001Yeah. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. um Thank you. Good evening. Welcome to the Scotch Plains-Farwood Board of Education. Regular public meeting today is Thursday, February 22nd. Mr. Jones, will you please call the roll? Ms. Barbe? Here. Ms. Bauer? Here. Ms. Boroff? Here. Ms. Brody? Here. Ms. Sirianni? Here. Ms. Williams? Ms. Winkler? Here. Dr. Kowalkowski? Here. Mr. Murray? Thank you, Mr. Jones. Will you please join us in the salute to the flag? Ready? Begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. We just came out from executive session. Sorry we were late a few minutes. In our executive session, we discussed the personnel report, the HIB report, the suspension
002and detention report, and the legal status report. at this time we have additions to the agenda F4 out of district placement and H13 special education settlement agreement at this time we'll move to the superintendent's report dr. Mast thank you dr. Kulikowski hello everyone tonight I'd like to start by reiterating what I shared at last month's Board of Education meeting and steps we have taken as a district since then Our district recognizes that many of our families have been and continue to be impacted by the various conflicts taking place across the globe. We as a district understand the shared need for all members of the community to feel safe, supported, and heard. In an effort to respond to that need, the district has partnered with Imagine, a center for coping with loss, to become a grief-informed
003school community. The district is exploring a partnership with Imagine to provide various training to administrators, staff, and students within the district, in addition to providing a workshop for the parents, caregivers of our students. Imagine's first parent caregiver workshop, How to Talk to Children About the Grief in the World, will take place on Tuesday, March 19th from 7 to 8.30 in the Media Center at SPF High School. Registration is required because space is limited. You can register using the link that was emailed home last evening in my letter to the community or on our website at spfk12.org. On another topic, tonight's agenda, I am very excited that students from Nettingham Middle School's Drama Club are here with their director, Catherine Decker Lewis, to share with us music from their winter production, Once Upon a Mattress. Many
004of us here tonight went to see the play earlier this month and are so proud of everything this ensemble created. We know the talent comes from hard work, dedication, a passion for music, and storytelling. These students and their talents are gleaming reminders of how music makes all of our souls sing. And we're also excited about the auditor's report too. Thank you, Dr. Murkowski. Okay, Dr. Mance, thank you. Business Administrators Report, Mr. Jones. Thank you. So enrollment. Enrollment is up now to 149 students, higher than last year. We got an additional nine students to the district this month. You know, obviously it's putting a challenge to our order preparer for next year. We are vacating our space here. So we have the administrator office that's right. behind us and this space as well so on the
005agenda tonight for approval is to take turn this in the classroom space um we're still working out uh where we're gonna go for uh this place too so to tbd um i want to thank the uh fanwood and scotch plains municipalities they've offered to for us to hold our board meetings uh at their facilities so uh looking forward to that more to come more to be announced so sort of the planning uh stages there We're adding eight classrooms to this facility. So it'll be a mix of maybe preschool, some specialized rooms, things like that. But eight rooms that'll be used for classes. Let's see what else. Okay. So we're still working through the details of potential referendum based on... to put through to finalize for next month. So next month we'll absolutely know what we're
006putting through on the referendum. Again, I just reiterate that our website that we created, if you go under Quick Links, Planning for the Future, there's updates that go through that website. Budget presentation is also next meeting. And I think our budget's been challenging. And inflation continues to ramp up our costs. I know previously my budget meetings have been talking about transportation costs. They're up 150% from three years ago, which is really unimaginable. And so the rate of growth has slowed in that area. But at a minimum, next year it's going to grow 5.8% on a much, much larger base. So the impact is significant. In the previous 10 to 15 years, the growth was 1.8%. So it's clearly a major challenge for us. And to talk to, you know, free and reduced lunch, or not
007free and reduced lunch, our past two lunch balances are, you know, it's on the agenda tonight to approve an action plan for that. They are up significantly from historical averages. And we're going to be sending out letters to parents tomorrow. And we'll be doing a surge of outreach the following week to try to get that balance lower. That's it. Thank you, Mr. Jones. Board President's announcement. The New Jersey Open Public Meeting Law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advance notice of and to attend meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon. In accordance with the provisions of this act, the Scotch Plains Family Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date, time, and place
008thereof posted at the Board of Education offices located at 512 Cedar Street, Scotch Plains, New Jersey. Such notice was provided in written notice and forwarded to the Union County Hawk, the Star Ledger, the township clerk of scotch plains and the borough clerk of fanwood in the annual notice of regularly scheduled meetings as adopted may 9 2023 next we'll have the student rep report so got a bunch of stuff today so this upcoming is senior citizens day which is run by sga which is a student government and it's a reoccurring event so we had it last year and it was awesome seniors and students are super excited for it Secondly, our spring play is The Addams Family, and the cast of The Addams Family was actually invited to watch the dress rehearsal of Nettingham's winter play,
009which was a great way for the high school students to support the middle school students and recruit new students for their theater program for next year. And they're actually gearing up for opening night, which is three weeks from today, which is also super exciting. For choir, they had their cabaret night on Valentine's Day, which was... last Wednesday and they partnered with the Friendship Circle which is a local organization that supports individuals with special needs and their families and they raised over a thousand dollars which was a big success and it was really awesome. We recently had the 100th day of school so we are getting towards the end and on that note we are halfway through the second marking period so progress reports are coming out soon. close to it. And on another note, the
010exchange programs. So our Spanish exchange program, we went to Spain in January and they are actually coming to the U.S. from the 15th, the 5th to the 15th of March. And it's pretty cool because it lines up with the French exchange students who are also going to be in the U.S. from the 5th to the 15th. And the... The students from SPF are currently in France. And our Italian exchange program is leaving for Italy on the 5th. So it's all happening during that week of the 5th to the 15th. And finally, high school sports. We have spring season is starting up for all of our spring sports, which is softball, baseball, track, boys tennis, and both lacrosse teams for boys and girls. Then also something new this year is the girls flag football club Which
011is starting up and it's gonna be an official sport next year, which is I think it's pretty cool And winter sports are coming to an end and most of our teams have had really good seasons boys basketball played Ridge on Tuesday and Won 40 to 33 and are moving forward in states. They play on Monday again Boys wrestling has their regionals on Saturday and girls has regionals on Sunday and the track meet of champions is on March 3 we did have a lot of stuff thank you sarah okay at this time we will have our recognition and instructional updates we're going to have an audit presentation and then the nettingham players for once upon a mattress presentation what are we having to go first after mass for audit okay alphabetical all right hoping i didn't
012have to sing I will add that. mr jones just said unimaginable and i had the good fortune of seeing hamilton over the weekend and so that was the very popular song in that so i'm going to be singing that to myself on the way home anyway thank you so much it's always a pleasure to be here i know that i prepare some financial highlights for the board and even when i shared it with one of my partners in the office who does the same thing that i do we don't quite understand each other 100 so i don't want to continue to do i just want to keep it to the important takeaways that the board should you know feel good accepting the audit tonight so if you look at the fund balances on the budgetary
013basis that are reported in the acra on exhibit c1 that is the focus that is should mirror what you see every month in the board secretary's report You'll see that the overall fund balance of the district went up $5.8 million over the course of 2022-2023. But if you look at the open encumbrances, they're the open purchase orders at the end of the year, they increased by $5.8 million. So all the other components of fund balance equalized each other. This was the fourth year of the pandemic, and the state during that time period took the... Thank you. too loud so during the pandemic the state increased that maximum unassigned fund balance to four percent thinking that they were helping districts and so what that did was it prevented you to some degree not to be able
014to put money into reserves so we imagine that this year it will go back to two percent and it did and so you'll see that that reduction enabled the district to put some monies into capital and maintenance reserve during the year some of the things that contributed to that overall we all know that interest rates were up over the past year to an incredible degree so a lot of districts had more interest earnings over the year Keeping in mind that on the second page of what I put together for the board, that during the year you can increase those reserves in June, but during the year you may have had a withdrawal budgeted for allowable maintenance projects and capital projects that you could utilize it for. So on the second page, I show you that
015you started the year with $12 million in capital reserve. You were able to deposit $3 million. and that you withdrew half of that for allowable projects. So the balance in the capital reserve at the end of the year is 14.5 million. It's roughly about... can't do math without a calculator but your budget is somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 000 so it's 14 not a big amount every time i come here i say it's very difficult for a school district to stay within the overall two percent increase in spending when you have operating costs and capital costs that are included in there and so that's why the state created these mechanisms and again the maintenance reserve there are certain projects that you can use that for that's under one percent of what the district's budget
016is on an annual basis another comment i wanted to make because i heard dr mass talk about the upcoming referendum and i'm no expert on this but i have been involved in school districts finances for a long time as an auditor and so i know when you go for a referendum and you may have heard it already that the state will contribute 40 up to 40 of eligible costs so not every cost associated with improvements is subject to that so i think it's really important for a district to make some maintain some level of capital reserve for those projects that are not deemed eligible typically that means t e but there's a whole list of what it includes and what it doesn't include and then we do a little overview of what how the food
017service fund operated for the year last year the district contributed the board contributed a little over fifty one thousand dollars and that was because the operations didn't make it that was the third year of the pandemic and in order to get the unrestricted fund balance to the amount of inventory that you have at the end of the year that's why the board made that contribution at the end of june of 23 the district had 53 679 operating surplus but as you know in the comments we'll get to that at the end there are some receivables that have reduced So one more comment about finances is that each year I look at how much the district is using to offset the operating budget. And you have a lot of very good measures in place that you
018stick to. And sticking to a plan is one of the keys to staying on both feet financially. So the district typically uses $2 million to offset expenditures during this fiscal year. you used 800,000 of extraordinary aid that gets added to that 2% that you're allowed to have and so the state awards that late in the year they send it over in cash even later in the year and allow districts to add that to the 2% and then the board can appropriate it for whatever purpose is needed and I believe that was for transportation because transportation has been an incredible increase over the pandemic and currently. So with that, the only other financial information that I haven't covered is long-term liabilities that are reported in the ACFR, and those are things that extend way beyond the
019fiscal year. Serial bonds are typically sold. Well, those retired, and that's why the board is, they retired completely in. 22-23, there was zero at the end, and that's why a referendum is contemplated at service level. Leases are short-term, long-term leases. I should say capital. There were recent gas leases that were implemented, so that really should be something called finance purchases. Compensated absences are the approved sick and vacation, time that... equated into dollars that the employees in the district have at the end of the year and again that's if everybody left in one day that's how much it would cost the district but they're very long-term liabilities bond premiums expired with the bonds The pension liability is for the PPRS portion, and so the state covers the PPRS portion. And so, again, that represents all the
020people who are associated with Scotch Plains Family School District that are currently in the PPRS system and based on actuarial data. So it's a very, very, very long-term liability. And then the other post-employment benefits. is the same. The balance last year was 8.2. It's up to 10.2. And again, that is another one of those long-term liabilities. And beyond that, that's it for the finances. And I just have a couple comments with regard to management suggestions. And if anyone has any questions, I'll entertain them. So the management suggestion that we made was with reference to the COVID grants. So for the last three years. We know that when you have a federal state of the law that we're charged with, we have a state or federal compliance supplement that's out on the internet that we have
021to follow. Those procedures are far less intense. than a desk review. And today I was in a school district and we had the same comment, some type of review. And the superintendent said, you should have said painstaking because they were selected for desk review for the Title I and Title IV funds through Title IV. the ESSER funds and also the IDEA funds. And so we've seen school districts that are exemplary in everything that they carry out in terms of compliance supplement that we are required to follow through on. But that's review, that's program specific and it is quite intense. So we just say, you know, make sure the account numbers are identified and dot every I in cross-country. But we have seen very good policies and procedures here. And so with that, the only comment
022and recommendation we had was that there are student receivables that were receivable in June. We just had a review and talked about that. They're currently at $22,000. So as Mr. Jones indicated, the district is going to make attempts to collect those monies. And I think that's it. Anyone have any questions? Everyone has a question? well thank you for taking the painstaking time to go through the audit and provide us with all that information once again absolutely thank you And just so the public knows, I think it's important that the finance committee meets with the auditor without the business administrator or the superintendent there to follow up on anything, to be able to ask questions in depth and so forth. A lot of change, and I think the change has been good, and we've worked with
023many different people and still get the consistent results. you make it look easy well we're just lucky we have people here that make it thank you thank you thank you for coming out and staying tonight I appreciate it Okay, next we have the Once Upon a Mattress with the cast from Nettingham's. I guess you'll come up and we'll go out. Do you think we all need to move or help? How's it going to be? Good evening. I'm Mrs. Lewis, the director and producer of Nettingham Performing Arts Company's production of Once Upon a Mattress Youth Edition. Thank you. Tonight, we are thrilled to present an excerpt from our recent production titled Opening for a Princess. But before we invite our talented students to join us on stage. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to
024those whose unwavering support made this evening possible and our production. First and foremost, I extend my sincere appreciation to Dr. Mass and Dr. McGarry for their commitment to ensuring that the performing arts remain an integral part of our student lives. I am also deeply thankful to Dr. Dumoresque and Mr. Rand for their continuous support and guidance to our students and as well to Dr. Millett for his outstanding leadership in fostering the arts within our community. Of course, none of this would have been possible without the dedication and hard work of our exceptional production team. I'm so grateful to this amazing team, and I would like to mention each member. Our musical director, James Moser, who's right there at the doorway. Our choreographer, Samantha Simpson, who's not, I don't think she was able to make it
025tonight. Thank you so much. Our technical supervisor, Evan Parada, who's back there. Thank you. Our costumer and production assistant, Maria Villafredi. There she is. And our parent coordinator, who I could not have lived without, Amy Reese Pierce. Thank you so much. Their tireless efforts have really ensured that every aspect of this production shines brightly. So tonight's performance features our full company of talented actors, including soloists Cameron Glynn, Brooke Abadir, Delaney Feltman, and Amanda Bailey. Behind the scenes, we were very fortunate to have a group of dedicated students tirelessly working on the technical elements of our show. And it is with immense pride that I share with you that the middle school students this year operated all of the aspects. The lighting board, the sound board, they called the show and they ensured a smooth running
026of the show. And it was truly all of them making this happen. So I would like to acknowledge their unseen yet invaluable contribution with a round of applause. Once again, I thank you all for this wonderful opportunity for our staff and our students. And I invite you to sit back, relax, and enjoy the extraordinary talents of our students. So without further ado, I present to you the cast of NPAC's Once Upon a Matches Youth Edition. Thank you for coming back in we just wanted to thank you for our special performance I did see your show I did enjoy it very much and when I was a senior in high school that's the play our school did so it was so nice to hear it again and see it instead of being in it You're just
027fabulous. You sounded awesome here in this room, which is not equipped with the sound and the lights and everything, and it was just terrific for you to come out and spend time with us. If there's any other board members who want to make a service, definitely. Yeah, thanks for coming back in. We wanted to be able to give you some recognition. I have to say I'm glad the auditor went first because she could not have followed you. It had to be that order. So I was grinning. Ear to ear you just totally in and you know energized me and you are so in sync your voices sound incredible So I really thank you. I wish you could stay and sing the whole meeting Thank you so much I was so impressed when I was at
028the show with your talent and I'm just so glad that not only did I get to hear a little bit again, but that people can tune in. And usually our board meetings are not very exciting to tune into. But now the whole community can tune in and get to see a taste of how wonderful the show was. So we're very proud of you. And this is the highlight of getting a board meeting is getting to see our talented students. Certainly another example of SPF proud. I would just like everyone to know that typically we have a choir come and we kind of toggle which which choir will come to perform at the board meeting. But we have Dr. McGarry who's a theater guy and he thought you have to bring the Once Upon a Mattress
029so we could hear that talent. once again so thank you dr mcgary for the very good idea and thank you students thank you all so much i should thank the parents too because i know how much work it is i look forward to seeing you in future performances at the high school yeah please keep at it okay at this time we're going to take a short intermission and we'll be back in about five minutes okay so we're going to go into a break right now back from our intermission and it's time for our first public comment public comment is to be for agenda items only in accordance with the scotch plains-fanwood public school bylaws 0164 0165 the meeting will be open for 15 minutes for public comment there's a maximum of three minutes per speaker
030speakers addressing superintendent items business functions and other board business will be heard first if time remains speakers may address other matters speakers when you come to the podium please state your full name and the town in which you reside please note the board use of the public comment period is an opportunity to listen to citizen concerned not to debate issues or enter into question and answer sessions or cross-examination between the public and the individual board members please be aware that not all issues brought before the board meeting will be resolved at this meeting and boards may respond to public comment by seeking additional information or delegating the authority to investigate the issue to the superintendent or her designate and that's from the new jersey school board association so if you'd like to make a public
031comment please come up to this to the podium at this time seeing no one i'm going to close this board meeting for the public comment at this time there will be another comment later additional reports letters to the board were 38 total letters that were addressed and responded to committee reports so the community relations committee met last week we discussed a few agenda items first that Amelia is continuing to work on website updates and specifically developing consistency among all the schools webpages We talked about what Dr. Mass addressed earlier this evening about bringing Imagine in to provide some grief counseling and training and support to all about processing losses experienced in relation to conflict around the world. We also talked about the potential referendum topics and... Dr. Mast let us know about a partners meeting
032with the mayor's and district architect for the architect to fill in our municipal partners on what the new school building project will entail and then we've shared before that there is superintendent liaison meeting that occurs and we out of that meeting comes good news from all of the schools in our district so I highlighted for the board a number of things that came out of that I won't read all of them but just various lots of exciting things happening that the administrators highlighted around the district such as arts integration project happening at Cole's school a coding activity At Evergreen there was a Valentine project that involved sending Valentines around the world. McGinn had their global family night and global cultures events and a diversity book challenge. School one had a speaker at an assembly that
033talked about goal achievement, kindness, respect, and various highlights. kind of highlighted earlier too about winter sports that came out of the high school can I go right on into curriculum okay so that was community relations the curriculum committee also met last week a little bit longer of a report we had several agenda items the first being For informational purposes, Teaching Academy for Social Justice update. Assistant Principal Brooke Esposito came with a few of the students who are involved in the first cohort, which was really nice to hear directly from students involved in the Teaching Academy for Social Justice. They talked about their cohort. involves 14 kids and talked about some guest speakers that came to speak to them. We have a list of all the guest speakers that they were able to hear from. Talked
034about how the cohort of students led an eighth grade visit, went to middle schools, they participated in the Diversity Council Leadership Conference, and they've done presentations in their classes about the Teaching Academy. They also created a video called A Day in the Life. And then we talked, we dove into like one of the courses that is part of the teaching academy called History and Foundations of Education and what that class entails, where they explore different law cases that have impacted public education, explored the struggle that Hispanic students and students of color have experienced throughout history in the context of education. Currently they are... in a unit that looks at the history of education, going back to colonial times, and the establishment of... common schools. The students are also learning about how the privilege of education
035was available to a small sector of society and so really the history of education. So it's really interesting curriculum involved with the Teaching Academy of Social Justice. And one of the students, I included a quote just because they had some great feedback, said, I signed up to be in this program to learn how to be a teacher and be around people who have similar goals for their education as I do. my knowledge of how social justice in regards to education has expanded with current events and what I've read in the textbook. This particular student's sound wasn't working during, so she was able to, she kept typing into the chat, so it allowed me to get a great, great quote. But they gave us some great feedback on their cohort. The second agenda item was the,
036ESL program consultancy and our world language director Lisa Howard came to discuss that up the bar which which is a company of educational consultants came in to spend the day in the district and do a needs analysis of our ESL program. It included interviewing teachers, learning about strengths and areas of needs, involving administrators in a Q&A session, and visiting classrooms at two elementary schools, middle school and the high school, where they were able to walk through various classes where there are multilingual learners. the district will be able to get feedback and debrief and then they will deliver a formal report which will be really helpful to our English language learners moving forward and they're gonna come back also for up the bar is gonna come back for some instructional coaching and it is TBD who
037will be part of that coaching effort also Lisa discussed how title 3 funds were used to sponsor English classes for adults in the community I know that was on our website as well so that's really exciting 15 attendees participated and the class was taught by an 8th grade social studies teacher and the intention is to continue to run classes throughout the school year. So it's a great way to engage the community using our teaching staff. She also talked about another great community engagement initiative, which was working with Spanish teacher Karen Sanchez to host four nights for immigrant families where they could come and create meals in the high school foods room, and grant monies were used to cover the cost of the food. Another agenda item is, and this is for board approval, this is
038in the agenda tonight, the Kean University Holocaust and Genocide Studies Program, which is a dual enrollment program with Kean. So students will be able to get college credit at the high school level, and Ms. DeBrienzo will teach this course, and it's a half-year course to be offered in this coming fall, 2024. Okay also for board approval is establishment of the advanced placement African American Studies competitive grant social studies supervisor Noelle Baxter discussed that the district's applying for a $30,000 grant that would be split among 30 schools who are teaching AP African American Studies if awarded we will use the grant for professional development resources for students now students are using mostly primary source materials for this course So considering maybe using the money to purchase textbook or different materials, also offering students maybe some funding
039support for the AP exam and field trips. And the last agenda item is we've been reporting on every curriculum committee meeting the high impact tutoring competitive grant. And so Dr. McGarry gave us an update that since winter MAP testing has just been completed, that data is going to be used to identify students who will get the tutoring from this high-impact grant, specifically focusing on students who had the most remote time during 2021 when students were starting to come back to school. This will impact about 263 students. They will get nine weeks of tutoring instruction. And families would be made aware of that shortly. We would be part of that initiative. And so we had a lot to discuss and our next meeting is March 12th. Thank you, Ms. Soriani. Any questions? I just have a
040comment. Steph, I really, really appreciate you giving us an update on the Teaching Academy and specifically in just letting us know what their feedback is directly and kind of like how it's going. I've been looking forward to that, so thank you. yeah it's always great when I mean it's one thing to hear it from administrators or teachers but when the students come to give us their thoughts it's really impactful thanks thank you any other comments or questions there any other reports then I have finance committee report we went over the draft preliminary budget we reviewed the major categories of the budget some highlights are we need to add a positions due to enrollment increases. The PERS pension contribution that was discussed earlier, it's a mandatory 11.8%. Health benefits, we estimate 5.9% increase, sorry. Transportation, 7.2%
041increase. It's a CPI mandatory increase. And the tax levy at this point is estimated at 4.2%, which is 2%, plus enrollment allowance of $1.3 million and $850,000 for health care. The referendum update at the time of the meeting, we didn't have detail from architects regarding 330 South Avenue. We did have details that needed to be reviewed more thoroughly for the capital improvements for the individual schools. And that is it. Our next meeting is March 11th. Thank you, Ms. Brody. Any questions for Deb? Ms. Boroff, go right ahead. I have the Students' Activity and Athletics Committee. We met on February 13th. I'm going to skip through a bunch that Syrah already graciously gave us much of the exciting information on the success of some of the sports that took place, so I'm going to skim through
042this. I think... Not mentioned was swim season that the girls got third in the county and the boys fourth in the county They both made it to the state tournaments Track was another phenomenal year. We had standout in poe balting as a sectional champ Bowling we took the top ten in the state top ten in state number two seeds in the section And bowling they won the county tournament Exciting this year, our cheer squad branched out from just going to football games. They have been, sorry, present at our hockey games and some other sports as well. And that's very exciting. Wrestling is the county tournament winner. We earned our state tournament bid this year. A lot of new athletes. And very exciting is the increase in female participation in... wrestling so we had 14 competitors
043and we are the first ever host of the girls union county championship Thank you, Ryan Miller, for that information. Ryan Miller actually really took point to say that there is extremely strong leadership within our athletes themselves and the coaching staff overall. Our basketball team is looking at going into a new division as of now for next year. We had some interesting conversations just around the ice hockey procedures and the negotiated ice time and how that... has not changed in several years. And so basically we have a scheduled practice as it works. We currently are scheduled for a 3.30 practice time and an 8.30 game time, which can be very inconvenient. This hasn't been revisited in... it sounded like dozens of years. So that's something that we're going to revisit this year. One change that we
044did have is due to very low freshmen or zero freshmen girls for freshman girls lacrosse, the position we are going to recommend that the coach for the lacrosse team for this year goes and we are recommending as committee to create a girls golf coach. The golf numbers has increased significantly on our golf team and the girls golf team has many people signed up and they will be going to the shady res for practicing. additionally it'll be our recommendation based on the size of the incoming hockey team is our recommendation to look into a JV varsity hockey coach we had a big discussion just on the total numbers and how how we would work out as far as playing time to be determined. Sarah, you graciously, perfectly stated how excited we are to have flag football,
045which should be within two years an official sport at the high school or throughout the state. And that was it. So the recommendations start to move forward with a female golf coach, JV varsity hockey coach, and flag football is introduced as a club sport. That was rather lanky. Thanks, Ms. Borough. Any other reports to be heard this evening? Yes, Ms. Winthrop. So I have what's not exactly a report. As Evan and Tanya are not here and they are the chairs of these two committees, I don't have their official reports, but I do have my notes from some of these meetings. So on January 30th, the Facilities Committee met. We, let's see, I should have looked at this before I offered to do it. We were looking at approving some of the projects as part of
046the referendum. There was a list of items that we were looking at, things to try to address the growing population of students and crowding in our schools. We're looking at the possibility of trying to get air conditioning in all of our buildings and increasing space to keep class sizes consistent. Also, the survey that the public took about the referendum showed that some of the highest priorities were enrollment, air conditioning, electrical upgrades, and roofing. The new school, if the referendum passes and we do buy it and we are able to do the construction work that we would need, would probably be roughly the same size in terms of student body there as McGinn and Cole schools have. What else? We talked briefly about needing the geotechnical analysis that's on the agenda for approval. and about moving
047the Board of Ed offices out of Evergreen so that we could put classrooms in there. And that's work that we are going to try to start this spring. And that's pretty much what we talked about at that meeting. And then I have some of my notes from the Wellness and Equity Committee met on February 8th. At the beginning of our meeting, we had Sherlock Dow, who is the president of the Zeta Nu Lambda chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. He came to talk to us about a program that they are sponsoring at, it's actually this Saturday, Young Men of Distinction Conference. It is intended for young black male students. I'm looking through my notes because I thought I had an age in here, but I guess I don't. They just wanted to, he wanted
048to talk to us about the program and see if we could perhaps advertise that for students to sign up to be part of the program. At this point, it's too late for students to sign up, but we did get that. That information out to to the public at the time And that program will be this Saturday then we talked about We talked a little bit about the district wellness challenge for for our staff here. We talked We did it last year We're doing it again this year just a wellness challenge to get staff excited and and healthy. It addresses mental health as well as physical health and it's exciting and it starts next week. Also, we talked about, Dr. Mass told us about discussions she'd had with some of the people on the staff of
049Imagine about having the discussions here in our district to address grief and loss among our students for the various various violence that's going on around the globe at this time, and she mentioned it during her report at the beginning of the meeting, and parents in the district should have received an email about signing up for those discussions. What else? That is pretty much about how that meeting went also. So I'm sorry that that wasn't the most polished couple of reports, but that's based on my notes. Any other reports? Okay, seeing none, we'll move on to the enrollment report. Mr. Jones? Yeah, I think it was briefly discussed in my opening. Up 149 students, nine more this month, and expected to continue. Thank you, Mr. Jones. superintendent and curriculum reports dr mast yes number one i
050move that the board approves the three hibs discussed in exec on january 25th of those three hibs one was found to be hip two i move that the board approves the listed field trips three I move that the Board of Education approves the 24-25 school calendar. And four, I move that the Board of Education approves the out-of-district placements for the 23-24 school year. Motion? So moved. Soriani? Second is Sonali? Yep. Okay. Is there any questions or comments? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstaining? motion carries I move that the board approves the superintendent's recommendations for personnel that we discussed in exec this evening so moved thank you mrs. Winkler can I have a second second thank you any question or discussion mr. Jones will you please call the roll Ms. Barve? Here. Ms.
051Bauer? Yes. Mrs. Boroff? Yes. Ms. Brody? Yes. Ms. Sirianni? Yes. Ms. Winkler? Yes. Dr. Kulkowski? Yes. Motion carries. Next, we have the business reports. Mr. Jones? Yep. So a lot of what I talked about previously, number one is the audit, two is that corrective action plan for the lunch balances, three, staff training. Four related services for special education students five and six or two grants applications Number seven non public school technology initiative. That's we act as a pass-through We help manage the money for the non-public and this is just a standard thing we do every year Eight library book disposal nine is the geotechnical that miss Winkler discussed 10, architect of record. This would just be an open purchase order for services to provide, sort of like they came in here and mapped out some
052of this before we went to board approval. They looked at other areas in the school districts and sort of to help us do that when it comes to the board meeting, wait for the board meeting and do work for us in the short term. 11 is the business office conversion I discussed. 12 and 13 a special education settlement agreements talked about an exec and then the rest are standard monthly reports the fire drills financial reports disbursement listing and paying of the bills thank you mr. Jones can I have a motion to accept his so moved thank you mr. Brody is there a second second any questions or comments all those in favor say aye aye any opposed any abstaining Motion carries. Okay, next we have board policies. Mrs. Winslow. Board policies. The board met on
053the 20th. And the board, the committee met on the 20th. We reviewed policy 7510 and the corresponding regulations for use of school facilities to ensure that they meet our current needs. At this time, we're not recommending any changes to the existing policy or the regulations. Then we looked at policy 5516. use of electronic communication and recording devices. This is first reading for a policy. It sort of combines our existing 5516 with policy 5516.01 and updates the definition of communication and recording and tracking devices as well as further defining the circumstances when these devices can and cannot be used. And we are recommending adopting this policy this way, but tonight obviously would be the first reading. And then to go along with that, we would recommend abolishing Policy 5516.01 because it's being rolled into the other
054policy. And our next meeting will be March 18th. Okay, thank you, Mrs. Whitefair. There's nothing more voting on for you tonight. I don't think we've only adopted. You have a question, Ms. Soriani? I thought that we had discussed a change to the facilities usage. Yeah. I don't think we were talking about that. No, I think that was in there. I think that was in there. Yeah, I think it's already in the policy. Thank you. this is first reading we could always so we don't have to go to the first reading no any other question from mrs. Winkler thank you mrs. Winkler board motion for a minutes approval of the minutes mrs. Winkler and mrs. Boroff any question or discussion all those in favor aye any opposed any abstaining motion carries New board business is there
055any new board business to be brought before the board? No, thank you liaison reports I have a quick one from CPAC Just that we met I believe it was February 22nd February 7th earlier this month and we just went over the bylaws which are posted on the CPOG website and they are open to any adjustments or suggestions before they vote on those They ozone updates. They're just always looking for liaisons One thing that they will be doing if they haven't already reached out to our admin team is looking to survey parents receiving services 504 and IEPs just to get some information But most importantly is the next meeting is March 11th. It is for parents and caregivers only No admin will be there. It's at the library media floor and you can find more information
056on cpag on their website that's it thank you mrs borough any other liaison report mrs ballard yes garden state coalition of schools met yesterday and this is the group of superintendents and board of ed members and garden state advocates for things that are important to school districts and lobbies against things like unfunded mandates and so forth. In any case, some of the topics and updates, well, at the meeting yesterday were to all the members of the, all the incoming members of the education committees, for sure the assembly one, are newly elected. So a couple of newly elected members were at the meeting to basically learn what was on the minds of. Garden State Coalition members and so that that was very good. I think it was good. There were a lot of discussion and questions
057and they seemed very appreciative and So then in terms of updates there were a lot of updates around legislation that's going on around the science of reading online education student mental health a lot of different things I think one thing that's very important is Garden State along with other education organizations in the state tries to make sure if bills pass that they amended in a way that makes them effective and doesn't cause a lot of problems but I wanted to highlight one bill that was signed in the lame duck and that is a bill that gives us people may remember that the elections were moved to November and then the that meant that the community was not voting on the budget when school board elections were moved to November. The governor signed a bill that
058now allows elections to be in April. It doesn't matter about the budget vote. And that would also be when budget-related votes, so over the 2% cap. If those happened in April and if we wanted to move our election back to April, it would mean that we're not changing board members in the middle of the year. It would mean that also we would know about the finances before the new fiscal year started. So if we had to have a vote, we would know where we stood. So I think it's important for us to think about that. I don't know that there is time to do that before the election for this fall. And I think personally it helps us make sure or try to make sure that, and we're lucky in this district, that the Board
059of Ed has been nonpartisan. So it kind of separates it out from the political. elections that are happening in November so I think these are things for us to discuss and I think our business administrator is going to check and see about timing and so forth and then we can go from there but I wanted to put it on everyone's radar It was a good meeting. Oh, there's one other thing. Last month we mentioned that it was around AI. I don't think you all, I know you get all these emails from Garden State, but I don't think you get the minutes, but I took the minutes, and I have the links to the AI presentation and to some of the handouts. So I'll just send you the minutes, and then if you want to see
060the whole AI presentation, it's really excellent. and it's only about, what would you say, Amy, 40 minutes or something? Anyway, and he gave us this task sheet. I have a link in there to that, and so if you want to take advantage of it, I'll send it out. I would just add to that note, actually, that for our purposes, I just signed up for an AI education workshop through New Jersey School Boards, and it is on February 29th. anyone else interested who's doing it it's through the school boards I know I don't you know what I'm hoping it's the same person that did it at the workshop because he was phenomenal and I wouldn't mind seeing him again but it didn't it doesn't say the interesting thing about the presenter at Garden State is he's
061a board of ed member too thank you mrs. Bowne any other liaison report Yes, okay report from Union County School Boards Association We met on February 7th. I Wanted to mention the March 5th is going to be the unsung heroes award ceremony and I hope that any of you who are available will attend every year all the schools in the county all the high schools in the county send a student to be recognized as part of the unsung hero ceremony and I got a little info from Dr. Heisey about our student and it's a pretty amazing story and I think we should be really proud of him and I think we should be there to support him if we can So if you're not doing anything on March 5th, you should come out and support
062him. Our next meeting is going to be May 8th. It's going to be a hybrid meeting. At the meeting this time, let's see, there are some open positions at New Jersey School Boards Association, if anybody's looking. They're looking for a senior policy manager, a legal data analyst, and some field services reps. new laws the We had an update on some of the laws the DOE Was required to create teacher certification pathway for paraprofessionals Temporary expansion of free lunch through the next school year and a permanent expansion of breakfasts There's a school funding and finance bill which was the one that Nancy was just talking about with the April elections. If you move to the April elections, let's see. There are some bills that at the time they were discussing were being moved forward possibly to
063get voted on. The Senate Education Committee approved a bill for teacher evaluation. review task force and a temporary SGO relief student SGO remind me what that stands for? Student growth objectives. Thank you. And temporary relief from the student growth objectives being part of teacher evaluations. The Department of Education Patricia Allen McMillan has retired and Kevin Deamer was appointed. to fill the role as acting commissioner. Let's see, there was a field services update from Patty Reese, who is our field service rep. She said that mandated training for governance one, there's a three-day training March 5th, 6th, and 7th coming up. There's also governance two, three, and four will be given on March 20th and April 17th. in various various locales around the state and and This weekend actually is new board member orientation weekend. I already
064went figured that yeah Let's see. They're also going to be doing Some kind of ethics training if boards if we want to we want to get it we can do that have them come here for that She said to get it on our calendars for superintendent evaluation. That's going to be due July 1st, so we may want to start getting that process started soon. She mentioned the Women's Leadership Conference that's coming up in another couple weeks, I think, and that there will be a series of leadership trainings that are coming up in March and April. Also... We had a presentation about budget development in inflationary times. Charles Muller is the BA in Residence at School Boards Association, and he spoke as well as Janet Berman, who is the BA for the Union County Votec, and
065Michelle Callis is the BA in Springfield, and Robert Carfagno is the BA in Cranford. So they talked about creating budgets now and the difficulties, and we've heard a lot of it from Christopher and his reports over the last bunch of months, so I won't go into too many of those details. But it was good, and it was informative, especially, I think, for a new board member who has less experience looking at all those reports. It was good. I wanted to mention that if anyone hasn't yet signed up for it and is interested, Vin Gopal is a state senator, right? Who is going to be speaking at the Middlesex County School Boards Association meeting on March 6th. And it is virtual and you can sign up to attend that if you're interested. It's always good when
066we get someone who is... one of our elected leaders to come and hear what's going on. And he is on the Senate Education Committee, and he's going to be talking about the teacher shortage. And I don't know if he's going to tell us ways that he's looking to address it or ask us for our recommendations, but it will probably go a little bit both ways. So if you haven't signed up for that and you're available on March 6th, I do recommend it. And that is my report. Thank you, Mrs. Winkler. Any other reports? Any requests to attend workshops or workshop reports? Seeing none, we have the resolution for youth, the motion to accept the resolution. So moved. Second. I have a Mrs. Boroff and a Mrs. Bauer. Any questions or discussions? All those in favor?
067Aye. Any opposed? Any abstaining? Motion carries. At this time, we have the second public comment. In accordance with the Scotch Points-Fanwood Board of Education By-law 0164-0165, the meeting will be open for 15 minutes for public comments. Maximum three minutes per speaker. Speakers addressing superintendent items, business functions, and other board business will be heard first. If time remains, speakers may address other matters. Speakers, please state your full name and the town in which you reside. Please note boards use the public comment period as an opportunity to listen to citizen concerns But not to debate issues or enter into question and answer sessions or cross-examination between the public and individual board members We are aware that all issues brought tonight to the board meeting Will not be resolved that evening and boards may respond to public comment
068by seeking additional information Or delegating authority to investigate an issue by the superintendent or her designate If you'd like to make a public comment, please come up to the podium now. Seeing no one, I'm going to close that portion of the meeting, and we're going to move on to the upcoming scheduled meetings. Yes. So the budget calendar came out, and we missed our cutoff for the budget approval by one day. So we're going to talk about an exec, but we ran out of time. So we have to move the meeting. Most likely Tuesday, I think Wednesday it's due to the county on the the meeting was scheduled for Thursday the 21st It's due to the county on the 20th So we you know Having the meeting on that Tuesday the 19th would be ideal, but
069we'll have to Send out a note to everyone. It's all of your calendars. The 19th is that Imagine parent training? Which I've already signed up for. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not going to be, it's going to be, there's going to be, it's going to be tough. Yeah. So more to come. Can we do it on Monday? Yeah. Can we do it on Monday? I mean, I don't know. Can we survey people and see which night is? I'm working. I know I can't come on Tuesday so I'm just saying. We will send out a survey. Just so you have a quorum. Thank you for that Mr. Jones. So our next meeting is to be determined but it will be here in this building at the appropriate time. At least for next month. 730. Because they won't
070have torn it up to make classrooms yet. 730 exec and 8 o'clock for the public portion. So at this time, I'd like to have any remarks for the good of the order. Good of the order. I had a couple notes here. Well, one, I just wanted to say about people, about moving. That I hope the public really appreciates that this this is really dramatic right this in this enrollment and Appreciate in advance. It's so hard to move We all know how hard it is to move and to move the entire operations of the district And so and it's a lot of work trying to find the space and so forth. So just want to thank our staff for all of that and as an aside I'm gonna miss the artwork we won't have that when
071we're and I don't know if the town councils if we're gonna be setting it up it's a temporary and so so in any case and I also just again wanted to say thanks to our business administrator and his staff and to thank them for their hard work because she was very complimentary, right? Absolutely. And when we met with her privately. And I also just was thinking about Mrs. Sirianni's report and that meeting and how it's just so reflective of our staff going the extra mile and getting these grants. you know having doing all these things with ESL folks who are new to our district and it's just I think impressive and and then for the people who are only looking at the end of the meeting rewind and see the students they were the best
072part of this I would amplify your message about, sorry, the community work that we're doing. And I don't know if it registered with everyone, but we've opened up various aspects, as Stephanie was pointing out. I'm really happy to see that the community has the option and opportunity to take ESL and other classes with our district and through our leadership. And I think that's fantastic. And I'm just trying to get the word out there. Thank you, Mrs. Borah. I just like to encourage people to come out to see the musical in three weeks They were amazing and I know that the high school kids will be great too. And also be careful at drop-off I'd like to entertain a motion to adjourn this meeting. So moved. Thank you Mrs. Borah. Thank you Mrs. Winkler. All those
073in favor? Aye. Any opposed? motion carries meeting adjourned thank you everyone