001e e e please read the statement of compliance in compliance with the open public meeting ACT public law 1975 chapter 231 notice of this meeting has been properly advertised in the Daily Record and Suburban Trends its agenda has been posted at the appropriate locations and a copy has been filed with the Panic Township Clerk thank you will you please read the statement of compliance so sorry please call the roll Mr Bloomer here Mr cesi here Mrs Esposito here Mr gon here M AO here Mr mweene is absent Mr Pompeo will be late Mr senic here and Mrs shanton here we have a quarum thank you will everyone please stand for the flag salute the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with
002liberty and justice for all oh I didn't get minutes damn it all right good evening everyone Welcome to our March 3D Workshop meeting you will notice tonight that the board is wearing orange in support of Gavin and his fight we attended the boys basketball game against Roxberry Last Friday Night on 221 and we're blown away by the show of support for Gavin not only from our town but from the visiting team this is another example of why Panic is such a special place Gavin we are all behind you you have this and as Mr hazler said on Friday game on the board would also like to wish our hockey team good luck tonight and we would like to wish Sophia ketcher and Charlie Esposito good luck this weekend in the state wrestling tournament I know
003that I'll be watching I hope the rest of you will be as well additionally njsla testing starts next week and the board would like to wish our students good luck and last as was mentioned in our last meeting the board has started negotiations with the ptea for a new contract we have two future meetings planned and we're looking forward to continuing the outstanding relationship between the board and the Teachers Association that's it for me and I'll pass the mic to Dr bis thank you Mr senic before my I do my report I'm going to send it over to our student Representatives who will read the statement of compliance kidding they will not you're off the hook you're fine um but over to the zagler girls good evening everyone so glad to see you all again
004congratulations to Claire sidding EML Hawthorne Kylie Canon and Aubrey lens for breaking the school record by four seconds for the girls 4X 400 congratulations to Sophia clutcher who played second at the region tournament and will be moving on in moving on into States good luck congratulations to Joe barira on Breaking the state record with number of points in a game recording 11 points in the quarterfinals or ice hockey hockey will be playing a semifinal game as we speak against Lakeland in the game on Gavin for both the boys and the girls basketball games was a great success final numbers are still being tabulated from the from the HSA but we are able to exceed our goal of $10,000 for the Brady family thank you for all those who came out and supported Gavin in this
005fight against cancer pths is still selling bracelets for anyone who is interested Emily will finish the rest as winter sports come to a close spring sports are starting up next week on March 10th good luck to all our spring Spring sport athletes we wish you the best of luck on your upcoming season congratulations to Luke lobach and Nicole Chavez for winning Mr and Mrs Panic thank you for all those who came out and for NHS for organizing the event the guidance counselors have been meeting with Juniors to help them start planning for their future and getting them prepared for their senior year they have been going over colleges SATs class recommendations and more there is a college fair this Thursday for juniors and sophomores to attend students are taking the SAT this Saturday here at
006pths all Juniors will be taking the njpa which is the graduation proficiency assessment March 10th through March March 13th thank you for your time and have a great night thanks for the report now will you be taking the sat on Saturday all right and you know the drill do your best try your hardest have fun make sure you have a good guest letter going in and use the guest letter every time you draw a blank use the same letter every time law of averages are on your side but any I know I know you'd be well prepared for it just go out there and crush it and know you have multiple chances to take the test so the first one doesn't great just super score it and you'll be fine excellent well done thank you
007girls all right then for for my report I'm going to mix up how I originally had it mapped out I'm actually G to go with the the not so great part first um and then finish with the good part last I I had that mixed up before um but actually there's there's a good side to it too I want to start off by thanking Mr Gibbs his teaming the business office and the administrative team for the hard work and balancing the preliminary budget um we're going to be presenting that officially on March 13 which is our next board meeting after this the work for that's difficult and made more challenging by the reality that costs are rising significantly faster than our revenues team worked very hard works hard all year to maintain austerity and was
008particularly diligent on Friday um after we got our state numbers as we worked feverishly to find savings and efficiencies and just to frame it our revenue is for all intents and purposes capped at 2% which I can fully support as a tax in North Jersey the struggle comes from the absence of caps on our costs it' be great if all of our costs were capped at 2% but they're not staff salaries are not limited 2% increases nor should they be um that would be ludicrous to propose in this economy health insurance costs have been jumping by double digits seemingly every year prevailing wage increases are not Capt nor are materials and supplies this is not meant to be a doom and gloom presentation but in my limited mathematical capacity I am aware that if one
009side keeps increasing by more than 2% and the other one does not um ultimately it comes to a head and this is something that literally every District in New Jersey is dealing with and is my sincere hope that um our partners down in Trenton are aware of this and we'll find ways to help to fix um a very difficult situation involving appropriate school funding so that was my negative side of things on the more positive side of things just to Echo something that the girls talk spoke about as did Mr siic our game on Gavin basketball games were incredibly successful our girls hosted Villa Walsh on Thursday February 20th um I was in an AI team meeting at that point and Mr Bloomer sent me a picture of the two teams wearing the orange t-shirts
010for warm-ups and I was so inspired I had to go down there and take a look not that I didn't believe his picture but it was really great to see that in person um and they had another game on Saturday the girls did against St Elizabeth's who likewise wore the orange that was on Saturday the 22nd and then the boys played Roxberry on Friday the 25th first and the community response was nothing short of incredible we sincerely appreciate the support from our neighbors from all three schools who dawned the orange as well the outpouring is truly inspiring as we look to share our strength with a courageous young man and his family on a personal note I participated in training with New Jersey school boards during the weekend of February 21st through 23rd it was
011actually two hours late because I stuck around for the game on Gavin game it was well worth it but I went in my role as a new board member in Lincoln Park but I'm happy to report that proved to be incredibly useful for my role as superintendent here among other useful topics that were presented and discussed the communications training generated information about developing a district Communications plan which is something that we had discussed gave me a really good template for that as well as a crisis communication plan um we're beginning the process of developing that crisis Communications plan um involving Mr Shay Mr Riner Mr Lucas as well as Mr Zog and we expect that that's probably going to be tied into a district goal for 2526 it's really important to have that thoroughly mapped
012out I subscribe to the umbrella Theory which is that if you don't want it to rain carry an umbrella similarly if you don't want to experience crisis I think the better your planning is the less likely it is to occur on Wednesday of last week I was happy to make my annual visit to the Cedar Crest retired Educators Club I was happy to share the exciting news about what we're doing and accomplishing in the district as well as uh being provided an opportunity to answer their questions on a variety of topics I just have to say it's an incredibly supportive group um they follow our district very closely through the principal newsletters as well as through my weekly newsletters then finally this week we're celebrating read Across America week and I'm excited to be on
013schedule to read in all three elementary schools and then next week I'm looking forward to joining my friend Dr Shiri in making subs on March 11th at the jersey miks in Lincoln Park for a North Boulevard fundraiser we aspire to unseat Mr Riner as the sub making champion in the district but we'll gladly settle for a really good turnout so if you want to if you want a really nice dinner and an opportunity to see us do our part to pitch in that's going to be on Tuesday the 11th right absolutely mark your calendars that concludes my report all right uh Mr Gibbs do you have a report or would you like to read the statement of compliance again love that compliance good evening on the board agenda this evening there is a discussion on
014the 2025 2026 budget budget the governor had his 2025 26 state state budget address and the state aid for panic Township for the 2025 26 school year has increased by $ 137,953 the increase is based on the following school choice state aid went down by 28,400 due to the reduction in the number of students in the school choice program categorical Transportation aid went up by 78339 as the transportation costs having increased categorical special special education aid went up by $43,200 452 as say security costs have also increased and Equalization aid went down by $463 79 as the state has determined that the overall value of the homes in panic as well as the income of taxpayers has increased to the point that the district is either equal to or uh equal to other districts or
015greater than other districts with respect to property values and household income this has caused an elimination of the equalization age for the 2025 2026 school year Debt Service has increased or excuse me decreased by $1,211 as our debt has gone down the preliminary budget for the 2025 2026 school year currently reflects a 2% increase in school tax the total for the 2526 preliminary budget is 55,8 7 thou $87,700 which represents a 3.2% or 1,733 three increase the preliminary budget will be voted on at the the March 13th regular board meeting and finally I just want to send out a reminder that we haven't if you haven't submitted your financial statements uh to please do so as soon as possible thank you all right thank you Mr Gibbs uh moving on to open comment for public
016agenda items there is no one here so we're going to open that and close that and move into approval of the action items and we're going to go to PMC first I'm gonna ask michen to please move the action items under PMC I would like to move PMC 16925 through PMC 175 second any question or discussion Mr Gibbs please call the roll Mr Bloomer yes Mr cesi yes Mr gon yes Mr AO yes Mr mweene is absent Mr ppeo is gonna be late Mrs shenton yes Mrs Esposito yes and Mr senic yes motion carries okay that brings us to CIS U Miss Esposito please move the item under CIS I'd like to move CIS 68- 25 second question discussion Mr Gibbs please call the roll Mr Bloomer yes Mr cesi yes Mr gon yes M
017AO yes Mr mcen is absent Mr M will be late Mr chanton yes Mr esito yes and Mr zenic yes motion carries okay and then last up for the action item is FFA Mr Bloomer please move the item under FFA I'd like to make a motion to move FFA 121 25 question or discussion Mr Gib please call the rooll Mr Bloomer yes Mr cesi yes Mr gon yes M AO yes Mr M is absent Mr AO will be late Mrs shanton yes Mrs Esposito yes and Mr senic yes motion carries thank you that brings us to our Workshop discussion items first up is PMC with four items Staffing update uh preschool hours update and a uh planning for schedule revisions to the 2425 school year and uh board goals for 2025 than Mr senic and
018I'm happy to say we have Dr Shiri here um who's developed a presentation regarding an update on the preschool hours change that we implemented for this school year it was a pretty significant decision for the board uh to to vote on and we want to make sure that you understand what we're seeing and hearing from the staff um as well as observations about performance for for the kids and a few um unintended positive outcomes so she she'll manage most of the message if not all the message there I know the first item is a staffing update two quick things to report on um one is that our new behaviorist is going to be starting on St Patrick's Day um she had hoped to get in a little earlier but um she's got to finish up
019with a few um few students on her current case load which we fully support um and we're looking forward to having her start on Monday the 17th also um we have a French SL ESL vacancy that's coming up at the end of the month um Dr AEF is currently working with an agency to make sure that we have um adequate Staffing for that position um one thing I I will bring up I guess this is part of the Doom and Gloom portion of my week is that it's becoming incredibly difficult to staff French instruction and I'm not saying we're g to we're going to mail it in on this one but um I think we're we're seeing throughout the state as well as locally that we may be seeing the end of inperson instruction for
020friend coming sooner than later um it's hard to say that especially as somebody who took French in high school but it's simply becoming impossible to step so we do have U we have something in place that we know will carry us through the end of this year we have an option available for next year these are shortterm fixes um I'd prefer to have something longterm but I just want to put it out there I know it's an unpopular thing to remove any language instruction but I think circumstances greater than I may be at play in this one any comments questions concerns about that yeah um how popular is the French uh program do we have a lot of students in there it's it's not and it's a great question Tim I don't have exact numbers
021for it um French has been more of a a niche language through the year so generally you'll see students you know in 80 to 20 if not greater than that um tending and trending towards Spanish um and it's frenches rived through the through the years here in terms of enrollment but considering the fact that last year the state provided I believe it was seven new CTS for World Language instruction not for French not for Spanish World Language instruction total um that's somewhat of an ominous um ominous I guess message that doesn't augur well for for language instruction a very long winded response to a pretty easy question I don't have the exact numbers but um yeah French has never really flourished in comparison in Spanish but it's been it's been robust enough to sustain a
022class level per level right second item um and for this one I'll have either Aldo or Mr Shay put the presentation up on the screen behind us um board members also have access to the presentation and backup um we put it in PMC which I I thought was appropriate based on um this is where our discussions took place for this item last year so I figured this would be a good good spot to keep in it could very easily have gone into CIS as it's also has things that are pertinent to curriculum and instruction um but gives Dr sh an opportunity to be able to talk about what we're seeing in terms of changes to the program which is of course housed at North Boulevard um we were very strategic too in wanting her to
023have a seat at the table um as opposed to presenting at the podium so it could be more conversational and I don't want to throw you off Dr Scher but if if things come up as she's speaking don't feel like you have to wait to the very end you can chime in and ask questions um as we go so turn the floor over to you my friend all right thank you as uh Dr poris said about a year ago we came to you doing a presentation um it really started from the year before that when I had first arrived and the preschool teachers had approached me about this new idea they had unfortunately at the time it was too late to change anything so I agreed to hear them out at the beginning of the
024next school year so the beginning of last school year they presented this idea about um how they would be able to get more instruction out of pretty much the same amount of instructional hours um by taking some transitions out um and like Dr Porter said there were some unintended positive consequences for the school as a whole and for the preschool students so when we did this last year we um I went back through that presentation and pulled out the main goals from our this change and the change that we're referring to for anybody who doesn't know was preschool had gone from um 8:15 until 2:45 in Prior year years what we did was we cut that back to um from 8:15 to 2:00 which allowed um for a whole bunch of other things to happen
025as I'll go into um but basically the teachers wanted more times for tools of the mind and less time lining up at the door going to a class coming back having to pick up where they left off um and being that they are in a k to 5 school I had to work their special schedules around um the K to5 special schedules which made a little tedious sometimes speci were at nap time sometimes specials were at inconvenient times when they were playing um so this one of our other goals was fewer Transitions and we had some students in the preschool disabled classes who really they would cry every time they transitioned so the teacher would lose a lot of time with that as well um this also the goal was to allow for additional collaboration
026between teachers because then at 2 o'clock every day the teachers didn't have a prep earlier in the day so they would all have their and they do have their prep at 2 o'clock so they meet pretty regularly um and I'll go into the more specifics and then the other positive for the school for the K to5 part was there was going to be additional time in the special schedule to then offer enrichment at lunchtime like is done in some of the other schools so I'll go a little B more into each of these so the positives right now um I did go back to the teachers I asked them I took each of the questions and the bullets from the last presentation and I said fill in anecdotally where we're at and anything factual um
027anything data if you have anything a lot of it is really just anecdotal um but for the most part everybody is really happy with the new schedule they have uninterrupted play blocks every teacher doesn't their schedule doesn't get dictated by when they have gym or when they have music their schedule is dictated by what works for them they set up their own schedule um for what they need so that some preschool disabled classes need more of this thing or that thing whereas maybe the preschool integrated classes need more of that versus this um there's more time to differentiate the instruction the teachers have more time to sit down with the students and they're not getting all of a sudden they're in the middle of 10 minutes into a play block okay everybody put everything down
028and you can imagine what everybody's tried to get their children to stop playing at some point so you can imagine what that's like with some three and four and fivey olds um so that was difficult but right now they can just keep on playing and there's more time for the teachers to work with the students because they're not spending the time trying to get the students to stop playing lining up and then coming back um like I said there's also in that is the fewer transitions students have more self-regulation because they can um follow the same routine every day it's not a different routine a different schedule every single day um and then the specials push into the classroom and we tried a couple different methods for that at the beginning of the year I
029tried to schedule all the classes to make sure it was even and make sure this class had this many gyms and this many that but in the end I didn't know what their schedule was so after the first month schedule they said can you just tell us what the periods are that are available and we'll figure it out so what they do is every month they set up this the schedule we already have the open blocks where the um specialist teachers have that that push in time and the teachers go through and they sign up for those blocks for where it works for them so the PSI teachers who may have more morning students and afternoon they try to make that even sorry they try to make that even and um the the teachers who
030um are working on a project maybe this month they're working on something art related maybe they'll sign up for an extra one with Mrs Dreer for art oras next month they might sign up for something extra with Mr Vino um and so far all of the preschool um all of the specialist teachers have reported positive on this because at the beginning they sat in and they watched the routine so they understood the routines of the classroom and then as time went on I would start to poke my head in and see um all of a sudden I'd see I the other day I Mrs felt's head up this beautiful lion picture and and I I said to her I was like oh my goodness I took two steps in the doorway I was like that's
031amazing you're using Forks to do something with paint and I saw Mrs Dreer on the other side of the she goes well we've had help so I can see how the classroom what they were doing in the classroom is being enhanced um some of the preschool integrated classes I've noticed them going down the hallway to the library they're kind of getting an introduction to the library because they can handle that in their schedule and they work out the time that works with them and Miss Myerson schedule the other positive is that since the specialist teachers are pushing into the classroom there's appropriate size furniture for students you know in the art room we have K to five size uh Furniture which for kindergarteners is a little big for fifth graders might be a little small
032um but for preschoolers was way too big so just the fact that they're at tables and chairs is their size and their feet are on the floor just kind of makes a big difference as well um they also because of they're making up their own schedules they do have more time for outdoor play which this winter was not so great but um in the fall when we had no rain ever we had a lot of time to go outside and play um if we um are able to get that new preschool playground at some point with all the grants and the things that we're doing with that that will be a huge plus because it's in that Court yard that a lot of the um preschool classes share um for the teachers a lot more
033collaboration they have monthly meetings with um with uh Miss Bronco the preschool case manager and all the teachers together weekly they do meet on their own and probably more than weekly because I always see them in in one another's classrooms um the biggest thing I think I've seen the difference with is that we have more students kind of crossing over from the preschool disabled class to the preschool integrated class and a lot of that happens because they're not just catching each other in the hallway when they're leaving or coming for the day they have 2:00 to go down and be like oh this is working my schedule and and that what works in your schedule so more opportunities for those small Snippets where there's more time and it's not like you are out at your
034gym special that day and I'm out at my this special at this time so we never have time for that one student who just needs maybe one block of play to have that integration opportunity so we've seen a lot more of that um meetings a lot of the meetings for preschool are held at 2 o'clock um so the classroom teachers are not pulled from their students when they go in these meetings because every time you have um an ID meeting an annual meeting or an uh initial um evaluation meeting you have to pull a um special education teacher and a regular education teacher that would mean Miss Monaco or Mrs rabina would have to be pulled for almost every single preschool meeting so now it's happening at the end of the day and we have
035um PS every teacher is available at that time um and that's more that's helpful for the kids to have their teachers more um there are more integrated like I mentioned already um there's more integrated opportunities because the we can better align them um I've seen a couple students go down and have playtime with another class and they just kind of are becoming a little bit more of their own world rather than each of their six isolated worlds actually chime in one thing I really lik about that and I know Mrs espo I'm getting into a realm that you know incredibly well um we want to push kids towards the least restrictive environment that that's part of the point of the IEP um so when I'm hearing about more opportunities from students in the preschool disabilities
036program to go to a less restrictive environment in the PSI room it tells me they're getting closer towards mainstreaming opportunities which has served so many benefits not only for the students from the PSD program but also students from the PSI program it builds empathy it builds teamwork and it builds advocacy so um that was not I'm not gonna say had a favorite bullet point from this but that was one that really that really connected with me I'm really proud of that I think and I actually just recently also saw a form that um is about to be sent home with some of the PSI students um asking them if they would be a leader and go into the the PSD class and play with those students to be um a we we would call them
037a leader but you know they're really just a really good role model for those students so they get that opportunity and I in the two years I've been there I don't ever remember that being a conversation just because the schedules were so hectic um let me just jump in before we continue so I went back and looked at the presentation from last year in preparation for this and I was thinking to myself this seems like it answers a lot of those questions now I know why yes you did the same thing but the one thing that I saw in there was that there was going to be more of an opportunity for outdoor play and integrating the classes kind of like you had said Dr Porter so I'm glad to see that that's something that's
038actually come out of it because from being next to uh Mrs Vito for all these years that's been something that's been stressed as far as like the integration between um all the different types of kids to help them all grow together so I'm glad to see that that's something that was supposed to come out of us and that's something that is coming out of us yes I I agree it was kind of like an although we expected it was like an unintended unintended large consequence positive consequence um so we've also gained enrichment opportunities in the school so um Miss Myerson because she doesn't she probably had the most preschool classes um in the previous years which also she did not have we had low Furniture High furniture so now we have all one siiz Furniture
039um and she is able to have read sess which is um in indoor uh opportunities for indoor recess there students at there's Lego structures they have little contests with the Legos there's magne tiles there's board games there's chess you know along with chess and things like that card lot of Uno being played um that opportunity for indoor recess is also in the Gen general education the regular classroom but some students enjoy even when it's indoor recess in the winter they want to remove themselves from the louder environment and be in the smaller environment sometimes maybe they just want to go in there and read and it's every time I walk in there there's just kids like playing and reading which is you I don't know as a parent it's just so makes me so happy
040to see kids playing and as a principal um and then it also those social skills that we just you know always work on and we're more aware of now that they really need to work on the give and the take of playing board games is is a big deal that we don't always get the opportunity to do um in art grades 2 to5 because the way the schedule is um are offered art enrichment each week uh she has schoolwide projects there's a quilt kind of a thing in the front of the building um that looks beautiful and there were uh decorations for the winter Dash then I all a sudden they appeared and I was like where are these coming from and it was from the art enrichment so there's a lot of things where
041you know Mr J will tell me oh I think we're going to work on this project it would be okay if we added this to that and and it's just it's like come out of the woodwork as something that I just didn't even expect like I knew we would have these opportunities but I didn't think of it as enhancing the school as well um it but it helps the students as well as the school um and music Mr Vino is very excited he um only has a few periods available because he you know does spend some time at the other schools um but students in grades two to four he I walked in one day and there's students like coding composing something and other ones learning a new instrument like guitar that they may not
042have the opportunity to do otherwise they were re um I think they were uh re-recording one of the school songs so that that could be updated um as like a guide and then um there is one extra gym period that is available so miss m um Miss O'Hara has done a great job of rotating among the classes she'll have you know all the fourth grade classes in there playing kickball against one another friendly competition and it also the bonus of that another unintended consequence is then you know about once a month once every six weeks the teachers have an extra prep time uh to collaborate together um so that's a big deal too and she'll even here and there try to juggle her schedule around if she can so that if she knows that there's
043a big project in this grade you know she'll work around it so that has all been big plus and then you know I can tell you anecdotally that I feel as though that recess and lunchtime is a little less stressful um but I also went back in and looking my data mind I went back into my um parent communication log and I found seven instances last January in 2024 um seven different situations that I had to call parents on not just seven different parents but seven situations in the month of January I went back through this January and there was one so I feel like all of this is made made such a big overall contribution to the school that I'm just grateful that it was able to help you know really truly preschool through
044fifth grade and and something I'll tie into that as well because I'm a firm believer that the better people feel about the place where they are the better they're going to perform and I had a conversation with Mr hazler at a couple different events we've had here where he said you know I know this doesn't connect to test scor like absolutely it does because everything that you do that creates that better environment is going to contribute to student performance whether it's measured in test scores whether it's measured in attendance whether it's measured in fewer disciplinary referrals but you create culture and an environment where people want to be there and and and they feel connected to it and they therefore feel better about it so I I'm really excited about this and I had a
045nice opportunity the night of the winter Dash admiring some of the decorations about which you spoke but also to talk to some of the parents and get a sense for their energy for how their kids are for the opportunities they have for enrichment so some really good stuff there it's been a big plus and then I also told the teachers when they were um responding to me that I wanted to know also like what are what what are the unintended negative consequences like what you anytime you do anything new there's something that comes out of the woodwork that you don't realize is going to happen so one is and it they all said this is these are minimal things these are things they can work around it's not you know it's not gamechanging um but
046you know uh because when the students are dismissed at 2:00 sometimes their parents have those meetings they may not have alternative babysitter plans so sometimes the students are in the annual meetings while the they're conducting them so sometimes it's a little bit of a distraction but you know they work around it and Miss Cohen does a good job with that um the related services staff because all of the meetings are at 2 o'clock the related services staff doesn't necessarily always have preps at 2 o'clock so they sometimes have to reschedule those students for their 3 to one weeks and and work around that again they said it's not a huge big deal it's just something that they notied that they didn't expect to have happen um the parking lot it's kind of a mixed thing
047um we have staggered dismissal times we have a 10:43 dismissal for morning kindergarten we have a 2 o'clock dismissal time for preschool we have a 2:45 dismissal time for Miss Guerrero and miss moser's classes and we have a um 3 o'clock dismissal time so the parking lot is staggered so one would think that that would help things however the North Boulevard parking lot really is so jammed up and so tiny that anything you know one day we had um parents coming in to throw a shower a baby shower for a teacher four extra cars in the parking lot and apparently people were double and triple parked at preschool dismissal we try really hard we're kind of locked into when we can do um you know drills and fire drills and things whole school assemblies because
048you know we have lunches from 10:54 until 1:24 and then 1:24 comes and then 2:00 comes real fast so um if we have all School assemblies we would have to to have them somewhere between um like 8:45 and 10:45 in the morning so we work on that so that way we don't jam up the parking lot at 2 o00 so we're we're learning um but I do I have here and there I've had you know a complaint about the parking lot but I think it's just a general North Boulevard parking lot complaint and not necessarily anything that's unique to changing the time on preschool and that is everything just a a quick question I'm sorry just can you for the related service makeups you're just talking about when there is an IEP meeting right yes
049when there's an IEP meeting so it's it's not like related services are working on a regular basis yes in within that time frame okay thank you that looks it's amazing thank you for your hard work and collaboration it's all the teachers yeah Dr sh I just also wanted to add that I think you guys have been incredibly creative with everything incredibly I'm super impressive and I have sort of a unique perspective because I have a preschool Disabled Student myself and I live uh he's a second year preschool disabled so he lived through it last year and now he's living through it this year and I see a tremendous difference in him um he comes home with a ton more energy um so the transition piece I think is huge no no no we like it
050he goes out and plays on a new playground afterwards so it works it's it really does work um he's just coming home a different kid um so for him transitions was a big thing so I was very excited for this and I see a huge difference in him soad I appreciate you and your team I was going to ask if we had any parent feedback but we just got some right there so and there you guess that's the answer to the question and just on a total side note Mr Shay made fun of me because he pointed out how colorful the presentation was which meant I clearly had nothing to do with it um which is which is true but I I enjoyed it so much because I felt the content was so was so
051rich and it was great too as you said this came from your staff you you've played a pivotal role as has Miss Bronco but to hear the response from your staff about what they've been able to do very exciting and I will not make presentations that look like this but I really like this I can help if you need anybody else you want to talk with the district calendar thank you Dr Scher great job do you want me to give you the French numbers oh yeah that'd be great I just did some math real quick um so back to the French so we have um at the middle school we have 80 students which is 177% of the students taking the language um compared to um 385 taking Spanish then at the high school we
052have 54 students taking French compared to 400 taking Spanish so um it's overall it's about um 14 and a half percent if you put them all together yeah so not that I want to why not let's go there um are they is the number down French because it's French would they take something Chinese Italian sign language instead if there was if it was down per I think it's just well compared to 20 years ago way down oh I mean they had three you know how many French classes right yeah on um I would have to do research for but um I can say like French four has 11 students it's not whereas we have a French I mean a Spanish four with 104 and we have a Spanish five right so by the time they're
053going through like the middle school they like it started middle school and then it kind of kind of dies down or and since high school is where we're looking at the French yeah that's it is even would you even consider bringing back Latin instead of French Latin those are the only two languages we all yeah and there's there's been a perception that um that French is more difficult which I don't know that to be true it's just that's been a perception and I know when I was in high school it was seen as being more appealing to students who were spending more time in the library and less time at Social engagements which is why I took it but but yeah it's just it is a different language it's very very similar to Spanish but
054yeah I find it very appealing but it's not it's not Universal among our students to the tune of about 14 and a half% of those who take languages all right thank you for that M vanol um and then third item to get back to the agenda is uh the planning for possible 2024 2025 calendar revisions um I am as many of you know very superstitious so this is uncomfortable for me to discuss but we do have three um snow days still in the bank which quite pleased about um we will be giving those three snow days back I was advised I cannot have a 183 school day year which I would love but I was told I can't do that um but what I'm hoping to be able to do is um break up how
055we determine which days are the give back days um I would like to take one as My Prerogative um and then allow for the seniors to vote on a day which is something I've done since 2020 and then also provide the staff an opportunity to to cast a vote for a day so we would give give them um a list of days that are possible based on testing based on other logistical things field trips and whatnot about what days could be available and with three there's not there's not a ton of options you don't want to maybe go out to Facebook and ask them their opinion was with what I'm totally joking no I think the the plan you have good plan I I agree 100% And The the day in in the spirit of
056full disclosure the day I would love to be able to give back is April 21st first which is day after spring break and I know the 20th is Easter Sunday which is a huge travel day I think that would be a nice one but um we could approve any changes as soon as March 13 um I would recommend if we if we do have any inclination to do a date in either April well in April to approve that on the 13th give people advanced notice and then maybe wait till April 7th or the other dates which I hope that staff and students vote for those bookend Memorial Day not that I'm trying to skew the vote I I would also agree with that um remembering that we had a snowstorm a couple years ago I
057think it was it was late March wasn't it I I was still principal and we had it was it was about it was one of those 16inch type storms like March 28th or something like that I I don't know if it was that late but we we've we've gotten it I mean the good thing is with the March storms or April storms that just as soon as they're here they're usually gone but when when they're here they're they're pretty disruptive so I don't yeah I don't want to tell everybody hey you can plan for a 5day memorial day and then say I was just kidding because more predictable if we did if you did pick the three days and something happened you would just take the one off the end of the year back first
058or designate them somehow or yeah so you would you would just um it's almost like you have to couch it so like let's say we give back and I don't have the calendar in front of me but we gave back May 30th and May 26th and we get some surprise storm to tell people well you're coming to school on May 30th and May 26th now so it'd be unfortunate but I mean the reality we live in in North Jersey so I'll I'll plan to um communicate with the board about possibly approving a day on at the March 13th and then look to get the other two days um approved on April 7th and I'll work with Mr hazler about um surveying the seniors and then also uh could probably manage the survey for the staff
059so good stuff there it's nice to be all talk about that I know a couple weeks back there was a 10day forecast that looked like snow again where I thought it was going to blow through all three days in one week nope did not materialize thankfully then finally um I there an item there that's in PMC when it gets approved it'll actually be um a board Effectiveness committee item but for the sake of communication and community relations the uh board goals were developed um at The boorder Retreat which was is I still say the most successful Retreat I've been a part of my 12 years as an administrator here but the board goals are in backup um the board is going to have a fourth goal um which speaks to a wider range of focus
060items and fourth one's actually very manageable but um they should be approved at the March 13th meeting and then will be posted online thereafter I don't know if there's any discussion or comment commentary about board goals yeah I thought they look good too excellent yeah those will and those will help to frame the district goals that we generate in July so sooner we can get them up the better and uh you know we'll have those approved at at the meeting on the 13th it was exactly as we had discussed during the retreat right the goals there was I mean you just worded it much nicer than we did thank you I I believe that one of the board members wants to replac me with AI um so I'm trying to keep that down as best
061I can you know with my writing skills not not replace me entirely so if I get a chance to show off a little bit I still got that all right moving on to the workshop for CIS there's four items update on the stem Aviation Academy to the Ascend academy uh the NJ GPA testing week next week the March 4th PD day and the SAT prep course and if we did make a bot named after you we'd call it like Eddie V or something like that and I'd appreciate that I I do feel like yeah the AI is probably cooler than I am um and if you can give it a really cool name then I I'll be fine with the transition my my time will come so I'm going to not go long these are
062actually really quick updates um so on the stem Aviation Academy to ascend um we just wanted to give a very brief update um where working on um we've got the curriculum going for a couple new courses including data science and cyber security which I'm excited about as well as an additional robotics course um which will be different than the other robotics course we have as well as um AP compai a we have AP Computer Science principles right now so we're adding AP Computer Science a and those will be wrapped into the academy as well um we did Mr cop and I did uh a long meeting last week just kind of trying to talk about the pathways that students could take and so we're really working hard to explore students having Choice while all students
063might end end up taking um the intro to um basically the two introduction courses intro to Aerospace and intro to the engineering but then they also have a computer science course from there we're looking at how we can make the pathways go so the students can have um touch points and different ones depending upon their interest versus was being stuck with a four course pathway um through the whole time so um just wanted to give a little bit of taste of that we're moving forward on this and we're working on curriculum for the um coures next um Emily Ziggler told you my update we have NG GPA testing next week March 10 to the 13th um Ela two days math two days and I just wanted to let you know and you do realize that
064we set the bar pretty high for ELA last year yes we did that's I it's either me or not that's when you have 100% you really can't go much further um any questions on testing awesome we're also working on njsla stuff coming up in May um March 4th tomorrow we have our last half PD day of the year um two um particular things we have Consultants coming in um from the outside for mtss big huge training for K to 5 staff interventionists counselors on um multi-tiered system of support how that works with um interventions iron arrest so that should be a good session tomorrow I'm very excited we actually um while the the staff during the PD um from 1:40 to 4:15 will have all that they'll also be here in the morning from 9:30
065to 12:30 working with the interventionist counselors and admin team so I'm excited for the work we'll do there um we also have a creative language coming in to work with our world language staff on in Spanish for this particular thing um so they're coming in from outside to help us um do a better scope and sequence um and help our our teachers do some really strong vertical articulation starting in the Middle School through the high school so that'll be a good one questions on tomorrow excellent um and finally um we are using Title One funds to put together an SAT prep course and uh we reached out um to a particular um we sent out emails to particular students over the weekend already have 18 students signed up we think we can take 40 um
066what we're looking to do is have um seven seven sessions ahead of the May SAT exam so one a week um for seven weeks um we're looking to do two hours at night where um we have Ela for an hour and math for an hour and students can swap sessions so um we're trying to to make it as accessible as we can um to the students um and as I said we're using TI One funds for that so that's good so who is eligible for that course so um when you when you use TI One funds you have to identify particular criteria so we started with the ninth and 10th grade njsla scores in uh below proficient to identify students that we would invite um as well as um other things like our multilingual Learners
067and um just a couple of different criteria um you know we could look at grades and leg things like that so we identified a particular group we can only take 40 we don't have um well we're looking at that number classroom size you know making it right now so um so a bunch of different criteria we looked at to identify but we're going to open it up as well um following that to um again fill the class so okay it would be like a three or below or a two or below um depends yeah I don't want to just say it's one particular one because there's yeah there's you know different criteria that we're going to use and different factors but the NJ njsla scores from ninth grade um are a piece of what we're
068looking at okay and then um so if those students don't don't take the course then it gives you opportunity you'll go to like the next level of corre qualification corre they might have they might have already even sent had a second wave of emails today um in order to reach out to everyone so it's just but because it's Title One funds we obviously have to have criteria first um to try to service the students that are at risk or what orever did we get did you get a good amount of kids saying yes from the first wave or almost 20 okay awesome all right that's fantastic yeah that's a a great way to use Title One funds I think I agree my opinion well it's it's a really sound opinion too and this is something
069I'm really excited about um I know we we had talked about it when I was doing the um PSAT satat prep night and it's something that we've had in the school district through private vendors which I say because I I used to be one of those private vendors um before I actually started teaching here and and it's great to get kids more aware of what's on the test and you can definitely build their enthusiasm because as you demystify the test the kids start to get more of a can do attitude about it and as as a teacher and again I I I joke about my call them nerdish leanings but I used as a teacher I used to get really excited working with kids to help prepare them for the test because you could see
070quantifiable gains and and and you could definitely sense that that um excitement for them so I I I think what we're doing here is fantastic I love that we're tapping into the title One funds and I and I'd like to see this as something that we can really grow um to to build yeah to build a culture of school of making sure that our kids are as prepared for every assessment that they might face and so this is to me it's a new beginning and I'm really excited and I appreciate your vision with this Mrs V so I'm going to pass the credit to Chris foglio and to Lexi Blau at the high school um who were like Amry like they pulled me in they're like we need to put this together so um I
071say between the three of us we you kind of made the vision for it together um but I do think it's important also that um um students who might not necess if we just put an SAT course out there students who might not necessarily think they could take that course um you know making special invites where we can to students be like no you can all do it like like we want to pull you all in I think it's important to reach out and and uh try to get them I also think that historically in the his in the high school we've had difficulty getting the students to take advantage of the title one programs right because it used to be like the tutoring before school or the tutoring after school correct this is a
072great way to really um highlight that that like Title One service um because these kids are looking for SAT prep more than just tutoring I in my opinion yeah you get a different um get a different energy in a in a class from what you get in in one toone tutoring and it's nice because the the kids kind of feed off each other and it's good for them to see their peers getting excited about possibility of improving their performance it's not all Sunshine and Lollipops I mean there are times when it could be dull but overall I think it's gonna be a great experience and I to say it again I'm really excited for it I anything else on that all right uh before we move on to CIS can we just recap the co
073did you have any more questions about the Costa Rica trip did anybody have any questions before we have to vote on it for next week I'll tell you that I I did have questions on it and the information I received from Dr poris today was basically answered all my questions like every single one of them so looks like a great trip and uh it looks like Additionally the information that was put out covered basically anything that I think apparent would have a question on amazing thank you all right going on to FFA three items uh the preliminary budget the proposed new facility at seven Industrial Road and the softball Dugout so we'll start with the budget uh in your board packets you should have received a copy of the budget summary uh in the budget
074summary it gives a breakdown as to the operating budget which is going to be going up over $2 million which represents a 3.94% increase we're putting through a reduction in um grants and entitlements using the rule of conservatism uh you're not supposed to pick up 100% of Prior Year's grants because you never know if you're going to be receiving the same thing next year so that was a reduction based on 16.61% or $220,000 the repayment of debt went down obviously because we were paying off our bonds which is a very good thing and that went down $71,500 67% % reduction so overall the budget's going up 1,733 th3 which represents an overall increase of 3.2% um the same with the Appropriations I mean the same numbers exactly because that's the way the the funds flow
075general fund is uh going up 3.94% special revenue is going down 16.61% which leaves 3.2% increase in over all Appropriations as mentioned prior uh earlier excuse me the tax or the bank excuse me the tax Lev is going to be going up $95,600 which represents a 2% increase in the tax levy the increase in state aid is $ 137,953 which I previously discussed how it was broken down by each category and after that there is the increases in salaries which is a 3.5% increase or $242,000 benefits went up 416,000 which is 6.2% increase uh other insurances went up $ 41,5 79 which represents a 10% increase utilities $523 uh transportation is going up 17,000 almost $118,000 and tuition for out of District plac ments is going up $634,500 uh so basically that in a nutshell
076is the numbers as far as our budget for next year are there any questions I have a question uh just a general question things that are going up 20 30% like what is going on I we're not talking about eggs here you know like 2% 5% 7% okay you said 177% you said 30% you said 20 something percent like what what is what is that and I don't to you but like do we have a choice to go with somebody else we have a choice with something else or that's just what it is well it depends on what you're doing I mean some things you don't have control of right so you have to go with whatever your provider's telling you know so if it's 27% hey that's it you know try to make mean
077like health insurance goes up 27% we don't have a choice that's it you don't have a choice in the state plan you don't have a choice if you're in yeah once you're in you're in so Gordon Gordon a couple questions in line with what Sam is saying um so the first thing is you have a reduction of 16.61% for the uh grants and entitlements right and that's based on a conservative estimate so my question is first question is is it possible that there could be no reduction there based on your conservative estimate and that would be $220,000 more that we get exactly or more that's what we're hoping for but using the law of conservatism you should not put through the exact amount that you receive or even give an increase okay assume that you
078may get less and if you get more it's it's more than our pocket yeah absolutely okay Gordon when do we find that out not until September September thank you second question is relased to the the banked cap so looking back at our prior budgets it looks like we had at least like 800 Grand banked cap that we could have spent from the last two years why are they not allowing us to spend that is there any reason why yeah what they're basing it on is health insurance okay our health insurance costs we budgeted too well last year because we really didn't have a a deficit in our health insurance we actually had a surplus because we budgeted a certain amount they came in less so we had a surplus so that actually hurt us so
079all you'll see this year I've been budgeting a little less on our health insurance knowing that it's going to be higher but I'm not going to get hit with you can't use your bank cap for the following year that was going to be the next question because you're allowed to not that I want to increase the tax levy but you're allowed to increase the tax levy for things like health insurance premiums exactly so my next question was going to be why can't we go above it to pay for the the 6% increase in benefits and the 10% increase in other insurances is it because we were so spot on last year that we kind of hindered oursel for this year yes basically yes you get P yes how is why like what what that makes
080no sense to me like let's say you got it right on right that means you buzzer it the right amount of money but it still went up 6% and 10% right so if we can only Levy 2% is there a threshold that the state says if your health insurance goes up by more than this then you can tap into it and if it's below this then you can't and what is that percentage it's called a referendum if you want to increase it above what your 2% that you're allowed you don't have a bank cap you can go out for referendum to ask for more money okay I didn't think we need to do a referendum when it was related to that well it doesn't be health insurance could be your overall budget okay option distri
081Mar not a second question or second oh you on the referendum yes because they had a first question probably construction right all right so then the last question related to bank cap I don't know I'm beating Bank capap like it stole something but it kind of did um the money that we had since but about half of it was two years ago and the other half was about last year the fact fact that you can only use it for three years does that mean we're losing the first half of it no it gets carried forward so it's carried forward to the 26 27th per okay so even though they're not letting us use it this year they're still going to let us use it kind of like for the past four years because we're going
082to get that first year depends on how we budget our health insurance yes okay it all follows through what's called chapter 44 which is a series of reports you have to uh provide to the state usually by the mid December it has to go out and that gives you the determination as to what was your actual and what's your forecast and they look at those two things to make a determination all right hey they actually saved money so instead of penalizing the district in their minds you're thinking they're giving it back to the taxpayer so the taxpayer doesn't have to pay that's that's the rationalization that I perceived yeah any other questions no what one thing I'll just weigh in on too um obviously the the increase in the cost for added placements um is
083definitely a jarring number to see $634,500 um and that is um without knowing that that number was going to be that number that was part of the motivation for looking to collaborate with some of our neighboring districts on possible placements for students who need programs that we don't provide um if we if we send somebody to Montville it's a lot it's preferable financially and to me educationally um to send to another public public school then to send to a private placement where we have no oversight no guarantee of the program um it's going to be any better probably will not be any better and virtually no input on on costs Transportation so I'm hoping that that does bear fruit and we we are also looking at what types of programs we could possibly uh offer
084not only to our students to help keep them in District but also as a possible Revenue generating program um so with that number where it is it's it's daunting but it's not something we're going to throw up our hands and say oh can't do anything about it um obviously we want to keep all of our students in district there are some situations where you simply cannot but we we want to ensure that we're maximizing our resources including our facilities um and looking at as many feasible options as we can okay any other questions no thank I got one more it it's related to the agenda for next week no no it's not about Bank cap I want you to read no kidding um the playground we have a withdrawal in the next agenda for about
085$65,000 for the playground potentially at seven Industrial Road well I was bring next section but double that yes I have have an exact quote now and it's my so both of those quotes you put them together and that would be replacement for the 65 that's in there yeah you'll see it soon yeah any other questions no okay the second item I have is uh the uh the new facility um I just received the estimate actually just this afternoon as to what it will cost to have the current owner fix up the top floor which is the board office plus the class or the offices that'll be moving from the second floor to the top floor the total cost and that also includes uh putting in one special ed class or one preschool classroom on that
086second floor because I figured if we are going to have a preschool we need to get it started right away so I asked him to include that in the cost the cost is $437,000 650 which I shared with the board um the second floor or excuse me the additional classroom is only 75,000 I say only 75,000 because that is not using prevailing wage which would more than triple that so obviously there'll be more discussion on this tomorrow night at our committee meeting but um to me I think that's a very conservative and very good estimate um can they do that though because it has to be doe reviewed the drawing so can we have someone make a classroom without it being doe reviewed well he could yeah there's nothing stopping it's his building he can
087do whatever he wants right assuming need it later right we don't own it yet we're not going to own it until it's done or at least that section is done which gets us past the prevailing wage problem you understand what I'm saying Bri um so that's one piece that I received the other thing I received was uh what is the what is the revenue on this building you know and I just received his 2024 um financial statement which shows a net income of over $95,000 that's net income after all its expenses the rents come in over $200,000 so it's in a positive cash flow which is a very good thing that's what we want we don't want anything that's in a negative cash flow um now it will be slightly less because I understand one
088tenant is leading leaving but it's a small tenant I believe it's the CBA firms leaving there was only one office so I'm not sure what that rent was but that will reduce it slightly I think it'd be interesting to see what because I'm looking at this financial statement I see the 200 Grand of rent coming in which I assume is just for the second floor yes because the third floor is nobody right now exactly so if we took over the building and we put our offices on the third floor and we continue to rent the second floor we could potentially be infusing our district with 200 grand every year but I'd be interested to see which items on this list would chip away from that 200 Grand because he has expenses on here too that
089would take away from the rent I'd be interested to see what that 200 Grand would would would be what that would turn out to be yeah we can I can work something up regarding that there's another reason why I wanted that um preschool classroom on that we'll say second floor um I had a conversation with um the town tax assessor and he told me basically Gordon until I see classrooms on that second floor you're going to be taxed on that floor okay great I'm going to put in a classroom now I have classroom and I have our offices nobody's in them but the school so I want him to remove that tax from that floor so we only get taxed on just one quarter of the building which is where the tenants are which they're
090paying for and we're not taxed on that second floor and we're not taxed on the board's office so that's that was my big one of my big reasons for having that additional classroom put in there not only to save money but also to save money on taxes and the last thing I had was the um the playground the playground I have I I sent out to the board also an email um just to give you an idea as to what it would cost and this playground I understand it's also um flood friendly I'm going to say it can handle a flood I know that was a question one of the questions in the the U report that you're looking for which will be ciliated for tomorrow night it looks like it's just anchored to a
091concrete slab that's all it is which means it doesn't float away ESS exactly yeah there any questions regarding the building at all um I just had a question so um You' mentioned how we're going to do Renovations before actually buying the building that's correct that's correct okay I mean we know for a fact that they're not going to pull something on us like we're not going to be doing all those Renovations and they're going to never mind and sell someone else for a higher bid no we we will be under what's called a capital lease a capital lease with a right to purchase okay Capital lease is at the end of the lease we're buying it he's going to be no matter what we're buying it during that Capital lease right but in the lease
092it states July or August whenever it's completed we're going to buy it for the 2.2 mil 745,000 okay that's essentially okay well got thank you any other questions yeah and just to that too the way it's been um sold to me the way I've discussed it too is that it's essentially what we're looking at are things that are pre-conditions to the actual purchase so um the current owner has to present something that's satisfactory to The District in order for the sale to be executed Gordon a couple more things related to the property um and we're going to talk about this more tomorrow in our committee meeting but we We Now understand that the PRK program cost more to run it than it does bring in money right how does expanding into the building and expanding
093the program into this building make that better or make it worse like how does that work is it that we put more kids in there and then the percentage of the paying kids goes up and and so before I keep asking any questions so if if it is going to improve it what percentage do you think it would improve it by well here's the thing if we can bring students in from out of District we can charge a much higher price and we will make money right now we're losing money because we're basically giving away a portion of our tuition to parents who're sending their kids if we have added District placements you'll make a lot more money includ especially in special ADB when I was in Stan hope that was a big deal I
094mean I brought an additional half a million dollars in Revenue just in bringing in five kids from out of District yeah and we'd be able to have preschool disabled at that building I believe we can I mean it's a second floor I don't think it's a problem it's a preschool so it's it should be fine and if not we'll just move the the regular kids over to that building and keep the special ed kids in go the weight list that we have now how many of those people are from out of District uh right now I don't believe there are any I think it's all just in District for the moment but we haven't advertised out of District yeah exactly but what I'm saying is is it possible though that it fills up with all
095people from banic it's possible anything's possible yeah exactly to educate a child of ponic and we're charging 8,000 for preschool you bring in 20 more kids 30 more kids you're losing x amount more dollars right like we're not making money we also have to hope that we're going to get the P will be up for p well I don't know what's going to happen with the state of Jersey but the paa when that Aid comes up we have to be able to have the spots and that will pay for it we'll be getting money to run the preschool program so I mean and I mean tuition's free but then you can also um allocate certain monies that we already have in our budget to go to the preschool program which then you're you're getting you're
096making a re not a revenue but yeah my my opinion there is like we we want to see at least I want to see the hard numbers of how that works because I just want to be comfortable to make that decision because the numbers I'm seeing right now say that I could we could buy a building you could put a board office on top of it and fit it out for prevailing wage and then you could continue to rent the second floor and you could make a substantial amount of money potentially every year that goes into our district at a point when we're losing State funding for things so if there's a if there's another uh alternate to that where we get preschool Aid because of the expansion then I just want to see what
097that what that that looks like in terms of hard hard numbers that's all well there's only currently six tenants correct yes that's correct and we can still fit those six tenants even with uh making the preschool the second floor and then having the tenants go on the third floor no the board office is goingon to be the third floor second floor would be freeek yeah but are we I thought we had it but there GNA be a couple ten upstairs to there be five tenants upstairs couple tenants but so to me again just my opinion at this point seeing the numbers I'm seeing 200 Grand of income I'm seeing a pre-ap program that loses significant money and I'm thinking to myself it's $150,000 here's your problem but we're also educating our students which we're educating
098our banic students and we're keeping kids in District by having these programs which outweigh which is tremendous for those students and for our town and for if you run in a deficit budget for too long at some point you can no longer run no but that again I agree with you everything you're saying is correct Gordon do we know what neighboring hold on a second if we could continue to educate those kids and then get rent and then rent that covers the difference then we get the best of those World 100 I behind you 100% now we do need to sometimes I money is very very very important but so is the educational component so Gord just a quick question is it a norm that preschools tend to run in deficit across the across the
099state is that it's not it's not something that you'd be out of business right but I'm just saying is is it do we know any schools that have fac this and have seen turn around and there's a model to the success of it that we know of or is this still just like something we are discovering ourselves and working through ourselves well I mean I think we're working through ourselves other districts have higher tuitions I don't if you remember we went over the tuition you know last Bo meeting um I don't know what their costs are you I hav't an analysis on that so whether they're making money or losing money you know my guess is that most of them are probably breaking even I was say it's probably break even any questions and just
100two things I I just wanted to weigh in on too we have received inquiries from people from other communities about whether we do have availability in our prek and our response has been that we have to get through the entire waiting list of Quantic residents before we can offer it um and the we just wouldn't be able to get to them um and one thing too just about looking to have a revenue generating program and and I think it is really important that we create something that's sustainable I would love to be able to have um classes that are populated entirely by general education um tuition paying students because that that's that that creates something that is is a revenue generator where um with programs for students who don't have to pay tuition obviously um
101you bear the cost of that because you are bound morally ethically legally call which will to educate um all the children that you can so there's a lot for us figure out something I did talk to um Mr gibbes about is when we do get closer to this to be able to have a cost benefit analysis we can point to it and say this is what we anticipate revenue is going to be and historically our PRK tuition was was very low and it's something that we've made incremental gains try to catch up to competitive Marketplace um that's something that on my end I didn't want to do it all at once and tell people hey you like our program right now you're paying 23% more I thought it was more reasonable to do it incrementally
102um I also was not a business major so do it that way you will and and I don't want to make it look I'm coming at you because I'm I'm totally not it's just I would just like Dr Porter said I would like to see that projection laid out in something that's concrete and real real numbers because it's I'm not even talking about buying the buildings you could buy the building and you could still rent that floor and make a ton of money okay so it's really about what do we do with that floor which is really what our board goal is figuring out what we do with that floor and before I make a decision or make a vote I want to make sure I have all the information that's all okay and I
103appreciate you taking all the questions and you gave us a ton of information today and again it's not in to you I just just want to have all the information so I can make a good decision absolutely absolutely I I would go along with what Brian's saying that I I'm not against anything or for anything in in a sense that I I'm just uncomfortable with knowing that we're losing money on something that we would continue to possibly lose money on what how much would we have to raise the cost of the you know per year over the next eight 10 years so that we I mean again I'm not I don't want to say I wouldn't want to make money it'd be great to make money but so that we could break even right I
104mean we're talking about things going up 23% if Healthcare is going to go up 23% how many people are going to be working in over there that's how many more employees that we need how you know how there's going to be repairs on this building after a couple years elevators are going to go things like that out of District plac that's where you're going to make the money no tuition answer to that right because you're you're never going to be able to charge what you need to do that it's about bringing it out of placement now we should have an idea though like we say we're going to fill up with panic kids we have always a good kind of sense of you know we know what the weight list is I don't currently know
105but we know like as a district we know we know what we have today we know how much room we're we're Gathering um I mean is it is capacity actually something that we're seeing as a possibility or I mean I guess a concern which doesn't sound like full capacity is a concern but you know what I mean do like Are We There Yet do we know like yeah even if this weight list and an additional 25% come in we still have two classrooms worth of you know special needs that we could bring in like do we know that yet the new facility can house 96 students we're not going have 96 for okay well I'm saying we could move some of our pre that we have in North Boulevard to that facility right we could
106open open up a classroom for special education children to bring in that tuition from out of District right that's a lot of money okay that will far surpass this you know 200,000 per year far surp are surpass it that right 96 We're not gonna have 96 like we graduating class is barely 96 nowadays right so you're gonna have you're gonna have room for we're gonna have room okay yeah that's that's that's your answer Sam yeah I think like Danielle said one of the important things here that unfortunately Mr Gibbs can't predict is the Pea and uh that's like a role of the dice right now I mean I know districts that really thought they were going to get it worked with a consultant on their application like it was a no-brainer and then boom they
107didn't even get it so um so I think it's that's like one of the dice rolling things right here but I will say as far as the the the tuition uh increase goes um I know we're going to be continuing that conversation and committee but um there is definitely no better time to increase the tuition because it goes along with the fact that our Equalization Aid is dropping and we're deemed you know um economically able to pay this bill so this is actually the perfect time to up the tuition because I think it complements that any other questions no okay moving on to the next item um you want to take that one yeah finally finally something important to talk about um so the softball dugouts uh obviously we did renovations to the baseball and
108softball field um and you've heard me Advocate always always advocate for for girl Sports both Township level and District level as those discussing blue tarps are about to go up for the spring Sports season um they're I had an idea at sjg there are two unused preab dugouts that are in very good condition and are actually very nice um I thought of this as a joint venture committee item that um Dr Portis is going to talk to Adam Brewer about in terms of repurposing those two fixtures they're prefab steel there would have to be some minor work done with our current fencing and things like that but compared to the cost of something that we're not going to be able to budget anytime soon in terms of like real dugouts or or construction unless it
109was inine donors um it could be a feasible option um to to repurpose what's just sitting there as two unused items that um I think the state the town owns and that's we do own it we know town does okay so maybe it's not joint venture and it's just FFA so either way again um I remember seeing them and and seeing like this could be something here that can make a a big difference as curb appeal for for a much needed enhancement on the on the field so just that's the topic that I wanted to bring up and uh we'll kind of look into that see what it costs I actually talked to Mr Anderson about that you did already okay he said that they are welded they they're permanent and they're cemented into the
110ground so to remove all that and to take it all apart he said it will cost a fortune cost you more to do that than just to start from scretch really oh really okay that's interesting so Joe I went down there because I thought it was a good idea I went down there looked at the next morning um it is totally welded the the whole top of it I was shocked but it's all welded um the posts are or the columns rather are bolted into the ground so I think you could take the post out but then you have this structure you have to just move because it's one piece totally put together 30 foot long um I think it would be a a large undertaking to move it but I don't think it's not
111worth looking at yeah just an inquiry yeah I like they have explor ing options and look at what what are other possibilities but um it'd be foolish not to at least consider this and if it becomes too unwieldly to remove it transport it and then um reassemble it then then we have to have another option we should have other options ready to roll okay so looking to getting a quote Yeah okay all right that brings us to policy and we have four items policy 3282 staff acceptable use of Internet social networks and other forms of electronic communication and then 4282 which is same thing except for support staff the AI policy uh progress from the committee and then we had tabled policy 5460 for high school graduation regulation 5516 for electronic communication device use I'll
112take care of policy for one thing not to go out of order but the AI committee I mean I'm on it I haven't been to one meeting because they're at 3:15 but the stuff that uh Mr Shay is sending out as far as the information like the backup and it's like amazing um I'm trying to like capture it so I can use it at work because the the information is so good um so again I see what you guys are doing you should be commended you're doing a great job and I guess that's a it's an opening to move out of sequence somewhat and since Mr Shay is here and would have volunteered to speak about this if I had told he had to um why not capitalize on that but I I do have
113a summary from our AIT meeting from Thursday of last week which was generated by all people Mr Shay um just really quickly we we had a discussion about different AI tools that are available um and we did talk about what should be made available or kept available and and what should be blocked and for those of us who have lived through a lot of changes in the educational landscape over the past three decades there's a knee-jerk reaction often times to block things um YouTube was blocked by districts for for years years because they're afraid of what content was there instead of looking at capitalizing on what was there when I was so impressed with when we were talking about the tools and I'm sure you can Echo this Matt is that one of our students
114was speaking incredibly eloquently about tools like definitely don't allow deep seek to be able to be used but that um there's a lot less harm in chat GPT probably manage this better than I could uh can you hear me hey there we go uh yeah you know this is of course a topic near and dear to my heart that I could talk for an hour about but I'll try to narrow it down to 60 seconds um the the committee is doing a really good job of trying to make some some a handful of actionable items to get into our teachers hands and into our students hands like right now um you know the question is constantly coming up about academic integrity and you know the teachers are definitely looking for some guidance I have parents
115reaching out asking questions uh and actually I I we I might be sitting in on the next CPAC meeting we'll see if we can put that together um you know so there there's constantly questions fortunately you know the commit is doing a really good job of of starting to move forward and make some progress on you know a one-page statement that will give some some more clear guidance to our staff and students you know in the community and it might help um you know point the policy in a direction we're also working on uh like an AI scale to put in classrooms so teachers can kind of point to it and say okay for this assignment you know there's no AI or there's some AI or you can use all the AI you want and
116and that scale will spell out you know what's acceptable like can you use uh grammarly which is a AI grammar check um or can you not even use that so to better kind of like clearly Define each assignment for the students which will give a lot of guidance to the teachers so we we have a lot of things in front of the committee right now I'm hoping to send a survey out this week to the teachers to get kind of some feedback now that we've gotten this far so we're we're making some good progress we'll you know a soon after that we'll start talking more policy and then starting to involve you know of course the policy committee um and and then the board at large so um yeah we're doing a good job and
117so for everyone that's that's been attending um or wants to attend uh thank you for all that I think everyone's been doing a really good job so all right thank you Matt and then um to to piggyback on that too with the the onepage statement um we're really huge proponents here of one pagers they're accessible it forces you as an author to consolidate your information down and strip it down to its Basics which is helpful for the audience um and we're looking at our March meeting to be able to generate a one pager that we can push out to the district with a general stance on AI and then have a much Fuller plan um I had spoken about maybe having like a midsize document too I think Montville had a two to four pager
118I think excuse me uh and the next two items were the honor code um to help students understand academic integrity and Ai and then we're going to look to survey staff and students about their knowledge and what they they'd like to see us Implement anything else Matt I get I get very emotional so if the camera picked me picked up that I was tearing up there it's the excitement of this uh just the other ones I can summarize pretty quickly um policy 32 282 and poliy 4282 were approved at the December 2012 board meeting problem being they're not on our website nor are they on our books so uh Mrs a and I have been searching for them we're able to find 4282 on um on our Google drive it was added in 2015 right
119about the same time we got the drive and we're looking to find a copy of 3282 I will say that they are um representative what you would back 2012 policies to have to say about social media so these are both going to be open to revision but we will post the existing documents that we have on the district website again as they are approved policy I don't know what happened over the course of the years they were just lost to the passage of time but um we're going to look to resuscitate them and then we have two policies actually one policy and a regulation that have been tabled and we are currently working on them excuse me the high school graduation uh 5460 miss van school is at a training with the state where they
120talked about updating that so we're not going to do two updates in three months we'll do them all at once and then sorry and then the regulation we're going to have the admin team provide input on how best to manage electronic communication devices at K to5 68 and 9 to 12 all rightor any questions on policy all right uh next opportunity for public comment on any topic and there's nobody here so no one to comment um unfinished business any board member of any unfinish business any new business board member announcements yeah I just like to say that I uh attended the three really I mean it was supposed to be it was really three um game on Gavin games and uh to no surprise you know P Panic showed up and they were fantastic um
121you know seeing seeing Gavin on the screen at the boys game definitely emotional uh moment and uh praying and wishing him the best anybody else all right we do have reason yeah there's one I just I just wanted to um commend Mr Gibbs I know this was a tremendous lift preparing the budget um going through it myself so I uh I give you a lot of credit um and I just want to say you know looking through some of the stuff in backup and just I've been attending meetings now for over a year and watching you guys um conduct business and I just want to say that you guys have done a tremendous job making some uh proactive moves uh that are Al responsible so um and Sam I'm speaking to some of the increases
122um all of the uh districts that don't have any Alternative Energy like you guys do you have your solar and so forth um we're facing 20% increases in our energy costs um so and that's like Global I don't know if everyone got the email this week from like jcpnl like expect all these increases that's obviously schools face that too um Three Mile Island is coming back on the grid because Microsoft is you know um they hired them to basically handle their new AI so um the grid and as a whole is experiencing these massive influxes and you guys have really safeguarded yourself in a lot of ways and that's just one of the ways so um kudos to you guys um Gordon it looks great good job and uh thank you thank you all right
123we do have reason go into executive session where we will discuss student matters no action will be taken and we will adjourn from there our next meeting will be March 13th throughout the high school and it will be our preliminary budget meeting so I encourage everyone to come out ask questions and attend uh is there a motion to go into executive session is there second all in favor all in favor anyone oppose I all good night everyone