotiating with them I don't think it hurts to have that as a goal I mean I I think that's one of our big goals as a board this year to ensure that we do get the these contracts successfully negotiated because it

093has there have been times where the board did not settle the contract and it created a lot of angst in our in our school district so I mean that's just my feeling I you know I'm open to everybody else Miss Bor yeah no I want to understand so this is done once in three years or once in two years how often is this three years so maybe that justifies making it it a goal because this year is it needs to be done but next year this won't be a board call and the year after it won't be a board call just to and I I kind of agree that it would just put that a big put a a focus off the board on getting this done in a timely and efficient manner Miss Ratner

094you know and and I was going to agree at being very careful because of the conflict of interest that I have but just stating you had mentioned June 30th as being like the hopeful end dat as the goal so I know when we had discussed you know just before with the revenue we didn't NE want to put numbers or dates in but I agree you know if there are teachers working without contracts you know teachers will always do the best job they possibly can but it can lead to them feeling you know dejected so possibly putting it um before the um you know expiration of the current contract creates it as a goal for us for this year um and something to really focus on so I you know again I can see both sides

095of it as you know usual but I don't that's just something we'd want to add to make sure that that's where we show the purpose of it anybody else Miss belel um I could go either way I mean I think it it's you know it's once every three years we probably should have it because it does show good faith and good faith effort that we're going to make forward but I would like to ask when we talk about acronyms can we just put in that mtea stands for mon Township Education Association and then mtsa stands for mono Township super supervisors association yes supervisor administrat supervisor administrator oh yes you're right Association yeah just so that I will SP everyone understands what that is when they look at our board goals on the website yes okay

096M Fabiano are you okay with keeping it's are we going to keep this a goal Mr Scott um I'm okay with it I do think it's part of your job as as a board so I am kind of in agreement with Michelle that and I'm just curious as to what other goals we could of come up with besides this one I mean again like you said it does show um optically it looks good that that's you know one of our goals that we want to make sure that we have a successful negotiation of the contracts but again it's that's part of that's one of our major jobs as a as a board is to do the negotiations um and then just of curiosity being that you have members that are part of the Education Association

097or the njaa like you you were saying or you're conflicted my husband well your husband in The District does that um become a conflict of interest in a sense being that it's a board goal now Mr gagle already if you want to give your leg you understand what to say Oh no you're right if that's this is a goal is In N so I I can address that I'm sitting back there so my head isn't between you and your goals I don't want to get between the board goals um so the short answer to your question is no and I'll explain to you how that conflict works so if because of your own membership in a the Statewide affiliate of the the New Jersey Education Association got local chapters right so if you're a teacher

098in another District you're member right or if you are married to a spouse who is covered by the collective bargaining the uh current parameters set by the school ethic commissioner as follows you cannot participate in any way in the bargaining for that contract so you can't be part of an executive session where strategy discussed you can't be on the negotiations committee you can't be perved to any written Communications once there is a memorandum of agreement however you are allowed to see it and you are allowed to participate in the debate and in the vote on the contract so the conflict prevents you from being part of the negotiations but not approving the agreement and since that's the current state of the law I do not think it creates any issues for the board if that

099were one of the board goals okay sure if I may sense it it's become a social media a new social media with me so my husband is a member of the mtea and he is a very proud to say a happy High School teacher could you also comment on what my role if any would be that would be very appreciated sure So Not Unusual um for an administrator to be in this position so there are also clear parameters from that so under those circumstances an administrator and usually you're talking about a superintendent or a business administrator WR those are typically the administrators who are involved in collective bargaining they too like a conflicted uh member of a Teachers Association could not be on the negotiations committee unlike a a board member who had that type

100of conflict given the nature of the superintendent's role and the business administrator's role can we have a situation where there's more or less student contact time or in Services what are the financial implications of doing this or doing that you need these people to be a competent uh negotiating committee so they are permitted to serve as resources for the uh committee that's how it's described in the cases so if you wanted the superintendent to attend a session she could if you wanted to ask the superintendent about a question associated with a position you would or would not take you can do that she can't participate in the bargaining but she can be aware of what's going on to the extent you need her to serve as a resource same would be true if the business

101administrator had a conflict so that's their role they won't be on the committee but they are permitted to know what's going on and answer questions to the extent the committee needs them to function okay thank you sir thank you very much anybody have any other questions on this I will now remove my head but I will be just just beyond range if you need me okay okay board goal four the board is committed to transparency and increasing Communications with the community to ensure all stakeholders are informed and their concerns and ideas are acknowledged the board will achieve this by utilizing the proper chain of command set forth by District administration supporting the use of all social media outlets for communications this is something that came out of the community engagement Communications committee um the committee

102works hard this year with the administration to come up with a a um nice graphic uh chain of command um that is up on our website um for the community to see um so this is this is the discussion that we had at cenc and this is the goal if anybody would like to have a discussion on this yes M just one quick thing and obviously I was part of this discussion but seeing it now looking at the bullet points we have the chain of commands on the website and we've already discussed utilizing Sprout thank you um so I feel like obviously we want to utilize these resources but in terms of a goal we've put them in place so I'm wondering if we want to look into further ways of increasing transparency in Communications

103um if it's worth us continuing to keep them on there because they're already put in place if that makes sense yeah well I think the the board is committed to transparency and increasing Communications by utilizing the proper chain of command so again we we as a board if we have people coming to us as a board we should be utilizing the chain of command to better communicate with all stakeholders parents community members the proper venue the proper the proper person to go to for the information rather than us trying to answer questions that we otherwise should not be involved in um and then again supporting the use of all social media outlets for communication we can rewrite it but I know our the goal was to increase Communications this isn't saying this is this is

104our goal to increase our Communications how we do that that's what's formulated in our committees that's what the District administration recommends to the board um we could reward it if anybody wants to take a crack at it Miss Bor no actually I think the way to look at it a different perspective is that we currently in the work we've done in that committee have set us set set ourselves up to accomplish this goal so uh we we have no now more clarity on the chain of command directly on the district website to you know to facilitate that involvement of all stakeholders we are now still in the process of sprout social we're not there yet so the vision that we had as a committee hasn't really been accomplished still a goal I think I would

105say we will accomplish it when we start to have this every day or you know a consistent Cadence of messaging coming from every school in the district on our District page that's when I'll say we've accomplished our goal so yes we've set ourselves but we're still on the path just continue to improve it and then the other thing and Mr I don't know if you want to clarify this um just because I know that there have been members of the community who will email the entire board and you know we just recently put the chain of command up there but as individual board members you know we're not allowed or supposed to respond I know they get upset they're like you know all the board members are ignoring my concerns um I don't know if

106there's a disclaimer if there's something that we can put just so members of the public are aware that individual board members are not allowed to respond to the concerns St L we can certainly discuss them as a board to try and look into potential Solutions but we cannot respond to those community members uh yes well and that there's a a distinction a couple of things there that you said I agree with a couple that we have to be careful with so if we get a if if any board member gets an email um from anybody generally the well generally it depends if it's something that the board should not be answering I will always send it over to The District administration and ask for them to handle that um there are times where I as

107the president of the board do answer um but not to say that I will find them a solution it's more of saying I you know thank you for emailing us um this is and this is what I did with the recent one that just came to the full board um this is the chain of command I understand I I understand what your concerns are and and here is the process to get your concerns heard through the district um here's the chain of command if you go through that entire thing and you don't find resolve then you can come to the board of education but any board member and I know I I've said this in the beginning of the year too at the new members um orientation any board member is welcome if you get

108an email to write back simply to acknowledge getting it thank you for emailing the board I have received your email I've I've read it and I understand your concerns um but other than that not I'm going to go out and find you a solution or I agree with you you're right this shouldn't be happening those are all things that we as board members should not be answering back the public to that um we got to keep our personal opinions out of it we have to understand where are where our board role is and um acknowledge where the Administration um needs to be involved in that as well thank you can I make a comment yes um by stating that you're utilizing the proper chain of command set forth by The District administration we as board

109members when we swear or when we take our oath and we do our ethics that's part of what we're agreeing to do as board members so it's acknowledging that we're going to do our job in the way we're supposed to do our job and right and when you take your governance one that's one of the major things is following that proper chain of command so I think by having this there in the goal is undermining what we've already done as board members and taking the oath if you if you know what I I'm saying Miss Bela I just want to answer that um we haven't had a defined chain of command out there for our public for the public to for a very long time okay so I think for this year here that goal

110is appropriate because it is something that we finally have gotten um and and now we can say it's there and it's appropriate and it's proper um not that there wasn't a chain of command before there was it just wasn't published so there's the there's the rub in my opinion the other thing I would like to see added here um is and I'm sorry if I interrupted you no no that's fine I'm just saying that that's but my my point is that oh you're AB when we take our old oh we're sworn into our board and when we take our governance as we're we're we have to do that this is the proper chain of command that we have to follow right so it's it's like making a statement of something of doing something supposed to

111do place it was very difficult for a member of the public to find the chain of command out there the only other thing I just thought that and and I don't know maybe Katie you can you can maybe frame this but I would like to see that this this board goal sort of is is um is a is a out stem from that CC and E committee because it's really that they're the drivers of this so I would love to see whatever other ideas come out from that committee would be part of how we're going to achieve this goal and we're all responsible for what comes out of the Committees because we have to approve it but I think this committee should definitely be The Driver of this goal absolutely I'm just thinking like where

112it says utilizing the proper chain of command we say you know supporting community outreach by utilizing the proper chain of command because that's tying the community that's what it it's committed to transparency and incre increasing Communications with the community to ensure all stakeholders are informed one of the ways to do that is by using the proper chain of command because there have been times where we're not using the proper chain of command and now that it's out there and visible and Mr gagle Ari would you like to add some um I I I I don't want to inject myself into the board debate um but I've attended a few board meetings in my day um what I understood from the exchange between Miss Scott and Miss Belco was that the board isn't talking so much

113about utilizing the chain of command but publicizing it right making sure that the community is aware of it that's it is it's the word so my respectful suggestion would be simply to say public izing and utilizing we're going to make sure the community is aware of it and we're going to use it ourselves okay right I also had written down um like assisting and educating the public to utilize the the proper chain of command so that way they're aware because we might know where people are supposed to go but our goal should be making sure that everyone in the community knows where to go so putting that in the bullet point instead of U just utilizing like assisting and educating the public to utilize or something of that nature sorry no you were right I

114apologize for speaking I think that's what it is it's the way it's worded yeah okay so publicizing and utilizing the proper chain of command set forth okay oh right and I just wanted to add one other thought sure so we're supporting the use of all social media outlets for communication like we said we're introducing Sprat social but I'm also wondering if we could put something in there like about written communication uring community members receive written communication through like the emails I know we've sent out the survey and that kind of thing so maybe the survey just becomes a yearly thing that we send out to the community to make sure everybody's contact information is updated um any new members of the community that are interested in receiving communication um just putting some something in there

115about written communication instead of just social media I was going to actually add because I know Miss gby back when um you know ations were hard to get you and I were both assisting members I know a lot of seniors don't necessarily have social media um so or even emails addresses I know I had to create one for one of the senior citizens in order to get their vaccinations so also just making sure that we are communicating it because we do say Ure all stakeholders but then in the bullet point it only mentions the social media so I don't know if we want to put any other outlets because you know putting it in as we've sort of discussed at the CNC meeting in the senior community newsletter letters and things of that nature to

116make sure that we're reaching out to as many as possible not just through social media okay supporting the use of social media outlets for communications as well as written written if you want to put it if you want if you want to put a time frame you could say um you know consistent annual um consistent annual what was the word you just like is in other words we want to say to the community is everything appropriate through annual survey through annual survey like us taking it through an annual survey of the community or through I don't I think we're I well I think we're I think we're getting really in depth in trying to figure out how we're going to achieve the goal the goal is committed to transparency and increasing Communications with Community these

117were things you could achieve a bu we could take that off and then just have I added the the board will achieve it by things that we we I I'm sorry but I'm sorry I didn't raise my hand I think we do need that line and I do think we need to Define how we're going to how we would would make this goal happen I think adding just another bullet that says and all other means of um communication including written email newsletters just and just put it out there we can do an annual survey if we get to it but yeah if something happens and we don't get an annual survey out well again it's not us putting the survey that's the district may I may I Madam president yes so again subject to the

118approval of the board right that last based on what I just heard the last bullet point can be supporting the use of all appropriate Communications comma including but not limited to social media that captures everything everybody just said I believe right okay yeah even just taking out social and Jing all media Outlets or anything of that nature just to make sure that we're not exclusive working towards social media although that is a goal of ours but looking at others as well okay I will add that in anybody else no okay board goal number five the board is committed to making school security a priority by supporting all safety initiatives that are focused to always protect everyone in all district facilities anybody have any comments no okay all right and that is our five goals that

119we collectively came up with um I can update this and resend it out to everybody and then put it on the October agenda for us to approve them is that is that good with everybody okay great thank you thank you Mr Gagliardi thank you fellow board members all right our next item on the agenda is our public forum for agenda items only anybody wishing to speak please come to the microphone and state your name and is it residency name in Township that's right um You have four minutes to speak good evening everyone yeah I'm Sunita gulati from 667 you came under Township yeah so thank you for bringing up the topic of educational organization so I'm the one I think I wrote a letter to you guys uh so uh I missed your earlier part

120but I guess you discussed about that topic um I am little confused because we have been running this uh language classes for last 15 years this is an educational nonprofit organization totally volunteer imparting Hindi language classes to the students uh the language is not offered by Mund Township school and kids want to learn this language so we are imparting this language and gradually I see the you know as you discuss the rents are going up and I don't know what class we fall in so I want uh you know I want to see if we fall in class one because we are 501c Tex examed educational organization only and the second thing is there's a new clause which has been added of three hours of um uh you know mandatory booking of the facility use

121although we take only for an hour so we teach language class only for an hour but I think uh we have to B book it for three hours from this year so so I just want to know what is behind that you know um uh the condition which has been imposed now okay U Mrs chy would you like to speak on that I'm going to respond to the second part of your statement question statement with the question so what has happened is that we have seen over the last couple of years that it's not just about let's say it's not about making money it's been costing the district and in turn the taxpayers money so what's happened is the facilities use fees have not even covered the cost of security maintenance custodial and so forth

122and when we looked at the surrounding districts we were beyond beyond underpriced in comparisons so that is why and that the second part of your question why has the fee structure changed and that is that is the reason why the three-hour minimum um came to be I I he's not here this evening but in working in collaboration with Mr tag he did see that in order for the preparation of having security here having a setup and having a breakdown the hour really didn't make sense from a fiscal point of view so that's why he did the three-h hour once again very similar to our surrounding communities as far as the first part of your question and I would have to acques to Miss Allen and look but I would believe it would be my understanding

123that you would be your tier two I'm just doing that off the top of my head so we understand that you're that you are a nonprofit organization because I would say that numerous I will not say all but many many many fall into that category and that is why it is not free of charge so that is why it falls into that there are many organizations that utilize our facilities that bring wonderful programs to the children many different languages different cultural activities but it we can't allow it to cost us money because we have to be fiscally responsible so if it's a cost to us we have to be able to benefit in that regard as far as um maintenance and and uh custodial and security so that's where it falls out but as you

124heard and you may not have if you came a little late it will be a further conversation a discussion probably into the policy I know I brought up bg& because it falls in that but it really doesn't but we cross over it could even be CNC really I mean technically so we do hear you and you are are one of I think three people that did email yeah in the last couple of weeks so I hope I answered your question yeah yeah but uh for the last 15 years I never saw a security or anything outside the school and the custodians were there cleaning the you know school and they always were there it's like we just come in go out and they keep doing the work and they never said that they don't come

125here when we are not there so they are always there even we are there or we are not there so I was just wondering the extra charge of custodian fee you know is it I don't want to speak to how Mr T schedules the buildings because I'm sure that you know he has a particular way of scheduling but whether or not you may perhaps be seeing which is you're absolutely right they're cleaning and they're getting ready for the next day but perhaps that evening there might be events going on and instead of having one custodian they may be paying for two custodians we do pay for overtime when we have um functions in our buildings so you know we were you know losing money for lack of a better way of saying it and you

126know we have to make sure that that we are responsible to the best of our ability as far as the fee schedule it does seem like a drastic change to many people that have been here for years but we were so below anyone around us for so many years it's it seems more exuberant in the course to someone like yourself in an organization that's been utilizing it but in comparisons perhaps it maybe this should have happened years a little bit each year and it didn't happen that way and I you know we'll definitely further the conversation but as of right now you know the tiers remain as they are but I definitely agree that we should be respectful of all community members to look and see if if any changes will occur I'm not saying

127they will be but we definitely should look at them okay okay thank you but U we have 26 schools in New Jersey in different towns and we are the most expensive school so rest of the schools are not paying as much as what we are paying so we have stopped our school now although we registered 100 kids but we had to go on Zoom class last week they were supposed to start from last week but we can't afford that we can sustain that price and rest of the schools are still going with their regular Ro you know class schedule so yeah thank you anybody else wishing to speak good evening I'm sorry I going to just add to the lady what just she said either maybe your name and your your yes uh my name

128is dbar Gil and I'm from 42 mfield Boulevard mon time sa all right this is the first year I really enrolled my kids in Hindi classes I knew that our school don't offer this okay and their fee is almost nothing they just charging for me charging me only for the books and all the sudden they are telling me that my kids have to do Zoom classes I don't know I mean whatever and they are they told me that fee has gone five time from 350 for 1 hour to all the way to 1500 I don't know who make this decision how they make this decision uh I don't know but uh obviously they're going to be more people coming forward and register this thank you thank you good evening good evening uh my name is

129Prine guram I I live in the 422 Morning Glory Drive Monroe okay and my daughter used to be going to that Hindi High Hindi school and she actually already graduated okay and and I just want to tell you the benefit my daughter got okay it is actually said by research that kids that know multiple languages okay their IQ and their understanding goes really really well okay my daughter was part of that school she did really well there she has graduated in fact she was amongst the top graders in middle school and not only that she is now going into the Allied Health Academy at the high school okay she's from Monro okay okay we live in Monro and I can tell you the benefit that the school has given about the growth for my daughter

130is something that I would also like future kids to also have that okay and not only that my wife she is a volunteer she goes and teaches in that in the Hindi USA High School uh not for money okay but for all the for what we got from the community is something there is a way that we try to give back to it and as um you know Dr Sunita G just said that uh you know Monro is charging the highest amongst all the 36 schools that like you know where whether it's Edison South Brunswick and all the other schools that is there uh I would really really suggest if you can just take that look one more time okay if that price can be reduced trust me okay these kids I have no benefit

131because my daughter has already graduated okay but I can tell you the benefit that my daughter got okay that's why I'm here okay I could just have not come today and say you know what okay my my daughter is done okay no that's not the point I got so much benefit my daughter has benefited so much I would like that these kids are from Monroe okay they will do well in their life they will make Monro proud so I will just suggest that please take a look at that decision one more time thank you thank you for your comments and uh as Mrs Chanley said I believe the district Administration along with the facilities director will um revisit that and look into that um and I thank you for sharing that and that information you

132know we as a board are tasked with um trying to be fiscally responsible and and in doing that and in reviewing our policy and our fee schedules with our neighboring districts we did um see an opportunity um to increase the fees to be more in line with what other districts are are charging cuz we actually had um groups and um people that were using our building that were not using them in their town and coming over to Monroe because it was so um so far below what anybody was charging so I think that this is a good opportunity for us to um look back at it the District administration to look back at the fees um and re um evaluate it to see if maybe it is too much of a drastic uh increase or

133not and and really come up with an understanding for how we got to where we were um but I I thank you for coming out and and giving us that opportunity to hear you and and your experience with those schools um and we will definitely be revisiting this was asking that sure and I think she has reached out to The District administration um and she can send that directly to Mrs Chanley thank you hi good evening uh Gail depay 356c old NASA Road I have some questions and comments if I can get under the three minutes when you were talking Mrs Belco I'm sorry Madame President for Mrs Belo are your um committee meetings timed that she couldn't not get in everything that she needed our committee meetings are yes we do have times for

134our committee meetings what are the what do you have an hour hour and a half or they are generally an hour an hour okay I was just um wanting to ask on your salary guide what does 177% addition mean what the teachers were listed in the salaries sure if I could ask you if you have a list of questions if you want to give us all of the questions um and then we can whatever that's one through them and um okay on uh go goal board goal number three just want to make sure when you go for the contract that you are researching the areas with their contracts and which I'm sure you are making sure that Monroe is competitive with all the rest of the districts around this area in Middle sex County because

135that's how you keep your good teachers that's just my experience okay um board policy number four have you ever I mean do you put like a board packet of information that you want to dis give out in all of your um uh gosh that went right out of my head um and don't time me because I'm a senior and I just forgot it um real estate thank you real estate agents that come in is there a packet of board information in somebody that moves in new to the senior areas and your regular areas that lists all the board information that you're talking about so they're going to come in immediately and see numbers and phone numbers that they can call for things like that do you have that in real estate agency packets that was

136another one and um I'm a little miffed about board policy number four um public participation in board meetings you're talking about being transparent and offering up everybody to come up here and speak but I know you want to limit it and I don't think you should I mean where I used to be we used to be five minutes and you can get in a lot in five minutes four is really tough and a lot of people want to say things especially with the referendum coming up and so many things that are going on in this town I think you should be a lotted another minute and Al and answer all the questions that these people want everybody here wants to hear answers on all people's questions because that's how we learn from each other that's

137it okay yes and speaking to that last point that is why I you know I wanted to give you the opportunity to give all your questions upfront okay and not take any of your time we're not trying to limit the time of public forum public forum is four minutes it previously um years back was only 3 Minutes last year it wasn't increased to four minutes um when we went to um when it was when they took away the it was 3 minutes when the clock was not being stopped it went when it was being stopped when it went to not being stopped which was before we we changed the policy last year to not stop the clock we didn't reduce the time so we we continue to allow the public to have 4 minutes and

138stop the clock previously the clock did not stop that was the change nobody's looking to limit public form take away time um so I I just want to dis spel that rumor as far as the real estate I'm not sure what the District administration provides but I would um I would think that real estate agencies maybe Miss armenio if you want to chime in on that as they're trying trying to um sell houses to their clients I would think that they would be including information um on our school district I know uh when I purchased my home here in Monroe they did hand me a sheet that they had put together with all of the information on our school district and that is one of the big selling points of homes in Monroe Township is

139the school the schools um I'm assuming we would provide anybody that called up and asked for information on our district any well you just said they if I can interrupt who's they does the real estate person do it or do you a Monroe Township Board of Education provide it well we would provide it if requested we're not contacting real estate agents we're not we're not selling their house or soliciting them to come here no I'm not saying that they're you to sell the house when they purchase the house in a purchasing packet Michelle you should understand what I'm saying and you give it to them then men and say you know here's your Municipal Municipal numbers here's your board of education numbers here you can call for this here you can chain a command should

140be in there too especially for the board because I know I was that was a big question I was always asked by by parents chain a command oh I went right to the superintendent no you don't do that you know you have to follow chain of command so I'm thinking that would be a good idea to put into a real estate company's packet when they buy the house the the real estate agent know that and say hey here's the information and there's Board of Education in there information in there too absolutely if they if they contact the district we happily put together a packet for them I think you should readily have it made and just give it to the real estate agents in your town Miss Armenia would you like to well uh you

141know real estate agents very often do it themselves they provide their own uh information but it's a good idea that maybe on on the website we can have a new homeowner owners uh packet right on our website that we can just um have someone print off even if the real estate agent doesn't do it um uh you know a new homeowners packet it's not you know just talking about not necess you know just for the Board of Ed just for the district the Board of Ed give you some ideas and and and leave it at that I mean a lot of the adult communities if you go to their website they have packets of information it does make it much easier if you're if you're moving into a community like that that you know all

142the rules and regulations so it very similar it would be much smaller if the board did it and just put like four or five pages on the website as a new homeowner pack and I bet you a lot of people who have lived here a long time would still utilize it yes maybe people living here a while don't know what you have so it put all your information out there for the whole town for all the newcomers well it it is currently out there it is on our website so if we're putting a new not a packet not a packet like in other words if you put no but if we're going to say that they if we're going to say that they might not be able to go on the website if that's where

143we're saying we're putting the the packet to have it accessible on our website well you're already on the website there's the information are you asking that we physically print out packets no not necessarily but if you put all pertinent information like five page all the all the schools all the numbers of the school all together cuz the website you have to sort of navigate through it in order to get all that information in one place it's real I can talk to you about it we don't yeah know maybe we can we can definitely have conversation in our community engagement committee it was just a suggestion because you're trying to get out so much information to everybody and I know where I used to live we had we gave it to the real estate agents in

144town I don't know how many are here in Monroe but that was just something I wanted to bring up just just to get all your information out thank you okay and and you also had a question that 17% Yeah so basically the way it works is if a teacher is going to be teaching an extra class above their contract okay then they it equivalates it actually equals as per the number 17% of their contract okay I got it okay thank you very much welc you're welcome have a good evening thank you anybody else wishing to speak good evening yep hello Michael leki yeah 50 Mayberry Avenue of course here in Monroe Township excuse me I just wanted to maybe make a suggestion or two share some information uh I was very happy to see the

145uh I guess Focus increase focus on infrastructure funding uh and I just want to maybe mention a couple of ideas to you I know you folks are probably aware that I used to work for Exxon in Lyon and Exxon actually had or still had at one time five plants U around the entire United States and you know what we used to do was actually Benchmark our plant against the other four plants uh looking at all kinds of things administrative as well as operational as well as expense type items as well and I did do a little searching around after I was very happy to see it raised as an issue in the bg& te meeting and I noticed that uh that doesn't seem as if there's a lot of benchmarking going on yeah within school

146districts um I guess around the country I was reading that yeah there's there's a few yeah that budget about 5% of their overall budget towards uh major infrastructure ructure repairs and Replacements and I was thinking what you might want to do going forward is maybe survey the districts here in midd County yeah I think you could probably get that information without too much effort and see just what the the other school districts are actually spending on a maybe percent of overall uh budget basis on your major infrastructure repairs and Replacements U and of course the other piece would be uh thinking about considering yeah making the uh major infrastructure repairs Replacements budget a fixed budget uh come up with a number and hold that number on a year-by-year basis and of course in that matter

147yeah you could fund the major repairs and Replacements and try not to to rob from that because you that's important in fact I think we're seeing that now yeah with what has to be done to the uh Apple Guard School one other quick question okay I just wanted to ask I see at the very end of the agenda uh it looked as if as I read it that there's going to be a a motion to what uh approve uh proceeding with submission of the referendum package to the state and I was wondering whether that shouldn't say whether yeah whether you've actually had the time to even review the package at this point in time um prior to it being submitted I may be a little off base with that because I know there were a

148lot of words and I've was trying to understand what that yeah last uh bullet item was and that's basically yeah all I would want to share today thanks thank you Mr aleski and which item number were you referring to if we can oh it's it's it it's at the tail end of the agenda yeah Chrissy yeah I think it's page 29 yeah maybe it's something that oh I don't want to say anything you guys read it it looked as if there was some uh what desire to proceed with submitting the referendum package I think it might be item H9 item H page 29k Pros so after the estimating process happens and we get a you know a project number then that document needs to be submitted to the state the state reviews it and identifies

149how much they're going to contribute towards the project after that is done that's when we have our total kind of potential referendum number so this uh resolution allows in between this meeting and next meeting when we get the estimation done instead of waiting three weeks idle we can get it out to the state as soon as possible to get a number back this isn't committing us to an an April 23rd date of x amount referendum this just keeps us moving along the process knowing that there are uh have been and will probably continue to be delays when we submit things to the state so this gets us moving along um anticipating estimations being completed sometime between now and the next board meeting yep understood thank you thank you good evening good evening prakash pup 33

150D our Drive um as you know Dr GTI has talked about Hindi the USA please consider it there are policies there are flexibilities how to there are different different education organizations come under you know LLC whatever you know ta tax exempt and all but how to evaluate their what value adds creative some criteria because there are 100 students and a Indian population is growing and this is a need Hindi language is not taught in our school if you bring a teacher to teach Hindi in our Middle School and High School how much it cost versus the free service provided take that all picture into criteria that's my request I'm not demanding anything give the idea so please consider they're doing value added to our school please do it thank you now coming to the main

151topic referendum I've have been here for last 6 seven years the referendum is kicked kicked kicked away and or crowding at the school has been going on in the master plan also draft master plan it talks about that when we build more houses we have to consider overcrowding already overcrowded school we master plan says we don't get stage funding to build the school it is all Impact to the taxpayers okay there you go and see the master plan which was written 10 years back this all the vision the master plan may have a Taj Mahal as a vision but reality is you know go and see they even said we'll have Recreation Center on the South Side did they do that no there's a vision that will have a town center near Town Monroe Township

152something great vision Taj Mahal near Route 33 we'll build 2,000 houses and we will have walking the people can come to the Town Square all that going on sold by some contractor who has Builder who has interest to do that okay we are debating that we went to the master plan discussion we were there you know affordable housing is going on for several years still the communities which have been there for 20 years they are still meeting the affordable housing so don't delay Look At Last 5 Years projection look at next 5 years projection go ahead want this overcrowded school to be resolved soon this is a good plan this was discussed last 9 months back back what is going to be there in the Middle School what is going to be the high school

153what is going to be there in the Apple guard it has been discussed now every time come oh what is going on I want the Board of Education to be active moving forward I tell you if you guys don't have the referendum early April and start discussing to the public we will come and demonstrate thank you I'll tell you in a candid way it will be front of the municipality it will fund we will bring the crowd thank you very much thank you Mr P Dr PAB and we are I think as our the board has been moving along the process we are committed to um coming to the April 2023 referendum um and as you see on the agenda as Mr aleski pointed out we are moving forward we have um the estimator working

154up those numbers and that will go to the state we will see what we get back then from the state um as far as their contribution to the project which I also want to bring back um that conversation once we get that I think it's important when Miss armenio myself Dr Layman and Miss Fabiano went to Trenton and met with um the assistant commissioner and Senator Greenstein um we were given percentages um that the Department of Education said they give for these types of projects and and I'm very interested to see when that those numbers come back if that matches that and if it does not I will be on the phone with Senator Greenstein and be asking why they told us one set of numbers and percentages and why they're not committing to that

155because we were assured um that the state gives up around 40% of the cost in Aid back to the school districts now I know Mr had reached out to some individuals at the um Department of Education too and they explained other numbers to him so when we were there that day it was clear and I will tell you on behalf of the board that what was told to us that day we will go back down there and we will hold their feet to the fire of what they told us to say because they told us we should be coming out to our community and tell the community that this is the the percentage that they give back to us um so I we are this board is committed to getting to that referendum and we

156are committed to um getting whatever funding we can for this project from the Department of Education so I something yes Mrs charlee I I just wanted to um say that I greatly appreciate Dr PR's Um passion because I do agree and I I would like the public to know that although we haven't come out with the visuals yet and we haven't come out with particulars we really want to be so trans arent that we're waiting for the estimator because we'd like that amount whatever that amount would be we've been talking ranges you know our first presentation was 95 to 105 then it was 100 to 107 or so forth so um every other Friday we have a meeting and we work diligently to talk about what the visuals will look like where is the placement

157going to be um we have just secured um one of the tables at October Fest so we're talking about bringing it all out there so even though it's been quiet as far as um there has been no media blast it doesn't mean that we're not working towards exactly what you are saying sir on behalf of the community because April 2023 is going to happen Mr CH says we are right on time and unfortunately we wish we could be the estimator but because we're not we want to be so transparent we don't want to have this range again even if we are unsure of what the state's going to give us we might be able to say or we definitely not might be we will say this is the cost based upon the estimator and then

158the number from the state will be what it is we may have to fight with but it will be whatever it is so we are absolutely moving forward for that 2023 April thank you thank you good evening good evening Adam Elias I'm a resident of Monroe Township um I came to the meeting with a very pointed question but um given the discussion over goals and things like that I wanted to go into a little bit of commenting but my question was I was hoping to see Mr take here tonight uh I read something very alarming this morning uh I know that Governor Murphy has a plan to really Electrify New Jersey he wants to shift New Jersey away from fossil fuels to full electric use in a very short amount of time that many have

159uh suggested is very unrealistic but today I read that just last week the Department of Environmental Protection has passed some regulations that are going to require the conversion of boiler systems to electric heating in a very short uh order and that this would actually have an impact on about 1500 schools in the state of New Jersey so I wanted to know whether this has been uh discussed at all in the building grounds uh Transportation committee whether we are aware of whether or not uh any of our schools are going to fall within the perview of that the article suggested that it could cost up to $2 million to retrofit any given uh facility from a current boiler system to an electric uh system so not only that we get about $9 million from the state

160uh this would actually fall on the land owner so to the extent that the uh Board of Education or the township owns any of these schools that would really fall on the uh shoulders of the schools on the on the taxpayers so if this is not something that has already been uh explored in those committee meetings I would strongly uh urge that those answers get uh explored very soon uh having said that I saw that the goals that were put up um I don't know if five was the limit to goals I don't know if there's any room for additional goals you always want to have more goals and I know it's hard if you only have five to try to figure out what are the five most important ones but I think there's a

161major missed opportunity here to have a goal of reconnecting with what's going on in Trenton uh I think living in New Jersey the last two years we've learned a lot about how things that happen in treaton can have a serious impact on our day-to-day lives um whether it be from covid policies you know mask policies vaccination policies on the health end or whether it be based on curriculum a lot of parents were concerned about you know standards that came down about curriculum from the state just what I just talked about as far as the regulations from D affecting the schools uh I know a lot of boards throughout the state have a legislative liaison it's a position not necessarily a committee where someone will report on things that are going on in the state and

162I think that would really benefit this community uh just to update every month on what's Happening I think that I don't know if that's something that could be a goal or if that's something that maybe we could all try to work on together but it's really helpful to know because these are not things that are publicized very well and a lot of them are done intentionally without publicity so it's good for someone to be followed up not just when it actually happens and it's implemented but when the the bills are moving through the legislative process so that we can comment we can go to Trenton we can actually get engaged and get more feedback as it's happening in real time I also uh as far as I know there was some discussion about the chain

163of command and emails and not knowing how to respond to them I was just going to make a personal suggestion you know in my business there was a period of time where people would email the wrong staff members uh in my firm about questions like you may be someone in the personal injury Department would email somebody in the real estate dep department so what we started to do was set up an auto message I don't know if this with the legal implications are on for that that would have to be defer to board counsel but an auto message that would come out saying you know acknowledging the receipt of the email saying you know this is the chain of command I also work in real estate and we always have disclaimers you know in in

164the actual email that any kind of wire instructions are going to come in a very specific way and it's always at the bottom of every single email so that it's drilled in everybody's head if there's a concern about the chain of command being drilled in people's heads in the public I think it would be very beneficial to either have that Incorporated in an auto message uh for people that email or even just Incorporated in the signature line of every email to the extent that that's permitted by law thank you great thank you very much those are very great suggestions um I think that the board can um discuss that through our committee meetings um and look into having somebody focused on the board of maybe through our community engagement Committee of legislator um as far

165as the facilities um Mrs Chanley maybe I could ask that you follow up with Mr T Mr T is unfortunately wasn't able to be here he's out sick today um so that is why he's not at this meeting um but if we can follow up with him and find out um I'm sure Jerry probably does know because he's usually up to date on that um but thank you so much for bringing that to our attention and if the administration will look into that that would be wonderful thank you I don't know what your policy is can somebody come up again time unfortunately no we have a second public forum in the agenda but it only one has to do with what was discussed now but it's only our policy is only one time should change

166it for somebody to be able to come up in case they have something else to say that's been a longstanding policy okay just it's just a suggestion even Michelle is in agreement with that policy unfortunately anybody else wishing to speak right seeing none we will close this public forum and our next item on our agenda is our assistant superintendent report Dr Layman yep it's a brief report tonight I just wanted to welcome the staff students um all our teachers back all our administrators back well they were in the summer but we're back in full swing of things now our community's back uh parents are engaged again and uh it's great to see everything up and operational uh I think we worked out a little kinks in the first couple days of school and that's typical

167for any school district and we continue to move ahead and we're excited about it uh I do have one uh exciting announcement I shared it with the board in the confidential last week but um we were notified last week that Miss Mrs Vena ganker Miss G is what we uh affectionately call her throughout the school district um she's a teacher of Technology education at the high school here she was identified as one of 57 teachers in the United States for the the designation of Project Lead the Way outstanding teacher um it's a specific note to that she was one of 13 teachers Nationwide uh to earn recognition in engineering um this recognition is significant given the Nationwide commitment to stem teaching stem within diverse Public School Systems uh the effort of Miss G to have

168allowed Monroe Township to simultaneously build out a highly competitive and rigorous programming along side of a fully inclusive adaptive stem programming that prepares all learners for Relevant 21st century postsecondary experiences her leadership has significantly enhanced our overall academic culture here at the high school and throughout the district and provides countless new activ uh learning opportunities for all types of Learners so it's a tremendous recognition for her and we're very proud of her she also uh oversees our robotics team so she's here on weekends and travels and competes uh throughout the state with our team so she's just an amazing teacher and this is a great recognition that we found out uh just last week she was uh kind of shared with so thank you great thank you do anybody have any questions or comments for

169Dr Layman okay our next item is our superintendent report Mrs Chanley um I'd just like to take an opportunity to um piggyback on what Dr Layman has said we want to welcome everybody back and uh it's definitely a team effort we always say success is always a team effort it's something that I adhere to because we open the school successfully we had a little bit of a hiccup to no one's fault with the situation with the poll being down but we are so fortunate that we are able to work um just cooperatively you know between security facilities maintenance custodial administrators teachers central office I mean I I could just name everybody the support of the board we had a very successful opening it's very exciting to be back full-time in person to see one another

170and um we're very pleased that we had we really did have a great opening and the children are very excited very excited to be in school so I did want to just take a moment to say that I also would like to acknowledge that all of the schools did activities events acknowledgements moments of silence and so forth for Patriot Day we know that 911 this year did fall out on a Sunday and it was celebrated and commemorated when I use the word celebrated I I don't mean it in a positive way because it was a very very sad time in our country and it was just um a very sad time for the Northeast area in particular so they commemorated and respected those people who lost their lives as well as those people who wind

171up giving their lives and even becoming ill later on in life due to the tragedy of that occurrence and they did it in very different ways very age appropriate in the elementary schools middle school and high school and so forth and um the newsletter that will be coming out is going to be once so it's going to be in the middle so often it will just reference things that have already occurred it will reference things to occur it will acknowledge celebrations of holidays I want to um wish a very happy uh Lanova which is uh the Jewish New Year for Russia Shana and um day of atonement which will be yam kapor which be in October both will occur prior to the next board meeting I'm going to really make an effort um to school

172myself on all of the holidays because we are a very inclusive community and um that is why we're also looking at our calendar because that is so important even though we're running out of days we all know that we need we need a longer school year but I I didn't say that we one longer school year but we actually do need one and so forth so um we're just we're very very lucky and we're very fortunate because we have a great community and sometimes we agree to disagree but we move forward to do what's best for kids and that's so important so on that note I only have one retirement so I want to wish Sharon Lynch who is a secretary at Monro tatra Middle School she was the secretary that I hired there and

173now she is under Dr James Higgins and uh she'll be leaving us in January she's put in her official papers she's very excited I wish her well as she is a grand grandmother and a great-grandmother just recently so I I do wish her well and at this time under a 10 member vote I will move forward with recommending that the board approve the attached Personnel items a through L excuse me a through a with the exception of AF and AG can we a motion to approve motion second okay is there any questions Miss armino yes um on page eight uh Q uh I just want to before I make a statement I I have no issues with any of the names that are on here I just have a general question about and and this

174goes for anything else on the agenda that talks about this uh changes to salary guide uh it says uh approve the following salary guide changes retrospective so my question is any of the salary guide changes are they within the budget now that was we we H we don't have a new budget yet for this year right so we're making these changes we have we have our approved we have our approved budget so they are within this approved budget that's what I need to ask I can have Mr Allen speak to particulars but it is a contractual requirement it is a contractual requirement that once we we have confirmed that the appropriate um that's fine these are the normal steps absolutely and they are with within our budget that's correct okay M did you want to

175add anything or that's good not a problem with that next one is s again has nothing to do with the person uh it has to do with the position the truancy officer uh the job description I thought was for our security officer our district director of security I'll be happy it's officer yes so we did make a change so the truancy officer position is located in the mtea agreement and it is different than the change that we went with when we hired Mr Selby he is the director of security and residency those are two very different things so that is allocated within the contract and there's a specific job description because that is working in combination with parents and attendant and and nurses and so forth to help our children be back on track to

176be in school on a regular basis so treny officer is definitely different than residency that correct okay excellent and let me just see if I have anything else on that and thanks for the clarification and um page 14 a uh number two our Oprah secret ready is the next section uh no we're going down to Al right AK so page 12 14 it's a it's a I pul I picked up the new yeah I don't know we we keep changing our agendas a a number two right correct under under Oprah secretary let's just talk it's again it's about the position okay no I see it and I apologize but in my book it's on page 12 sorry about that okay well who has the updated agenda me or you I thought I did but that's

177okay I'm I'm I'm with you I see it I can follow AK okay well I want the public to know where we're talking about so the Oprah secretary is that a part-time position that is correct and that's also per a contract that's part of the Mt t b o o SSA okay say that I want to make sure I have the right letters MTB o SSA so that means Monroe Township Board of Education um is it central office wait she's going to help me support staff support staff ah this is the support I always leave out one letter that's why I was looking at Dr Layman it's it's like an ongoing joke so does does this position does this person have another job with the district or is it just one parttime okay no and

178there will be training is there oh yes and we have her schedule for the training and she's been working directly with the attorneys our goal is to have her as um as as properly educated in the areas to lessen the cost of utilizing the attorneys on a regular basis okay thank you um and and she just to make note that was a change in the start date she's already been approved right okay but this is somebody different than we had originally no all she did was change her date of start okay that is the exact individual that was previous board approved okay thank you m Ratner you have a question uh yeah just one um like us two quick things first just because I remember this having happened in the past we usually had gotten

179uh information about home instruction with covid I know the policy hasn't changed um is that information still going to be shared um regarding virtual home instruction because that hasn't changed yet if that makes sense like are there students that are receiving that I know it's not in this area but it's before that in the superintendent report for I se letter B home instruction so I was just wondering about that and I think I I think I hear you asking me if the details of the course will be shared on a regular basis as it has in the past even though the policy hasn't changed is that what you asked did I get that right yeah basically so the policy hasn't changed people who are still out because of covid restrictions are still receiving the same

180things that they had received last year as of now um so they're still receiving potential virtual home instruction and things of that nature that would be so that when we have that information so I would assume then let's say we have a very very small number but let's say in October it would make sense then those people that were board approved for either home instructional live streaming would then be provided in my superintendent report at this time it's the cart before the horse we don't have that information because we have that information but once payment comes to fruition then we it would be included okay sounds good I that's what you asked right yeah I just want you know that ification I wasn't sure if for the first two weeks hopefully there wouldn't be too

181many but you never know anyway and then my other question and I know one of the members of the public had asked about the 177% I noticed that there's a few teachers that have 34% I was just curious um I don't know how the um block schedules work necessarily at the high school I believe that they're because it's an ATT vote they are all High School Employees so I was just wondering how that exactly works so the goal with the 17% first of all is to be able to it can happen for two reasons either an extra section needed to be added or most of the time we have in this particular incident with 34% we have an employee that's being released from another District so while we wait for the employee to be released

182the 60 days contractual requirement as a certificated employee to be released we need to cover those classes and based upon schedule determines who gets that so of course in a perfect world we would always want to share the ability for individual 17% when necessary but in this particular case and I believe there was one possibly two but I do know right off the top of my head because I did look at that there was no other individual based upon the schedule requirements that could do that job it had to be that person in order to do it and I believe it's only until November okay I guess just knowing um and again my oldest is in sixth grade so I haven't experienced this yet but if I recall there's four classes each day that high

183school students receive in addition to lunch um I don't remember exactly how it works but by adding 34% they're teaching two extra classes well a teacher teaches two and three I'm so so therefore if you're teaching two extra perhaps on a day you're teaching an extra block for 17% and on b day you're teaching an extra Block in order to compensate for the fact that we're waiting for the teacher to come and in this incident we are waiting for a teacher be like instead of two and three it would be three and four right and that could also happen in the Middle School just so you're aware so a teacher could have to pick up two classes based upon the way they schedule works and they could be missing their prep and Team Planning we'd

184have no choice because you need it always is um the schedule drives the need so based upon who is available to teach the class is who would get that position okay and so just for clarification to continue consistency for the students that's why rather than doing like a coverage period you want the same teacher doing it every day which is why it's there ab and it is much better for continuity of instruction and they are getting exactly what they should be getting and they're they're on par with anybody else that might be teaching another class so that when the new teacher starts they can hit the ground running okay thank you okay any other questions okay Mrs Tagle farer can we have a roll call please miss Bora yes to all Miss Fabiano yes Miss

185Belco yes Miss Armenia yes Miss Scott yes Miss Ratner yes Miss gerby yes okay motion passes thank you Dr Layman's going to interject the exceptions so it's recommend commended that the board approve attached Personnel items AF and AG so move second okay there any questions all right see none Mrs Tagle farer can we have a roll call please miss Ratner yes Miss Belo yes Miss Armenia yes Miss Scott yes Miss Bora yes Miss Fabiano yes Miss gerby yes motion passes thank you continuing on under member vote it is recommended the board approve the attached Personnel items am through CF get a motion motion second second okay are there any questions I just like to make a com yes I just like to make a comment regarding um the second reading of the public participation in

186board meetings below p067 not there I thought we were Personnel I'm sorry I'll wait go ahead did you have a question Mrs Ratner no that okay good all right Mrs Tagle far can we have a roll call please miss Fabiana yes Miss Ratner yes to all except recuse on item BV for D rer so noted Miss armenio I want to be clear where we're at so we are at Personnel items nine member vote yes Miss Belco yes Miss Bora yes Miss Kirby yes motion passes thank you under a 10 member vote it is recommended that the board approve board action items a through r a motion move second okay any questions yes Michelle go ahead M okay um Bora I had a comment and I did have a discussion with Mrs Chanley but I wanted

187to make a public comment on it um item M has um uh approval of um self assessments done by our schools for determining the grades under the anti-bullying Bill of Rights Act and it's uh um all the schools took the self assessment and on an average most of the schools scored 74 to 75 out of uh highest score of 78 but middle schools self assess themselves at 65 out of 78 this could mean two things that middle school is doing the right assessment the way it should be done leaving room for improvement or middle school is asking for more resources to do their job right um I wanted to raise that concern to Mrs Chanley to pursue this look into this further um because it does stand out from rest of the school self assessment

188uh and that was the only comment I had anybody else yes Miss armeno okay um on uh f uh P the policy it's really a bylaw 0167 public participation in board meetings um I I am going and I should have um I I failed to mention this at the last meeting although I did vote no I believe uh that I think we are going in the opposite direction of our board goal uh I do believe that uh a couple things are starting to change the transparency that we have so forward in the last few years so I I really think we should re-evaluate this and one of the things I've noticed and maybe I can get clarification um because its participation at the meetings I I no longer see uh cameras here and the cameras

189don't focus on the those who uh the P members of the public who speak so I'm wondering um why that's happening and if it's going to change because I I thought it would also improve the skills and education and instruction of our children if we had you know multiple cameras I would I would think that that would be a good experience for them but I'm primarily you know concerned about it because it has changed the dynamic of the meeting if you if you review the meeting you only see a public participation you only see the backs their backs in the backs of their head we no longer have a c camera uh zooming in on either the public and I think it's still zooming in on the board members who speak but I'm sorry to

190see that we removed the camera from the public so um that's part of my uh objection to this particular bylaw but also in keeping with what we just said our goals would be for more transparency and participation I think that's a contradiction so thank you when did the camera get removed uh the summer over the summer there was um lack of um participation not participation but there was not enough um staff staff to man okay so then but now we're back in right full session so I hope we reevaluate can I call a point of order here is that even in the policy no okay so can we continue with this vote yes thank you m um I guess have a a question point a point of order um I had a question regarding this

191policy as well as the um facility usage policy I wanted to know if um to make sure we're doing things appropriately I should separate those to have the discussion and we're voting on the rest or just ask my questions at this time question okay so my question um I only have one about the public participation um I just wanted to get um CL Clarity on number two in public participation about it's limited to 4 minutes duration it shall not re include any response by a representative of the board at the end of the four minutes the participants time should be over so with that if I know we're asking people to bring all their questions at once make their statement and then um we can answer the questions um if the chair believes it's necessary

192if they have time left on the CL after that are they allowed to reply to their responses based on the changes to the policy no because the clock would continue running wouldn't stop right they it would it would the clock would stop if you're answering them and they've asked all their questions if they had if they were still at the podium up until 4 minutes they they could continue to talk right at four minutes that's it that's it they get a full four minutes to talk so if they can ask their questions in a minute and a half well no the clock would not stop that's the that's the change that's the change okay would have my misunderstanding it would be so when you have a speaker at the microphone asking qu so you come

193up you have your four minutes to make your statements ask whatever questions it's not intended to be a dialogue back and forth fourth so that if they're done and they say I'm done now please answer my questions the clock still Burns if there's still time remaining absolutely I guess my confusion is it says the four minutes shall not include any response by a representative of the board to any participants questions so the way I could read it is that someone instead of doing the back and forth like we had but they could ask all their questions upfront but the four minutes doesn't include the response so then once they're done speaking the clock stops for the answers and then they can reply no that's the the clock is not stopping is is the change to

194it it doesn't include so basically what the policy is setting forth is um to not have what used to happen prior when we didn't stop the clock so what would happen was members of the um public would be cut off um by either the board president or members of the administration and speak and run out the clock and then the timer would go off and you'd be told to go sit down this was putting in a a language to say that whoever is presiding over the meeting or Administration would not interrupt the speaker during those four minutes that you have those four minutes to say whatever statement you want and ask whatever questions and at the end of that then the questions could be answered and and when their time ends if we're still giving

195an if we're answering the question we're not taking up their time to answer the question okay um and then I don't know I mean I can ask my questions about the uh facility usage now or I wasn't sure if you want to focus on this policy first if anybody else had anything and then I could ask my questions regarding that I just had an observation on this and I I'm not sure when the exact implementation of the policy is going to happen but from my observations to today if if somebody stopped um talking on the public forum the clock did stop and they did there was back and forth and the clock started again so I I think whatever we decide whichever way we decide to go we would just have to be very consistent

196with this U with the directions that we give to the administration on not stopping the clock you know um when they're done well it had to stop today cuz that's part of the policy yes okay so it's going to change now it's not change if it's voted all right got okay um regarding the usage of the school fac facilities uh which is policy 7510 for anyone who may be following along um I wanted to ask a few questions and I could be wrong I know I attended the policy meeting this month I don't remember reviewing the second reads but I okay we didn't all right so um I'm right there um there were a few things that I definitely highlighted and now I can't find it at all um oh here we go so I

197guess my first thing is on there's no pages are there oh Page 6 of 12 uh under item e uh number one letter c um I guess I'm a little bit confused with the language there it says the use must not involve game gambling or games of chance for purposes of this regulation the terms gambling and games of chance shall not include the following and it mentions 50/50 Raffles ice cream Bingo tricky Raffles all of those things so when it says it does not include the following does that mean that you're allowed to have it so all of these these things can take place at the school okay I just wanted a clarification I know that's something that has come up um and then that wasn't a change to the policy that was in there

198originally all right um and then I was curious with item um I can actually skip item D but so then item G it says lighting equipment ventilation systems and thermostatic controls may be operated only by an employee of the district um if there is an organization and again I know these aren't all changes but since we were reviewing the policy and I notice these things reading them um is there an employee that's here I guess the custodian would be the one changing that I also know like in terms of stage lighting which is a little bit different the outside organization has to utilize the um approved vendors um and I was wondering um if there's in the policy the minimum amount because if I recall it was 10 hours that they are required to um

199contract the vender in order to use them for sounds and lighting and things like that um and so I guess I was just wondering if that's something that has to be put in the policy because there's the minimum cost or if that's just a a separate form um and then my final question about it was just um on page 10 with letter G where it says board members and school officials are entitled to full and free access to any part of the school premises for any use uh no user may exclude a board member or School official I was just because we were looking I was wondering exactly what the um meaning behind that was that was all and any school official or Board of Education member is entitled to attend any event being held

200in our school district okay so that we can act we can go to anything but we can't utilize it for any purposes that was just a confusing so if there if there's an event going on here we as a board member or School official Administration can attend we can't use the building for whatever needs we want but we can if there's an event we're allowed to come and attend it during any okay thank you so yeah I guess just the only thing that I was curious about with the regulation none of those were changes on there so I guess with the regulation and the changes in the fees I just was wondering if the minimum that they have to contract for the I think it was 10 hours I forget I think it was when

201we approve the budget perhaps um if that has to be something that's in the policy or if that's just no that's part of the fee schedule and the fee schedule is not part of the policy okay all right I think that is everything for there thank you sorry about that that's okay and just so you know going forward um when uh when the board has no questions or sending back a um policy back to the to the committee if there's nothing to discuss nothing came out of the board meeting generally you don't go through all of the policies for second read so that's because there was nothing that was asked to be looked at back at the committee level that's why there were there were no changes and it wasn't on the agenda okay thank

202you you're welcome anybody else okay Mrs Tagle far far maybe we have a roll call please miss Scott um you ask me first yes can I do it random just throw me off there a minute um yes to all except for uh P 0167 Miss Fabiano yes to all but no to policy 0167 Miss armeno yes on all but no to p0167 miss Belco yes to all Miss Ratner um yes to all no on policy 0167 Miss Bora yes to all Miss gerby yes motion passes with the exception of policy 0167 thank you okay may I may I ask a question so that policy change is not approved correct it was a 44 vote so it would not did not carry it did did not carry so we go back to the policy language before

203this was changed yes correct thank you just want to be clear okay thank you okay um under a nine member vote it is recommended that the board approve board action items s through y may we have a motion second any questions okay Mrs Tagle Farah may we have a roll call please miss Ratner um yes to all Miss Belo yes Miss Fabiano yes Miss Bora yes to all Miss armeno yes Miss gerby yes motion passes thank you if I may that concludes my report but I would like to welcome two administrators to our happy home Mr Eric lorri will now be the assistant principal at Monro Township middle school and Miss Lauren Dominic will be the acting assistant principal um to replace a leave at myON Township Middle School so I welcome them both thank

204you they were here they may have since gone that concludes my report thank you very much thank you and our next item on our agenda is our business administrator's report Mrs Allen um it is recommended that board action items a through H be approved by consent roll call motion second second okay are there any questions Mrs Ratner um just a quick question um two actually the first is um if members of the public are they able to see the bill list or is that they are it's on the agenda okay cuz I someone had wanted to see something and they weren't able to and I just wanted to clarify I was able to see it when I wasn't logged in so I assumed it was but I just wanted a clarification um and then just

205um because you know it has been discussed um you know and I appreciate the um comments made by a member of the public I just want to confirm that um by going forward with item H which is regarding the referendum should there be a discussion with the township that states that we're going to have a significant increase in numbers that doesn't put us in a spot where we still couldn't modify it if needed this just allows us to continue moving along so so this is submitting the current projects to the state for approval and as it states in the bot that in that first paragraph under H for which requests State funding and wishes to seek approval for the doe so this is the next step in the process and you know if there's a

206submit if there's a change to the project then everything that this project this represents would have to be changed we'd have to resubmit again with L larger smaller project and we may not and and I just want to State I think it's important that we are moving forward for the April 2023 based upon what we currently have any changes could absolutely delay going out to a referendum for 2023 in April I I would just want to be transparent and make that statement okay which I appreciate I know that we had made um you know back in May or June the modification moving from some of them from the Middle School to the high school and at that point we were still allowed and I just wasn't sure where the exact cut off was and I'm

207assuming it's it's this right here okay anybody else have any other questions okay Mrs Tagle Farah maybe we have a roll call please miss Fabiano yes Miss Ratner um yes um except recu on Item B which is the bill list on just for the reimbursement for D rner so noted Miss Belco yes Miss Scott yes Miss Bora yes Miss Armenia yes Miss gerby yes motion passes thank you okay it is recommended that board action items item I be approved by consent roll call motion motion second are there any questions all right we have a roll call please Mrs Tagle Farah Miss Bora yes Miss armeno yes Miss Belco yes Miss Fabiano yes Miss Ratner yes and Miss gerby yes motion passes thank you and that concludes your report correct okay our next item on the

208agenda is our board president's report I will keep it short um I want to start off by congratulating the entire administrative team our teachers staff and everyone who had a hand in the successful opening of our schools earlier this month it is a huge task getting ready for new school year to begin on on behalf of the board we recognize all the efforts that were made I'm excited for this new school year and New Beginning for our school district this Friday is the homecoming football game the district will be celebrating the official ribbon cutting ceremony of our new turf field and track I hope everybody from our community will come out and partake in the celebration I hear it's going to be a wonderful night the weather is supposed to be beautiful so I think

209this is a great opportunity for us to come together as a community and celebrate um especially for our students and our athletes and our entire Community as they participate and are able to use our Fields as well that concludes my president report our next item on the agenda is other board business anybody have anything Mrs belome yeah I just wanted to uh report to the board um it was very interesting that U Mr Elias came up and started talking about getting more involved legislatively because on a whim I signed up for the New Jersey School Board Association legislative committee meeting on a whim um it happened to be a Saturday morning I said I got nothing better to do on a Saturday morning so I sat for three hours and I listened to the Schoolboard

210legislative committee which I found to be very interesting and um I have with me and I will share this with the rest of the board um is some documents that um they sent with which was part of the agenda there's also going to be a PowerPoint one of the senator cochins one of his people that works with him in his office did a really nice presentation about upcoming legislation that is important for schools and school boards um the School Board Association talked about what they support what they don't support um and What legislation has come forward and um I actually found it very interesting there were some things that they did pass and I'll just really and I have the legislative numbers if you want them I'm not going to sit here and read them

211but there some recent things that went through was um there's an electric School Bus program not all school districts will be involved in it but there's a program um and the first year of it will be will be coming there's a uh the school threat assessment team which we already we knew was coming and we already I believe we're kind of already ahead of the curve on that um there's project grants for uh calling securing our children's future fund there's um field test CL for the class of 2023 um all of these are um laws and and legislation that this The New yor School Board Association has supported um there's also a law about extending the life of school buses before um authorizes the chief administrator to allow one-year extension um in subsequent two years

212because of the pandemic and all that stuff that went on um there's a couple of other um pieces here um about free meal um School expansions there's some legislation out there that they're working on for Staffing shortages um School mapping student Civic engagement there's a lot of things out there that I think um you know I have to tell Mr Elias I think you're right I think we do need to be spending more time in Trenton and and being on top of this stuff and being part of this and and um you know I I honestly didn't think that I was really going to enjoy myself Friday morning by Saturday morning but I actually did I learned a lot and learned a lot of different things about what happening there are some workshops coming up

213and you all get this in in your emails from the New Jersey School Board Association so and it's you can sign up there some these things are free just to attend and to go and um the chat goes crazy I mean it was very interesting um to do that but they were really uh one of the things that they really were um hot about that they they're not really happy about is the increase and I know we don't use the school health benefits program from the state we use something different but their prices for the school went through the so School Board Association is trying to work with them on that they do um one of the things they did share was a letter that they sent out to the acting commissioner um Miss Allan

214McMillan in reference to the nons support of the early smart testing thing the smart assessments at there we were already apparently doing based on my the report from our young students here um and it's it's a lengthy letter I am certainly not going to bore you by reading it but it did go out um it was signed by people from njaa uh Association of school administrators school boards Association Council of County votch uh New Jersey principles and supervisors Garden State Coalition save our schools New Jersey New Jersey public charter schools and New Jersey Children's Foundation so this initiative of these tests are not supported by most of these education institutions I found that very very interesting um not a big fan of a lot of tests either but I found this very interesting that educators

215are not supportive of this so I thought that was an interesting anybody who wants to read that um is um certainly so free to come up and do that but I found it really very interesting the next meeting is December 10th so it'll be coming through if anybody wants to join me on a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee and you know uh something it was very interesting to can I ask a question sure you don't have somebody assigned to legislature of the board like there's it's not our board we have someone assigned that reports uh I guess it's what every three months I think there's the legislature meeting so there's not one specifically on on she's the school board delegate I forget who this the oh you're theate so usually that personal yes

216usually that person reports to us on the board whenever there's the delegate assembly and and then you also have to if you want to get certified you have to attend so many legislature meetings yes does anybody have anything else Mrs Ratner um so along those lines um and obviously it's been covered but you know definitely a great job across the board mean the teachers administrators everyone not us as a board on opening of school lots of happy kids going to school um I had the opportunity to attend one of the uh ice cream socials at u m and Woodland and you know it was just really good to see kids being excited to be at school um I also um you know definitely agreed there were some great ideas from public forum that would really

217love to move forward on one having not only necessarily legislatively is on which um you know I attended the delegate assembly back in April or May it was and then I know there's another one coming up in in November so the next delegate assembly is in November they also have obvious um sessions you know all the time um I had attended an informational session um with a I believe it was actually a rep for Senator uh Vin gopal who he's the chair of the education uh senate committee however I think he had had a a newborn baby and so somebody was covering on his behalf um but you know there's definitely a lot of information and then of course um you know next month they'll have the agenda for the delegate assembly which I would

218uh you know be happy to send to all of the board members so that if there's any questions I can obviously bring it forth in November um along those lines regarding uh njba um there's also um a county meeting that I'm excited to attend on October 6th I believe it is and then the um Workshop that I know a few of us are attending at the end of the month which um you know I've always been a very big fan of professional development um I actually you know finish governance one and I believe I have the hours ACW to receive that certification um as needed um so but I also think in addition to a liaison for the legislation it might be nice to have a legis a days on for our Our Town legislation

219um just because you know there are Town Council meetings and obviously we can attend and by name means do I think we should be taking part in them we're not elected to serve there but just to gather that information that's being given so that if there's something pressing that we need to know as a board of education we have that information um and then also I know another member had um brought up the the packet to give to um people who mooved to the the district um I think that's a great idea as well I know that there are people who come in and there's the ability to register for schools information there but some people you know have to look and search for these things so to be given it when you're moving to

220a new house everything's overwhelming so it's always nice to uh have that information right there um and then just the last thing without going into anything of the negatives is I just wanted to share that I had a friend who lives in piscatway who had compliment who not complimented me but complimented our Monro students on their Exemplar behavior um at athletic events and I just wanted to share that it's a common theme that you know I hear in the state whether it's through music events athletic events but you know whether it's because of our administrators or you know our coaches or our um our students I'm just really proud that you know our students really truly represent themselves and us very well and so it obviously made me smile to hear that from somebody from

221another town great thank you anybody else Miss Bor really quick I have a comment uh for Mrs Chanley and Dr Layman um of course it was a wonderful start of the school year very normal so grateful for that um all of us have read in the news about the staff shortage across the country um and the driver shortage still exists across the country but I wanted to take a moment to thank you for your hard work Mr Chanley and Dr Layman for all the positions that were awakened we did start pretty very well stoed and um for the buses we've not seen any challenges yet um knock on wood all sports teams no complaints compared to last year it has been very smooth right a very smooth start of the year and I want to

222congratulate the entire Administration for the hard work behind it thank you thank you and yes I'm excited for the opening ceremony of our beautiful new field um thank you to Mrs arminio's work with you know collaborating with the town and thank you to the town for you know making it happen at this pace thank you and hard work of Mr T and his team in getting this done so efficiently and quickly without any issues thank you yes Miss Armenia um about about the the uh track and everything I just want the town to know that we we have been always uh uh fiscally responsible and we it would have been over budget to put this very big Medallion of the uh of the school on the on the um field and it would have been

223great and everybody would have loved it but it cost an extra $100,000 and this board decided that we would stay with the normal standard Medallion I'm and it does look beautiful uh but we we were really responsible and since it would have been $100,000 that we would have had to come up with without the shared services because it was over budget uh we decided to be responsible and put that so I'm very proud of that as well that we you know with all the enthusiasm of getting the new track and everything we had we had to be responsible and since I um spoke out of turn uh around with the policy I'm just going to just mention that I do believe we should bring the cameras back and give our students an opportunity to work

224with them and if we need more Staffing and we put staff more Staffing everywhere else so I just hope that we see the cameras back for the school year and have our students participate in that thanks thank you anybody else okay see none our next item on the agenda is our public forum if you would like to speak you have four minutes to come to the podium state your name and town that you live in good evening good evening my name is Tracy Hart I reside at 110 Avenue K East Monroe Township I will read off all of my questions um couple questions one I submitted some information pertaining to a community event where a parent uh last year not yet last year I think two years ago suffered an injury where she lost her

225hand and in her efforts to navigate this system personally she realized that there is a shortfall and gaps in ability to pay for your prosthetic hands and some of the services that they needed so she created a foundation I submitted that information to the superintendent I got a response back from the assistant superintendent indicating that the information will be included in the Falcon flyer regarding the fundraising event which is a wathon my request was to have a email blast such as some of the other fundraisers that have been utilized and that was what I want both would be great if that can happen thank you and if it cannot happen I want to know why okay the next question um pertains to um the district on the district um strategic plan it specifically states that

226go for indicates the Maro Township School District strives to create strong Partnerships with our community Through authentic communication and accessibility the Strategic plan was created in 2020 and it's a four-year plan I have been advocating since that creation because I was a part of the Committees that were discussing what the needs were in the township when it was created one of them was for me personally was some of the issues pertaining to African-American students in the school district some of the racial things that were occurring okay you all almost at the end of the Strategic plan I was advised that the committee a committee would be created to dialogue and discuss these concerns I had a meeting with Dr lman very cordial I didn't bite his head off I didn't yell in them I didn't

227scream it's like a fear why is it I've asked numerous years almost every year why haven't this committee been created I would like to answer to that question I think it's important I think it's important to discuss the incident that the students have experienced especially during the time period when everything was virtual a lot of things were said and done to African-American students with no consequences and they were advised that because it was virtual that they could not identify the perpetrator okay so those are my questions and then the last one this was it this week last week the community engagement committee was meeting meeting I wasn't able to get in on it that meeting I don't know what happened um technology I wasn't able to get on in on that com that meeting um

228want to know what happened and if it's something that can easily be fixed because when you clicked on it it went to the um buildings in the what BG btg um yeah Transportation committee meeting thank you thank you so there was a technical error um with the link um they we were not aware during the meeting as it was taking place that people could not get in um the committee meetings are all videotaped and they are all on our website being you are able to view you weren't able to view the live stream but the video of that meeting should be available on the website okay is it currently available that was a technical error it wasn't intended to be done as some may put out there on social media that we are trying to

229block people from seeing it we absolutely were not we were not aware I was here we were not aware that that was not working I think Miss Bora may have email texted us that there's something wrong with the link we had our it gentleman here and he was very apologetic that the wrong link was out there we do make mistakes we apologize on behalf of the Board of Education I apologize to anybody who tried to watch that live um but we do have the video up there if you would like to view the meeting thank you and the other questions uh Mrs Chanley if you would like to answer those the email that you sent me there are numerous different um activities or events that get split between Dr Layman and myself so regarding the

230email that you sent that was photoed Dr Layman where he did say it would be put in the newsletter I have no issue with sting out to sting out through Blackboard connect I think all of the organizations that do such wonderful things should be given as much fanfare and as much um you know hype out there so that we can get more and more people involved so that is not even a problem at and I will acquest to Dr Layman because I do know that he met with you regarding the community and I I can't speak about what happened you know I wasn't even the Acting Superintendent at the time that there was any type of events so um or um negative occurrences but I I know that we talked about um a committee so

231we'll be happy to send that out for you no problem okay do you have a time frame because I would like to see that could it could be out by Friday okay thank you because I think be problem that will um expedite things thank you so we we had a conversation in the late spring uh corre actually approaching summertime and uh you know certainly the diversity equity and inclusion focus is something that's very important for our community and you know we we support 100% developing a a parent group uh a community group to discuss racial issues um the the in original intent when it was brought up in 2020 was to kind of collaborate with a company um to facilitate that discussion because I think when you're inside an organization sometimes you are living that

232and you need somebody with an outside perspective to kind of mediate facilitate and kind of provide different perspectives so um as we mentioned in that conversation uh one of the companies that we were looking to interact with we actually are engaging with uh for some other services they also provide some uh some other Mental Health Services but they have they have a whole division that would work with us in terms of diversity equity inclusion work so um we developed a part partnership with that committee or that that uh company and the next step would be to kind of further that conversation and really bring them on board to uh explore as a community some of those issues and uh I'm 100% on board with that I know our administrative team is also very much supportive

233of that endeavor and uh it's something we have to do thoughtfully and carefully and make it meaningful uh and and that's why um you know we're not jumping in and rushing in and just bringing a group of people together without uh a purpose in a direction that would really benefit our children so okay great and I am available as a community member and a representa of the population thank you thank you anybody else wishing to speak okay seeing none we will close the public forum our next item on our agenda is our closed session resolution on so I can see be it resolved that the board of of Education of the township of Monroe hereby moves into closed session in accordance with the Sunshine Law chapter 231 of the public laws of 1975 njsa 10

234col 4-6 through1 4-21 to discuss the following subjects harassment intimidation and bullying matters protected by attorney client privilege following closed session action may be taken the discussion conducted in closed session can be disclosed to the public at such time as the need for confidentiality no longer exist can I get a motion move second all those in favor I um I believe a secretary do we need to appoint a secretary I need to pay back with Mr Gman I would like to appoint Miss belel secretary all those in favor I apparently the group got it not a problem believe it should be a pretty short close session so maybe about a half hour we'll be back okay we're back in the public session our next scheduled board meeting is October 19th 2022 can I get a

235motion to adjourn motion second all in favor I I thank you our meeting is adjourned thank you thank you