001good evening we're going to call our meeting to order this is the Monroe tent Board of Education monthly meeting today is Wednesday November 15 2023 please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Miss Allen may we have a roll call please yes Miss Alvarez here miss Belco here miss Bora here miss depan here miss Fabiano oh um M Ratner here miss Scott here miss gerby here Mr Tano no okay we have a quorum um in accordance with the provisions of the New Jersey open public meetings law the Monroe Township Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published an electronic notice provided
002by having the date time in place thereof posted November 10th 2023 at all schools on the district website the home News Tribune cranberry press and filed with the clerk of the municipality thank you you're welcome the next item on our agenda is our statutory oath for our uh new board member who was appointed last month at our meeting to fill the vacant seat of Karen Beerman after her resignation uh Mr Matthew Goram I invite you to come up now and we will do the statutory oath check one two I'm Matthew gor do Solly swear that I support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and that I will hear the true faith and allegiance to the same and to the government established in the United States and
003this state under the authority of the people so help me God I Matthew gorm do solemnly swear that I possess the qualifications prescribed by law for the office of member of a board of education and I will faithfully impartially and justly perform all duties of the office according to the best of my ability so help me God I Matthew gorm to solemnly swear and declare that I am not disqualified as a voter pursuant to rs1 19.4 D1 and I am not disqualified to hold this office due to conviction of a crime or offense listed in nja njsa 18 A-1 12-1 so help me God thank you thank you very [Applause] much oh great okay congratulations again thank you welcome to our table the next item on the agenda is our Clos session resolution be it
004resolved that the Board 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 col 4-6 through1 col 4-21 to discuss the following subjects harassment intimidation or bullying matters protected by attorney client privilege confidential Personnel matter following close session action may be taken the discussion condu conducted in close session can be disclosed to the public at such time as the need for confidentiality no longer exists can I get a motion so move second second all those in favor I I all right we will now move into Clos session thank you my microeconomics there for business okay good evening we're back in our public session the next item on our agenda is our student board members report we have
005one of our student board board members here sah hedge good welcome good evening if you want to give your report to the board sure thank you so much um so I'll start off with this evening Barkley Brook after a busy but successful week of parent teacher conferences Barkley Brook ended the month of October with Halloween parades and class celebrations the Barkley Brook staff dress up theme this year was Mario and Mrs Mahoney led the Halloween parades as Mario additionally the mon Town Fire Department District 3 sponsored a fire safety assembly for the students students learned about fire safety and visited the fir Tru Upon returning from our November break Barkley Brook School has welcomed parents to visit and participate in class activities for American Education week the students are also currently working on a school
006wide stem project that will that will be displayed and celebrated next week um moving on to Brookside parent teacher conferences took place on October 18th and October 19th and they had an exceptional turnout out Brookside school held a think pink day fundraiser for breast cancer awareness on November 2nd parent visitation for American Education week is taking place this week Brookside had over 120 parents pre-register to attend additionally Brookside student council offers have been selected and are beginning tasks such as assisting with student arrival and dismissal and exploring fundraisers Woodland Elementary School celebrated Halloween with several fun activities such as a pumpkin patch sponsored by the PTO and stem activities in the classroom student council and the unified Pal's students coordinated thinkpink day and spina be Awareness Day Mund Township Fire District number one visited Woodland
007and provided the students with a fun and very informative assembly including very important fire safety tips such as planning your Escape stop drop and roll and students were able to check out the fire department's gear and clothing as well miss Herman and Miss Fleming coordinated activities leading up to Veterans Day the school kicked off the events with a wounded warrior wathon in the gym while raising funds the school raised approxim approximately $3,800 toward the Wounded Warrior Project and will be visited by this foundation in the new year on Friday November 3rd several veterans were honored during the school's first Veterans Day assembly the American Legion showed the students why there are 13 folds in the American flag and what each means veterans shared stories and children had the opportunity to ask questions it was an
008incredible day and this assembly will be available on the school website Woodland celebrates American Education week by inviting parents and Guardians into the school on the 15th and 16th of November Oak Tree Elementary Schools November 13th to 17th is American Education week at Oak Tree on November 14th all of Oak tre's first grade students participated in a firsty Fall Festival at which they sang and rotated to different stations with their parents grade three will be celebrating balloons over oak tree creating different kinds of balloons similar to those on display at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade parents will assist with the stem projects other classes at Oak Tree have invited parents in to join their child with a V variety of projects and activities plann through the week on November 2nd Oak tre's PTA planned a
009falcon friends reading night parents and children attend the event where you were able to create a stuffed Falcon similar to Bill de bear teachers were on hand to read stories to the students who were also able to visit Oak Tre Scholastic Book Fair on November 21st one book one school will return to Oak Tree this program is when Mrs D Moore the principal reads the same story to all the classes in the school throughout the school day each year the books focus on a different theme this year the book is focused on making good choices the first book is the way I act Oak Tre student council is running its annual food drive for Thanksgiving to help families in need each grade is assigned different parts of a dinner and then donations are distributed to
010local families Oak tre's annual holiday shop will take place on November 30th and December 1st moving along to Applegarth our students completed letters to the veterans in the month of no of November Applegarth is continuing coding classes after school on November 15th and November 29th on November 21st Applegarth is running a mad science class stunt planes and flight after school Applegarth has American Education week parent visits from November 13th to the 17th over 100 parents have signed up to visit Applegarth and we look forward to their visits student council is running a food drive for a local food pantry as well on November 20th Applegarth is running a schoolwide election complete with sign-ins and voting booths appleg will simulate the voting process to decide upon a school motivational statement suggested by the fifth grade classes
011for the 2023 24 school year the oak tree and Applegarth PTA has run the following recent and upcoming events as well the Halloween trunk Retreat which which was a huge success the Thanksgiving pie sale Cornucopia making class on November 21st Falcon family fun night school store on the 15th and the holiday shop on November 28th and 29th though this is a short month of school days Applegarth has packed it full moving on to monor Township Middle School they celebrated their American Education week the week of November 13th to 17th M Township Middle School invited the parents to visit on November 14th and after School clubs resumed on November 14th M tachet Middle School will also be holding virtual parent teacher conferences on November 20th and 21st and last but not least Mund Township High School
012has enjoyed a wonderful start to the month of November with its annual fall Coffee House on November 1st the annual Spanish and Italian Honor Society volleyball tournament will take place November 16th M Township High School look forward to a wonderful rest of the month along with a bunch of sports tryouts and many many other events thank you so much for listening this evening thank you thank you for the comprehensive report our schools are doing so much from elementary through Middle School through high school and we appreciate you keeping on top of all their events and Reporting them to us so thank you very much all right uh the next item on our agenda is our student and staff recognition presentation it gives me great pleasure to welcome our students and their families here this evening
013and our staff members being recognized um it truly is a wonderful evening tonight to recognize um the Great accomplishments of our students as well as our staff members um so Mrs CH Dr Chanley I will uh turn it over to you thank you very much good evening everyone and um to Echo what Miss scurby said we're very happy to have everyone here this evening one of the things that we'd like to try and do is um acknowledge and uh celebrate our our children your children and celebrate our staff members as well because um success is always a team effort and rather than just just have it all at the end of the year we're really going to try and celebrate on a monthly basis so for this evening's presentation we are acknowledging our staff who
014did an exceptional job preparing our children to be a success on the AP examinations additionally we have children that go above and beyond in our community both in the school community and in the external community of Monroe for volunteerism um that always includes our Boy Scouts and Eagle Scouts when they do projects to get back to their schools so um it's just an opportunity to say um we're excited to acknowledge everybody's success and uh we get to do that aloud and I want to thank um Mr morala as well as our other administrators that are here this evening to work um that have worked toward this and to be able to be here for the presentation and to acknowledge our children so on that note we're going to um I'm going to ask anyone that
015would like to come forward Miss kby um Miss Bora Dr lame anyone else that would like to join us we're going to stand up front and shake some hands and give out some certificates and and we're so glad you're here to watch so thank you very much thank you Dr Chanley Mrs scurby uh this year uh we've we're going to try to recognize our staff and students throughout the year as opposed to just at the end of the year as we've done in years's past to make sure all of our individuals that are being recognized get the attention and the acknowledgement that they deserve this month uh we're going to be uh our theme is although we're not theming our months our theme uh is centering on some of the service activities that our students
016students have accomplished over the last few months in addition to the outstanding accomplishments of our instructors at the high school as Dr Chanley stated so if we could Advance the slide we're struggling a little bit that's okay but our first uh presenter who would like to talk about some of the service that uh our students perform this summer at our summer program is Miss Heidi Cantor who is a teacher of family consumer science at the mono Township High School Miss Canter if you'd like to come up okay um I I see everybody's names up there all right good evening my name is Mrs caner I'm part of the family consumer science um teachers here at Monro tum High School um I actually teach living on your own I was honored to um be able to
017teach cooking with caner this summer and I had amazing group of student volunteers so um each and every one of these students took out time from their summer schedule and showed up here at school 8:00 every morning till 12:30 literally being like bombarded by everything that was going on in the kitchens but performed Excellence as far as teaching these young young students that were campers how to cook so I'm going to start reading off these names and they'll come up here and receive their award all right first I have Jasmine all right would she like to come up right okay I would like Kelsey to please come [Applause] up yeah yeah I'm just going in order of the girls that I see that are here all right I'm sorry to kind of yeah I'm just
018calling the girls so they could see here all right okay I have Hannah you like to come up yes now Hannah Hannah abond okay see that I'm making you guys work tonight you're working tonight okay um Mia like to come up and I'm looking to see who else is here at kushy okay I never do anything easy so I'm just warning you now all right so this is Mia teranova okay pushy Shaw you like to come [Applause] up um the other girls I really don't see here this evening but I'm GNA I'll State their names so Anna chin was one of the participants this summer um Marisol okay tamama um Sophia Shelly and I think that's it that's it and honestly all these girls really experienced a wonderful summer um with our program and a
019lot of these girls are seniors and they're graduating so I want to give them a round of applause for all that they did thank you so our next uh group of students that we'd like to recognize were Volunteers in our summer Art Studio which is right down the hall from cooking with caner under the supervision of Mr David varelis who I do not believe is here tonight I did not see him come in so I will read their names and if you are here tonight please come forward uh these students did an exceptional job working with our younger art students here in the district which is sometimes a little bit more than you bargain for when you're working with young artists but they did a fantastic job particularly with managing the mess that all of
020our clay made so uh if you're here please come up and we thank you uh in uh in advance Mega garala Nia Patel and sahil sahil Travi and seeing none of them here tonight we will move on to the next category which were uh our volunteers that helped us uh design and execute our District's first attempt at the first Lego League uh this was a volunteer effort that began prior to the summer last spring in conjunction with members of our community and uh what it resulted in was us learning an entire new computer science platform and designing it for our younger students um grades 3 to eight uh and we got it off the ground and we could absolutely not have done it these students had gone through it before and in some instances were
021instructing our staff on uh many of the learning modules so we absolutely could not have run this program without them and their uh leadership and also their content area expertise um I know not all of them are here tonight but I want to read their names regardless and I apologize in advance for any mispronunciations of your name avani garala Anish mcar hanisha Candia [Applause] and nitish Zuko sunu my apology thank you Anish and uh these students worked under the supervision of Miss Kristen Miller the uh next uh recognition uh worked for me directly um and I'm very appreciative of all that she did to help help us uh in a variety of tasks beginning last spring and throughout the summer uh CIA Desai um had considerable experience in many of the enrichment camps that we
022were running despite only being an eighth grader so it was an awesome opportunity to have someone with expertise and work ethic that of an adult come and join us this summer and work with a Miss singer mide myself and uh really participate in all of the activities and do a lot of the things that most people wouldn't have wanted wanted to do themselves but took it as a learning experience and she continues to volunteer for me to this day so I'd like to call her up and recognize her thank you C [Applause] Desai so that wraps up uh the component that spoke about the service and volunteer efforts for our summer program we'll now shift over to some of the volunteer services that took place throughout our community um under the umbrella of our Boy
023Scouts of America here locally and uh Miss Graziano if you're back here if you'd like to maybe oh there you are so I'll I'll invite uh principal Graziano from Applegarth Elementary School to speak a little bit about this next uh uh acknowledgement good evening everyone it's a real pleasure for me to be able to uh give an award to this student uh and boy scout he he approached me at Applegarth and asked totally open-mindedly how he might be able to do something to help the school um he wound up building by hand uh a bunch of tables that he created an outdoor classroom with for Applegarth school um he mulched the area framed the area built the tables and he also purchased a whiteboard for teachers to be able to work on when they bring
024their classes outside during nice weather it was a beautiful gift to Applegarth and it's especially uh special to us because he was an apple graduate several years ago so I'm so happy to be able to recognize abanov mananti up andov if you could come up you are a wonderful young man you are a wonderful student and now you are a wonderful human as well giving back to your community thank you [Applause] abanov so our next uh our next recognition uh is another Boy Scouts of America project that took place at Barkley Brook School uh Miss Mahoney was not able to join us tonight but she wanted to make sure that we included this next individual for his contributions uh and a long line of familial contributions to the district um particularly with through the Boy
025Scouts which are always appreciative of our Service Groups here in town and I would like to acknowledge uh rayan Bora for his service to the bar [Applause] so pivoting back to more student-driven service projects in the classroom I would like to ask principal Graziano to come back up and talk about the next group of individuals me again uh I want to thank this group of young men that are over there behind the bookshelves uh we had a parent at Applegarth who bumped into these guys teaching a coding class and she recruited them to see if they would be willing to come to Applegarth and do some introductory coding activities with our students so uh the guys have rocked the house with participation we've had groups of 50 plus come out to have their introductory coding
026classes taught to them the these guys are so patient um so understanding with the students they they go around and they help them when they get stuck I actually propositioned them all to go into the education field last year and they all turned me down unfortunately I think maybe they want to do a little something more with this computer stuff but you never know they might change their minds uh I only know them by their first name so guys please forgive me if I butcher your last names okay we have aditia denani gam Kota Milan pie hallw ready Janan Sha navne [Applause] thanal and Abit savam thank you for the many hours you have spent at Applegarth working with our students we appreciate you and I would just like to add uh that our uh
027coding volunteers will be visiting Brookside later this uh season so thank you for taking the program to Brookside later on okay next we're going to shift to uh F and Performing Arts now we will be doing a full uh acknowledgement of our athletic competition and uh competitive uh Performing Arts season later on in the school year but tonight we're going to uh talk about our Middle School participants of marching Pand spe marching band excuse me specifically and I'll have uh our marching band director at the high school Mr sha nagpa come on up now and discuss why uh this is a significant participation from our Middle School students [Applause] good evening everyone uh for those of you that don't know me my name is Mr sha nagpaul I'm actually the band director at the high
028school one of the band directors um but I have the pleasure of teaching both uh the middle actually at all most of the elementary schools and the middle school as well um my job is very I'm very fortunate to have this position where I can teach fourth through 12th grade uh music which is really nice um one of the benefits of my job is I get to direct a marching band and um one of the great things we offer is allowing eighth graders to join our marching band which is a lot of fun um it's for social emotional reasons you know getting them to prep for high school but also we wanted to give those eighth graders a lot of opportunity to enhance their musical skills and for those of them that are not getting
029that for those of them that are looking for more of a challenge they got that at the high school level with marching band which we provided so we would like to recognize um our class of eighth graders this year um and which is one of our largest classes of eighth graders which 14 students so Henry alvarenga t deru uh jaran Kaylor snika Malik [Applause] capeta Jun Ray McCarthy Evan [Applause] n sui Oak Aman Patel Nikki pole ronet pole Dylan polock Sonet seum arpa tulsan and myy visan thank you so much everyone thank you Mr nagpaul so last month uh Dr Layman presented uh a school testing report included in that report was our results from our most recent AP testing and uh the second half of our special presentation tonight is going to be to
030acknowledge the Fantastic instructors that had worked with our students that led to these results but before doing that we have very special student recognition pursuant to those results and I will now introduce our one of our high school's assistant principles Dr Jim cernansky to uh conclude our presentation tonight thank you so for an AP seminar exam perfect score we have uh Simon uh calori okay now we have bunch of uh many different departments many different AP teachers some of them are here this evening uh we're going to start with our advanced placement instructors for mathematics and computer science so I'm going to read the names if you are here please come up to the front Miss Jennifer Chase calculus Miss Kathleen dhy calculus Mr Gerald Minter computer science Miss Sarah pisenti computer science Mr Peter
031ruell calculus and actually he was statistics sorry uh Miss Tracy Sher [Applause] calculus okay now we have advanced placement instructors for the Sciences Dr Rama bassu physics Mr Jeff Francis physics Dr Chris himber biology Mr Christian Jessup ecology and environmental Sciences Dr George pangalos [Applause] chemistry and Miss Tracy Rickert venino environmental science now we have our advanced placement instructors for English language arts and World Language Mr Robert Burns English language Arts Miss Natasha caranante Spanish miss Shay Cohen seminar Miss Sarah Cox Italian language and cultures Miss Sharon DeMarco research English Miss Carolyn mcru English language [Applause] arts Miss Beth wal English language [Applause] arts now we have social studies Miss Jackie I bruzi US history Mr John beos US History Mr Kenneth chandley European history Miss Allison Driscoll US History Miss Marissa Gara US history
032and US Government Mr Tom Lions psychology Miss Alexa Marshall US History Mr Chris Thum US history now we have advanced placement instructors for the fine Performing Arts careers technology Mr Eugene G Quinto microeconomics Miss Maria nomic Studio Art Mr Mark Pierce microeconomics Miss Lindsay Reinhard music theory Miss Elana Sayad macroeconomics Mr David verellis art history Miss Marina Vin [Applause] macroeconomics and we have our advanced placement program coordinator Miss Casey [Applause] buffalino thank you have a nice evening hi there we have one uh final recognition uh this evening and I don't know if Miss Caro is back yet because you know we do have to run Falcon here but when we when she had uh when we notified our administrative leadership team um about any individual staff members that were worthy of recognition uh she immediately
033Miss carralo immediately responded and said there's an individual that deserves recog and I'm not sure if she's here tonight and even if she's not we want to read her name and recognize the contributions to the Falcon Care Program which takes place after school hours and services many students in our community and I just want to say thank you and acknowledge Miss Joan Conroy for her contributions to the Falcon CARE program so uh Dr Chanley Mrs scurby that concludes this uh month's student in staff recognition thank [Applause] you okay just give another round of applause to everybody that we recognize tonight congratulations to everyone all of our students and our staff who make our district so wonderful the next item on our agenda are our committee reports there any committee wishing to give a report Miss
034Bora I'm going to be presenting two committee reports today um for Mr toffano I'm going to be presenting the bg& that's the one I'll start with um the bg& committee met on November 1st uh the members in attendance were Mrs scurby myself Mr Tano Mrs Fabiano um and Miss Scott um and uh the item discussed were the varsity baseball field at the September 13 2023 bg& committee meeting the committee reviewed the scope of 2014 renovations to the VAR City baseball field and heard concerns presented to the athletic director Steven Banda regarding the condition of the field specifically the gravel warning track surface behind home plate and options for upgrades Mr baranda updated the committee having recently inspected the field with Mr Russ Church of the Monroe Township baseball association Mr Church indicated that there were
035no significant safety concerns related to the current construction type however his preference would be to you to use would be the use for alternate materials Administration provided budget estimates in the range of $17,500 for replacing the warning track surface with sod under drainage and irrigation the committee requested that any natural seasonal erosion that may be creating lips between surfaces be addressed prior to the start of the baseball season along with the application of a quality INF field mix furthermore the committee supports the donation of Bullpen fencing by a parent baseball group the committee requests Administration pursue an estimate for changing the infield of the war City baseball field to a Synthetic Turf infield material the second item on the agenda was a lacrosse rebound wall the committee requests that Mr Banda survey surrounding districts to
036obtain information regarding any lacrosse tennis rebound walls that may have been recently constructed and return and return to the committee with ideas for construction of such a wall on our property once the scope and location are determined Administration could further pursue the cost of constructing the same as a future capital budget expenditure furthermore the committee chair noted that there may be potential for a donation of construction services for this project third item on the agenda was the annual landscape contract the committee supports renewal of the contract with boss Landscaping at the contracted 2% annual increase for the 2024 season the administration will prepare a resolution for board action on this h on this contract which is on the agenda today uh the fourth item was the oak tree solar update Administration provided a performance overview
037of the system for it from its Inception in 2008 through September 2023 it is estimated the cost of construction will be fully offset in about 2 years utili utilizing the new reduced SRE sales rate from that point forward all Energy savings and revenue from SRE sales sales will be 100% profit Administration noted that since we entered the program in 2008 the value of a SRE has varied from do30 to $650 with the most recent value at $30 for SRE oakry has now been in the NJ SRE program for 15 years and after 15 years we are Declassified into the NJ class 1 Rec market for the remainder of the system's life these s Rex trate at a much lower value in this class which is $30 uh the fifth item on the agenda was a
038traffic design at mths committee members Express safety concerns pertaining to the traffic pattern at the side entrance to the Monroe Township High School along panv Road currently the traffic is prohibited from a left turn out of the site as well as a left turn into the site this matter was previously reviewed by by the committee with Monroe Township Police Department and the police advised Pineville Road is not wide enough for a designated turning lane to accomplish a leftand turn onto the site without impacting through traffic along P Pinal Road the committee noted that increased student population has worsened the traffic safety issue in these areas uh the committee requested that the administration contact the middle sex County engineering department to see if they can investigate this matter matter further and provide options for traffic modifications
039to address our con concerns and the final item was um there was a the final update is about a couple non non-agenda items that were discussed in the committee uh when where the administration provided an update and overview of the seage pump station operation at the Monroe Township High School the system has been serviced and is currently fully operational and the administration also provided an overview of the state funded digital critical incident mapping program for our public school um that concludes the bg& report any questions yes that's right um yeah I just wanted to uh ask when you mentioned about the estrax from Oak Tree and I do believe this may have come up at another Point earlier but has there been any um look anyone who's looked into having solar panels possibly at some
040of the other schools alternative energy sources um I know the state grants aren't necessarily what they were um years ago but I also personally knowing estx from my own personal um home that is a way to sort of get back some of the investment as well as the savings that might come so I just wasn't sure if that's something that has been looked into I can just um answer from my experience on being on the committee that this has been explored um Mr T I believe has explored all kinds of grants that are out there and I don't think at this point there is anyone that is left available for us I'm please don't quote me on this but um this has been a conent conversation that the capital cost of putting it down is
041extremely high and we cannot do so without a grant and there doesn't seem to be anything left out there for us thank you um but I it should be a constant conversation anybody else okay I could present the Personnel please um the Personnel committee met on November 1st the board members in attendance were myself Mr toffano Mrs Scott Mrs scurby and the administrator in attendance was Dr Chanley we reviewed the current openings in the district at the time of the meeting we had 22 vacancies 13 due to resignations three due to retirement one due to transfer and five due to leave uh there were no exit surveys reported for this month um on completion of her doctorate degree and reaching her longevity of 20 years Dr Chanley expressed her interest to the Personnel committee for
042a revision of her current contract this was discussed um last month in close session with the entire board and today as well the board cannot take any action here without the prior approval of the executive County Superintendent which was requested by the board secretary after this month's committee meeting once we get the approval there will be a public forum on this issue hopefully in the December public meeting so that we can collect public coming consistent with our legal obligation before the board deliberates and votes in public and that concludes the committee report for personnel any questions thank you okay is there another committee wishing to miss belel you like to give your reports yes I have the report for both a committee for finance as well as a curriculum so I'll start with Finance um
043we reviewed in our meeting uh just a a week and a half ago was long time time is a little weird this time of year um but we have the September invoices for our attorney fees which are um greatly reduced from what they have been in the past six months we're we're under $10,000 so 9358 for um September's invoices and um you know are just calling out that our Oprah cost with the attorney were only $210 um so the other item is the bill list and we have as um Item B in the business uh administrators report today we have bills totaling $326,900 76 and um they have been ratified and signed as per um our policy and um we there is a previously submitted addendum for um 6 million which will be ratified by
044the board tonight if there's no questions we um also discussed um a few items we turning um item F which was on the agenda tonight for disposal of surplus property and uh we are have on for tonight for our business administrator to be able to take our excess um items and items that we are no longer using and they're all listed here in item F in the agenda so if anybody wants to um read those um and we also discussed give me one second we also discussed the U audit update which there really isn't a lot um and the budget reviews are happening so um you know that was our uh short and brief finance committee uh meeting we did have some additional discussion at the end of the meeting and if you go out
045and look at the video you'll see um what we discussed that's the finance committee report anybody have any questions for Miss Belco no okay would you like to give the curriculum committee meeting update I would give me two seconds so the curriculum committee meeting was held on um Monday October 30th uh we were trying to make sure that we uh met the deadline and gave the staff enough time to put all the materials together we had presentations um uh from uh the the supervisors with grade six Spanish fizzed grade seven grade eight and grade six um just to update it was their time to come up to the uh curriculum and uh you know come up for curriculum review and standards everything is is made to match the current standards that are out there um
046from the uh Department of Education we also talked about um the work-based learning program as well as um we did some had some discussion and some reporting from um Mr Schneider about the pathways to the alternate Pathways to PE and successfully the first marking period was really successful they opened up the um for the second marking period and that seems to be going well they've had some students who weren't successful in in doing so they were removed from the program and put back into regular PE classes and moved on but it seems like the program is really a success and they already have I can't remember the number Dr Layman because I brought last month's committee report not this month's over 200 over 200 for the fourth marking period the third marking period all students
047from the seniors will be in the building because that is their mandatory Health requirement class that they have to take so they'll all be in the building for that so um really an excellent um presentation we also had a presentation and a report back on the second N7 program which I found really cool um a lot of our um High School um students went into the second grades at the elementary school and read a book it's a particular program so the same book was read across the district to the students in the second grade very well received some of the student some of the senior students um like can I do more of this I want to come back and do this again they really liked it and then the second graders wanted um they
048asked if they could give the seniors hugs they asked if they could get their autograph on the books because all the students were given a copy of the book that the seniors read to them and um and one other little sort of nice fact was that some of the seniors actually went back to the elementary school that they came up through and from so I think that that's pretty awesome as well so um great things from the curriculum committee um I do I hope I'm not going to take your thunder Dr lemman but I do want to mention about about the honor role um that the AP program received for um I think the curriculum committee is a great place to mention this and I did have it up here so I can speak to
049it yeah so AP honor rooll so it was uh congratulations out to the students and staff the College Board named uh mono Township High School to the honor role for our performance on the um performance on our 2023 advanced placement exams and if any if our other exam takers are any Testament to the young man who got a perfect score which God bless them that's wonderful um I think it's great I think our AP teachers that we all recognize tonight really deserve another round of applause because those programs are you know they're stringent and they really have to um they have to abide by the College Board standards which are standards that are higher than than ours higher than the states they really um produce an incredible curriculum which allows us to produce some really
050great citizens out there um in the world and I just think that that's an amazing thing and we're doing some really amazing things here at the high school um and in the district altogether I mean I could go on forever because we really are doing some awesome stuff um but that is my curriculum committee report Dr lemman did I leave anything out no pretty good off the top of my head okay does anyone have any questions for Miss Belco okay uh our next uh committee report I have one uh the November policy committee met on October 30th 2023 there were only two items on the agenda for discussion policy and regulation 50 2011 eligibility of Resident and not resident students were Revisited to address an item that had been overlooked regarding the charging of tuition
051to students that will either be moving into the district or moving out of the district bylaw 0143 was also included on the agenda the committee felt it would be appropriate to include this so that there could be a discussion on whether this bylaw should be amended to allow the James Burg representative to vote on a board vacancy moving forward or if the bylaw should remain as is it is on today's agenda which allows for discussion by the full board and for public participation via public forum and that concludes my report does anybody have any questions okay just did we mention that that one policy is a mandated State policy we had to make the changes because of the mandates I did not mention that it was mandated but it is it's a mandated thank you
052Miss FAL okay and that concludes our committee report bless you bless the next item on our agenda is our public forum this is for agenda items only anybody wishing to address the board please come up state your name and municipality you have four minutes is there anybody wishing to speak uh good evening Doug po Monroe Township uh my first comment relates to the date of tonight's meeting in conjunction with the first reading of policy 0143 originally the November meeting was scheduled for November the 20th this makes the fifth meeting out of 11 for which the date was changed yet the board could not see fit to change the date of the October meeting in order to conduct public interviews of candidates for the vacancy on the board according to my calculations that meeting could have
053been held on any date prior to October 13th this is for agenda items only can you please um tell us which agenda item you referring I already referenced that with my opening statement it it relates to the tonight's meeting the date of this meeting that you changed it also relates to the first reading of policy 0143 as I was saying according to my calculations that meeting could have been held on any date prior to October 13th and then according to policy 0143 you would not have failed to fill the vacancy within 65 days that's just a comment my second item deals with your comprehensive maintenance plan which you're voting on tonight it includes replacing the 1936 and 1960 building roofs of the appleg gar School among a laundry list of many other repairs and maintenance
054planned for 20242 it states that the cost of that particular repair is $117,450 yet I seem to recall that the amount talked about in Prior meetings was much larger it was great to read in the latest issue of Monroe news that mayor Delina will be seeking Council approvement approval of shared services agreement which will provide $5 million in matching funds in order to secure a $4 million State grant for replacing the old roof and the older HVAC system I'm a bit confused used about the amount of money involved could someone shed light on what this project what the projected cost actually is and my final comment which and I couldn't quite hear what was being said because for some reason you're hesitant to speak loudly enough or to have the microphone near enough to your
055mouth but there was something said about the revision of the super superintendent's contract and I'm a little confused on whether there's a special meeting being called for that or will that be conducted at the regular meeting in December those are my three comments and questions the hearing will be conducted during our December 6th meeting if we get approval back from the executive county superintendent for the um exact figures I think we can refer that to Mr tag and perhaps he can send you uh answer to your question all right thank you you're welcome is there anyone else wishing to address the board Sarah aiz I live in minor Township at the last curriculum committee meeting board member Carmen Alvarez said there were some push back regarding the updated state standards for the health curriculum in
056response supervisor yel Snider said quote what has changed is really the standards but if you walk into the classroom the instruction that the teacher is delivering is the same as it has been even though the state standards have changed uh why hasn't the classroom instruction adapted to the new state standard what exact standards were referenced at the curriculum committee meetings for which teachers are not changing their instruction I'd like to stop the clock to see if you would respond do you have any other questions I I do okay all right currently uh policy 0143 explicitly prohibits the Jamesburg rep from voting to fill a vacancy on the minority Township Board of Education because the board failed to fail this vacancy within 65 days of the resignation of Karen Beerman the decision was left up to
057the county superintendent Kyle Anderson Mr Anderson declined to fill this vacancy himself even though he had the power to do so instead he left it up to the board to fill this vacancy on October 18th and at this meeting Jamesburg R Michelle Scott voted to fill this vacancy regarding policy 0143 board attorney veto gaglardi stated quote the board wasn't acting pursuant to that policy or pursuant to it statutory Authority which had expired so that policy cannot be used to guide the board because the 65 days had run out the board is not acting pursuant to its statutory policy the board is acting pursuant to the county superintendent director majority rules that's what you saw unfold here this evening if this policy cannot be used to guide the board why is the board changing this policy
058those are my two questions do you have any further comments no thank you thank you for your comments are you going to answer any of those questions all of that information was answered in depth at the last meeting when you asked the same question we're not going to I have no more further the culum committee nobody at the curriculum committee actually discussed which specific standards the teachers are not changing their instructions to and I think the public has a right to know whether this district is abiding by the state standards are we abiding by the state standards or not yes we are and that was made clear in the curriculum committee meeting we are following the state standards so that that means instruction is adapting to the new standards are following the state standards as
059required by the law thank said that the instruction was not being changed now that is not what was said it was it says and I quote if you walk into the classroom the instruction the deliver the teacher is delivering is the same as it has been even though the state standards have changed that was said at that meeting so what particular standard was referred to because it wasn't mentioned at the meeting we are following all of the state standards okay so you're not going to tell me which standard are we following all of the state stand which standard was referenced for which the the structures not Chang we following all stand yes our standards are followed correct and what he means by what Mr Schneider meant by that is the instruction that that's happening in
060our classrooms right now is consistent and meets the old standards and the wording and the changes that were made in the new standards don't impact the day-to-day of what we've been doing just because um the wording changes in a standard doesn't mean there has to be a radical overturning of what's instructed in the classroom the way we were teaching and the concepts and the uh content we were teaching before the changes is the same content that we're teaching now I wasn't suggesting there should be a radical change I just thought there would be some change since the state standards have changed but you're saying that there's I'm saying the instruction previous okay and and this is the the writers of the document are the instructors of the classes is consistent with what is expected and
061what will be instructed in the new standards um oftentimes they change wording often times they change phraseology things like this are updated every five six years um we just had an update and we'll see some new documents in the next year or so for updated language arts and math standards um one and I can give you an example in math just because we talked about it today the way we look at money and we teach money is different than we taught money students like in kindergarten in first grade how to how to uh handle coins and things because now we have debit cards and credit cards and things like that so there has to be a different approach to teaching the content um it doesn't change how we count money it doesn't change a quarter
062and a nickel and a dime um but we have to include just a different way to approach it so that's an example but I wanted an example for the health curriculum because I know it was controversial and there was some push back so um um have have parents opted to opt out of that curriculum if so how many the health curriculum is not on our agenda this evening it's it was discussed at the curriculum committee meeting so I thought it was fair to discuss it here no Miss Bel was well the yes excuse me it was it was discussed the 6th 7th and eth it was part of that um it was part of that discussion but the discussion as far as any changes there are no changes changes there are no Chang we already
063been teaching to those standards that just were in place so there any document changes and the full curriculum is available online you can read it I'm so sorry so the it was if I may I'm sorry I spoke out of turn um the curriculum did discuss the phiz and health curriculums that are out there the standards that we are currently teaching to are the same standards we've been teaching to they were previously and are now meet the current standards that are out there and all of the curriculum information is out there for you to to view online and we have all the points that you know we have covered all the points and we are not teaching anything that is outside of the standards or wildly controversial thank you and parents always have the option
064sorry parents always have the option to opt their students out of any particular section of curriculum that they don't would don't want their students to um be taught in school I would hope that those parents would teach those curriculum standards at home um to their liking but you always have the option to opt out thank you Miss okay you have any further comments yes I do um also at the policy committee meeting it was said that uh one of the justifications for changing policy 0143 was that um it was violated before in 2019 when the James former Jamesburg rep voted to fill a Monro vacancy um so I don't think that a policy should be changed just because it was violated before that means it's okay to violate it going forward um and secondly um
065you know Jamesburg does not vote in Monroe Board elections uh they don't pay taxes to the municipality the Monroe municipality um and so I don't think uh they should be able to vote on to fill a vacancy and if it was done before it was wrong and if it's done uh recently then it's wrong uh also um and uh so I I don't support that um and um and I would like to know does the can the can the board tell me a single other District that has allowed it's sending District to vote to fill a vacancy on on their board because I know what you said it happened before in 2019 here in Monroe but has it happened in any other district with the sending District voted to fill a vacancy on the receiving
066District's board I will answer that I spoke to New New Jersey school boards as well as I know Miss depay did um reached out to New Jersey school boards as well and spoke to their attorney I know I was advised I gave a detailed explan explanation of what we had going on in Monroe and I was advised that the sending District should be able to vote on that item per the statute and the New Jersey school boards told you that yes yes okay Mr Payne you were told that as well correct they told me the same thing I called them on the same issue and the the attorney of the day told me the same thing okay as well as when I spoke to the county superintendent they reached out to the attorney that the
067county uses they were I was advised that they felt that the statute gave the sending District the authority to vote in that as well what I mentioned at the policy meeting was that in 2019 the policy was reaffirmed if you go back and watch the board meeting of 2019 when they reaffirmed that they spoke about going through the policy book and just pulling out all of the policies looking at them again reading them and bringing them back to the board to reaffirm I don't know what happened in that policy committee meeting that month because they were not videotaped the public has no notes from that that was all done in secret behind closed doors we did not there's no record of the meeting there's no videotape so we cannot go back to see what their
068actual discussions were that evening however what I think could have happened was in 2017 when the state of New Jersey granted more rights to the sending districts they updated the policy for sending districts in the policy guide but they did not update the sending districts um or no the policy to fill a board members vacancy so I don't know perhaps that board forgot to when they were reaffirming it forgot to take that and match it to this the statute that had changed in 2017 that could have been they did not vote that evening in 2019 to add the item for the board for the sending District not to be able to vote what they did was just reaffirmed an old policy so I don't know why they did that but however six 6 months 7
069months later the Jamesburg representative I would assume at the advice of the board attorney at the time allowed the Jamesburg the or not allowed because we don't allow a board member to do anything every board member at this table has their duty to fulfill their role as an elected official to the capacity they feel is best I cannot stop anybody from voting Miss Allen can't stop anybody from voting she has to call the role the board attorney cannot stop anybody from voting so in 2019 the Jamesburg representative felt that he should vote on that item and last month our Jamesburg representative at the guidance of her board attorney as well as the advice of New Jersey school boards and the county superintendent cast her vote okay so just to recap it was it was upon
070the advice of the the Jamesburg attorney and the New Jersey school board's attorney that the vote happened uh James BG's vote happened to fill the board vacancy but it's not that uh you could give me the name of another District in which this happened um I worry about my duty to my community that elected me in Monroe Township New Jersey I do not go seeking out every other community and see what their Board of EDS do that's why we have New Jersey school boards as a re resource and when I asked them if they knew of any they did not they asked me also they didn't know of any District that had done this they didn't do the research into it okay thank you thank you is there anybody else wishing to address the board
071my name is Jay sinov I have been a resident of Monroe since March of 1985 now I don't think this board was aware that Monro Township Jewish Center congregation at ska was vandalized with an anti-semitic uh sir I'm sorry to interrupt you but this public forum is for items on our agenda is this referencing an agenda item it's referencing that this board has made no comment about the anti-Semitism and the scrolling of anti-semitic remarks on Congress on congregation at K at all therefore this board has a problem it had a problem three year three and a half years ago sir I'm going to have to stop you this is not an agenda item sir I'm going to have to to say h Hitler sir I'm going to have to St there's a problem with this
072board with its Prejudice this board is not Prejudice this is well Peter Tano said a very sir I'm going to have to stop you this is not the public form for those comments this is for agenda items only if you would like to reference something on our agenda so when is the public form where I can ask you why you have not made that comment it's a during our second public forum when is that toward the end of the agenda oh thank you you're welcome I've already made my statement thank you have a good evening is there anybody else wishing to address the board all right seeing none we'll close the public forum we'll go to our next item which is our assistant superintendent report thank you I'm going to keep it brief because we
073had a lot of recognition tonight so congratulations to our staff and students for their achievements um I just wanted to mention we had some tremendous athletic achievements as well our fall sports did uh outstanding this season again we're going to recognize them at our next board meeting uh officially in an official capacity but uh I just want to congratulate at all of our student athletes and our coaches to a tremendous outstanding season and that concludes my report thank you does anyone have any questions for Dr Layman all right see none we'll go to our next item on the agenda is our superintendent report and recommendations thank you very much good evening everyone um once again I keep on echoing in a positive way what's said here this evening we got to celebrate a lot of
074our children and we'll continue to celebrate a lot of our children as we continue it um at every board meeting um some of the comments I would like to make um I had the pleasure of going from school to school for um Halloween Halloween is a very um highly celebrated event here in Monroe and has been for many years the children just look forward to it and I have to recommend I have to um comment rather h on the principles and the um entire School District's culture in each building how they go above and beyond to really include the children and the great time that they have it's just a lot of fun it was a little chilly this this year but we did have nice weather which was good we had just a Sprinkle
075of rain and it was all positive and the children just love it and I think it's so exciting that um it's a culture that's been here for oh my goodness 20 years so far and I hope it just continues that was a lot of fun couple other comments I would like to make is that we are very fortunate that on the agenda this evening we have donations from two groups of parents both moms and dads uh one through cheer and the other one through baseball that have gone above and beyond to uh raise money so that they can give back to their Community with the bullpen for the baseball um as well as for additional mats which will allow our cheerleaders to practice um not only at the high school but as the middle school
076as well and we we have found space for that so we're very proud of that I did want to mention that because um the community is is who we are with our kids and um all the wonderful things that they do are just very exciting so I I didn't want that to go unnoticed because our agenda sometimes have a lot of details and depending upon what you're reading it may have been something that you didn't um your eye didn't catch I would like to take a few moments even though um we are going to be doing a full acknowledgement for our Sports as well as our marching bands there are a few things that I did ask Mr Baron DEA to put together for me because I think some of these things are so pertinent
077that they cannot go unnoticed we just had a great Rah season and I I just have to highlight you know especially moms and dads that watch it the best feeling in the world is acknowledging your greatest accomplishment which are our kids so on that note um boy soccer was crowned uh backtack GMC County Champs girls soccer were crowned GMC County champs for the first time in school history boys cross country were crowned backtack GMC County Champs and won the Central Jersey group 4 championship for the first time in school history um man Patel a senior and Matt Lucas a senior Advanced to the meet of Champions as individuals girls Vol avenge their GMC County funnel by defeating Oldbridge in States they will Crown Central Jersey group four champions for the first time in school history
078in Middle School athletics the girls volleyball had an undefeated season and we are going to formally acknowledge as I said all of the teams during our Board of Education meetings as we continue forward but those were just unbelievable highlights especially when I hear first time ever all we can hope is that next year instead of saying first time ever we'll say for our second year in a row we'd like to acknowledge that that's what's really exciting additionally for those of you that may not may or may not know our national Signing Day which has to do with sports for the children children that are signing for different um group one two three or four schools that are going that did occur while we were closed and we did want to give it the proper recognition
079so we have a national Signing Day which is the period for the student athletes to sign a binding National letter of intent for a Collegiate sport it opens on November 8th 2023 school was not in session but it goes all the way for those you may not be aware to August 1st of 2024 the athletic department will host a Signing Day on November 21st in the Monro Township High School gymnasium at 2:30 to highlight a few athletes who look to continue their athletic careers at the Collegiate level the student athletes coaches and family members have been invited and we look forward to celebrating those amazing accomplishments the athletic department is finalizing the list of student athletes to be honored please look out on social media for our post highlighting the event we are getting better
080and better at acknowledging our children on social media we want our social media to be all about the good all about the positive and all about celebrating our children children we want to just keep on moving forward with positive comments and that is why I wanted to take the time before I do my formal report continuing in that Avenue I do want to acknowledge that while we were also on our what I'm referring to as our November break we did have our Veterans Day celebration never a day shall ever go by that we do not thank the service of those that have sacrificed so much for the great country of the United States of America so that was acknowledged additionally we also had the celebration of zali we are um a community of many different
081groups of people and it is a very big holiday it is a very positive holiday is the holiday of light I know I'm just summarizing but I'm going to use the word light and happiness so I did want to acknowledge that this evening and lastly one of the things that I noticed for the first time this year and I did send out um also a blackbook connect regarding this is that world kindness day was on Monday and one of the things that I have really become dedicated to in my own observation is we need to be kind I you know one of the things you know we all set not that we all but many of us s that holiday cards I'm one of those people that have been doing it for many many many
082years and now I've added kindness It's always health happiness and peace well you know what it's health happiness peace and kindness I can only hope that those words resonate with our community and remember that we are here for the children so that was just um some comments that I wanted to make and on that note I will continue and under our 10 member vote it is recommended the board approve the attached Personnel items a through M can we get a motion motion is there a second second right are there any questions or comments all right see none Miss Allen may we have a roll call please yes Miss Ratner yes M Alvarez yes Mr Goram yes Miss depan yes Miss Belco yes Miss Scott yes Miss Bora yes Miss gerby yes motion passes thank you
083under the N member vote it is recommended the board approve the attached Personnel items n through a motion second second are there any questions Miss Ratner um oh my God I just had a quick question about the um the appleg uh physical education um that is there um because I noticed it's you know one class one class and there's a lot of teachers listed um what item number sorry this is for letter AJ and it's numbers three through 10 10 um and I was just curious what that's for is it for additional classes I see it's a resignation replacement but is it in lie of a teacher for now until I guess that's sort of my question what it's for yes Dr CH sorry certainly so what has happened was um the sessions and the
084amount of children always um plays the role in how who you hire and whether it's fulltime or parttime we had a part-time employee there the part-time employee were very happy was able to get a a full-time job in another District so we really try to think out of the box different ways that we can go ahead and fill that position we we working with the high school to see if that would work and the end result was the additional um individuals getting uh the various different amounts of money separated so that would allow for the the proper teaching of those children and these are all physical Ed education teachers from other schools in our district that are listed no no no because you don't have to at the elementary level okay all right so yes
085so certification plays a role when you go 6 through 12 the certification is different in the elementary level okay thank you you're very welcome there are any other questions Miss Alan may we have a roll call please yes Miss Alvarez yes Miss Ratner yes recuse on letter P and letter a uh ah okay um Miss Bel yes Miss depan yes Mr Goram yes M Bora yes Miss scurby yes motion passes thank you under board action 10 member vote it is recommended the board approve the attached board action items a through M I get a motion motion there a second all right are there any questions seeing none maybe we have a rollal please yes Miss Belco yes Miss Alvarez yes Mr Goram yes Miss Ratner um yes vote no on letter F recuse on letter
086A for Mr Snider okay sorry for letter F that's for um the uh 0143 right Miss depay yes Miss Scott yes Miss Bora yes Miss gby yes motion passes thank you under board action nine member vote it is recommended the board approve the attached board action items n through T make it a motion motion second second are there any questions all right may we have a roll call please yes Miss Alvarez yes Miss depan yes Miss Ratner yes recuse on letter and a no for Mr Ratner okay um Mr Gham yes Miss Belco yes Miss Bora yes Miss gerby yes motion passes I want to just end my report by congratulating once again all of our staff as well as our recipients our student recipients and that concludes the superintendent report thank you very much
087thank you Dr Chanley the next item on the agenda is our business administrator report Miss Allen okay is recommended that board action items a through I be approved by consent roll call under a 10 member vote get a motion second are there any questions M Ratner uh just one about the comprehensive maintenance plan um and I apologize I just noticed this but I I see that there's certain items that I would think might be onetime items that are in each of the years um replacing the HVAC equipment um at Woodland milake Applegarth and so I was just curious is that we're replacing certain elements during each of those years or is it if it's not completely handled in the first year then it will be addressed in the following year so that was just my
088only question about that that would be a Mr T question Dr Chanley you want to answer so what happens is Mr T puts together a comprehensive plan and all the items that need to be addressed um quite often you are correct quite often there will be things that will be listed and then due to financial constraints they may not be fulfilled so therefore it becomes a plan of what we move forward and the things that we address if I may make a comment Mr sby so I know somebody had um mentioned in the public forum that the amount for apple cth is only 107,000 my understanding of the comprehensive maintenance plan and Dr chle you can correct me if this is wrong uh we do this every year and it is it covers the necessary
089repair and maintenance but not the major capital projects so that 107,000 is is an estimate for the regular maintenance that is regular comprehensive maintenance that is done in these buildings but the project that we are all talking about the roof is is a capital project that has its own um project and money allocated to it and it is in millions of dollars and you're right it is not 107,000 I wish it was I wish it was $117,000 I just wanted to make that comment right now thank you anybody else have any questions or comments Miss alen may we have a roll call please yes um Miss Belco yes Miss Scott yes Mr Gum yes Miss Alvarez yes Miss depay yes Miss Ratner yes Miss Bora yes Miss Kirby yes motion passes that concludes my report
090thank you the next item on the agenda is our president's report so with next week being a Thanksgiving I want to start out by saying thank you to our staff and our Administration for all of their hard work making our district continue to do the great things we hear so much about thank you to our students who continue to show us how wonderful they truly are tonight was just a small snapshot of the amazing things our students are doing both inside and outside the the classroom and thank you to our board members being on the board of education is a volunteer elected position and we all take time out of our very busy lives to serve our community I would also like to thank the members of our Township government and our mayor for their
091continued willingness to collaborate with our school district back in April the school administration myself Miss Beerman met with the mayor Town Council leadership and the members of town Administration we discuss the emergent issues and needs with Applegarth School and talk through possible shared services agreement to help the district make the much necessary infrastructure repairs we have been reporting since July that the district sent a detailed list of needs to the town for their consideration when the district received word that the state approved the regular operating District Grant the rod grant for infrastructure repairs to Apple gorth school as well as the $1 million all allocated in the state budget for repairs to Apple gor school we were very excited but quickly realized that the district would be short $5 million for the repairs not covered
092under the rod Grant the state only gives 40% of a project and the district needs to come up with the other 60% and you cannot have the 40% from the state unless you can show that you can cover the whole project with that District administration reached out to the town Administration as requested and requested to meet after that meeting the district was asked to submit a shared services agreement and did so the agreement is with the township Attorneys at this point and it should be finalized hopefully by our December 6th meeting where the board would be asked to vote on it I want to read the press release that was issued Yesterday by our mayor Monroe mayor Steven Delina in support of the Monroe Schools is moving forward to provide a matching Grant to ensure
093critical repairs are undertaken at Applegarth Elementary School without 5 million in matching funds from the municipality the school district would lose $4 million in state grants quote Monroe's municipal government has worked closely and partnered with the Board of Education to benefit students and taxpayers in the past mayor Delina said while I just learned about the Board of Ed application and recent award I'm prepared to step up again and help adding the necessary funds for the 50% State match this is the ideal opportunity for the Board of Education to resolve long overdue and much-needed School repairs with less burden on the Monroe taxpayers the mayor noted this is a rare opportunity as the state has not offered these matching grants for school repairs for a decade quote I am committed to a shared services agreement in
094partnership with the Board of Education to ensure millions of dollars of State education Capital Grant dollars are not returned to the state and given out elsewhere mayor Delina said there is absolutely no way this municipality will let 5 million in state grants slip through our fingers Monroe school officials recently received word from the state that the district could receive a $4 million regular operating Rod matching Grant for the Applegarth elementary school if a local match is identified for the $10 million project the school district is also able to secure a separate $1 million State matching Grant in the 2003 24 state budget the Board of Education must secure the local match of five million for the $10 million project or decline the award Applegarth Elementary School which was built in 1936 currently serves almost 450
095students this project would replace a 50 year- old rof and a 70-year-old HVAC system both identified as critical Repairs by the Monroe Board of Education to secure the state funds mayor Delina will be calling upon the Town Council to support a shared services agreement with the school district under the plan the municipality would issue bonds to pay off the debt future taxpayers will contribute the school district's professionals have informed us that this project will ensure that Applegarth Elementary School can can continue to serve Monroe students for the foreseeable future mayor jelina said noting that the municipality is able to borrow funds at advantageous long-term interest rates with a doublea plus Bond rating so again I would like to thank Our Town officials and mayor for being open to collaborate with our school district We Are
096One community and this is a wonderful outcome from working together and collaborating together and that is the end of my report sure Dr Chanley thank you uh my apologies I would be remiss if I forgot Michelle Epstein she has been here as a par at Oak Tree school for 16 years I like to always make the comment that we're excited about our Falcons that go ahead and fly on their newest Journey so I wanted to make sure that I gave a shout out to her for all of her hard work our power professionals work very hard with our children like our teachers and we are very excited for her to begin her new Journey on her retirement thank you thank you the next item on our agenda is Other Board of Education business does anyone
097have any business before the board yes Mr pain um I attended the school uh 2023 School Board convention in Atlantic City and it was wonderful um between the speakers the children participating the different bands and uh I kind of saw a little bit because I was going to all the sessions and the um different uh workshops that they had so just briefly couple of workshops I went to uh your budget and voters hands was presented by Westfield bard of Ed and it was called the tale of two questions I think I mentioned it in the um uh finance committee meeting the superintendent there when I actually went the superintendent said when he hired him and he accepted he didn't realize it was a $6 million deficit in that board of v in that District so
098he was faced with a pretty big task so they went and he he was wonderful a wonderful speaker Westfield has 5900 students 900 staff and is a as a prek to 12 District they said they started talking about the state of the school funding when the superintendent uh announced that they would need to put the vote in April with two question option they didn't want to cut Stafford programs so that's what if you don't want to cut Stafford programs you put it in April with the two question option um they also had the support of the community they went out to the community made changes to say money and to keep their heads above water but their main priority was student achievement so the first question contains the budget at 2% and the second question
099was what they wanted in order to keep the district running smoothly so in the second question you have to list ver what you actually want what the percentage is so they had about a list of eight or 10 different items so they started in January with the presentation discussed at all board meetings and they they had to figure out what can be added to the budget in order to go out to the voters for the support the second question was very detailed on wants and needs if question two fails you cannot add what was in that question for one year um the school board in the county help them in this process I'll go brief I'll go more I I went to effective communication words and body languages uh for board members I attended this
100presentation to you know just well I actually knew one of the presenters so I went to hear him present they talked about being consistent open transparent and how decision- making process should include the diverse voices of our community um they mentioned the process of going out to everyone in the community and they also mentioned about including our students not only in their reports but including them to stay for the meetings thinking that maybe our seniors and juniors will learn from it and go back to their schools and I thought that was a great idea but they might have something to tell us we don't know they're in the schools every day so that was one of the items that I thought was really really interesting they also said you must leave your ego at the
101door and focus on your responsibility and and then was there's when there's bad behavior and distrust on the board the board should go back for training that was a big thing they said training training training so if there's any issues on a board they recommended calling school boards which offers a lot a lot of trainings and have them come back and train I mean there's no there's no problem in doing that uh also on transgender I went to a transgender Workshop which was really interesting I learned a lot of different things about how the different pronouns are out now and how um the student can talk to the teacher or the counselor but they don't have the right to go back to the parent because they don't know what's happening in that child's home they
102don't know if the parent would be receiving of it or if the child would be beaten or actually hurt if they went home with that information so it's a trust a very big trust issue and it was talked about I went to two with them on that one I went on um they said they're learning they have a learning loss lgbtq Plus from covid mental health parents and self-resistance to bullying and when the Improvement is made in our schools and our environment and the home they tend to come up their grades come up their emotional well-being comes up so we they we have to make them as safe as possible in our schools that was the main thing uh I also attended on um Thursday the fall School law Forum which was wonderful um they
103I'll just read the items that discussed uh case law and legislative updates current issues and Collective negotiations and labor law health benefits employee contributions uh new sick leave Law dealing with staff shortages signing bonuses legal consideration for the district boosting sarting salaries and equal pay under the Act njsa 10 uh colon 5-12 retired teachers allows districts to hire retired teachers after 6 months if it's a critical need and they cannot fill that spot in your District so you can go after those teachers now that say you need somebody in these macroeconomic classes in your AP and you can't find one you can bring back a teacher that's retired so I think I think now it's a year I'm not sure if it changed uh to if it was 6 months or a year that the
104retired teacher could come come back I also David Rubin spoke about um he his topic was rest in PE peace affirmative action it was basically having College admissions not discriminated when choosing students to be admitted to colleges which has been going on for years so now they're going to try to stop it and put a policy in place regarding that uh School La par parliamentary procedures they went over Robert's Rules which was interesting and they had a panel of four attorneys and one was a transgender attorney to discuss the legality of not outing students in schools so and went to call a parent and things like that so I'm tell it was a wonderful learning experience for me I thank the board for letting me go and um I took my husband with me since
105he's retired so he was uh he was helpful in a lot of situations and uh especially packing up the luggage to go home cuz I was in all day on Thursday and he was just wandering around but but uh I I want to tell you that if you have a chance to go and you're a new board member grab it on any of the educational opportunities that they offer grab it and do it so thank you you're welcome thank you does anybody have any other business before the board Miss rner was first Miss Ratner this may be the first time someone's made it longer in other board business than me so we'll see sorry for you I don't know maybe all right um so anyway first of all um I also got to attend the
106uh New Jersey uh School Board Association Workshop um there were you know as Mr P said there were some great sessions um I've always been a huge fan of professional development myself and so I really enjoyed going to those as well as seeing all the different exhibitors and hearing about some of the things that we could do in our district um some of them were really exciting to me um and also just sort of networking with the other board members from the other districts and sort of hearing things that work for them and sort of just sharing ideas um so it was definitely fantastic um I also wanted to just take a moment um and congratulate all of the Middle School and High School athletics teams um as well as our marching band um for
107their successes in the fall uh it's truly great to see all of the accomplishments um also taking a second um as a proud parent as well as a board member congratulate the Middle School uh Falcon jazz band and chamber singers who I found out were selected as one of a few groups in New Jersey to perform at the uh state music educators Association conference in February um it's it's extra exciting for me because not only is my husband the conductor for the Falcon jazz band but now my daughter is in both groups as the Basse player for the jazz band and a vocalist and chamber singers um I think Miss B you got to go last year with percussion Ensemble and I used to go to this convention all the time as a music teacher
108myself so I'm really excited to go down there and watch uh let's see I wanted to congratulate all of the can candidates um who were elected or reelected last week and also thank everyone who put themselves out there uh who was willing to volunteer to serve our community um I also um following Miss gery's announcement wanted to thank mayor Steven Lena uh council president Miriam Cohen as well as the council members um Michael Markle rup seagull Charles deiro and Terry vanura for their commitment to the schools um with the $5 million investment being made towards Applegarth um I hope we can all continue to work together for the best interest of our school district and our community um I was selected by njsba to be a part of the resolution subcommittee um which reviews the
109resolutions that are going to be heard by the delegate assembly um this was actually a surprise to me because I wasn't aware but apparently it is a subsection of the members of the legislative committee and it's based mostly on what legislative district the members represent um so I was glad to participate in that and I'll share a little bit more about that um coming up and then finally um I I made it close uh I had the opportunity uh this week to visit mik and uh the Monro Township middle school for American Education week and just because that happens to be where my my children are um and I just wanted to say it's truly amazing to see our staff in their element doing what they do and then just seeing students enjoying themselves while
110learning um and so I just wanted to thank everyone our staff members um from the teachers to secretaries uh custodian administrators everyone who's involved par professionals I probably shouldn't have started listing because then I'll forget somebody but everyone who's involved in uh you know helping our kids Thrive for doing what they do thank you thank you and Kate I just want to clarify though one thing you said um I know you thanked the entire Council the council hasn't voted yet so I just want to be clear that the council has not voted um so yes we do appreciate future support well yes and we would hope so but I I just want yes I I don't want it to be displayed that we that we are announcing that they've approved this because they have not
111they they have not gotten the agreement the our board has not gotten the agreement I mean the the essence of the agreement is shared services you know the $5 million to use of the building um but there is the formality that it does have to be presented to them and and to our board as well for a vote so I just wanted to be clear that the council has not um voted yet on that anybody else Miss Belco yes thank you than you um one I want to thank everyone um for their service this is a season of thanks so I just want to thank everybody we all do sit here uh month after month different committee meetings and it you know it takes us away from our family and our homes but I also
112wanted to thank the administration and our board leadership for the tenacity and the and the um stick tutiven to go and speak with the mayor and make sure that we follow through on things that we have said that we are going to do because we really had had you know we we we heard this we heard the people we couldn't get the referendum we have to do something we have to place that I want to thank um mayor Delina for supporting this and for going forward with it and I hope that when that agreement comes we certainly um will have um you know we will have some success with that and that every everything is together and we're really going to move forward and do the things that you know we should have been able
113to do over the last how many years these Rod grants have not been available so thanks to the legislature for opening up these Rod grants again and for Mr T for you know those things are grants are not easy to fill out and do all that and I don't know if it was him or I know we have a grant writer so I'm sure that that person helped as well um with that I want to welcome you to the seat uh next to me at the table glad to have you here thank you and um we appreciate that Mr Payne thank you for that great report on the education at the um at the convention and just um you know uh thank you to everybody for you know for what we do here and we're
114you know again like I said in the curriculum meeting it it admitting notes we're doing great things here and we're really making some strides and um so I appreciate everybody thank you thank you Miss Bor I'm going to continue on that note because that is such a big news um this the collaboration between the township and the Border ofed um I just wanted to highlight a fact um that became obvious in uh one of the bg& meetings uh when M Mr T pointed out that he's very diligent about the rod grants and he he does file them regularly and there was a point in the in history where we had received a rod Grand and it was not sufficient because Rod Grant always gets us 40% of the actual Capital project and if for those
115of you who heard that meeting there was a point in time when we got the grand but the board did not have the money we had two years we didn't do what we did this time and that's what is different this time we got the grant but we let it expire because we did not work on collaborating with the town and so I would do what Miss Belco just did give credit to the administration and uh the board leadership for pursuing this for working and I would like to give um a huge thanks to the township Administration and the mayor for making sure that this time the grant money that we're getting actually gets you because it's so we are in dire needs and they hurt us and they are they they do have the
116same feeling like us that this money that the state is giving us should not go to waste and I'm glad and thankful that the township is working with us and fingers crossed that the council passes it and we get the opportunity all of us board members here get the opportunity to vote Yes on it next month fingers crossed um it it's the season of giving thanks and for that I am thankful that I'm part of a board that is making that big step ahead um I do also want to piggyback on what Miss Payne said it was an um amazing conference we had some great sessions um my favorite and I did quite a few and I also redid my governance too because I had done it remotely before and I always lik doing sessions
117in person so I took it twice and it was about Finance so I needed to do it twice I'm not a finance person but um my favorite session was by far the session on artificial intelligence and education um it's hard to do this but I was able to not just learn for this role but I was even able to take away things that I could use in my work life so I'm very um excited about what I learned I do have to give Dr Chanley a little blurb on that so that because that person didn't have a presentation that I could share so I do I promise you Dr chanle I will send you what I learned so that you could um find some use for it in the district um and um Dr Chanley
118I also want to commend the administration and you personally for acknowledging the the big Hindu festival of Diwali um our student demographic um a large part of our student demographic celebrates it it was on Sunday but I appreciate your recognition of the holiday and you know you know celebrating the diversity in our uh student demographic it's a big day for the South Asian population and it's a big festival and this is the season of festival and with that I want to thank everybody here for working together to do good things for Student Success um we have good days and we have bad days we just need to focus on the good days and keep moving ahead on accomplishing great things for our students welcome Mr gorm I look forward to working with you thank you
119thank you anybody else Miss Alvarez I have something real quick uh last week Mrs Fabiano and I attended a community event where we happen to run into HEI ther who isn't here today and two of her friends and we spent some time talking to them and we were so impressed by these young ladies two of which have created their own nonprofit to serve UND underserved girls and shelters um they enjoy their role here on the board and they have ideas where they want to expand and possibly be able to bring forward some student concerns as well with if if that's okay with the rest of the board they've been doing research and conducting surveys and they feel you know that would be beneficial for the student population of our school district yeah yes our our
120student board reps um are always welcome to bring up any issues or concerns um from their student population that is one of the um roles that they serve is to go around to their population in the high school here and bring back any concerns and I know last year they did bring back a few um they reached out to myself I brought it to Dr Chanley and it was um it was corrected and and taken care of prior to so so that they do they can present anything they would like here at the board that is a a student concern or a Student Success okay I hope they're watching and if I I want add something on that I may and also I meet with them sorry I meet with them as a liaison monthly
121it just so happens that our student board representative is is one of the um people that meets with us and it's really an opportunity I allow the agenda to be purely what they want to bring up so a lot of times it's very positive and they're excited to share great things dances activities and a lot of times it is it is about concerns so I I do agree with you that it's very important that they have a voice so they have an opportunity to have a voice there as representatives and we do that all the way from sixth through 12th grade there's a representative for every grade at least two actually and then also here as well so thank you thank you Mr gorm yes I want to say that I was very impressed by
122the students that volunteer their time uh over the summer you know 8:00 in the morning doing the things that they did and as a former former Civics teacher teacher it's really nice to see students giving back to their community and I can imagine how they felt when they went back to their elementary schools and they were reading to maybe younger siblings or other you know people in the community that they knew uh the Boy Scouts the Eagle Scouts the work that they do I mean we have fantastic kids here in Monroe so it's really nice to see that and I'm very proud of the board for recognizing them thank you anybody else and just one thing to piggyback on um some of the sessions I was also at the New Jersey school board's conference it
123was an amazing few days of really talking to networking speaking to other board members understanding some of the issues going on in some of the other districts one session I Know Myself um Dr Chanley and Miss Bora attended was called portrait of a graduate and it was I wanted to bring uh that up tonight it was a lot of districts now as they go through their strategic planning process which I know I think coming up um maybe in the New Year we're going to start um looking at that and and and starting our process for a new strategic plan um they come up with um this uh portrait of a graduate and and it's basically what what should your um graduate look like coming out of high school you should be a good communicator you
124should be um good Community member critical thinker um so it had all of these things and it's it's what you what the community what the district and what the students see themselves as what should they be leaving the high school um it was it was a powerful presentation and it sparked conversation among the three of us for quite a while that afternoon um so I'm looking forward to seeing how we can incorporate that into our district too and and what Dr Chanley you know during the presentation she leaned over and she said to us she goes we already do that we already do that we already do that we are in our curriculum building good speakers good communicators good citizens um you know teaching character education we're doing that but what this is it puts
125it into a graphic and into a presentation almost to say to the community this is what our graduates should look like this is what we what this is what they possess leaving our our high school brand image of a brand image brand image of a mundro high school graduate so that was that was one that was one session that I attended that really uh stuck with me and I know that we're going to look into doing that so does anybody have anything else for other board business no seeing none we'll go to our second public forum if anybody has anything they would like to address the board with please come to the podium state your name and your municipality J sinov resident of Monroe since 1985 good evening good evening it is said that those
126who are silent acques and agree when those who don't say anything and they stand up for nothing that is what they happened to be because when you are silent about anti-Semitism or what happened at the montro Township Jewish Center which this board did except for one member who said she was saying it as a non-member all right that says you agree with what was written on the temple walls so why is silence a terrible thing because it allows ow people to acques and say I don't have to remember I don't have to know anything that's going on that's why we had Nazism that's why we had fascism that's why we had a fight World War II that's why 21 million people died in in aitz in D because people were silent so I would like
127to praise our mayor who said something and I'd like to say you were silent do you have a reaction I would just like to say on behalf of the board I don't think anybody sitting at this table agreed or would condone any action that was taken at that at that at the Jewish Center there is no place in our community for that type of hate it is it was ter silent when a child 3 years ago said h Hitler dealing with a zoom meeting yes you referred it to the police but you did nothing in the schools by being silent you acques we we were not silent then it was under a different superintendent I believe when that took place Dr Chanley you were the principal that not the board was silent the board was
128not silent and and with what happened I'm telling you right now this board of education say something that you disagree with what happened at the temple instead of being silent and you're already too late thank you is there anybody else wishing to address the board douc poy Monroe uh your board policy 0167 focuses on public participation in board meetings and it allows quote for public comment on educational issues including quote comment on any school or School District issue that a member of the public feels may be of concern to the residents of the district at you at the meeting last month October during the second session one of our residents made essentially a campaign speech soliciting votes to become a representative in the State Assembly out of his four minutes of allowed time he made
129one comment that referred to the schools basically saying if I get elected I'll do everything I can to get extra funding for the schools but everything else he said had nothing to do with the schools it was Point Blank a political campaign speech this speaker was not said to be out of order I think this was a dangerous road that you allowed to begin and I hope in the future that we don't have more political speeches of a partisan nature being made at these board meetings thank you is there anybody else wishing to speak Sarah aiz I live in monor Township I want to know if there's a possibility that the monor Township Board of Ed um unlawfully redacted information obtained in an Oprah request there was an email written by Doe official Felicia Hall
130to Sher Shanley about Aid to Applegarth School the same email regarding state aid was requested from both the New Jersey Department of Education and the Monro Township Board of Education yet only the monot tonship Board of Education redacted a specific paragraph This paragraph written by Felicia Hall was redacted by the Monroe Boe and it and in this paragraph Miss Hall States as previously stated the district cannot award any construction contracts before you have executed your Grant agreement with the njsda if you do award any construction contracts before executing the grant agreement with the njsda you forfeit receiving any funds for your project the New Jersey school School B Development Authority is called the njsda this is the state agency responsible for fully funding and managing the new construction modernization and renovation of school facilities projects
131why did the why did the Monroe Boe censor this paragraph that was not censored by the New Jersey Department of Education has Monroe failed to execute its Grant agreement with the NJ SDA if so is it in danger of forfeiting receipt of a necessary State Grant that's that's my question thank you so do you have an explanation as to why your custodian of Records supended we we would have to go and and ask her that question okay well previously our Oprah officer was a business administrator with a CPA license and MBA and years of training in Oprah and our current Oprah secretary does lacks those credentials and had no prior experience with Oprah our district is already embroiled in an Oprah lawsuit why are we paying $45,000 for a part-time Oprah secretary when nearly every
132other school district has their business administrator serve as the Oprah officer at no extra charge I mean considering the budget is so tight and we're going over the 2% cap um I don't know why the board would not consider saving money in this way especially since we're already involved in op lawsuit and the Department of Education is not redacting things that we're redacting we are not involved in an Oprah lawsuit as far as the Board of Education and the administration is aware okay so there's been no lawsuits filed against the board there was a lawsuit and the Board of Education was found to be correct in the way it processed the Oprah oh okay all right costing the district I believe a very large sum of money in legal fees okay but you have no
133explanation as to why uh this particular paragraph Was redacted by the monal board of uh education but not the New Jersey Department of Education we would have to go and speak to the Oprah secretary about that okay thank you thank you and no we are not in violation of anything and we are not in violation of losing the grant money that we got so that those are false allegations that are not true so no we are not in in violation of anything is there anybody else wishing to speak to the board good evening mam under Township so we we we talked about like AP and getting into the their honor role and everything but if I look at the our High School AP information page it just have the last date of registration and exam
134dates that's it we don't have much information but when we compare with either Prince South bronek Manalapan Freehold or any neighboring state neighboring school districts they have when is the start date when is the actual end date our end date is like 10:20 but School boards allow us anybody to register without any penalties until like 11:20 and that's like another like the window that is cutting off for the people and there is no much information about like if a kid has taken like harness chemistry and next year he wants to write AP Chemistry or like the same with others outside of the class he's not taking the AP class but he want to challenge himself and write these exams and that information is also missing and um the criteria is also missing it's always like
135goes to one person's decision either AP coordinator or that particular teacher so we would like to have more information on that page so that it will encourage the kids to take more APS not just that year but the following years like if if they finished honors with 90 or 95 they can take it like usually they can take it like obviously so that's all for me for today all right good evening I mean thank you for your thank you for your comments Dr Layman perhaps that's something that we could look at um incorporating uh more on the website in the AP information with the testing sure I'll reach out to Dr Higgins and Dr Catelli and we can better organize and communicate and even celebrate this achievement you know of of our Bronze award um
136and it's notable that we had two gold Awards and a bronze So in theory in theory like if if we go a little bit up in that bronze range so we we'll go into the gold and and the Bronze award is really a function of many of our AP courses have been capped out so it's a matter of what we've been working on for some time is increasing sections in some of our most popular uh areas is which would then allow more students to engage in AP exams which would then increase that bronze to a silver and things like that so you you don't need to increase increase the sections as well you can allow the kids that are like willing to take more you can encourage them as well like if if if they
137fill the criteria then you can encourage them without taking the class as well so self-study students uh self-study students wouldn't count towards that CR that those credentials and things that definitely is something we want to do to in terms of offering access to students who uh may be prepared to take the exam but they didn't necessarily enroll in the course we want that opportunity for those students um we certainly will advertise that um but in terms of the you know the achievement we're looking at that would be students enrolled in the course and taking the exam okay got it so thanks yep thank you is there anybody else wishing to speak good evening good evening Sarah shama Monroe Township quick question for you um can you remind me what was on our referendum that failed
138the last one what were the bullet points each of the projects M Dr yeah if you don't mind just quickly so it was an expansion to the middle school for providing classrooms which would then eliminate the um trailers that that are there additionally it would um increase the size of the cafeteria twofold so it would be um not a course of increasing the actual kitchen the kitchen would remain the same but it would be almost like a makeshift hallway for lack of a better term because it's not actually a hallway that it would allow two sides of the cafeteria to open up the amount of children that could eat there um I'm just trying to think what else we were Pard me addition to the high school yeah well I'm thinking middle school I want
139to just finish the Middle School my brain for a second um is there anything I'm leaving at at the middle school Park Lot was oh the parking lot that's right um we were going to change the parking lot to allow for more parking spaces and um the way it's currently built it doesn't it's not the highest level of proficiency so of course we're not going to go ahead and change it now but if there would have been a referendum that would have been one of the things thank you very much um Miss Bora I did forget that um at the high school there would be um an addition of a total of I know there was 12 classrooms originally we were at six and then we doubled it uh there would be a um what
140is the structure that we call that building Butler Building Butler style building which would then um allow the um gymnasium or extra extra physical education classrooms would be in that area um and then we'd be able to utilize the current physical education classroom space for additional classrooms and then of course Apple goth would be um refurbishing rejuvenating and and bringing to um bringing to the the status that we feel is appropriate for our children and that's just off the top of my head of course oh the addition to appleo we adding on to left left hand side of the school facing correct new cafeteria towards the left right and that would be a new cafeteria and was the roof part of the referendum too for Applegarth or no oh yes okay great so that was
141is now taken care of can be removed and the and the boilers that's all so that was now part of this $10 million between the grants and what the town is being willing to okay great so that's a really great thing to have that removed from very EX issues that we have listed so now it's to tackle the rest of them so what is our game plan now to tackle the next the other three big issues I'll say three big meaning the three different school or two different schools I guess so just off the top of my head just to give you like really really brief so um the conversations that we've been having as administrative team um and working also with Mr CH is that um the middle school is now looking at their
142numbers because numbers are going down so they're looking at their their needs in the structure of the building they're also looking at the schedule because that's always a consideration and at the high school level they are looking at the schedule sections sections and the key is um we've had great success with children who want to take advantage of the alternative Pathways to physical education so we're in a much better shape I I believe that we we've added um computer science classes we've added uh additional V vocational classes um which is very important and part of the vision for the district so um a lot of strategies that we're looking into to see what can be done what utilization of space can be done and what what changes we can make based within the space that
143we have so basically it's working with what our current situation now but what about bringing money in to add to create the additions that you're looking for is there other grants and things that we're able to navigate or or not yet well the only thing that we know is that we' and this is purely just from from having conversations and hearing about things on the news we know that there are some I don't want to be misquoted but it's my understanding I I I I believe I'm correct but if I'm wrong it's basically just what I heard that there are some additional monies left through the covid monies that were left at the state so we're sitting down to look at what does that look like you know what can we do because the conversation
144is always you know we're always thinking about how do we get to that full day kindergarten it's never ever far from our thoughts but we have to make sure that our unhoused students are accommodated for and I believe Miss Bor even made some comments if I'm not mistaken at one of our bg& meetings I do remember her commenting of course we all believe as Educators um and as community members that we want full-time kindergarten but we have to make sure we take care of our needs right now and look at what we could do and then what monies are out there because there's money's out there right now for prek but you can't have full-time prek if you don't have full-time kindergarten right makes sense okay so it's part of our it's part of our
145thought process and now is the April election question it's about the 2% cap is there another question too or no so no the April um vote will be on the actual budget oh okay okay which is anticipated to be over the 2% and that's why we had to bring it out to the public for a vote and that I know that um the administration is looking at what projects they can fit into an annual budget and there's also um I know we've spoken about this a lot at our committee meetings as well when Senator Greenstein gave us the million dollars or or when she entered a resolution in for a million dollars to give to Applegarth that was something I don't think anybody on our board uh knew that was a possibility of doing and
146never been done um prior to my knowledge to give our our district any funding so I know I've had conversations with Dr Chanley and um asking what we have what what projects do we have next and can we begin to put something together where we can go to senator Greenstein and advocate for her to enter another resolution into next year's budget and it would be my hope as a board um that we would go and potentially testify at the hearings for the state budget because where we can't get money through the funding formula there's other avenues that I think we've just uncovered in this last six months of how we can collaborate with legislators and our municipal ality to actually get the funding that we need for some of these projects and that's something for
147a very long time um that our community was told that it wasn't possible you know the municipality and the Board of Education are are separate and and they don't work together and they don't they they do their thing and we do our thing and what we've seen in the last eight months of having meetings and having conversations with our elected officials in the municipality we're one community and we we all need to work together and collaborate together and figure out how we can afford the changes the the how we could afford to make the necessary improvements in our schools to make sure that you know everybody here in our community you know we have property values to worry about right I think most of us moved into Monroe knowing that we were going to have
148children or had children at the time and we wanted to send them to Monroe Schools because they were rated very high and and we wanted to come here for the schools we want to continue that and we want to grow our school district and we want to continue to see the amazing achievements that we saw here tonight with our students and even more so so in order to do that we have to as an entire Community work together and that is the Board of Education along with the municipal government to figure out how we can get these needs addressed and and I know that is something that we are constantly talking about the administration and the board leadership of what are the next steps what's the next items on the agenda and I know we
149talked about putting some on the bg& upcoming meetings to talk about that as well and as and and the legislative action and Community engagement committee as well they're they've been working on um letter writing campaign and getting the letter together and I know a lot of that has been delayed because we wanted to see what monies we were going to get because we bulleted out on you know here's a here's a sample letter that you can use to send out to legislators but we didn't want to send we didn't want to put a letter out that had all these listing all these bullet points for Applegarth if we got the Grant and we got the the money from the township so I know that's an ongoing initiative that we're doing too we need to we
150need to continue to push the state in any way we can through the state budget through Grant programs um to to get funding into our district just simply focusing on the funding formula we've realized is is not the the way to go with it and that's all that was being done for so many years and now we are actually branching out and and moving forward and we're seeing great results I mean I I couldn't be more excited um that you know I I've personally advocated for over a decade now to to get the Board of Education to seriously look at and fix the needs of Applegarth school because that's the one school in this District that was not maintained over over the years and it it's an incredible pride of mine that this board has
151been able to collaborate with our legislators and our municipal government to get that done I agree with you I mean listen I don't always agree with everything the board does but I think that was a great accomplishment and you should be applauded for it um because it has been something since I've been coming to these meetings that I constantly heard people getting up and complaining and talking about so to be able to cross that off the list I think is a great accomplishment um I also think that when you get a response of oh it can't be done or it's never been done is really more a response of apathy and not wanting to be bothered um so I think it's really important for the board the community everybody to move forward in a positive
152manner and look at the good and try to keep working to build on our community and our school system um and not just keep harping on all the negative because there's negative everywhere you go unfortunately um and as we talked about Dali and coming looking for the light in the darkness I think that's really important especially today we have a lot of Darkness around us and we all need to be the light um so I would hope that you know people come here and they and they try to speak more positively um because I know that that's one thing that really bothers me CommunityWide whether it be at the board or any other Town meetings um all I ever hear is negativity and I just me as a person I don't like that it's not
153good for my mental health um and and I would hope that you know moving forward that we do get people coming to the podium for the good too not just the bad I think it's important to point out that when there's something wrong right so that we can work collaboratively to find Solutions but that's what we need we need problem solvers like find me Solutions don't just constantly point out the problems and and that's what bothers me in general about the community and so I hope that moving forward everybody can start putting that you know into action because we all have to work together it's this is where we're raising our kids and it's really really important because I know that's what I want for my kids so thank you absolutely thank you very is
154there anybody else wishing to speak all right seeing none we'll close the public forum and we do not have anything else to discuss in close session so our next scheduled Board of Education meeting is December 6 2023 can I get a motion to adjourn motion second can I just make one comment I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving happy healthy and be thankful and what did Dr Chanley say to be kind yes so uh please distribute that through the community uh love your family because of all the stuff that's going on nowadays kiss and hug them and pray for the people that need the prayers I everyone in favor I any opposed thank you thank you Mr P and thank you Happy Thanksgiving to everybody