001All right, we are live. So, um, call the meeting order. Start with the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag to the republic for it stands. One nation, indivisible, with all >> Mr. Davis. >> Mrs. Reed here. >> Miss Salon >> here. Mr. Phillips >> here. >> Mr. Golden >> here. >> Miss Row >> here. >> Miss Orient here. >> All right. Can I have a motion and a second to approve the minutes from the action meeting of November 20th, 2025? >> Motion. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> Opposed or abstain? >> All right, Mr. presentation. >> All right, I'm up. Welcome everyone. Thanks for coming out. I know everyone's very busy this time of year, but we have uh special awards to give out tonight. We are going to do our student
002of the month awards. And our student of the month awards are given to students who are exceptional students. Um they're exceptional to their peers, exceptional in class, um doing their work and and doing the right thing. And we're so happy to be able to to to um give all the awards out tonight. So, we're going to start with our students from JFK. And students, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to say your name. You'll come up and stand here and awkwardly stand here with me while I read a whole nice blurb about you. Okay? And then you're going to stay up here. And after I've announced all the students, we'll go take a picture. Sound like a good idea? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Cool. Love it. All right. Our our first student of
003the month is from preK and it is Giovani Reyes. >> Good job, man. >> There you go. >> Giovani, get up here. >> Giovani is a kind and caring friend who always looks out for others. He loves to share what he knows and is excited to learn new things every day. Mrs. Barbara and Mrs. Ryan are so proud to celebrate Giovani as our student of the month. >> All right, our next student of the month is a kindergarten student, Trey Worthington. >> Come on up, Trey. >> Great job. Here you go. I am proud to nominate Trey Worthington for kindergarten student of the month. He is an excellent student, great listener, and an all-around role model. and friend to his peers. Trey has a huge heart and is always thinking of others. Congratulations, Trey. >>
004Oh, thank you. >> A dude, that is awesome. Thank you. I love you so much. It's the nicest thing I've gotten in months. All right, our next student is another kindergarten uh student, and this is Riley Gorski. Okay, Riley has demonstrated all the qualities of a JFK Eagle. Uh, she is, a kind friend, a caring classmate, and a helper to anyone in need. Riley brings positivity and joy to our classroom every day. She is silly in the best way. Uh, empathetic and wonderfully go with the flow. We are so proud of her and lucky to have her in our classroom. So, congratulations to Riley. Our first grade student of the month is McKenzie Fontan Fontana. >> Congratulations. >> There you go. >> McKenzie is a bright, kind, and hardworking first grader who brings enthusiasm to
005everything she does. She approaches each day with a positive attitude and a genuine eagerness to learn. Whether she's helping a classmate, participating during lessons, or giving her best effort on assignments, McKenzie leads by example. Her respectful behavior, caring heart, and eagerness to learn make it easy to nominate her for student of the month. CONGRATULATIONS. >> Our second grade student of the month is Sophia Kala. Congratulations, Sophia. There you go. Ka Sophia is a dedicated and hard-working student who consistently demonstrates respect, kindness, and a genuine desire to learn. Her positive attitude contributes greatly to the classroom environment, and she is always willing to support her peers. Having her as a part of our group has truly been a pleasure. Her strong character and collaborative spirit make her a valued member of our classroom community. Congratulations, sir.
006Our third grade student of the month is Grace Massie. Congrats, Grace. There you go. Grace is one of the sweetest, kindest, most hardworking, and motivated students I've ever had the pleasure of working with. She embodies all the characteristics of a student who deserves this award because she helps others when needed and doesn't need to be asked. She comes in with a smile on her face every day, ready to learn. Congratulations, Grace. And last but not least for JFK, our fourth grade student of the month is Nolan Russell. Congratulations, Nolan. There you go, sir. Nolan understands his responsibility in his own academic learning journey. Nolan is inclusive and respectful. Nolan is also a great role model and makes all of his teachers proud. Congratulations, Nolan. All right, you guys ready for your uh picture? >> Yeah.
007>> Okay, I'm bringing my picture. So, >> you guys are all going to stand right in front of me. Okay, squeeze and get closer. You like each other. What up your award? [Laughter] >> Make sure your Are there certificates? >> Great job, guys. Okay, now on to our [Music] >> middle school students of the month. Same deal. Our fifth grade student of the month is Edwin Matias Sebastian. >> There you go. You're welcome. This month, the fifth grade team proudly recognizes Edwin Matias Sebastian as our student of the month. Edwin is an independent learner who approaches every challenge with quiet confidence. He consistently stays focused, completes his work with care, and shows an impressive ability to manage his learning on his own. In class, Edwin is an active participant, and willingly helps other others uh
008who are struggling. Congratulations, Ed. Good job. Our sixth grade student of the month is Adriana Canour. Uh the sixth grade team would like to nominate Adriana as our student of the month. Adriana is a pleasant and hardworking student. She is always striving to do her best and puts forth maximum effort. She is kind, helpful, and always willing to lend a hand. So congratulations to Adriana. Our seventh grade student of the month is Deari Harmon. Deari is an inquisitive, friendly, and principled seventh grade student. In each subject, he pushes himself beyond the curriculum presented, completes his work thoughtfully, and enhances class discussions with his contributions. Deari is a positive role model for the students at DDA by showing strong character daily. Great job, Deari. And last but not least, our eighth grade student of the month
009is Audra Hines. Audra is an incredibly hardworking student who always puts 100% into her academics and then some. She is a kind-hearted, a kind-hearted soul who is a friend to all, whether a lifelong Berlin Township student or a newcomer to our school. She is always willing to try new things and venture out of her comfort zone to grow herself as a person. She always checks in on her teachers every day to ask how their day is going. Well done, Audrey. Congratulations. Well, I got bad news for you. It's me and you in the picture. >> All right. >> One more picture. You want to come around? >> Oh, really? >> Talent. >> All right, I have one more award to give out before everybody walks away. Tonight we are accepting the resignation of one of
010our board members who has been with us for the last 10 years as a member of the Burland Township Board. Um and many of those years as also a member of the Pine Hill board with all those years. All of those years. um and really has provided selfless service uh to this community over those last 10 years because not only has she been a board member but she's also been a member of peace and involved in pretty much everything including school site council at Overbrook and um personally whether it's been working with her children or with her personally. I mean my whole career I feel like I've been working with Mrs. Reid. So we wanted to recognize Mrs. Reid. come on up here. >> She was recently elected to the town council and so that
011is why she's I don't think she would have chosen to resign her position. >> I love my school board position. >> Um but we have a certificate for you. This certificate is proudly awarded to Kimberly Reid on December 18th, 2025 in recognition of your 10 years of dedication, commitment, and hard work for the Berlin Township School District Board of Education. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. Thank you. >> It's been great to be be able to serve Berlin Township with the school board. Um I when I wrote my resignation letter, I tried to keep it short and sweet. Um I am very proud of three major accomplishments that we did while I was here. One, we had a really bad budget crisis in 2020 right before p the pandemic hit that we were able to
012overcome, which is wonderful. won't say that things didn't have to go away for us to overcome it, but we we were able to get through it. Then of course the pandemic hit and then of course our hiring of Mr. Lee and I've known Mr. Lee since he was a school teacher at Overbrook because he taught my daughter. So I've gotten to see him go through his career which is awesome and I think you're in good hands. Thank you. So, um, you guys can certainly stay for the rest of the meeting, but you really don't have to. This is your opportunity to to go and enjoy the rest of your evening. Thank you for coming out. >> Oh, you're welcome. Thank you. [Music] That's always the best gift. >> That's awesome. >> No need to go
013through the missions payment or the goals. Um, we're going to open the meeting to the public for the discussion of agenda items only. Can I have a motion and a second? >> Motion. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Oppos? See? >> None. >> Not really member of our public. You're one of us. >> Um, so at this point, I will uh close the public portion of the meeting. I have a motion, a second. >> Motion. >> Second. >> All in favor? I'll close your screen. All right. Uh heading on to Mr. Lee superintendent report. >> All right. Uh let's get right into it. Uh item A uh and B. Items A and B are safety and security drills uh for the month of November at both uh JFK and DDE. Item C is monthly
014reports uploaded to the portal for your review. Item D is one report of harassment, intimidation, and bullying that was not found to be a HIP. Uh under E1 we have two policies and a regulation. The first one is a school volunteers regulation that I shared with the board. We added a stipulation that people who are volunteering at the building um are not allowed to have weapons on them. Um and this kind of brings us in line with what most other schools already have in their regulations um so that there's no surprises for us. And the second two policies there are um we've been going through a um a federal funding audit and there are some things that we need to bring up to speed and one of them is this um parent and family engagement
015policies. One there it's exact same policy just one is for JFK and one is for DEA and the requirement was to have one for each. Uh E2 is for uh to approve school volunteers. E3 is very happy to tell everyone that uh Peace has offered to donate a new bike rack for JFK. Um JFK doesn't have a bike rack currently and I've been hearing it from some of the kids. Um and so we worked together on it and then after we were we were planning on splitting it and then Pete said, "You know what? We would like to pay for the entire thing." So it was very nice of them. Um E4 is to approve the annual um preschool uh projected enrollment. E5 is to approve a candygram fundraiser. Uh item F1 is all field
016trips that we are getting in. If you remember last year, I I wanted all the field trips in by the holiday break and so we're we're just about there. We're just working out the kinks on a couple of them. Uh G1 is a new hire for a part-time instructional aid. Uh G2 is we have three resignations. G3 is to approve a student teacher. G4 is uh to approve a staff siphon for basketball security. G5 is one staff renewal that we need to approve. Uh H1 is for the board to approve our district improvement plan that I shared with the board. Um and that is uh due to our QAC results from last school year. >> I'm going to do a motion, a second um to approve superintendent items XA through XH and then I'll ask
017if anyone has any questions. Motion in a second. >> Second. >> Any questions? All right. Um Mr. Golden. >> Yes. >> Hold on. Miss Allen. >> Yes. >> Mr. Phillips. >> Yes. >> Miss Row. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Reed. >> Yes. >> Miss Oriente. >> Yes. >> Mr. Davis. >> Yes. >> Okay. All right. I'm moving out of the board. Um, on the page. Um, item A, A through D is the reconciliation. That'll be on for the January board meeting. That'll be for the month of November. I'll probably have November and December at that point. Um, A is to approve the payment of the bills. Did everyone have a chance to sign, double sign? Everything's good to go. All right. Um, B is to approve our November 2025 uh source for teachers listing. The pay
018rates and bill rates are listed um on the agenda. C is to approve the cafeteria dispersements for the month of November in the amount of $31,92156. D is to approve our care dispersements for the month of November in the amount of $20,96840. E is to approve some travel and professional development for some of our staff members and the costs associated with such. Um may I have a motion and a second to approve um items Xia to XIG? >> Motion. >> Second. >> Any questions? Um Mr. Golden. >> Yes. Miss S. >> Mr. Phillips, >> yes. >> Miss Row, >> yes. >> Ms. Reed, >> yes. >> Miss Oriente, >> yes. >> And Mr. Davis, >> yes. >> All right. Thank you. >> Um, uh, old business, we don't have any committee updates. um BTA, we
019scheduled several, we told you, I think at our last meeting, we scheduled several um follow-up appointments to meet with the BTA to work towards um getting that collective agreement hopefully um agreed upon before the expiration of June 30th. Finance, I didn't have finance committee committee meeting this evening. Um I had a conflict that I didn't get here until later, but I did have a couple notes I just wanted to talk about so everybody was um on the same page. um our ASSA, so our application for school state aid, which determines how much money we're going to get from the state for uh next year, that was submitted on the 17th. We are up in um students. We're down a little in our free and reduced lunch, but again, last year, if you remember, we were
020down in students, but up in free and reduced lunch, so it did all kind of balance out. Um obviously, when we planned for our budget, we're going to plan for everything to be flat funded um and hope for hope for more. Um so, that was submitted on it was due on the 17th. I submitted it on the 16th. We had no edits. The auditors were in to review it to make sure everything looked good. Um, Mr. Lee mentioned federal monitoring. We are essentially done with our federal monitoring. Um, it'll be about 45 to 60 days before they give us a final report. We don't expect anything big other than a few policy things, a few procedural things. Some of the things they'd like us to have that we do, they just want us to put
021it on letterhead so that we have it in writing. So, nothing um of great concern. Um everything seemed to go really well and I think we made ourselves some really good contacts um at that level in the event that we ever have questions or anything regarding those grants moving forward >> and this woman did a tremendous amount of work for this audit. I mean they asked for things over and over and over again. So just publicly thank you ton of work. >> Thank you. It's a it's a team effort for sure. Um new special ed student. We do have a student that moved in. It is an out of district placement. It was not budgeted so I'll just be keeping my eyes on our tuition lines. Um, and then our audit, um, was due to
022be submitted by December 5th, and I can happily say that the auditors worked really hard to get that done to send me the information that I could review and upload on the 5th. So, we are compliant. Um, not that it matters. We're not in a QAC year, but if we were, we would get points for that. Um, so that that's a big win. Also, um, Neutraserve has been sending us kind of like an update every single month. They said from last November to this November, meal counts have actually increased by um 4,000 compared to last year. So like that's breakfast and lunches. More kids are buying lunches. They seem to be happy with them. More kids are getting breakfast. Um our year-to- date profit right now is $13,000 um which is way higher. We were
023actually operating at a loss of 5,000 last year. Again, it all usually balances out because it's a self self-supporting um fund. Reimbursements are up over $15,000 over the prior year. And um while our food costs are higher, the food cost per meal has actually decreased by 17 cents. So I love that they're sending me this. It's kind of great for everybody to know. Again, it's one of those accounts that it's usually self-supporting. Um there's not a tremendous amount of, you know, worry on our end. So to have this all broken down is really great for us. Um I think that's it. That's what I would have talked about if we had a finance meeting. So now you all got it. Um school boards association. I haven't heard anything from there. Ed services. No, no, no.
024Okay. Pineel, I don't have a lot, believe it or not. Um, we had our our December meeting last week. Um, before I my phone screen goes away. Our site council meetings upcoming are January the 20th. It's a virtual meeting. So, if you would like to be involved, I would assume that you need to let Mr. Kula from Overbrook know. Um, March 24th, it'll be in person in the media center at Overbrook. And then the fourth one for the year will be May 26th and it's also virtual. He tries to do like every other one. >> So I will still be on that. So if you're involved, you'll see me there. Um our meeting was pretty normal. We had our little annual Christmas party thing afterwards. And other than that, oh, they did go over the
025three people that won the election. They were the same three people that were on the board to begin with. So um I don't think anyone else ran to be honest with you. I think it was just the three of them. Other than that, it I believe it was pretty normal if I recall correctly. >> And I think it was last night that Overbrook basketball >> Yes. >> play Overbrook Overbrook, right? And it's the first time that that that they've ever done that. >> Well, one of our board members went to Overbrook High School in Philadelphia. And I think that's how it >> was pretty cool. I love >> I wish I could have made it, but my son was wrestling in Denver and then in the accident on the way home. Um, but it probably
026would have been over by the time we got there anyway. So, >> we used to get calls when I was when I was at the high school all the time and people thinking that they were calling the Overbrook in Philadelphia. >> I had I had like council members from that section of Philadelphia call me and be like, "We need to talk about something." And I was like, "Oh, you're talking about >> you coming to Jersey?" >> Got it. >> Yeah. I know all their winter sports just started. Um, wrestling just kicked off last night as well. Um, in Deepert. I know they had like a scrimmage last week in Hamilton. I didn't go to that because just a scrimmage and yeah, they're just practicing basically. Um, and I'm sure the other sports your son plays
027basketball, right? Or no, for DB. That's right. Does Cadence play at the high school? >> She dances first and Okay. >> So, um, >> good. Yeah. Middle sports are in in full effect. I forgot he was younger. >> And I don't think we have any I don't think we have anything for Cammy County School Boards Association. Um does anyone else have anything for new business? >> All right. Well, let's open the meeting to the public again for the discussion of um non-aggenda items or agenda items. Motion a second. >> Motion. >> Second. We're going to go with none again. Um time. All those in favor. Oppos or abstain. Um, can I have a motion to second then to close the public portion of the meeting? Motion. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> Abstain.
028We do not have a need for an executive session. So, let's go ahead and adjourn the meeting for this calendar year. It's creepy. Can I have a motion to second to adjurnn the meeting? >> Motion. >> Second. >> All those in favor? Opposed or abstain? I didn't think so. Have a great holiday. >> See, right almost close.