001well thanks everybody for getting quiet in advance of the start of the meeting I don't even have to use the gavel tonight it's great I'll use the here we go just for the Pomp and Circumstance welcome everybody to our Board of Education meeting for the month of February February um excited to have you all here again with our students of the month hoping to celebrate that in just a minute um I will get some procedural items out of the way with our reading of our open public meeting statement we'll do the P Pledge of Allegiance and then we'll get right into our honoraries for this evening so the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public
002bodies at which time any business affecting their interests is discussed and acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act in Board of Education policy 0162 the Board of Education of the burough of Bound Brook has caused notice of this meeting to be posted in the board office and at Bound Brook High School and mailed or faxed to The Courier News Bound Brook bur Clerk southbound Brook Board of Education and any person who has requested individual notice and paid the required fee please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Mr Gorski a roll call please certainly Mr Bal here Bon miss gazino miss incal Mr inalca Mr zuco miss musen Mr minhas Miss High Mr vulmer and Mr Januzzi Mr board president you have a quarum present this evening thank you Mr Gorski uh for
003my comments tonight I'll be brief and just remind the board members that uh we're trying to get our self evaluations done by the end of this month that's the final checkbox before we can earn our Master board certification so looking forward to that um and we also have the um njsba uh what's the name of that award do you remember unone Heroes award there you go uh the presentation of which will be on I think March 3rd um and so one of Bound Brook students will be honored there I hope you all have an opportunity to get out there and join us at this time I will yield the floor to Dr Freeman for a superintendence report well good afternoon or good evening everybody and welcome to our February board meeting at this time it
004gives me great pleasure to call Dr s up to announce our students of the month for Lamont School e e Chris and menar in um kindergarten his teacher Miss Cortez [Music] [Applause] Christian's in Mrs Cortez class um Christian likes to listen to read alouds with his teacher he likes to play tag with his brother when he grows up he wants to be a policeman so he can help people congratulations Christian [Applause] congratulations to step delos he is first grade and Miss Cella and Mrs Freeze class you ready to come up here Steve come on up Steve yes good job Steph's favorite subject is math he likes to draw it markers and pencils and when he grows up he wants to be a ninja so he can save the city amazing congratulations Stephen [Applause] okay next
005up from Lafayette school we have Mrs CES [Applause] okay our second grade student of the month is Anna Perez [Applause] Chula come on up Anna got it Anna is from Miss bro's class her favorite school subject is math she says it's fun to add and subtract she loves to draw and dance and she wants to be a teacher congratulations Anna [Applause] our third grade student of the month is Samantha [Applause] towi Samantha is in third grade she's in Miss coddle class she has a sister Sophia her favorite school subject is also math she loves to play with her sister and she also wants to be a teacher congratulations [Applause] Samantha saysat congratulations here Sammy thank you and and next up for SMY school we have Mr Roy thank you um I am standing in for
006Mrs Winters um and we'll start with the F fourth grade Alejandra Gomez gos is a fourth grade student of the month come on down woohoo she's in Miss seer's class she has one younger sister your favorite subject is science and her Hobbies resting and drwing and she wants to be an Astron or astronomer or an actress Astron absolutely thank you go congratulations good job all right so our fifth grade student of the month is Sammy Mor Morales fifth grade with Miss Hodges um she favorite subject is math that's good that's a good thing and your hobby is solving math problems and a career is going to be in the legal studies or law nicely done [Applause] congratulations congratulations [Applause] and for sixth grade we have Sadi puga there you are so you have multiple siblings
007one brother two sisters yes uh your favorite subject is math as well touche uh your hobbies are hanging out with your family and your cousins and you're going to be a teacher congratulations here you go well done beautiful nails congratulations regrets picture [Music] all right congratulations man well done and next up for Community Middle School Dr Santa [Applause] surma hello everyone first up for the Community Middle School is Daisy Morales [Applause] Daisy was nominated by her teachers Miss Endora and Mr Jester uh Daisy has two siblings Karina and Jesse favorite subject in school is gym class and art uh likes to sing and enjoys hanging out with friends and when Daisy grows up would like to be a singer and possibly own her own makeup business congratulations [Applause] next up for the Community Middle School
008chanette [Applause] Brown chanette was nominated by her teacher Mr Crowley and I'll have to say this chanette and embarrass you a little bit chanette was relatively new to Mr Crowley's class and made such an impact he couldn't say enough good things about you today so I wanted to point that out Janette has siblings um are Aaliyah ebony Lynette Angel Michaela and Jasmine favorite subjects are Ela in math favorite hobby is exercising and when she grows up she wants to be either a math or an Ela teacher so I'm looking forward to that [Applause] last but certainly not least from bbhs we have Mrs lson thank you our first Crusader of the month is Carter Aras [Applause] Carter has four siblings his favorite subject in school is fiz Ed his favorite hobbies are skating fashion wrestling
009and eating and his undecided at the moment as his future career plans but we still have a couple of years to help him figure that out so congratulations Carter [Applause] our next Crusader of the month is Stephanie rales Stephanie has an older brother Yas and a younger brother Jonathan her favorite subject in school is history her favorite hobby is listening to music and when she grows up she would like to be a dentist [Applause] con our third Crusader of the month is Cesar to Cesar has one sister his favorite subject in school is crafts his favorite hobby is playing soccer and when he grows up he would like to be a digital game designer [Applause] and our final Crusader of the month is Chelsea Ayo Fernandez shelsea was doing um ESL testing today so I
010I have to read her answers off of my phone she messaged me to them but she has two sisters um her favorite subjects in school or anything having to do with art and environmental science her favorite hobbies are reading books and watching movies and when she grows up she would like to be a psychologist congratulations [Applause] okay congratulations to all of our students of the month give them a round of applause let's also have a round of applause for their parents because they wouldn't be doing as well as they are without you okay at this time would all the students of the month and their families come up to the stage to take a group picture e e e okay everybody if you are ready we will move on to item 2.3 this is a
011presentation from Mr Ross and Dr s uh regarding the Lamont and Annex um I think chronic abs and T ISM a bad way but let's just say attendance so uh we'll be using the screen behind us board members if you'd like to relocate to the front row down into the uh Galley here that would be great hello okay I don't like that word either but State mandated thing it is what is um and just so you this happened literally right after um um Co so it's 2223 data okay so remember 2021 um it was hybrid 2223 it was our first year back so when we review the corrective action plan for the chronic absenteeism we're thinking prek-3 which wasn't a prek-3 program it was really special ed special ed at that point point right now
012it's a prek 3 prek4 and kindergarten so again I did some research on data with schools around looked at 18 other schools and chronic adism for this age group is a common scenario why pk3 is new right it's only started within the past few years last year was a first year so yeah right so with that we'll see how it evolves in you know coaching parents up into looking at um these environments as something more than a daycare environment where you can be a little bit more um laxed so here we go diving into is this working all right what's going on I pushed it oh on the side um so that's yeah we need to give Mike some combat pay all right so with this um so the state you know reaches out to
013us and says well why do we need a corrective action plan because you know if students are missing more than 10% of the school year which averages out to about 18 days is When Things become you know chronic because there's 180 school days 10% 18 um so this is something where it's going to be reviewed you know starting now we'll do a midyear slash six month review two-month review we'll be continually reviewing it and then we will come back to the goal of reducing absenteeism to below that 10% Mark or at that 10% Mark so here it was glowing but now it's not I think our batteries it did go oh okay so here we are all right so our key stakeholders is of course the principal who's going to lead the implementation of this
014process um The Counselor so we have a counselor at the school who can work with this parents it's really more of a parent issue than it is with a student issue you can't really sit there and talk to a three-year-old about you know needing to get to school on time um so it's about a communication process with parents and how we support families in understanding you know what's going on with the research based prek 3 prek4 and kindergarten um the nurse will you know try to address medical related absences and try to get people to understand that an absence is an absence with the state so even if you're out because you are sick you still need to be back as soon as possible because an absence is an absence for the state so there
015is no excused absences minus the five conditions like you're going to what is it child um take your child there's five legal reasons you can be out not related to being sick not related to just not showing up so for us the nurse does a good job of conveying to parents that if you're out sick you need to make sure you're well but come back as soon as possible because an absence is an absence is an absence um and then the secretary um does track the attendance and she does very much you know um as brimage does a great job of communicating with the family and helping them to take a look at their um number of absences and understand where they are in the process so where we were the specific places where we
016did not meet so we met the absenteeism numbers in some areas but in spefic specific areas like Hispanic students economically disadvantaged students with um disabilities and English Learners those were the ones where we saw the most issues right so the groups that have um higher rates than 24.3 because of postco rules regarding student health so here's part of the issue for that school year you could keep your student or you were by the CDC suggested to keep your child home for five days that creates an issue for us because you get to 18 very quickly if you get covid more than once um so that's a factor for this year of the 2223 then like we were mentioning working with parents in that prek 3 uh prek4 that it's not a daycare we have and
017we're working with research-based curriculum that needs continuity for attendance to grow to progress and the other for us is reinforcing that this program is more consistent rather than just a daycare environment so the next piece for us so what we did is in order to identify at risk students is they become an issue at 19 days out but you still have to monitor for that one to 19 right so when you get those students who are moving from 1 to 10 you start to have conversations you'll see um when po speaks that you'll look at when do we start to send out letters and how do we remediate so we use Genesis to track the absenteeism we can pull it by gender grade and economic status so that we can know where those subgroups are
018and then we are looking at targeted interventions really that one to 19 because once you hit 19 you're going beyond that 10% and then we start to focus on the 20 to 30 because as you'll see in the numbers that's kind of the sweet spot where a lot of students end up for some odd reason and then the 30 plus day is a little smaller ratio of students so you're not getting a lot of students who are out 30 plus you're seeing the biggest numbers of 20 to 29 days so that's something that we want to pay attention to so those were intentional blocks so here it is um we were looking at breakdowns with the male students with the economic advantage and Hispanic students so these are some subgroups that we're working on now
019um from this reflection these are related to the 2223 year where we were looking at those students so 19 days you can see tends to be a smaller number of students that's the ones who are just getting beyond the 10% so not a lot of students who are at that then we start to get into the big numbers it's that 20 to 29 days is where students tend to be missing a lot and that's important important for us to know so you can see for me both with economically disadvantaged 14 and 14 at the 20 to 29 days and then with our Hispanic students we're also looking at 15 and 13 for 20 to 29 days so there is a system of Parental notification you know conferences uh reviewing doctor's notes and working with other
020paperwork let's see if that changes so here are the tiers of intervention that Dr s is working so for tier one um we started in newsletter um so our monthly newsletter includes a blurb about the importance of attendance um we also are obviously we provide daily a free breakfast um to encourage a school arrival um I think we need to purchase some bacon they maybe the smell of bacon all right um and then during back to school night we also discuss the importance of attendance our corrective action plan um part of our current strategies for tier two and three is to make sure that we meet with the families to discuss the attendance issues um so after the fifth uh absence or the 10th um we're constantly meeting with the parents um it's a lot
021of conversation sometimes it's a little therapy of the really understanding that the habits they're creating are lifelong um I think Dr Freeman you meant in the research article about um students who have um absentee rates that really high um in early Elementary and high school they also tend to continue that pattern so we're trying just to Break um these bad habits and realize that it's important that they're in school daily we also our last resort would be take legal action we've never done that in the preschool program um but it's just important that we connect with the families that we also um just um anytime they meet with me I print out out their Genesis reports that they're aware of um how many absences a child has and then just continue to follow up oh
022there you go that one got it all right so some challenges that some of the parents share is transportation so if some of the families are living like a Mountain Avenue sometimes it's challenging for them to walk to the Lamont Annex or the Lamont building um they don't have the reliable transportation they can't afford um J Perez so that's been a challenge for some of our fam especially with cold weather so we just try to work with them um in terms of trying to figure out Alternatives um for them to um make sure that their child is in school on time um some of it a lot of it is medical um I mean we've past two months it's been a struggle um in terms of the flu stomach bug um covid again um things
023like that so naturally the students have to stay home um just so that we don't spread the germs um the one big thing is the vacation sometimes families just want to take vacation extended vacation so sometimes they are two three four weeks um at that point um especially with prek we automatically Al uh we TR the students once they hit the 10day mark um and then because we have a weight list we're able to provide their um their space to a their slot to another family um but I'm very clear um in our um orientation for the families we make it clear to make sure that um with vacations that they're being mindful of that 10day um Market you don't want to go over that Etc um and then a lot of our preschool parents
024don't value they don't see they see pre prek as a daycare um so we have to kind of change that mindset and that's part of our parent orientation that we're having next week um just to kind of um inform the families of the importance of a preschool education importance of being on school being on time so I think we're starting the conversation is what we're doing and that conversation needs to be happening not only here but in other districts as well um you see that so a schoolwide campaign to stress the importance of attendance and that's like Dr s was saying figuring out with parents that this is a research-based program that it's not a daycare where you can come in and out in a different day and just not be there um so I
025know that they're also working with individual um attendance plans for students right that's been a key factor so I'll let Dr s speak to that in a second and parent workshops that they're having um and then this Flex ible learning options so individual attendance plans and flexible learning options yeah so we use a linkit linkit now has a beautiful like a just a crafts and charts to show the parents there's green red and yellow righted obviously is you know the attendance is getting to a point where we have to take corrective action um so it's just a way for parents to really realize the attendance is important it's where we have individual attendance meeting plans for each parent um and we don't include the students because they're a little too young um and just keep
026explaining the importance of attendance um so um having these meetings is helpful it's a clusive guidance counselor myself and depending if it's a medical issue we also include the nurse so I think you even will set up flexible time schedule sometimes for students in order for them to get there so that's I think key element is that setting up flexible time schedules with the parents to support the student to grow them into the process of school is important important because like Dr s said is that culture of coming to school can stay with you for a lifetime so let's instill that hey we want we need you we want you to need it we need you to understand it um so what we're going to do is um start tracking absenteeism rates monthly that's something
027we're looking at districtwide and that's coming soon as far as my concern is looking at that data more for every school building and helping out Dr s with that as well um then breaking it up by the subgroups so that we're paying attention to those groups where we don't meet because some of our groups like female students we do meet you know our chronic absenteeism numbers so we will highlight the specific groups and do something targeted um we'll assess the strategies that's going on the conversations we're having um and then we will definitely have progress reports shared out with the board to say where we are with these processes and then there we go so um our goal would be to do a midyear check and a midyear check will be from now moving into
028a few months to see where we are and what we're doing because this is something that's really just started since January 30th was the timeline of beginning it um will adjust revine refine because it's a living process we're talking about people not widgets um and then we will figure out you know what we've set up with the various actions have they created any change and then the goal is to just get below that 10% Mark technically you can be slightly above 10% and still meet chronic absenteeism so I'm looking at that data as well to see you know you can be anywhere from 10 to 16% um above so that's important but we really want to Target to that 10% number what the state is looking at and that's the goal yeah total per grade
029oh in the whole program so for that year we were looking about yeah um you're looking at like 40 yeah and again so it's different subgroups as well so it's it's important for us to understand that we're subgroup based on the Hispanic so there may be more students who are Hispanic or less there may be male versus female and then also you know looking at Social economically disadvantaged groups So within those groups that's where we get the percentages from mhm mm MH sure yeah absolutely so what you're saying is if you know it's hard for sometimes if you can't afford to go to the doctor you're going to be sicker longer and we we actually so you touch we did so so we had the conversation earlier about that we just really try to help
030the families I mean if you have a medically excuse It's not not uh an absent it's just verified it's not a it's not consider it still counts as an absence towards this state reporting data so there's the issue and to the state an absence is an absence is an absence it's good for us to know that it's a medical issue and that we're aware and we're supporting the student that way the other part that you're mentioning is with so you know with the economically disadvantaged we were just discussing that I feel like when this parent is holding back their child from going to a doctor because they don't have insurance and that costs so you could extend the student being sick because they're not getting proper medicine and you know then it pass it to
031the next person and so that's real that's part of the conversation that we're having in supporting that subgroup to the state in the reporting data so that's when we hit that so if you hit 18 you could be sick legitimately with something tragic we have to report this to the state yes they do no yep right so there's the other part of this that's a so that was another conversation that we were having um with this Chief academic officer just before this is discussing the fact that pk3 pk4 and kindergarten are not required legally to be there however it's um her Insight Robin's insights were that state money is still being doled out so the state wants to know that you're there more than say five days I don't want to be paying per student
032when the kid shows up 20 days out of 180 so I get that so that's the issue that we're managing here is again it isn't a state requirement to attend by law ironically enough but we're still measured by it for our ratio because an absence is an absence is an absence and then that's where we get into an issue so yeah we were just having that same conversation as well there yeah yes yeah yes yeah Stack Up um right 24 this is those numbers are just certain subject that's our entire that's not our entire district and that was in 20223 right after you know in hybrid learning all that to count all that especially with the five days students have to stay home where is it was actually for this school year yes yes so
033I was looking at 18 like like I said when we were talking today in prep preparation I was looking at 18 other districts just around and a lot of the districts meet the you know chronic absenteeism in PK say female but they're don't in Hispanic they don't in economically District so I'm looking at South Brunswick in in Middle sex I'm looking at you know other places in um Somerset and when we do that's why that number of 24% for these grade levels are there verify then we just you know after 10 days they're automatically dropped so that's a big consideration that we were talking to to mention having a discussion with Dr Freeman on the side of look when we hit that 10day we were talking about we have to disenroll and there's a wait
034list and so a lot of districts I know will be like so for me working with South brunck my wife's there it's one of those things where uh there's a lot of people who will go back to their country for a month and guess what sorry you're in prek we have a waiting list you're going to have to at 10 days we're going to have to sacrifice your your child you've made that choice so yes okay so that's something that's something we'll leave to the yes we'll leave that to the Past yes ideally yes yeah our plan is going forward to yeah what are the numbers 233 don't have yes so that's where right no we're doing better I mean just I mean I was just looking at the report um last week um there
035are no really concerns I mean we have a few outliers but nothing that I'm just like oh we're going to be doing no I'm pretty confident that we will have this corrective action plan for what is a year and then we will so it always a yeah um yes that was they they're pulling from the most recent school performance report card which is that it doesn't work in our favor we were in hybrid learning the year before and then we're coming then it was medical notes and [Music] yep like from 3 to no they're automatically registered but are you saying if they if no they're just automatically like prek kid of year and we say yes right now like I said we have a waight list which is U you know for students thats out
036a lot [Music] no no yeah [Music] no yeah we didn't break that I didn't break down the med so it's hard to know medically or during Co they would take they do the virtual learning they were in Costa Rica or you know whatever and then you know they're supposed to be enrolled and you know so there's a lot yeah during that time was just so that's why 2223 just to understand that that's the data um we just had so many restrictions during that time but that did lead to confusion because sometimes parents would think medically verified meant excused so that was a confusion with parents that we worked on with our letter last year to the parents to change that to make sure that they understood that it still counts as an absence just because
037it says medically excused that's part of the issue for us it still counts as an absence for us so we had to convey that to the parents right so that's thing right so we changed that terminology so what you if we were to run it it'd be medically verified now so we changed it from excus to verified yeah so we had this conversation last year and we changed it to medically verified is excused these many excused yeah right yes so we we we we had that conversation about verified and to your point yes so we're using linkit right now to get the current data we're going to start monitoring more on a monthly basis and then that's what we'll be looking to report with the board and I will be certainly supporting Dr Essen in
038getting that data to her and reviewing where they are because I'm looking at it right now and our numbers in the 20s is only about eight people so I went which is a good thing but that's again you know when we look at our numbers 16 was kind of the average for that 20 to2 so we need to start having those conversations with students right around uh those dates yes not okay so there's it's the families we're not talking to the students we yes yes we're we're coaching up parents and it is an important element to it I think and that's I think which is Statewide that you're really coaching up parents on how to appreciate you know prek 3 and prek4 as a structured curriculum you know it has structured play it has structured
039socialization and really reinforcing that with them is important something have team and you know he supports us and helps us you know kind of figure out ways especially for like the little ones and try to train the parents um and provide support um but yeah um so but it's important like PA said we're just kind of reviewing the data together as a team and trying to figure out the outliers and try to just support them [Music] I don't know no I mean I I don't know that that's something we could review like Paula was saying um you know this seems to be from the article Dr fre was mentioning it seems to Carry On from the younger years moving forward so that's a data we could certainly review for sure the report card may change
040the standards based report card you're getting more feedback with it um and it seems a little bit more scary maybe I don't know yeah absolutely absolutely I will put that there that's a good question um we keep getting caps cap over and over wait absolutely for e for for e all right everybody we are up to item number three our student board member report hello that's a good start so for um our sports news um on a good note boys basketball currently has a record of 12 to3 with their sectional match on February 26 at home the team is currently seeded eighth out of 16 teams in group one senior Jackson Morrison sets a new bamb brook boys basketball all-time leading scorer with 1, 1562 points scored throughout his high school career moving on to
041girls basketball um they currently have a record of 16-6 with their next game being February 20th against Oldbridge at 500m the girls basketball team also is logged in as the number three seed for the upcoming njsiaa state tournament versing Florence on February 26 at home wrestling currently has a record of 7 to6 with their senior night being against North planfield on February 14th the girls wrestling team came in at 12th Place at the Skyland Conference tournament on February 13th wrestling will also have a varsity District's competition on the 22nd of February followed by the girls varsity regionals on the 23rd of February they will also have a varsity regionals competition on the 28th of February moving on to and field um and field uh competed at Tom's River for two meets one of which being
042the Somerset County Championship on February 2nd with multiple medalists their second meet was sectionals on February 8th where they once again had multiple medalists um one of them being Allison CPUs in the 1600 meter Allison CPUs Kylie gonado Emmy Wilson and D Monte Kate in the four by 400 meter and OG Malik and P Vault they'll move on to group one state competition on the 23rd of February if anyone places on the varsity groups meet on the 23rd they will move on to compete at meet of Champions on March 2nd and moving on to school news many of the class of 2026 are hearing back from colleges through early action decisions with acceptances from the University of Miami Ruckers Monmouth University of Maryland tcj ESU and many many more um bamb Brook hosted the first
043ever professional development day for student Representatives with six different schools showing up including Bound Brook north planfield ridge Somerville Hillsboro and Manville each school had one to two student representatives for total of nine uh it was very successful and students were able to network with other representatives and learn a lot from the presentation that the njsba provided overall lots of positive feedback from other Representatives moving on to the academic League they will compete um tomorrow for their eighth and Ninth matches and it will be their final matches here at the high school against s Gail St Bernards and watchong high school um moving on to drama club the Bound Brook High School drama club has announced that they'll be performing the play A Chorus Line on May uh 2nd 3D and fourth with a confirmed
044cast list the BBH drama club also performed a winter band concert on February 5th in the auditorium featuring high school the high school band the middle school band Junior Carly Morales as a solo soloist and underclassman Luis Coro as also as a soloist and that's it very good Harrison any comments or questions for Mr Muson all right thank you thank you for that great report we are on to committee meeting reports we'll start with education Mr Dawson thank you uh we met uh recently one of our board and District goals this year um that was developed after the strategic planning session was to expand the number of course offerings that we offer as a district so we were excited to review a number of uh proposals for new courses um some of them are in
045partnership with r Val College uh there's an aseptic uh cleaning or cleansing program that uh we're very excited about lots of real world applications there there's great programming coming up um that relates to um Spanish programs for students who already speak Spanish at home uh we're excited about some of the ideas for uh different robotics uh electives so these are um classes that will directly engage our community our students um we think they'll be of high interest um the committee also noted that these are classes that teachers themselves worked with um their administrators uh Mrs Griffin Mr Ross to put together so um I think the the staff are enjoying the the ability to be creative and come up with new ideas and um enhance our programming um that they think will um not only
046be interesting to teach but also that kids will find Value in and that will reflect um things that our community can be excited about all while we work to meet that goal so it's very exciting meeting good things coming up thank you Mr Dawson any questions or comments regarding education committee yes Don I um on Sunday afternoon I took a walk around the the town I ran into but not quite L ran into Bethany Wagner and she said that she presented a proposal for a pro called platform I think it's a community exercise program if I understood it correctly and she said she made a proposal and hasn't heard anything back so I just wonder if anything has been done I think we'll look into that with Dr Freeman any other comments or questions all
047right thank you again Mr Dawson we are on to governance Mr B okay we spent the majority of our committee meeting looking at those policies I had mentioned last month where we needed to uh first get a hold of what our current policies are and then see where we're how we can move forward the first one was Ai and how we're going to deal with that going forward uh we had Nick in um virtually to kind of advise us he's going to be our AI coordinator he recommends that we form a committee of teachers and administrators they're going to have to look at Myriad things um honestly there are so many angles to look at with AI and it's so new and and growing so quickly that it's probably something that's going to have to
048meet quite a bit to figure things out they will eventually also have to train the rest of the staff on proper use on what's allowed and what's not so hope that committee can get kicked off before the end of this school year but more to come for sure um kind of tangentially related while we had Nick he also is officially recommending that we go with parent Square uh in place of Class Dojo interestingly Nick the very next day I walked into school to an email from our it Department in Piscataway who said they're going with parents Square so it was within 12 hours I had heard about it twice in two different districts and they cited the exact same reasons you did by the way um we also discussed uh there's a policy that we
049are allowed to decide on non-resident teachers non-resident teachers children whether we accept them as students in our district we currently do not allow them as uh students in our district and we recommend that we continue that mostly based on the fact that we have some space issues that continue to be a problem so at this time we're recommending that we continue the current policy uh I don't I'm sure many of you have seen that there is quite a debate out there right now especially in New Jersey about cell phone use and limits that policy was also up and right now students are allowed to have them but they should be uh away and turned off uh just today actually our governor posted on his Facebook page that he is budgeting $3 million to help school
050districts come come up with their own policies on probably doing away with cell phones in schools that was on his Facebook page he was in a a district in South Jersey this morning uh they had the pouches and he was talking about that so we will see what comes of that that's probably coming down pretty pretty soon from the state we don't know and the last one that we had to circle back to from last month was our policy on academic Integrity uh currently we the choice was between having a districtwide policy and school schoolto school policies we currently have a district-wide policy right now administrators and parents are contacted if there is a problem and normally zero credit is given for an assignment however for more serious infractions uh and they listed plagiarism of
051a research paper a failing grade for the course can be given I suspect that that doesn't happen very often but that is possible under our policy so that's what it says right now other than that the only other thing that we brought up quickly was we had talked about and I know this had been discussed here as well the uh the executive order on immigration and how uh attendance had been affected by that good news attendance since that initial downturn has picked up quite a bit obviously the fear does still exist but Dr Freeman is working with some organizations hopefully to come in and train parents on their immigration rights um students have been told that we're not sharing their information that we don't give access to schools so we are trying to keep them
052safe and and make them feel safe so um we as a board you also received a copy of the directive that was sent to teachers administrators I believe in the January 31st weekend confidential so if you want the exact letter that went out you can see it there as well and other than that we did spend 10 minutes looking at our committee uh charge and just reviewed that really quickly I think that's everything awesome any questions for Mr Bal on governance that was a lot sorry that was a lot it's good all right hearing none let's move on to Human Resources Mrs High mine is pretty short um you know every we always start every um week or every month with looking at the positions that are open in the district so just looking at
053them and and filling positions Etc and you know the principles are continuing to observations Etc and working with um with all the teachers you know and just offering their expertise um one of the things the uh staff did have a credential disability uh presentation and this is a separate insurance that they can take out at their own expense you know um we'll say afflac and then I won't be able to get it out of my mind for 3 days now but uh that was to them and it really is uh something worth looking into um and the only other thing on our uh agenda this month was just looking at um an assistant super superintendent position and really looking at what the job description would be and that will be posted soon thank you Mrs
054High any comments or questions for human resources all right moving on to operations Mr zupco okay so uh operations was pretty uh financially involved uh we had a budget budget update the committee and the budget process were all district departments and schools were now submitted and entered their budgets regarding tuition revenue for in 2526 Mr Gorski presented the committee the recently released certified tuition rates for 63024 and 63023 additionally he noted that after ad was calculated for 2324 school year and when using the certified rate southbound Brook's tuition paid through the 2324 budget was under stated by approximately $610,000 610,000 so the total tuition charart for 2526 is 3, 43486 Mr Gorski stated that it appears that this adjustment is an anomally due the significant budget underpayment in 2324 and he believes more accurate estimates
055for Budget budgeted tuition were agreed to in subsequent years by South boundbrook now we go on Dr Freeman Mr Gorski updated the on the meeting that transpired that morning between South boundbrook and boundbrook administrators um South you know what Mr Gorski I could read this but do you want to give your spin on it before I read the rest of it thank you Mr zco that we had a wonderful initial meeting with representatives of the board and administration from South Bound Brook in an attempt to develop shared services and and interests where the two districts can cooperate and and hopefully create some Financial efficiencies going forward um and and that was the gist of the meeting and just goal setting for future meetings thanks Mr gki um so basically there uh talking about that meeting
056southbound but the meeting was was um held and there were two uh requests to make the tuition and adjust uh an adjustment less difficult on southbound Brook budget and the potential needs to cut southbound Brook's K to8 program first was a request to split the adjustment of 6,479 into two payments spanning two budget years 2526 and 2627 the second was to consider an alternative tuition calculation method shared by few sending by a few sending and receiving districts specifically a hypothetical agreement would span five years and would increase by a fixed percentage each year like two to 3% and there would be no adjustment calculated or owed from one District to the other after the five years the performance of the agreement would be reviewed and the percentage of increase would be adjusted the risk to
057one District or the other if the estimated I rate diff significantly from the actual there would be a financial disadvantage to said District the committee was warmed to the first request to spread the current adjustment over two years if budget revenues and state AIDS weren't however we were much less uh warm to the second request and the caveat being that this that meeting was very um professional it was held and and I the the the committee uh was very happy that our administrative team and the southbound Brook administrative team were able to discuss things and uh I know that you know discussions are still going to be ongoing but uh we the committee wanted to thank both administrative teams for uh professionalism and dealing with a sensitive subjects such as this that's the end Mr
058President in my report thank you Mr zepco any comments or questions on operations committee somewhat unrelated um I just noticed the with the the storms that we've had over the last week with the high winds I notice the flag at Lafayette school is pretty well tattered is that something the operations committee is responsible to replace Flags or do we let that be known to I think the superintendent's responsible he'll take care of it well said any other questions on committee business for operations all right we are moving on to Somerset County Educational Services Commission Mrs high back to you you okay this was a little bit busier than HR um they had um at their last meeting they had their teacher of the year presentation which was very nice um just recognizing and really listing
059you know what accomplishments these teachers have made with the students the superintendent has just started a lunch reward program keeping in mind that these are very involved students these are the kids who are sent from all different districts because they're not able to make in their districts um so they're they're over at ESC and there you know there were nine students who had lunch or excuse me breakfast with the um superintendent and it was for improved grades for improved attendance you know um showing kindness towards another student Etc so it was very well received and this superintendent's going to continue with that there was also a um presentation on the budget for the up upcoming school year and you know with Somerset County ESC they don't receive any federal funds any state they get their
060their um budget is based on tuition Etc and transportation um there was an administrative reorganization there was the um assistant superintendent principal position which was eliminated and now there were two principal two principles and two Vice principles in the school and I'll tell you they had 180 applicants for this these two positions and they have um the people who are now serving as the um principles they'll be starting April 1 it was really interesting um the one is a PhD has an LT ldtc certification a special ed certification Elementary certification a learning consultant and this person was from chadam the second person the second principal um a ba in marketing teacher the handicapped an ldtc learning consultant supervisor of special ed and the supervis supervisor of child study team for Mammoth County so these are
061you know very qualified people who are and just meeting with them afterwards very excited about taking the positions um and the last was really updating policy and it it is just what we do here we look at what the mandated policies are and look at anything that just needs to be updated and that is all that is all that's enough thank you for the report Sue any questions uh related to SCC all right before we wrap it up well let me just acknowledge uh we will skip the southbound Brook board report tonight as Mr incal cero could not uh join us so I will entertain any final comments regarding committees or work otherwise I will just say thank you again for another month of job well done it seems like very meaningful discussions occurred in
062each of the committee meetings um and we're continuing to make progress so thank you both to the board members and to our administrative counterparts who make those meetings very productive at this point we'll move on to item 5.1 which is open to the public for agenda items only oh yeah so unless we know that he was here to make a comment regarding the agenda yeah yeah understood so I think we can close this item for the time being and if he has any comments agenda or otherwise we can oh here he is we eagerly awaited your return sir so we are currently open the floor is open for comments public comments on agenda items if you're interested yeah yeah and I just wanted to acknowledge uh that this is the portion of the meeting that's
063related to agenda item so if you're making a comment on an agenda item that's great if it's uh an open uh topic that you would just like to address the board about that we'll get to a little bit later on in the agenda uh I'm not sure which part it falls under okay so I start and yeah I just is it okay if we take the the comment regardless of what it is at this point so have you looked at the agenda uh yeah a little bit is it is the item that you're going to speak about on the agenda no okay no so in that case we'll just ask ask you to be patient with us for a few more minutes we're going to move some of our business and then a little bit
064later in the agenda we'll have an open opportunity for you to speak that's fine great thank you all right with that we are up to item 6.1 be it resolved the Bound Brook Board of Education upon recommendation of the superintendent approves the minutes for the following meetings regular and executive meeting minutes for January 30th 2025 can I have a motion motion thank you Mr Bal a second thank you Mr minhas any discussion all right hearing none can we have a roll call please yes yes thank you we will now move to item 6.2 be it resolved that the Bound Brook Board of Education upon recommendation of the superintendent approves the minutes for the following meetings this is the special board meeting minutes of February 3rd 2025 can I have a motion motion thank you Mr
065B a second second thank you Mr zepco any discussion this was the training right correct this was our training meeting was okay all right hearing none Mr Gorski can we have a roll call please yes yeah yes thank you item 7.1 be it resolved that the superintendent recommends for approval the resolutions as outlined in District Personnel resolutions these are items 7.2 through 7.28 May I have a motion motion thank you Mr B a second second thank you Mrs High any discussion yep yes and it's it's it's based on uh whether or not they make it to that that um level but they put it on this agenda because the tournament will be yeah Mr Gorski the motion in aggregate is Capt at $4,500 however the board policy limits each participant to a $1,000 reimbursement it's
066not expected to exceed $1,000 per person all right any other comments or questions I have a question please um this is in regards to the coaches lined up does anyone know um if the student athletes make it to the tournament does the district have any plans of supporting the students um in their travels or how is that set up is this also for 7.11 yes I'm sorry okay yeah when you say when you say support what do you mean hotels or going and traveling to the tournament itself or admission into the tournament I don't know if there's a fee to pay whatever is needed for them to enter and to stay that would be provided okay any other comments or questions all right hearing none Mr Gorski can we have a roll call please yes
067thank you item 8.1 be it resolved that the Bound Brook Board of Education approves the resolutions as outlined in District education resolutions these are items 8.2 through 8.14 May I have a motion ah thank you Mr Dawson a second thank you miss musen any discussion the radiators apparently are talking to us but besides that all right Mr Gorski a roll call please yes yes yes yes yes yes thank you up to item 9.1 be it resolved the balber Board of Education approves the resolutions as outlined board action resolutions these are items 9.2 through 9.12 I have a motion motion thank you Mrs Gino a second second thank you Mrs High any discussion all right hearing none Mr Gorski a roll call please yes yes yes yes yes thank you we are now up to other
068matters to come before the board which I have not received received any new business from any board members that would like to raise any topics that weren't on tonight's agenda going once going twice all right so now we are open to the public for discussion and this is for any items so doesn't necessarily have to be on the agenda um my only request is based on our policy District policy 0167 public participation in board meetings that members of the public uh sign in at the ium and provide their name address and group affiliation if applicable uh and that's not right uh each participant is allowed 3 to five minutes to speak and no individual May address the same topic more than once until all others wishing to speak have had the opportunity to do so
069and with that you're good you're good it's confusing to me too by the way just lay this out little along um um let see okay um my name is Sam yep um my company's name jgb Sports and in a crate some uh explanation I I kind of took the liberty of writing um Mr Freeman a letter uh following up on uh an issue that came up last year and I also uh wrote I think I how they sent to all the board members uh last week as well well um to kind of looking for some sympathy toward what happened so basically I think I I didn't miss the president and then another lady because the email didn't go through so I didn't know how to resolve it other than you know what I got extra
070copies here if you need to then I'm going to follow it so the the the problem that I'm facing as a small businessman I live here in middlex been doing business now with schools for 20 some years now I deal with Bridgewater bound uh you know Manville middle pis gallway so I've done business with the schools so what happened um Jeffrey steel kind of approached me he wanted uh a b basketball back stops replace WP pass replace I said oh great you know b f right next St I'll come right over and I'll do the work and then along the same line Mr Senor serma was also connected with me that I went to the middle school to do submit for the wads and all and this that started back in last January I submitted
071the quote I went and did say check I went to all the due diligence I submitted the quote and then in July say Sam we're going with you here's the PO so po were issued and then the kind of not diet pressure but the pressure was to say hey let's we want to get it before the basketball season so I did my due diligence as a professional as I think I am I go off spe the P was actually issued I have a timeline but I might have the timeline a little bit mixed but sometime in July August the PO came so I got to work communicating with Mr s serma the ad Jeffrey steel um as a matter of fact somewhere between July and August Mr Freeman also we were picking out colors of
072the the back stops the beams um the logo of the stage pads for Middle School all this coordinating things and then on the delivery the warad was coming sooner so the warad was going to deliver sometime in August and right around the time I was working with no Berto Molino he's the gr guy I was still to deal with him because he handles that part of it and I I we were informing him oh the war pass are done it's delivering I'm ready to install it the shipping in you know arriving tomorrow can you coordinate a receipt and two days later I got a letter from Mr gski um telling me that you don't belong to an sodium you don't belong to a co-op I can't buy from you we you you have to cancel
073the order at the same time I'm talking with Mr Molino and I think either Mr Freeman yourself I think I stated in the letter uh that there's a solution in the works why all this are happening it was not supposed to be cancelled but yet I got a letter officially wanting to cancel um but I'm delivering the pads with the logos I'm trying to say no I I you know can you just receive it and and then the solution that I heard from even the implication from Mr Freeman as well as from Molina was uh that uh we're working on the second quote we're working to get another quote because legally we are supposed to go out to bid I go okay then go get your bid and you know because but as far as
074I'm concerned the Pet's here I'm delivering it with your PO placed and I assume it was signed by a meeting like this at the time there four POS that amounts to6 $69,000 now because of the cancellation the return fee the storage fee from the trucker going back I got War pad that they cannot reuse because of the custom logos uh the wall pads were custom logos the engineering time that was spent you know cuz I came back many times meeting with the athletic director many times couple of times with Mr sen serma to do site check to make sure what engineer says or any question they have we have to coate so sadly from my point of view I earned my money I'm in sales I sold it I'm just following through and then the
075next next thing I know is that no Sam sorry cancel it and I said well now I'm going to hit with this who's so I feel like I did something I didn't do anything but yet I'm standing holding the bag I'm having big Financial issues now because I'm asking my guys okay hold let me talk to the school see what the solution is but that at the same time I'm having issue with my other business because of this and you're not talking about $100 to you're talking about 160,000 in total I'm only here to appeal to your sense of fairness what happened how it happened I can't explain why it happened I did not lie to anyone saying I belong to sodium I can you know and then when I deal with other schools if
076I they have to go out to bit it isn't my job it's it's whatever requirement you have to deal with and then the sudden you know it wasn't even a discussion I thought it was a discussion there was solution supposed to be in place I have a text from Bolino saying we're working on it Sam just give me time leave me alone I mean I think I it was stated and I do have print outs and screenshots of the the text to kind of so I'm not here to I just really want you to see from my point of view I didn't do anything wrong and I'm hit with $440,000 expenses that it's big I I have three employ I anyway that's my problem I I so I just want you guys to see understand
077what happened um I don't think I'm a Mickey Mouse in this school because I I I know people knows me I'm not uh you know what I mean I've done for 20 years now up and down New Jersey with all the schools I have to say this is the first po that got cancelled and I have no idea what happened and why it happened and I can't imagine it happened that overnight like this unless something happened that I I guess I I I don't know what happened other than something happened too late and but there's no solution and I'm just here to see if there is in your sense of fairness as to like what happened how it happened is it my fault do you have any kind and then let's work together just come
078up because I'm not I not here to fight I I tried to approach Mr Freeman a few times um I know you never get a chance to talk with uh I I did I asked at least to see if there's a way to to work out or you know and that's why I'm here and so so first let me just thank you I know it takes a bit of courage to come out in front of the the group here and uh inform us of things that maybe are a little bit uncomfortable but without the information we have no opportunity to engage we have no opportunity to interact so let me start by saying thank you for coming out to the meeting tonight and sharing you know what's happened with us obviously L we're not in
079a position to give you immediate feedback on this particular issue but we do commit to uh investigating with our administrators kind of what happened and discussing potential remedies so that we can find a solution that's really fair to everybody we good so I know that's not maybe the most satisfying possible answer but rest assured I I'm pretty sure I can speak for just about everybody on the board here when we say we take your comments seriously we're going to immediately look into it and and find you know a fair solution and that's what I'm at least hope for that we can at least I can see that side whether you know it at least it's a process and not not anyway and I'm I I appreciate that again so I just a way and answer
080at some point yes yes yeah I I would suspect it's not going to take a significant amount of time given that we have both our chief administrator and our board attorney here with us this evening um though I wouldn't expect a phone call tonight I think within the next few days is a reasonable expectation I mean any facts I mean facts not he'll say I have some of those so in case you you know you need and all right understood well again thank you I'm sorry that we've reached the point where we're at but we're committed to working with you to resolve it okay thank you I appreciate it all right and with that we are on to item 13.1 which is resolved that the boundbrook Board of Education Ander executive session is allowed by
081njsa 10 col 4-11 for the purposes listed below which include one and seven can have a motion motion thank you Mr B a second thank you Mr zepco all in favor I I we are currently adjourned to Executive session en e e e guys do we need to reactivate the cameras are we good we're good to all right everybody we are back in session we are up to item number 14.1 there there are none to move in 14 there you go so we're up to 15.1 thank you sir so be resolved that the B Board of Education approves the resolutions as outlined approval of Hib cases under middle and elementary schools just number 15.2 I have a motion motion I'm GNA give the motion to Mr Bal and the second to Mr Dawson Mr Gorski
082when you're ready can we have a roll call please yes yes thank you we are up to item 16.1 be it resolved that we adjourn a motion motion Mr Bal a second miss musen all in favor I I we are adjourned