001thank you all so much for being here tonight we are going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance stand all right we're gonna get started with the superintendent reports from so wonderful to see everyone here this evening and at this point I would like to invite Miss Jessica mcin our assistant director of Athletics and supervisor of health and deed who is our MC for the reason that you're all here tonight uh welcome and take it away go back back and for so the way I'm feeling right now is a great experiment and exercise and empathy for how all of our championship teams have been feeling recently as they've stepped on the court and on the track and in the pool thank you to Dr muchi can I go no thank you to Dr muchi and
002to the board for having us here tonight thank you to all of our athletes coaches and parents for sharing your time with us tonight as well our athletic director Mr Smitty Horton could not be here tonight due to the annual convention but it is my honor and privilege to be representing the athletes of the mar School District I would first like to introduce the rest of the athletic team along with me tonight are Danielle fry Jake Carpenter trainer and over here we have Mrs Rose Piccolo Mrs Piccolo is certainly the glue that holds the athletic department together but we have so many accomplishments to celebrate already this year we want to First recognize a special group of people that are vital to our athletic department our friends from Atlantic Sports Health Danielle Adam and John
003could you please join us up here we have been very fortunate over the past several years to build a very strong relationship with plantic sports Heth Danielle and Adam have been integral in bringing our physicals into the schools for our athletes just this year alone Atlantic Sports Health has performed over 600 physicals for Middle uh marown high school and freeling highis and middle school athletes also with their help we were we were able to add the first Middle School athletic trainer in Mars County to our medical John has quickly become a fan favorite among the students at freeling heisen middle school and he also assists here at the high school for many events Atlantic Sports help has also provided us with new training tables and have graciously purchased a new John Deere Gator for John
004to get around at breeling highis in this spring considering how how large our campus is Mrs Piccolo has some pictures of our uh training tables and the gator Danielle and Jake have a little something to show our appreciation on behalf of the athletic department we would like to take a moment to extend our deepest gratitude to our team position and his staff we have been incredibly fortunate to have Atlantic Atlantic Sports Health as our official overseeing team position Atlantic Sports health is an integral part of our Sports Med medine team keeping our student athletes safe and healthy on and off the field it is with our greatest appreciation that I would like to present this plaque to Danielle Palestina Adam Khan and our FMS athletic trainer John Jonathan Moola guys thank you honestly we've been
005a a incal part here at Morris Town and St movs come on board as even expanded more so um there aren't many middle schools that have an athletic trainer and are a able to provide that type of care for their athletes from middle school straight through to the high school so thank you for the recognition and we love the team obviously the addition to just has been great as well and then Schmitty is we go way back I just keep telling him that he can't retire so anything you can do to help with that be beneficial as well thank you guys appreciate it we will now get to the recognition of our student athletes we're going to start with freeling heisen I believe this is a first time event girls soccer I'm gonna ask um
006come on come on girl stop the ferling Hy and girl soccer team repeated as group poor Champions this fall the team compiled the team compiled an 111 inone record during the season that culminated in a win via penalty kicks during the county championships the team was led by a very strong group of eighth graders that showed a willingness to be coached and to compete the girls are academically and athletically driven to succeed and will excel at Marist toown High School coach kill cannot be here tonight but his message to you is you know I think you're all Champs I don't see coach Brian manahan in here yet so wrestlers please join me up here come on up Colin Misha and Meek only began his wrestling career in seventh grade individually mhach had a record of
00714 and one and placed first at his weight class of the county tournament pinning each opponent he faced had a great season individually with a record also a 14 in one and was undefeated at his weight class Ken took first place in his weight class at the county tournament Colin McDonald was also 14 and one but has been undefeated at his weight class for the past two seasons winning back-to-back County championships next I would like to introduce coach Andre Harris and the boys basketball team all right all right so is my Coach Bo I like projecting um just for starters as you can see we have the maroon ties with the white shirts which is actually goes back to my time spent here at marown high school where I was on the marown boys varsity
008basketball team with my assistant with my voluntary assistant coach Mr Rick Osborne during this time away games we would have to wear our maroon shirt I mean our maroon ties with white shirts and on home games we had maroon uh Crimson shirt they were so nice it was just maroon shirt that we wear at home um this year I went out and I made sure that we all had ties um also you see some of them we all should have but some of us have gold basketball on here so I pretty much gave incentives um during the game not all was for scoring um being a good teammate helping your teammate up if you saw him Hit the Floor taking charges just other things other than scoring I wanted to promote um on the court
009my other assistant coach coach salz Diego sales um my best friend uh this season was really um a really good season for us um the ties everything we it was standing on business right standing on business our first e8th grade seventh grade try out I had the trophy right I had the trophy with the chain and I told these guys look this year is our year we have to stand on business and that's exactly what we did um showing up the practices so much adversity um we had sicknesses illness that took each of us out at one point of the time players in and out um we was able to go 12-2 losing our last two regular season games right before tournament time which I think kind of woke us up and got us ready
010for the counterman tournament run where we um railed off three games and we're County Champions now yeah real quick real quick I have to do this because when you see coach Dre here s Samantha Jackson can you please just stand up please this is my tribe every time you see Co every time you see that is my tribe that is the reason I here today that's why I'm here for these children man and I just thank everyone parents thank you for beleving in me thank you for trusting us with your kids man it was a great season great season moving on to um some of our high school programs there's coach manahan right there sorry coach moving on to our high school teams um coach ormaza could not be here tonight she's not feeling well
011but coach Gerald Brown is g to speak about the girls volleyball team and their historic season girls come on out coach Kathy couldn't be here some individual accomplishments before we get started uh Sarah Bart and Jack All Conference Team first Conference Team Atkins All Conference GL Atkins and Jack all first conference Ashley Pia in Jack All Conference Honorable Men if I said GW but gwk and Isabella Stefan and Jack All Conference second Team all right these are words from Kathy um so bear with them the girls volleyball team had their mind set on a championship ring this year and I believe they did I watched but they could not imagine the incredible season they had simply put this year was Unforgettable the team ended the season with four big titles under their bill they completed
012the season undefeated and had a 23 and one record pretty it's pretty good give him a there were division champs conference Champs moris County Champs and state sectional Champs the girls worked hard and pushed each other every single day they learned to push through tough moments and they lifted each other every week not only this but they filled they were filled this team was filled with talent and not only Talent but with great hearts and love for the game and this pushed them to make it all the way through to the group four state finals so Kathy couldn't be here but she's I know she wishes she was here because I watched this team every week they worked hard every week and I was proud as she is of all of you guys so another
013round of applause next I would like to call up uh coach bucino I will not be calling up the entire indoor track team because we're already at capacity in here but coach bino uh is going to come on up and talk about thank you very much thank you Miss Piccolo thank you Gil uh M thank you uh we appreciate everything that you do for us um if we brought the entire winter track and field team here we probably need I think a couple of learning common room we had over I think 12 thereabouts uh in with student athletes um my assistant coaches uh Mr Brown who you just heard was one of our assistant coaches this year um we have Mr D we have Mr Vina and Miss gos is not with us this evening
014but she was also one of our assistant coaches we have a lot to celebrate um this this year and uh this evening uh so the boys and girls track and field teams had a banner year uh the boys and girls both captured the Morris County uh track and field team titles and had multiple individual County Champions they had multiple uh individual State sectional and group champions in various events and tonight we'd like to honor and recognize the following student athletes who made a lot of that possible first off we have uh two of our shop H Putters coached by none other than Mr Vina uh Conor Richardson and Ronald Morgan were the New Jersey group four state relay champions in the shop par they were uh if you guys come on up so the group
015can see you if you're here Ronald and yeah yes so come on up y than you on and next we have uh I believe if he's here Josiah Brown I'm not sure if Josiah was with us we were trying to find everyone that came Josiah Brown was a first team all Morris County on our 4x4 relay Devin chat another member of our County Championship 4x4 relay Ethan Stallone a senior part of our 4x4 and was one of the um All County top hurdlers in the section and the county Jason Mesa I'm not sure I saw Jason earlier but Jason was a multiple Mor County Champion a state sectional champion and one of the top performers in the state of New Jersey in both the hurdles and the Sprints uh Carl Williams I believe Carl is
016here I believe uh Carl come on up Yeah Carl Carl was the Morris County champion in the high jump he was also um one of the top high Jumpers in our state group four section he will be back next year he's only a junior and Carl aside from the fact all these gentlemen uh outstanding athletic accomplishments they're all gentlemen wel uh next up next up we have Jeremiah Maro I'm not sure if Jeremiah's in here he was one of our top uh sprinters and also one of our top high Jumers uh next up we have Miss Nia Freeman nia nia has been a varsity athlete for us for all four of her years um she was part of our Morris County Champion 4x4 relay team she was also on the relay team that was one
017of the top meia Champions qualifiers in the 4x4 and she is a member of the Morris toown High School school record and Morris County record in the 4x400 meter relay uh Nia also an outstanding individual and a great student near fre I believe we also have Claire Eno I'm not sure I believe she's here but uh maybe not Claire was another member of that 4x4 she set the school record in the 600 and I do believe we have Esther Kirk with us this evening Esther Kirk is also a member of that 4x4 relay team she was the state sectional runner up in the 800 meters she was a medalist in three events in the county Championship she qualified for New Jersey meia champions in three events actually Four events but uh she also this year
018broke the school record in the 800 meters she ranes and next up we have members of our 4X 800 meter relay team uh yep I'll get her yep y uh we have Amaya Davidson Julia sutil and Kaylin Collins if you are here I believe we have three of those three or four was one of our top distance Runners she also was on our 4X 800 meter relay team that qualified for the prestigious 4X 800 meter relay they were uh2 seconds off the alltime mor High School record uh Julius util also a member of that 4X 800 meter relay team uh to help the Colonials run 9 minutes and 48 seconds so that's number two all time and they're back for a couple more years there be some exciting things uh coming uh Caitlyn Collins member
019of our 4x4 relay team I didn't see her here but um U last but not least we have our uh super record holder I think Mr Vina and I during lunchtime today were setting aside Aaliyah I think broke about at least four cool record Murphy uh she not only is she first team All moris County First Team sectional uh first team in group four she was a medalist in the nsia um Sprints in the hurdles she was on the podium at the meet of Champions she holds the school record um in 4x4 she's also the school record holder in the 300 um and she is also a school record holder in the 400 and the high hurdles GNA go on to compete at troit State University next year we wish her all the best of
020luck and I did not uh forget Mr Vina just recently um was inducted into the pen relays Wall of Fame Mr will be deina is GNA have his name and his plaque it will say Nicholas V moristown High School mortown New Jersey uh right next to some of the famous Olympians of all time Jim Ryan and and many other great Olympians uh one of the greatest High School track and field athletes of all time it's great to see him uh back here coaching so we're very blessed with our coaches and our program uh we're we've had a blast this year it was a lot of fun so thank you again for your continued support and our student athlete thank you guys next I'd like to introduce coach Brian Martin our boys basketball coach I like
021to thank the the board for having having me here tonight um our basketball team uh we didn't have the best season from a record perspective um but we had 12 guys on our team that came and worked super hard every day um and really put forth the effort to kind of lay the foundation for us building our program um obviously very excited about our freeling heing guys hopefully they'll be coming next year um to kind of continue to build off that foundation and really improve the team um we did have one player i' like to have come up Thomas Gman uh Thomas was voted um at the coach's association meeting uh to Second Team all n Jack um which is a great accomplishment for him Thomas is a two-year Varsity player he shot 35 %
022from three-point range this year 70% from the free throw line he averaged 10 points five rebounds and 1.2 assists per game uh he his best game and our probably our biggest win of the year against mendum scored 17 points he had four three-pointers three of them in the last like four minutes of the game uh when they were trying to come back every time they made a run Thomas single-handedly was knocking them out with threes uh and literally played every single minute of the game never thought about subbing for a second form he had 12 games scoring double digits he had three double doubles on the season and again Thomas was voted second Team all n Jack um in the American Division so representing the fencing team I would like to call um coach Riri
023hi I'm J Gary after three fencers here you guys can come on up um just a quick history marown uh is one of the first High School fencing teams in the state New Jersey being the largest by far um High School fencing Organization for high schoolers uh so just three of our our teammate members here who had some Great accomplishments throughout the year Jason Mel second Team all conference second to All Conference at the uh mors County championships we went undefeated the first round as well too for fa Squad andari second team uh All Conference next up is coach Jesse thoron our wrestling coach how's it going everybody my name is Jess dors I'm the head wrestling coach here at mortown high school thank you guys for the opportunity to come talk about our team
024success and some of the individual achievements we had this year um overall we had a successful season where we saw growth as a program and on an individual level for all of our wrestlers as a team we went 12- 10 this season which was an improvement on last season where we went 12 and 13 we ended the season very strong going 12 and third uh sorry 12 and three in our last 15 matches and 8 and0 in our last eight matches we took eighth place as a team at the Morris County tournament out of 22 teams including five Place winners in the top six we took third place in our district 10th place in our region we had seven region qualifiers one state qualifier and one state medalist uh we had nine wrestlers receive all
025conference honors including the three wrestlers that are up here right now um in first team we had Jack Myers in second team we had Gavin Rivera Ben gnik Evan kerel Sean kout Demetrios miala cacos Henry Saxon and Brian ricardi and Oliver hunga honorable mention all conference as well uh the three wrestlers I have with me tonight were a huge part of our success that we had this year um so I'd like to say a couple things about each of them starting with Sean kerav he's a junior team captain he went 27 and 11 this year he was a district 11 Champion he got fifth place in Region Three making him one match away from qualifying for the state tournament in Atlantic City he got second Team all conference next we have Henry Saxon another junior
026team captain he went 33 and9 this year he took first place in all three tournaments that we had to start the season this year he was a district 11 runner up he got fifth place in Region Three as well and he was also second Team all conference last we have senior Captain Jack Myers uh he went 42 and five this year he was a Morris County Champion which was the first Morris County Champion Morristown High School in the last 13 years uh he was he became a three-time district 11 champion this year he became a two-time region three champion this year and got fifth place in the state of New Jersey he was the first two-time state medalist in the last 47 years from Morris down High School Jack ended his high school career 131
027and 12 making him the most winning wrestler in mortown high school Dak also got first team all conference and he'll be continuing his wrestling career next year on the next level at the University of Virginia as mentioned all three of the wrestlers I have up here with me tonight played a huge role in our success as a team this year uh thank you guys again for having us to talk about our team's achievements this year congratulations to all the athletes and coaches on a great season next up our swimming coach Coach Joe Cala good good evening everyone coach aala nice to meet you thanks for all being here thank you for the time to to talk about our athletes and their amazing performances over the course of the winter um I start with our girls
028team as I am the boys and girls head coach we'll start with our girls team first um the girls overall record this season was an impressive 9-2 and they made it to the quarterfinals and the state tournament this season Mary Gillian one of our senior captains was one of our only swimmers to make it to the me the Champions which is the most elite meet of the Season where all the bests compete in the state of New Jersey she was able to compete in 100 meter or 100 yard butterfly and finish 14th overall in the state very exciting congratulations this season we had a few NJ um All Conference selections we're going to start off with our 200 M relay which was named second Team all conference which includes Isabella tapus who's a sopore Mary
029Gillian senior lilio yiki also sophomore and R quad who is a freshman conr we then move to Second Team all conference 100 butterfly who is our senior Captain Mary Gillian con moving to the 500 freestyle which is 20 laps just thr it out there which is a lot second Team all conference freshman Mariah quad and then we were able to also secure a second Team all conference for the 200 freestyle relay the individuals in that relay include Mariah twad Isabella tapus Oriana jamus D and Mary Gillian again congratulations able to have our honorable mention one of our other senior captains Claire burn all right FP over to the boys side um Mar boy swimming had a very strong season they finished seven and five um which is a large approvement from our four and seven
030record last season or last year they made it to the semi-finals in the state tournament our boys 200 freestyle Rel and 200 Mele relay both qualified for the M Champions um the 200 freestyle Rel shocked the crowds and played second overall and they placed fifth overall on the 200 medle Rel where they started off in 14th Place and they came all the way down to fifth place um this past season we had three school records broken on the for the boys um Jack McMillan who was unable to be here this evening he broke the 50 freestyle and H 100 freestyle record and the boys two free Rel record was also broken by our first team All Conference boys um two excuse me I can't talk I apologize boys 200 freestyle relay was named First Team
031all conference and Jack and that includes Jack McMillan Owen Baron Sebastian kosa and Lincoln Stewart congratulations um first team also for the 50 freestyle was Jack McMillan congratulations Jack and then second Team all conference for the 50 freestyle as well was Lincoln Stewart and last but not least one of our senior captains BR for honorable mention I want to thank all of you very much I want to thank everyone that's here this evening for this amazing program and being able to recognize our athletes thank you next up is coach Ian Anderson to talk about our hockey team all right first of all I'd like to thank the moristown bourette for giving us the opportunity to coach these student athletes also like to thank our athletic department in particular Smitty Horton as well as Rose for
032their unwavering support through the All Season through getting us ice time and through the season for everything that they've done for us uh this season was a step in the right direction for our program um we're still looking to find ourselves in one of the best conferences in the state um we compete against some of the top teams in the state as well as uh a very strong out of season out of out of conference season as well the season was highlighted by three game and five-game win streaks multiple overtime victories as well as a victory over a top 20 team this year we had a strong senior class that left the program in a better spot than they found it uh special thanks to these two seniors right here two of our captains uh
033fouryear Varsity letter winners two time captains for us as well Jack burn and Brody to both on Ice leaders as well as off ice leaders Jack finished sixth all all time in program history and points so we can give him and Brody as a defenseman finished top 20 as well for points as well both these players made made great impacts on our program um really set the standard for how we're going to be moving forward I wish them the best of luck with all all the senior athletes in here best of luck as they move forward and I know they're going to be successful when any future Endeavor so last but not least I would like to call up coach Jim bado and the girls basketball team congratulations uh to all the student athletes I
034first like to congratulate our young ladies over here I thought throughout the course of this year that they represent themselves their families and our school and our community in a very positive way uh they're a pleasure to coach uh this year we have uh All Conference players first team is uh Maya Somerville second Team all conference we have uh Casey Bush's not here we have Cameron All County players first team we have Maya Somerville also uh I'd like to introduce as I'm scanning around here we have coach Ali Ferrar um we also have Maya Somerville scored her 10,000 points awesome uh she will be taking her talents to nor Eastern next year playing I'd like to thank everybody and all the student athletes as we went through the course of this season and we got
035into the our state run as you look at the games you could see that the crowd was kind of full and semi full then it got really packed and in the final championship game against Union City where we won our state championship sectional title uh it was a packed house and they pulled the bleachers out behind us and uh again so these girls are a North Jersey section one group state champions the history of marown high school we played in the group finals at Ruckers this past Saturday unfortunately it didn't work out the way we wanted to wanted it to but uh what a great experience and the way they represented ourselves in our school was awesome um and again I couldn't be prouder uh working with Coach Newman and Coach bar and with these
036girls and what they accomplished was uh absolutely awesome it was a fun time and right in closing um we've thanked the Dr muchi and the board we've thanked our coaches we've celebrated our athletes but there's uh one group that we have not acknowledged and that is our parents and thank you to the parents for everything you do to support these athletes on their Journeys um I feel very fortunate to be here and it has been really amazing to witness um our students this season um thank you all so much so much to celebrate um we're going to take a brief moment so that we can um visit with some of you there are some refreshments outside so um we would love to congratulate all of you again and say hello for a moment and I
037was waiting my place it's I you for r for e you SK for this for people for yes of oh that's good be no you me see was mus we have everybody back what an exciting evening what a great way to start and put us in a fantastic frame of mind to discuss our preliminary budget presentation so this evening going to overview um some of the general notes in the budget about our educational programs and then I'll be passing things over to Mr LF Franco our business administrator to walk us all through the numbers of the proposed budget so welcome everyone and one of the suggestions that we had from the board if you notice on the uh agenda for this evening you see that we have a discussion about District hols so we thought
038that it would be beneficial to include the goals in the presentation of the budget so we're hitting two topics at one time and the way that we're focusing on our goals is discuss our overarching goals Identify some of the initiatives that we have done this year in furtherance of the goals and then items that we have planned in the budget for the continuation of these goals so our primary focus is always academics and increasing the academic rigor for our students and also making a deliberate effort to publicly report student achievement progress and the ways that we are designing to address areas for improvement this year we experienced a carefully thought out administrative restructure and coming into the district it was evident that the majority of our administrators were stationed exclusively at the high school and
039that our elementary buildings did not have the instructional support of the K12 supervisors we did some professional development we worked together with our administrative team and we had our supervisors of instruction assigned to Sister schools I was just speaking uh with some of them today and they were talking about what a tremendous year of learning that it was for the supervisors to spend more time in the elementary schools and really gain that stronger support of our K12 curricular sequence one of the things that we also realized um prior to this year is that we were hiring incredibly late in the season a lot of appointments in Late July in August and that is something that uh runs against our theme that we're working on to correct which is to recruit the best and retain the
040best recruitment in the process needs to become early in the year so one of the things the HR department has done this year which has been strong is really capitalizing on our contract which encourages individuals that they know that they are going to retire to let us know early in the year so we are in the process of already uh second and third round interviews at this point in the year in March for positions that will open in September we're becoming more aggressive with our timelines uh in commending the department of HR and the administrative team they've been out to C University the College of New Jersey so a lot of our planning budget has been around uh job fairs you may see the signs around town for the town job fair that we're having
041here at the high school in the coming weeks um so a real focus on improving the academic rigor is getting the best teachers and keeping them here in the moris school district in the upcoming school budget you will see the ad uh for a director of Elementary education and a 612 math supervisor we have had uh leadership in the math department that has been cyclical that has been k12 and we have not been able to strengthen the sequence of uh the math offerings in the way that we would like so the two ways that we're going to focus on that is having one administrator Focus exclusively on the director role in elementary end and looking for someone uh and we've already began the hiring process the interviewing process an exceptionally strong-minded math professional for that
042612 sequence so first and foremost when we want to increase rigor we have to focus on Personnel so that's why you'll see the first lines are talking about what can we do to have a student centered at Administration uh an Administration that is in the classrooms working directly with teachers spread out through the district understanding the rhythm of each of our buildings and how the needs of our students may vary and be unique from school to school in the next area this year we have sent a number of teachers from the middle school and the high school to middle schools and high schools around the state to study our scheduling uh our master schedule where you will see this in the budget next year is a targeted instruction just to try and increase instructional time
043we do have some challenges in our uh instructional time and in our collective bargaining unit we are so fortunate to have exceptional teachers who teach a lot of minutes if our teachers were to be compared to to other districts we would see that our teachers teach more instructional minutes at the middle and high school than many counterparts throughout the state so when you're making an adjustment to go to a different schedule that requires maybe rotations or changing in the time of the day it is difficult to achieve a different schedule and still have the same amount of instructional time so what we're focusing on the year is this targeted increase of instructional time if we cannot work out as the scheduling committees are looking to do so in offering math every single day over the
044every other day which is the process we have now we will have math labs in place that will Target giving more instructional minutes on the days that math is not offered we have been successful this year in increasing the AP participation and we've done that through a series of means earlier in the year blasting out conversations and also providing in the budget for economic assistance for students who are mol in E multiple AP exams or may qualify for financial assistance so we knew it was important to get more students to take the tests we made the provisions in the budget and our own Ingenuity to do that so at the June board meeting the director of guidance will be here and we won't have all the AP scores back but we're going to start something
045new called the class of 2024 outcomes there will be some anecdotal information where different students will come up and talk about their experience in the high school in different programs and we overview generally uh college acceptances and really help the board and the public understand what a class of 2024 mistown high school graduate looks like we're super excited that next year every freshman in the high school will be part of What's called the preap English one course so the focus of preap programming are rigorous academic courses that prepare all students to be ready to take an AP exam it doesn't mean that they have to take AP Literature and language but it allows them to develop critical thinking skills enhance their writing skills and be situated in such a way that they can tackle those
046AP courses so should they choose so next year every Frenchman at moristown high school instead of taking English one will be taking pre AP English one it doesn't confer AP credits but the sense is that will teach those skills that are essential for success in AP English we began a pilot this year that the board supported in AP African-American history we were one of only a handful of high schools in the nation that piloted that course and next year it will be a course offered in multiple sections we're thrilled to have that opportunity here at the high school we've been discussing all year the expansion of g&t programming that included additionals um in terms of what does that look like in the budget more stiens for example Mr Lewis Ley who was here presenting to
047the board earlier in the year yeah it also means entries competition contest entries dedicating money for curricular resources and we've been communicating much of that out through parent newsletters next year we want to make more focus on gifted and talented resources and instructions in the day-to-day curriculum that our students receive so developing where we have uh curriculum in Rubicon Atlas we often note things like uh developing an understanding of empathy or social and emotional learning skills we need to also build out our curriculum to have entries in there that talk about how to meet the need of the highly gifted and talented Learners and make sure that those are included in the resources as well this year we increased testing opportunities by mandating uh it was imp positive mandate uh mandating that all of our
048sophomores take the PSAT during the school day that gives them a full year to prepare for the PST PSAT before it counts for the National Merit scholar the other thing we did which was a lot of leg work in the summer is we took advantage of a relatively short timeline for the NJ GPA and we tested students in the summer uh when they were able to be tested earlier so that they had yet another opportunity to master that exam before high school graduation great credit to our bilingual education department which completely revamped the access testing process making sure that testing environments were conducive to success uh taking moments in each School looking at the testing environments ordering new materials and supplies if they were needed so that the students could test where they would be
049ready to listen actively engage and tremendous support and training this year we can't wait to see those access results because we know that all the hard work that was done to um prepare for testing will make a difference next year I'd like to see us offer more specific test preparation programs throughout the district we started some Partnerships with our community sites but just again introducing our students to the fact that standardized tests are coming back they're going to be very much part of the College admission process we can see the way um that we're moving from test optional back to the importance of the SAT and ACT exam so we need to refocus our energy and making sure that our students understand and are prepared for those tests very thrilled that um we were able
050to put in last year in this way Pathways for maap acceleration for our summer Academy how we're expanding that into next year is establishing benchmarks for completing Algebra 1 by 8th grade so for some of us and I know many of you are younger than me so it will be different for you but when I was in high school you started out number one and that was considered on grade level that's not the way that the system works today on grade level is really getting through that algebra one by the end of 8th grade and that's simply again tied to standardized tests and success if you complete Algebra 1 by 8th grade you follow a sequence of taking geometry as a freshman Algebra 2 as a junior and excuse me a sophomore and then pre-calculus
051as a junior Mastery of pre-calculus is essential for Success on the SAT and the act by creating opportunities for students who might not be ready to m Master the concepts of algebra and that abstract thinking in Middle School by giving them summer school opportunities that are credit bearing offering a boot camp to prepare for Algebra 1 we are making sure that our students are situated well for success in the future so last year uh even with the first introduction of this program we had about 52% of our students beginning out one in ninth grade so starting from an area where they really had to push even further I'm glad to say that this year that number is 46% so we've had an increase with just the introduction of these Pathways of 4.8% for our students
052who are now 54% of our eighth graders have completed Algebra 1 I'd like to see us get that number over the next couple of years closer to 75 or 80% so we moved last year from 49.2 to this year 54% and our goal as a district should be to have at least 75% of our eighth graders complete Algebra 1 that requires an intense amount of professional development for teachers it requires us providing opportunities and strong mathematical resources for teachers and for students and you will see in the budget uh bolstering for 6th through 8th grade mathematics and the teachers are selecting the materials that they will have to push as many students to Algebra 1 by 8th grade as we can we've had an increase in the K12 STEM Academy expansion of CTE programs and
053we'd like to look at now introducing a stem Summer Academy so that those students who go into the stem program at the high school can have a couple of days of immersion in what the expectations of the academy are and how they can be successful in the academy moving forward we have amazing dual enrollment programs the board knows it feels like every month you're signing another memorandum of agreement for another duel enrollment program or a college pred program such as Morristown College promise much of our Partnerships have been remote or they have been with the County College of Morris next year we'd like to expand to more four-year institutions such as a dual enrollement program with NJIT for Robotics and Engineering we formalized the I ready testing schedule we identifi family nights to integrate uh
054the importance of the messaging of I ready testing despite those efforts we did see some score regressions from the fall testing to the winter testing in FMS meaning that students second administration of the I ready exam where we'd like to see the students improve actually fell back um in all areas 6th seventh and eighth grade math and language arts uh between 30 and 13 excuse me and 20% of students in each of those groups regressed so we have to develop a plan for those score regressions and uh integrate how we can strengthen the instructions so that we don't see that loss of academic or or lack of academic things uh we started a selection program for a science of reading based language arts literacy program this year and we will be implementing that next year
055so just as a recolle a refresher science of reading is phonics based reading instruction that deals with the way of the brain uh decodes forms words and develops reading fluency uh there's a lot of information out there especially uh the backlash to the Columbia University program you may have heard some of the podcasts little the story we just want to be clear that here in the district we have been using phonic based reading instruction and our integrated language arts program for our youngest learners will include that traditional brain-based research method of instruction uh this year the uh bilingual teachers have made great strides in including the weda standards uh which are the standards for bilingual Learners and Mastery of language acquisition in all of our programs thrilled at the number of people who have come
056to our Outreach programs and parents have spoken tremendously uh with about the services that we're offering through bilingual education and next year we have to enact not have to but it's time to renew our three-year multilingual plan uh for ESL and multilingual and we'll see that uh reflected in the work we're doing next year oops wrong R and before you go to the next slide I'll pause and see if there's questions from the board well I just wanted to mention something because I don't think you said it if you go back to your slide what you there it is um towards the Middle where it says St Summer Academy oh I think everyone wants through that thank you for reminding me so careful consideration because the focus of our programs is serving the students of
057our community and Morris toown and Morris Township Morris Plains but the board had considered a number of years ago the idea of once looking at our STEM Academy which is so attractive um to our students as a possibility of a a tuition based program where we would accept students from communities outside of our sending area to generate revenue for the program which would be reinvested to hire new teachers better equipment I wrote that it wouldn't happen uh next year as a planned activity but that it might be a conversation that we want to revisit as a board and a community with a long-term plan to see how viable we could make that and again uh one of the things I learned in conversations about that was as long as the priority is on serving our
058students first and making sure that our communities have all the access to the STEM Academy that is desired it would only be after that that we would be able to look at the possibility for for tuition so thank you for that our next goal is related to students social and emotional curricular needs so we've taken some heat for it it was a big shift uh to revise our student attendance policy we had become quite LAX um and our policy uh needed to uh be revised Miss Engle freed worked incredibly closely with all of the building principles in the hot hours of the summer countless meetings and each day also takes time to carefully look at that policy and revise it it was a big change for us but the connection between attendance and achievement cannot
059be disputed and the amount of students who were chronically absent of course were among our lower achieving students this effort has uh been tremendous and one of the things that we've learned as we continue this dialogue is we do need to provide for counseling for chronically absent students we have to have individuals here in the district that can do home visits uh find out uh from the families why they might have school refusal what we can do to support them and the other thing that you will see see in the budget this year is sometimes just asking questions provides important information about why students are incoming expanding our bus routs making sure that the students on the other side of spe well Avenue and down here uh where the board office is have reliable transportation
060to the high school is essential and those increased expenses are absolutely worth the investment to make sure our students are here on time and ready to learn one of the things that we've learned through virtual copies and through discussions with parents and Home in school is anxiety over the transition related to sixth grade moving from those small neighborhood schools to this enormous Middle School we think it looks beautiful when we come up on the hill the sprawling campus but it can be a lot for a 12-year-old some of the ways that we've seen this come out in our data and analysis is those are some areas of concentration for school refusal and school anxiety among our sixth graders also that's a time to develop identity know who you are establish who your friends are and
061there's uh developing young in adolescence so that also means maybe not always making the best choices and when we look at our referrals for Behavior or maybe unkind words we're seeing some of that accompanying this difficult transition over the course of the next school year we'd like to enact a sixth grade transition program that provides more social and emotional learning supports and makes the transition into sixth grade a less daunting one for our students and families uh this year all of our high school Stu uh faculty were trained with mental health first a training and Beyond bias training next year we're asking the district to support in the budget membership in the can University diversity Council that connects us with high schools throughout the state who are looking to increase their um awareness of diversity
062equity and inclusion but the other thing that it does it is it affords us to have reduced tuition for professional development and graduate level courses for all of our faculty and staff in the areas of equity and inclusion um this year we've established the positive Pathways program in place of effective School solutions to consistently provide effective counseling services for our students now we want to move through with consistently tracking and making sure that all of the students who require Counseling Services um have those services available to them so this is a work in progress uh we are well equipped with counselors at every level our student to staff ratio is highly desirable but as the ARP funds are expended we have spent a lot of that money on additional counseling services so we have to
063thoughtfully think about how the reduction of these different Counseling Services may affect our students we did this by uh looking at how many students were served in each of the program and how we could more effectively use that counseling money for different programs to meet the needs of our students we also investigated a number of Grants and free counseling services that are available so for example by partnering with the neighborhood house we saw some great connections where through their grants and after school programming the cost of busing students to the neighborhood house from the Middle School is more effective then running an after school program there if it's already in place for example at the neighborhood house so those Partnerships were helpful we've lived in Co we've developed lesson plans in Co we've given away
064Chromebooks in Co and now we're saying wait a minute what's happening to everybody's brain from spending so much time in type in type front of these screens uh for the goal of Social and emotional Wellness we are looking to reduce uh the amount of screen time this will come in many forms in the upcoming school year one of which we're beginning with is the wait until 8th which is a pledge that parents take to wait until 8th grade to give their students uh a phone with internet access the idea is if you have a pot of friends who are similarly situated and agree it's easier to be the bad guy instead of the only person um standing out there are on an island so it's a challenge but we're working to support uh that reduction
065this year we instituted the kindergarten entry assessment which focused on social emotional learning do the students take turns how well do they do when they're frustrated or things don't go their way how do we develop those skills among our youngest Learners and one of the things that we thought about was part of focusing on social and emot health and wellbeing among our youngest Learners is not putting them in front of screens but giving them time for Creative play um solving differences with their peers if we move the computers to an area where they have to walk and that's the testing time maybe two or three times a year as opposed to having the computers constantly in the classroom for K2 that will naturally give us a reduction of school time and a greater focus on
066the development of empathy kindness and good citizenship but all of what we do to meet our students social and emotional needs only works if the teachers are prepared to do so this year we have made an effort to reduce mandated structured time initiative overload for our teachers by giving back time throughout the year to ask teachers just to engage in service with their friends or in their local Community Practice Health uh self-care and again a big commodation to our HR department for being so faculty focused and responsive to their needs there are different things that our faculty go through we're human we're putting kids through college we have sick parents we have stresses that exist of living in a world uh where the there is inflation in and there is issues and worries that we
067have um that can sometimes distract us from our work and be a challenge our department of HR partnered with Atlantic health and we have concern Services which are therapeutic services that can be available to our faculty but also group discussions and connections and virtual meeting groups where faculty can support one another through things like um the loss of a parent for example what did does that look like as we move forward offering teachers more time to meet to plan together uh to connect between the Middle School and the high school to make sure that our algebra and geometry teachers at the middle school are meeting with our algebra and geometry teachers at the high school to understand the Continuum and development of the writing process by having ver vertical articulation meetings with teachers so we
068take better care of our teachers by just being responsive to what they need and what they're asking for is time to work with their colleagues time to connect with people who are teaching the same topics and also respecting that they too uh need support the board uh tonight we'll see a revision of the anti-racism and demonstration policies which is reflective of involvement of stakeholders in our policy meetings and that's something that we would like to continue in the coming year to make sure that we're not just writing policies in a vacuum but that we're inviting in the people who these policies affect to hear their perspective and to make sure that their language and desires are Incorporated in the policies that we are including it's hard to believe that with so many incredible artists talented
069musicians singers um and visual artists that we've never had a formal super visor for the Visual and Performing Arts Mr Miller has taken on that role as an additional responsibility this year and through that partnership he got many of our students recognized in different programs through empact having their artwork displayed expanding their artists who could teach them how to own and develop their craft and um our thought moving forward is we'd like to expand that to bring in the community in more ways uh than just traditional Visual Arts but also the art of computing uh and computer design the art of all of the work that we have in our various labs and CTE programs this year as I mentioned we have developed some mentorship programs but one of the things that we have been
070hearing in the community is where are more leadership opportunities for students particularly an area of focus is for young men um and we're seeing that they are less represented in leadership roles in schools than they were 15 years or so ago so what are we doing to actively identify leadership opportunities for our students in each of these areas and that's going to be part of focus uh the Mount moristown High School has put out counselor connections to be more proactive and share the services that the counselors can provide one thing that we are working on as part of ensuring that we have all of the seal and counseling services is increasing those tier one interventions by counselors so tier one are typical problems that can face an adolescent or a young learner that should be
071dealt with in the guidance office and we're thinking if we focus more of our attention on concentrating tier one supports and guidance that we would then be able to manage with less counselors than we have this year because we've lost that ARP funding uh we've seen more beyond the bell extracurricular programs and the constant struggle that we have whether it be getting volunteers um going through the grant process is that our co-curricular programs are not beginning early enough in the year so that's a specific area of focus we end up with money left over because we're starting later than we anticipated so we moved it back and we were a little earlier this year but we're still not beginning them at the onset of the school year when students really need those connections to make
072friends and feel connected to the school feel like I had a built-in commercial um for athletics and belonging tonight when we looked at the students were here we think about 113 students on the winter um uh just just on running just on indoor track 113 kids um I wrote down some of the notes I'm sure you jotted them down too um hearing the coaches say uh the values of sports sportsmanship leadership when they talked about our students and they said they left our program better than they found it they are a positive representation of the community not only are they outstanding athletes they're outstanding people some of the phrases that we heard tonight underscore the intentional connection that Athletics can give to having students belong when you looked at those kids toight you don't think
073they were tired when they woke up some mornings they don't think they wanted to throw the sheets over their heads like most adolescents but if one of the things that was bringing them to school was that big desire to be a part of a team to participate to have um friends who are looking out for you the connection between a atics and belonging in school is tremendous and the more that we invest in these programs and those just think about the um coaches that you saw here tonight how they personally knew each of the students not only could they rattle up their stats they can tell you about their families what classes they're in the value that the coaches and the athletic program have is promoting that sense of belonging and across Sports one of
074the things that we've learned about our Colonial nation is they are completely often singled out for outstanding fan participation for school support we have these outstanding young men and women and you know we I put that next to turfy rear field at Harder Road you know increase the coach's stiping whatever we can do um to show our student athletes that they're valued to show our coaches that they're valued is a small price to pay for the gift of belonging leadership uh peer connection positive attitude towards school um that comes from these pieces um so I put it under seal because a sound uh mind and a healthy body is uh what we're all aspiring for so I appreciate everybody's indulgent on Indulgence in speaking about academic programs also thinking about F but the main reason
075why we're here is to talk about um the dollars and cents and I'm still going backwards which is also part of our long-term goal so we're really proud of some of the things that have been done this year record number of Rod grants accepted investment in New Jersey arm to increase our Revenue carefully looking at room utilization uh the our business administrator Mr LF Franco has been on all the buildings with the principles looking at all the furniture um picking out an area that hasn't been uh renovated in a number of years home economics and ren uh developing a renovation plan for that space also just thinking about when you how are we caring for our investments do we have a cycle of how we're replacing uniforms we we started a little piece it is
076a long big dream for some board members a number of community members is to uh restore the moristown High School auditorium to its beautiful historical design so some initiatives that we've started as part of the long range facilities plan and then some planned actions so we have the interest how are we going to spend the interest we got the grants how are we going to establish a grant timeline uh we know how the rooms are being used how to we make sure that we're maintaining class size uh what are our priority orders how can we get more college and Technical education programs in place preparing students to go right into the workplace in culinary arts where proceed a foryear degree in the culinary arts um this budget does have an equipment manager position you got
077a glimpse of just some of the programs that are part of our winter think about that times three seasons 24 use just a dedicated person to make sure that all the money that we're investing in athletic equipment is well tracked and taken care of um so drilling down to the uh man who makes all of this work for the district and who can take a big list of wish list items and hear conversations about goals and translate them into a practical budget that is driven by student needs and improving instruction uh Mr L Franco will us through the detailed presentation of the budget thank you thank you Dr I'll talk a little bit about the budget process from here for the board right tonight you guys are approving the preliminary budget after this it goes
078to the county for review and approval once they get once we receive their approval we'll be able to advertise that in the paper it'll be in the daily record on our website in April we'll be able to go through our committee meetings and answer any questions you may have on anything that you see or anything that comes to mind between now and then and then we'll have our final adoption and our public hearing on April our board meeting April 29th at 7:30 so when we look at our budget we start with enrollment as you can see over the past 11 years it's been relatively flat we do see some blips here or there where we might have some UPS or Downs throughout the course of the year but relatively speaking we've been flat around 5,000
079students we had a demographic study done a couple years ago Tak us out through 2025 and that same proje is forecasted so we don't anticipate any major increase in the next two years in terms of expenditures some of our biggest expenses one is obviously salaries if you see this little chart down here roughly 72% of our of our total budget goes to salaries that's to pay teachers custodians all the coaches senss all the people that go into educating the students this year the increase for our salary line was 3.2 million or 4 4.7% we also added in their new position as supervisor for ESL in World Language one thing that helped us minimize that sour increase this year is that we were able to renegotiate our health benefits package and leave the state health benefits
080for private Horizon so the year-over-year increases only 4% many districts in the state plan have to budget around 10 12% so that's a realized savings budget wide of almost $300,000 and we're going to use some of that benefit to help expand benefits for new hires by eliminating the 60-day waiting period period currently in our current plan for teachers that start on day one September one there's no wi period but if they were to start November there would be a 60-day weight so by doing this they will be eligible for benefits on day one the other thing we're doing as drci mentioned is a new turf fields so we will be utilizing least Finance purchase P will be paid off over five years we have two projects that we finance that way a new District wide
081security system rough the estimated at 1.7 million and it's a field over at Harder Road it includes some other site improvements that's estimated at $2 million Dr muchi also spoke about the counseling services we did reallocate approximately $100,000 so Dr Pentel will be working with our providers to ensure that all the students receive the services they need but that line is down approximately $100,000 we have to repurpose that for other needs in the budget as you can see here our expense breakdown the lon share of our expenses goes to instruction at 67% that includes all the materials teacher salaries everything that goes to instructing the students the next largest share is facilities that includes our utilities the improvements we do the staff to maintain our Mills and grounds that's 99.9% Transportation with the expansion of
082our reducing the walking zones we're up to approximately about 85 routes we transport nearly 5,000 students that budget line alone is around half million that's 99.2% of our budget our Fleet is up to around 100 Vehicles right now that includes we also have four mechanics and five office staff to make sure that all R properly and we have some administrative lines that includes not just staff but that includes things that we need to run as an operation for example Insurance postage telephone bills all those things to help make the organization run dayto day and then finally is tuition that includes special rep placement and in charter schools that's at 5.7% that's up roughly 8% year-over-year Anthony possible to see how these percentages have changed over the last 15 years say just how much is was
083instruction 15 years ago versus now and how much are we paying out in tuition versus yeah I'll be able to put some information together next finance committee and see what I can grab out of the system please it be very interesting to see I okay uh some of the building improvements that we spoke on uh we previously discussed things that are happening right now for example the rod rant which includes roof Replacements electrical upgrades and those projects um those are planned for the following year those are already funded these are new projects that we're funding the current year budget we're doing a culinary arts renovation here downstairs at the high school the current lab is from the 1950s if you would s walk down there you see broken cabinets it looks really bad so it's
084it's overdue for an upgrade we're doing two firew upgrades at Alfred Valley Normandy Park it's the last two schools that have an old system so we'll all our buildings be up to current code with firearm upgrades after this electrical upgrades at the high school this is so we can take some temporary measures to add window air conditioning units on the third and fourth floor those are the two areas of the building that are extremely hot on on hot days and as I mentioned previously the lease P lease purchase financing of the turf fields and the security G projects the all the other for capital projects that we're funding through Reserve funds is $4.1 million in addition to that we've in our budget we fund $13 million of Maintenance projects these are things that we do
085year-over-year to maintain our buildings so this includes repairs to doors and entryways repairs to Paving repairs to fetting and windows these are all things to make sure that everything's stays in good shape and will last a long time and that number has been consistent we've historically we've always spent at least a million doar in that line some Revenue changes over the years previously this slide used to go the other direction when when the state would not fund education fully we were stagnant for many here between three and $6 million we were underfunded by the state's own formula they've finally been reallocating resources based on actal enrollments and reallocating funds to where the students are so over the past few years we've seen some steady increases and now our general fund we up to $10.1 million
086in state eight we're still slightly underfunded with more about $200,000 but we're thankful that we are where we are including our preschool expansion program we're at $20 million in state funding other items of our the other big ticket item for our Revenue source is our tax L this year we are projecting a 2.99% increase in tax levy I'll talk more about that on the next slide on how we can go over a flat 2% we're utilizing a million dollars in our maintenance Reserve to help fund this project they discussed the njr interest for projecting income of $750,000 eate reimbursement is a federal program to help fund equipment purchases for instruction and also offset our cost for our telecomunications bills excess Surplus we had a reduction this year in the prior year if you recall there
087was a recalculation of our unreserved we had to reduce that down 2% so we had extra money in the current year budget so going 2425 that was a decrease of $2 million and then our morgage plan tuition is at 3.5 million they're budgeted for 15 less students next year based on their current enrollment here's a little chart that shows where our Revenue CS come from as I mentioned the local tax levy is the largest share we have 77% of our budget is finded by our local taxpayers next is our state and federal aid at 8% our tax relief which is that exit Surplus I mentioned at 6% and 3% for tuition and then we have some various other items in there for the reserves our interest income that amount to a little around 4% so
088our tax levy is uh in New Jersey we're limited to 2% on our current tax levy but they allow adjustments for enrollment and for healthcare and if you don't take those adjustments in the year you earn them you're allowed to roll roll over as Bank cap for 3 years years so over the past three years we've generated $2.7 million of Bank cap that we had not utilized this year we need to utilize approximately 1 million that brings our tax levy to 2.99 or an increase of $3 million bringing our total Levy to 103 million we still have roughly 1.7 million that will expire in 2027 so our plan right now is to utilize that over the next two years to limit the budget impact to the taxpayers and be able to utilize that put it
089back into our program whether it's in programs or facility improvements once we determine what our tax L is we use the equalized value formula to determine how that gets split between our two municipalities Township of Morris and Morris toown this year there was a big change in the equalized value for Morris toown due to their reassessment it went from 32% last year of their share to 39.9% so they're picking up a larger share of the P approximately 7.1% so if you think of our equalized value as a high the dark blue here is Mor town from last year to this year their piece got bigger so even though we're raising taxes this year for both municipalities there's going to be a tax decrease to the resident now for Mor Township that's easy to understand because
090their piece of ply got bigger so even if it's the same number of households they have a small piece that to pay so it's going to go down in Morris toown what happened is their piece got bigger but the number of people paying into that got larger also so each individ homeowner will have a decrease as well so for Morris Town the average home assess at 635,000 will have a decrease of $229 $229 a year and in the township of moris a reduction of $147 the tax rate for assess value of $100,000 is $779 for moris Town and 1,197 for the township if you want to project that out to your individual equalized value for your house you get those little postcards in mail this time of year Texas so I hope I tried to
091explain that clearly where the the piece for Morristown even though it got bigger there's more properties paying into it so each individual share is smaller so that's why even though we're raising taxes in both municipalities the tax rate for each homeowner is decreasing so you're saying there's more people now paying taxes in Morristown or is it a what that doesn't seem right you don't suddenly start getting more tax that's why there's more so if they were paying tax the commercial it's the commercial War has moved to the commercial properties of paying the only number I get suddenly you're getting ta correct the only number I get is equalized value I don't know what went into that whether it's the number of houses or businesses but if you look at that as compared to the the
092average share average home that they gave me it it appears as though there was about thousand more units it doesn't mean th more houses but there's more properties whether commercial or business that are paying it to so it's reducing everybody's burden I don't think it's more properties it's more value in commercial properties than it used to be the properties is a finite number correct so you don't get suddenly new property well some properties weren't paying taxes if they had pre old pilot programs that may come back on the bu that could be I don't think any of those Pilots expired yet that's just one example how something could go on the books that wasn't previously because you can't add more lands like to your point all right in a little bit Dr also mentioned some
093federal grants and you may have heard in the news that all this money's going away so I just wanted to kind of briefly go through some of the things that we have in the current year budget that's funded by the federal AR Grant and some and how we're addressing that for the upcoming year so in the current year we have some staff on there we're funding summer programs he filters uh some Transportation costs incitements and other staff and some new saw C for the prism VR goes in the up school year the homeless Transportation won't be as large as issue is now it's due to a project going on in town for rehabilitation that should be over the corin sapron will be reallocating those funds to title 2 where we get money each year the
094summer program even though the grants expire this year they actually expire August so we're able to use the AR Grant to cover this year summer so we won't have to address funding for summer school until the 25 26 budget year so we have one more year for that the ESL teachers and the prison program we were able to incorporate into this budget that were developed but we are we have eliminated the mtss and the longterm sub position for next year all right that's all I have you have any questions I just want to say appreciate all the work that's gone into um not only budget process but all the work that Dr muchi has done um in coming into the district and uh working for improved success you know to your point Anthony there's uh
095several weeks before we finally adopt a budget and I just um wanted to express that I'm especially excited about our investment in the science of reading um and you know this is this is where uh our students get their foundation and it's an important investment um and and it's important that we double down on uring strong construction at this level so um I'm hoping you know in our uh upcoming committee meetings that we can get a better understanding of um you know given given our goals um how the investments will translate um into um uh you know perhaps professional development or um how we're allocating positions to to meet our goals in elementary so thank you I just want to sh all right thank you well I just want to say I'm completely blown away
096by all of this between and what you presented and then that combines with this I'm like like so much is going on it's incred hard honestly it's just incredible and I absolutely agree with what mer had to say considering everyone that was here earlier in the night the word on the street is that so much great stuff is happening and I think a lot of focus is on Sports and I think that's positive there's so much other amazing stuff that's happening too but all the all the things that were listed that are going to kind of continue that when I looked at that demographic number earlier today I thought to myself if we keep on the same trajectory with sports that number is going to change because I think we've been for years losing so
097many kids to private school and I feel like we're finally going to stop and I think it's going to change a lot of things and it's all going to be for the better so I'm just thrilled yeah I would also just add I really appreciated the alignment of our district goals with how closely that goes because we know how much work you all do with that but it's really nice to have that laid out um and I think that the excitement about sport is just going to continue because a lot of the work that you all have put in this year it is a heavier lift and and it's going to take time but seeing how much thoughtful planning is going into that and making sure that our resources align um especially those of you
098who are new to the district this year just how much you have contributed um it it's really been remarkable and we're very grateful so thank you yes to the website with the this all right um the only things that I had were certainly just um call out and thank in the past couple weeks there have been two really tremendous opportunities to see how many people work together to support our district um with both Mor town on stage and then the Project Graduation fashion show yesterday so I was just thinking all week about how many of our parents and community members are pouring so much into those events that support our district and wanted to uh thank them um I did just want to reiterate what uh Dr M just said where this presentation will be
099available on the website so anybody who needs to read it or hear that presentation can do so um I would also just say committee report will be probably a a little bit briefer tonight just because so much of the work that we all are talking about really was captured in this um presentation tonight um but uh with that we will go to committee reports um so um we don't have our student Representatives here but we got to hear from lots of students tonight about lot's going on in the district um so Susan would you like to give a curriculum yes thank you uh the culum committee met on February 28th we had a great discussion and approve approved these items the February 7th meeting minutes the following field trips were also approved 10th 11th and
10012th grade students on the drill team were going to Sussex Avenue School to performed for Black History Month marown high school students visited both nardis and the county courthouse as part of the art and the atrium steam Scholars Program a group of 12th graders will be visiting Marist toown Library seventh grade Quest students at FMS will visit the New Jersey Law Center to experience what it's like to serve on a jury 6th through 8th grade students at FMS in the TC TSA Club will compete at the technology Student Association New Jersey competition at TCNJ students will compete in various stem-based design challenges that they have been working on throughout the year eth grade Quest students at FMS will also be traveling to TCNJ to participate in a University tour familiar with college campuses and the
101admission process I want to also note that the district received an additional field trip request after the ccen committee met Marist toown High School's Health Professions Club will visit BCIT and participate in competitive events with other students from across New Jersey at the NJ Health occupation students of America state competition on March 23rd and 24th you will see it on tonight's board agenda along with the other field trips that I just mentioned under educational matters motion number two other approvals include open sad TurnKey professional development you may recall back in August that I reported tomor school district has been chosen by the state to Pilot the new K to5 openai Ed program openai Ed creates high quality NG SS aligned science materials and exceptional professional learning support that empowers Educators to inspire all students with
102the Wonder of science for the past two years we pilot piloted units of this program at marown High School in our ninth grade classroom this pilot would allow ourc 5 teachers access to the units and support for implementation we have three teachers who will be turn keying this program at professional development half day on March 25th this is motion number three under educational matters on tonight's agenda a memorandum of understanding with recers University School of Health Professions was approved for dual enrollment dual enrollment courses in dynamics of healthcare medical terminology and anatomy and physiology one students may earn both high school and college credit based on University examinations and requirements this is educational matters motion number four Marcus Vargas assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction presented the committee with an updated 2024 summer program chart
103um I believe Dr muchi um went over a lot of this so I'm just going to um briefly mention what these programs are they include extended school year for our special education students based on their IEPs at the mass bilingual Summer Academy summer plus Summer Music Academy math advancement program for pre-calculus K to 5 summer Learning Academy FMS summer Learning Academy Algebra 1 boot camp math advancement program for Algebra 1 Algebra 2 boot camp MHS summer writing lab summer STEM Academy orientation program FMS French 2 Summer Academy and FMS French language lab Mr Vargus also shared an update on the March 25th districtwide professional development offerings with the committee additionally he informed the committee that Holocaust Survivor ma Dom will be back to visit with susex Avenue and Thomas Jefferson's fifth graders as well as
104Normandy parks's fourth and fifth graders and finally Mr Vargas presented the committee with the I ready midyear winter diagnostic data report that uh Dr muchi also addressed in uh her uh report as well thank you Mr Vargas and Dr muchi our next curriculum meeting is on April 17th thank you um Linda can you give an sure so we talked about the budget in the finance committee meeting so I don't need to go over that again since we just went into that in great detail um however during that session we did help discussion about the use of Bank cap the impal taxs we saw on which Anthony went over clearly with you already in addition uh we looked at a proposal um to um impact the change salaries of the buildings and grounds people at coaches
105salaries for the 2024 25 school year um uh that will not show up on for approval uh until the April meeting but we did discuss that and uh that's in progress so I just wanted to let you know that um we already talked about all the capital projects in the presentation so I won't go over that again either um but I will point out that we had also did some long-term capital planning that has us um identify projects out to June of 2026 so we we have a headlight view of some of the things that are coming and the improvements that we want to make to our facilities so um that's all good news and I don't think I have much more to add because you already said thank you Linda and um Melissa would
106you like to give an update is it me Brea okay so we met on March 5th and um as usual a lot going on in HR uh the two things that I want to highlight um I believe in finance but then also NH HR um the results of the tech audit were shared in terms of the structure and our current structure is pretty similar it's going to change a little bit the only thing we needed to add was a database manager position which I believe we'll see shortly um and the other thing that I wanted to share which I just loved this I thought it was really uh Innovative um there's very often lots of cases where at the high school we have teachers I think a littleit middle school mostly at the high school
107we have teachers uh teaching a seven block and instead of that we're going to be hiring an additional PE teacher an additional special ed teacher an additional math teacher and in doing so so that will allow us to not have teachers teach that seven block not not in all cases in some cases we'll still need that so there's still some extra money that's going to um be out there but in hiring those teachers it gives those teachers who've been doing that a Break um and it also is going to improve the instruction of our students which I think is fantastic so I was really excited that uh we came up with that plan our fabulous team came up with that plan um and our next meeting is on April 23rd uh could you give us
108on yes of course um so we last met on March 1st and um one of the first things that was on our agenda after giving um ample time we felt we wanted to give plenty of time to uh consider as wish she had touched upon our um policy 5520 disorder and demonstration as well as 5757 anti-racism after having uh members of the public come and speak to us about um the uh the input and requests that they had with regard to these two policies and anti-Semitism um like I said we wanted to give it plenty of time to look at all the resources consider the language they gave us um and really take our time with this so we felt like we had come to a good place to have um a good discussion and
109with regard to 5520 uh we approved the suggested language and added it to ensure that the same is consistent in our other policies and fully encompasses all other protected categories pur pursuant me the administrative code so you'll see here um in our minutes what that has been changed to so again reviewed and approved for first read on this evening's agenda um then with regard to 5527 um again considered member um members of the public their feedback their suggested changes um even language as well as other resources that they provided us to review and consider and um ultimately what what we did do is we um and again this was at length we considered this we decided that aside from adding the edited slightly edited bullet points that you'll see here in the minutes as well
110um we will not amend policy 55 5757 but instead the committee has discussed the creation of an anti-hate policy uh where we will leverage language from our mandated existing policies related to anti-discrimination and equity in all forms um in school and education practices and and that will be our starting point so we're going to start working on that more to come on this new policy um so those changes were reviewed and approved uh for first reading on tonight's agenda uh then we were able to move into oh sorry we did have a couple others for discussion some slight changes to policy 0163 Quorum which were reviewed and approved for second read um this evening and um then we had we moved on to more mandated updates just when we think we're done with them we
111get lots more so those are um you can see them all listed out here and they have all also been reviewed in approve for first read this evening um um reviewed our district and individual School accounts reports um as typically done as well as um so uh we decided that this new this level section for our information we're going to use this as a section to um kind of uh bring to our attention the committee's attention as well as the board's attention upcoming legislation uh that will continue to um that could possibly have effects or stuff coming down the road that we should all be aware of and this is going to be a place where we're going to um continue to put that for our information which is helpful and then our next meeting
112is April 19th and I think that's it I just wanted to say thank you again Dr M and Anthony fantastic um presentation it was really helpful and the way it was laid out I really appreciated that I don't know if it's because now it's four years I've been on the board or what but this really was very helpful and made a lot of sense so I appreciate that thank you uh would you like to give governance update sure uh we met on March 1st uh first topic was um Dr muchie provided um opportunity to review our planed celebrations like the fabulous one we had tonight with celebrations and recognitions of board meetings as part of our um initiative to get people in and to recognize all the good work um happening in the district um
113we um for our board goals our board goal to post district and board goals on the agenda we discussed the formats for listing our goals and as Dr muchi I think you pointed out earlier it's on the first page of our board agenda what our board goals are and what our district goals are as a reminder for ourselves and for the public um of what we are uh working to achieve this year um we also discussed um sharing more detailed versions and updates on goals with the public and uh posting these updates on the website we reviewed to that point progress monitoring um and the importance of having smart achievement goals for grades three and five and how these goals should be spelled out there was a brief discussion on absenteeism um and policy will
114be following up for updates on that particular goal um and then again we will share out the goal tracker once it's updated with the board and then also posting on the website um to the point of you know uh calendars and and U monitoring our goals uh Linda created committee calendars uh couple years back we need to actually use them um we're still getting our work done but I think it will help um us uh you know understand the work of each committee um and to understand you know what's mandated versus um things that we want to put on the agendas ourselves and and get our timing uh get our timing right and guide our work uh we also had a very good discussion on public comment um and how we respond to public comment
115um we reviewed some notes from a training that I attended um to see how other people handle public comment um Dr muchi clarified that her process is to call everybody after they come to meetings uh which we appreciate and we agree that it's important to have have a response a verbal response at at the meetings to make sure that people um feel heard and know that they'll be followup so um I think we're all really excited excited to you know have that conversation and have Clarity um on that um see and we also talked about time limits and the importance of having them um versus not having them um for consistency from meeting to meeting um the policy committee will look to um our align our policy with our practices in that regard um we
116also talked about allowing uh making sure we have sufficient time in executive session to do our business and to get down here in time to show our respect thank you Dr Mushi for um calling our attention to that it's it's really that is really important to be here to be able to greet people make those connections uh before we start our meeting um so uh we're working on that and trying to get folks get ourselves here earlier so we can start our work um 6:30 sharp um Second and last Dr muchi reported she's working with uh New Jersey school boards to identify fall dates for strategic planning so that's exciting um and then some follow-up um actions are that we're going to going to look at our format for meeting minutes and our format for
117these reports to make sure that we're being consistent and respecting people's time and thinking about what what the purpose of these reports are um the next time we meet is April 19th thank you um and then I just wanted to add one other piece that came up around the public comment is also making sure that um there are opportunities for the public to understand how we work and and how the work that we do in committees to shape what we do here and which things are available for comment and which things are not so there's um some good resources there that we'll be putting together to be able to share for those who are attending the board meeting to kind of demystify how it all works so add that little um and Thena did you
118have anything to share moris BL our qac visit was very very successful the county superintendent posted us on her social media site and also indicated that we were model for other districts and um Mrs cell are s our principal met with Mr Manning at the high school um SMY Horton in the tech department and immediately after 8th grade graduation all Mars PL students will be placed into um MHS School Management systems and received emails and the tech department shared canvas tutorial with Mrs cell to share with our students and Families anything else that's about it there other stuff is not it's all good thank you appreciate that um and then the uh MEF will meet tomorrow night so we'll have more updat but um certainly um hitting the goal for the um one of the
119specific uh having a soldout show and meeting the uh creative arts uh Target in the evening were certainly exciting um and just many thanks to Katherine um and the whole team that worked diligently and tirelessly to pull off that amazing event um I cannot even say enough about how exciting it is to see all the members of our community perform but I obviously am self but for Mr Mac and appreciated more than anything his message of spreading kindness and that is definitely a highlight um going forward so um more to come after uh some of those final Pieces come in um and updates tomorrow night um okay hey I just want to say too I think I really appreciate how tight that show is I mean amazing it's you're out of there like it's it's
120great it's a wonderful show and it's really appreciative like their time management is fantastic yeah it it is amazing how many people have worked for so long and also um Tara Bernie who's now been hosting for 10 years and how big a part she is in keeping that going that's awesome really awesome oh and also I'm sorry the new um you know this is now the second year that they've done where you can scan the code and make your donations and Bren loves doing that he puts his like we put his name on the money so he can see it but I see all these other kids with their cell phones you know they might be doing like a few dollars here and there but they I think that's a great idea they love it
121visual you need visual visual aids cation um all right uh with that we will move to uh public comment uh before we open the meeting to public comment we wish to remind you that our meeting is now video recorded and publicly aired while the board welcomes and encourages public comment we ask that you be respectful including in any comments you might make about sta the board does not endorse any comments made by a speaker nor will the board be held liable for any comments made by members of the public the law prevents the board from speaking about specific students and Personnel matters for this reason the board will not answer any questions on these subjects finally the board's policy limits each speaker to 3 minutes we ask that you respect this policy and the time
122of your fellow community members by concluding your comments once you reach 3 minutes public comment is open for an hour or until public comments are complete whichever comes first at this point I would like to invite any members of the public to come for and remind you to provide your full name and address uh if we have no one then we will close public comment um and move on to business matters you to as appointed representative of the sending Mars plane School District to the Mars School District Board of Education I would like to clarify that my votes on tonight's disc of agenda items will relate only to those items that are identified as applicable District y to grades prek through 12 or to the high school grades 9 through 12 I'm abstaining from voting
123on any agenda items pertaining solely to the elementary and middle schools grades prek through 8 thank you for giving me this meeting thank you okay okay um moving minutes motions one and two a second any discussion pleas call Miss gby yes Mr lyd yes Miss Murphy yes Mrs pedalino yes Mrs Spa yes Mrs wall yes Mr Davidson yes Mr Cole yes uh moving policy motions one through five is New Motion number five a second any discussion please call Miss G yes Missy yeah Miss Murphy yes Mrs Pina yes Mrs deota yes Mrs wall yes M Davidson yes Mrs Cole yes moving educational matters motions 1 through second any discussion okay please miss gby yes Mr lyd yes M Murphy yes Mrs pedalino yes Mrs spota yes Mrs wall yes Mrs Davidson yes Mrs Co yes
124moving people Services motion number one a second any discussion okay please call Miss gy yes Mr lyd yes Miss Murphy yes Mrs pedalino yes Mrs F yes Mrs wall yes Mrs Davidson yes M Cain moving Human Resources motions 1 through 16 with revised motions 5 and 13 I'll second any discussion Miss gy yes Mr ly yes M Murphy yes Mrs yes Mrs Spa yes Mrs wall yes Mrs Davidson yes Mrs Co yes moving business matters motions 1 through 13 I'll second any discussion okay Miss gby yes Missy yes Miss Murphy yes Mrs Pino yes Mrs fota Yes W yes Davidson yes yes okay um and does anybody have any new business I just want to remind folks that we're having a retreat on March 27 from 6: to9 LLC thank you uh and if there's
125something else uh could I get a motion I'll make a motion okay a second I'll I'll okay favor thank you thank you all have a great night