001a lot more watch board meeting we are honored to have our students and staff with us and actually a board members who are going to be recognized tonight for their outstanding work we will start this evening with the students from Lamont and so we'll have Dr s come on up to make her presentation good evening congratulations to Jesus is currently in preschool teachers Mrs ranzaniak he loves playing with his cars running on the playground with his friends and learning at school his career plan is he's a future in fixing cars from Mrs brazilianak hi Jesus I had the privilege of choosing a student of the life this month I felt really hard that who has made the most progress in her class we have done so long at school I thought he should be the
002student of the month here are the reasons I've chosen here for student of Vermont you have come out of here shy style you are playing with your friends you are so sweet and playful you want to do your best at school you'll become so independent at school you have learned so much this year I have been honored to be your teacher this year continue to do your best but I always started if it makes you uncomfortable because it will you keep trying it will be easier I promise you that it will congratulations to you about this is are you here come on up [Applause] boys okay congratulations David school subject David's famous school subject in school is math and you will ask Hayden was playing his Pokemon toys Katie wants to become a firefighter when
003he gets older pharmacist Hayden is incredibly thoughtfully here he has always supported his prize in Sharing others on Creative feels my classroom experience a positive attitude and so much behind us congratulations community College soon hello everyone so on behalf of Miss Clark from Lafayette school I'd like to recognize literally Juarez Caballero Kimberly is a student in this regard for Jackson's class Kimberly are you here where's Kimberly um Kimberly is uh has a brother Derek in second grade and her favorite subjects are reading and art Kimberly's favorite hobbies are painting and coloring and when Kimberly gets older would like to be a veterinarian for her love of animals [Applause] thank you lafayette's next student of the month is Michael Phillips Michael was recognized by Miss Jorge his teacher and Michael doesn't have any siblings but his
004math I love that all right who's your sibling hi honey well we got you now maybe just didn't want to admit I got it favorite hobbies are video games board games and play football and best of all when he grows up he wants to be a creature congratulations [Music] thank you as Molly would love to recognize Grace Santiago Rodriguez as our third grade student of the month she is in Mrs strange class she two siblings Ashley and Joseph her favorite school subject is Matt her favorite hobbies are painting and making arts and crafts and their career plans is that she also wants to become a teacher when she grows up congratulations Grace thank you our next throughout the month is Justin dominius whoever's please stay in grade four and evenings for wages class he has
005three siblings Kevin rental and one his favorite subject is also math please favor having our Sports and video games and he let the street for the start of his curriculum to be the best soccer player in the world congratulations [Applause] our next year of the month is David corporate in fifth grade she's in this civil laws class she has two older brothers her favorite subject is language arts she likes to draw a sketch and play on her computer and she wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up congratulations [Applause] thank you and finally we have Andrea Calderon menu bar she's in sixth grade she's in Miss Helman in Mr Church's class she has three sisters her favorite cool stuff that her son she loves to play with her friends and she's still thinking about
006what she wants to do for her career right now she's focusing on school congratulations Andrea he's got to send a sermon back from Community Ministry [Music] hello again everyone all right our first representative from the Community Middle School is Kevin Rodriguez Kevin was nominated by his teachers Mrs Bennett Mrs Peterson and Mrs pettish Kevin has a sibling Diana at the high school and his favorite subjects are computers in art favorite hobbies are working on the computer and long-term plans would like to become an artist Kevin's teachers wrote polite and respectful young student those shy questions opposed to him and is always prepared Kevin is kind and a good friend to all students he can always be counted on and work well with other students in class Kevin is a talented artist and his drawings are
007amazing he will go very far with his talent all of these qualities make Kevin our choice for student of the month congratulations thank you good job okay I don't know how much Kevin does another round of applause again [Applause] our next student of the month is Anthony AJ scarpolo AJ was nominated by his teacher Mrs pettish AJ's one brother and four sisters his favorite subject being math hobbies are playing outside and especially playing basketball and when he grows up and this is a first for me I'm so proud wants to be a military pilot [Applause] just a few words from Mrs Pettis I have AJ my social studies class he's a pleasure to have as my student he's such a polite and kind young man he's helpful and friendly to all of his classmates and
008respectful to his teachers he's an advocate for himself by asking questions when he needs clarification of directions for assignments he works well on collaborative projects with a partner or in a group he gives his best effort to all of his classes so no one deserves this honor more congratulations thank you [Applause] relax relax our high school all right good evening [Music] Crusader citizen of the month award is in recognition of students demonstrating positive Crusader citizenship trades such as responsibility respect kindness Integrity cooperation power and gender perseverance it's my pleasure to announce our recipients first Leah Mendoza [Applause] has one younger sister a favorite subject is history because she likes learning about the past but David Hobb favorite hobbies are faking and listening to music and her future career plans she wants to become a pediatrician
009thank you our next recipient is the Lewis and Allen check [Applause] all I do is guys sibling Angelina his favorite subject is Art because he likes to draw his favorite hobbies are drawing making videos and photo editing painting sculpture clay making candy and learning to play guitar his career plans he's on tour of what he wants to do this time some people are related he definitely wants to travel the world and we'll do the skateboard [Applause] yeah absolutely all right next we have your friend of mine Mr Jeremiah Valley [Applause] everything for boys and everybody connected with Miss Fazio favorite hobbies are playing games watching YouTube listening to music and talking to friends and he's still undecided what he wants to do for me [Applause] last but certainly not least Denzel Arena the Dell does
010not have any siblings favorite subjects or that history physics in Spanish they are all classes but talented and make you think critically and grow it's Gabriel Thomas our soccer go to the gym work church and electrical Construction career plans at the further news education at a university in the field of business management congratulations foreign Elementary School she is committed to both the boundary school district and her students Mitch Rodriguez always offers to help translate meetings for parents with teachers child study teams and administration which I am very much thankful for during parent-teacher conferences you can find her running around the whole school going from meeting to meeting Ms Rodriguez knows how important it is to be flexible so you will rearrange her schedule so that she can best meet the needs of the staff and
011her students Ms Rodriguez loves to collaborate on activities to help build upon our students Knowledge and Skills across the curriculum Smalley Elementary School is honored to have a staff member like Miss Alania Rodriguez this recognition is well deserved congratulations [Applause] thank you with my old school mate [Laughter] [Applause] o with AJ Grady's and Kevin who are all my friends thank you [Applause] next Mr X-Men and even once again it's my pleasure to recognize the support staff member of the month from Belmont High School Jordan [Applause] my hair would not be as gray as it is effectively and as efficiently as it does on top of her duties as the administrative assistant for myself as the principal she also serves as the treasurer of Student Activities as well as the graduations are substitute whisper the item
012finder and the listening beer for teachers staff Ms Jordan treats every student in Denver at dunbrook high school is another one of her own children demonstrating mutual respect she's constantly checking on students making sure they are healthy but mentally emotionally and physically she's consistently seen speaking with students at the Halls that go out to school while helping to manage student accounts for fights documents and whatever else students need to be successful well this whole rare occasion that you may not always have the answers she knows where to direct them to Best Buy the helper additionally Ms Jordan does a lot for our wild history does a lot for our students she does extraordinary amount for our staff and teachers CSS teachers with helping find coverage on days out whether on a field trip or sick
013prints their class rosters and helps ensure that all classes have to substitute for covering tutu the story defines new ways every day to help reduce the amount of work for teaching instead because we simplifying reimbursement submissions creative online forms for documentation and submission and bringing in new methods Technologies and styles to best hate others in this school as a whole by streamlining the streamlined processes that's making these different teachers instead to submit requirements if you have a question or need something quickly to destroyed it has you covered for pleasure supplies to meet us for clubs to student accountability make sure it's passion and knowledge is extremely helpful it is for these reasons among so many others that Bellbrook High School recommends and the schedule Jordan has support staff of the month assorted Define our rhythm-less
014mentality and deserves a recognition for tearing out the mission position of our district it's Jordan you are limited [Applause] thank you foreign [Applause] [Music] ER board members who's in the audience with us tonight that's Mrs himself uh Michelle was with the board of education for 14 years with almost half of that even in a leadership role as president of the Board of Education and so we just wanted to take a moment to highlight some of the achievements of the board under the leadership and then thank her for her time and service so among the the things that the board was able to accomplish under himself Direction it included things we're still operating under today the addition of two buildings and expansion and Renovations with many of the facilities in the district uh the introduction of
015new and interesting programs for our students such as the CTE program and let's not forget navigating our way through a global pandemic that shut down schools for the first time in community center during that time Michelle was a star war volunteer she had a steadfast and calm approach but was also a properly decisive and really just had a knack for deploying her with humor to help navigate some of the more difficult situations and conversations uh perhaps most notably the board under themselves leadership established a fiscal posture that was allowed that has allowed our district to deploy increasing standards while keeping local taxes essentially flat for an unprecedented number of Youth it's for all these reasons and many many more that I honor the Arthur Michelle our thanks and appreciation and if you'll come up and
016take your own picture with us we have a nice spot [Applause] at this time we could have all the students come up we're going to take a picture on stage programs and all the students and their parents come up to the stage so we can take a picture all right [Music] yeah we're right here and then they can be in front of us them in front of us come on down oh she's coming up Here Comes Mommy there you go that's good [Music] thank you [Music] Madness before you go congratulations thank you foreign [Music] thank you [Music] oh my God [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] what is it [Music] thank you amazing foreign [Music] and then he turns guys okay all right guys I think we're ready to re-tv so if it's
017all right um I hope you all enjoyed the shortage format compared to what we did in February uh with no training this evening uh don't get too comfortable though training should resume numbers um probably the biggest thing you'll notice on the agenda for this evening is the budget review I just want to acknowledge that that's in respect the majority of our time and operations is going to be discussing uh at the last meeting um and really really uh looking forward to introducing a lot of new resources into our classroom uh as you've noted in the past beneficiary of a large increase again in our state we either expected students should take a lot of pressure off of trying to monitor anything within the budget taxes uh again far more Focus for the budget strategy remains
018uh trying to get as much investment in our caution as possible that we've done a lot with facilities uh the requested to approve the submission uh also on your agenda tonight but really the budgeting processary and Dr Kingman was about maximizing those industry uh and then my last note actually has to do with uh some some of my Adventures over the last few weeks with some Youth Sports rounding down I found myself with an official agency through time so I ended up at the njfda finance conference uh who served Rockefeller I was able to take himself um Borough Council Hill Administration so a lot of activities um the last thing I just want to give a quick shout out for some student achievement um I was also able to attend the Sumter County School Board
019Association meeting where Jordan Stockwell is recognized as the unsung heroes which I thought was really fantastic there's a nice ceremony places um uh I do want to make one quick administrative note there is another one tonight's agenda it's under item 8.6 it's for a potential policy change regarding recognition for student athletes by the board it's not something that actually passed through the governance committee and I just wanted to be transparent about that which is getting the course officer during the new policies but I think this is a positive step forward and really with the service of some of the things that we have to kind of recognize uh members of the community so I hope that we've had a chance to review that maybe get there we can discuss this and uh hopefully uh and
020that is it for my present comments you can now move on to community reports foreign [Music] the education committee met earlier in the month probably my topic of our conversation centered around uh new master schedules of high school and middle school so there have been teams at both buildings led by Mr Smith and Dr Serna about creating new schedules that might better meet the needs of our staff and our students high school I'm a rotating drop schedule is in the works on a rotating drop students have eight classes but only need six classes on a given day classes are designed to be around 60 Minutes in length and the first period of today has a few extra minutes to facilitate morning arrival one neat thing is the order in which students attend their classes changes
021in a four-day cycle for example on ak-1 a student would have period one two three but not period four and then in the afternoon after lunch up here is 567. and drop period eight and the following day different periods drop out of the schedule so that design is advantageous for a variety of reasons so kids are kids additional instructional time which should support through the achievement and it also gives gives our students and staff members Variety in what their day-to-day experience looks and so by having different courses at different times of the day that may increase their intensiveness and their engagements at the middle school they are also working to design a new schedule so the proposal has Ela and math classes lasting for a double period of units uh science social studies and specialist
022classes will last 40 minutes teachers are looking at two 40-minute questions per day as well as a duty assignment this model will also have an increase in instructional time in math in LA to support student achievement students will also have phys Ed or health daily as well as other electives and one great thing about both schedules in both buildings is they both offer us opportunities for intervention and enrichment that we can explore as a district to directly support student achievement we also as committee uh did review some of the programming the district is preparing for the summer so there are programs for a variety of students inbound kindergarten kindergarten students elementary students programs in math and literacy programs for English language Learners as well as programs for middle and high school students as well as
023an extended school year program for students with disabilities so those programs with the exception of the program for inbound kindergarten children generally we'll begin in late June and run through later thank you Mr Dawson any questions on education [Music] okay I just have a few quick items first as you saw in your elab um our board has officially reached all of the criteria to become certified so we will be that will happen in May at the council meeting and we will receive I suppose it's a plaque or something that you can display proudly here after that meeting as far as our upcoming schedule with Glenn we're going to keep our training going and as the president said earlier April 26 you will be here to go over self and superintendent evaluation as many of us
024have invested with processes before at this point we have approved 17 and a half hours which is actually more than we need we've done things we were getting hours for something we couldn't honestly even realize like our superintendent search uh when we were trained on that and we're going to do set our goals and then we had a retreat on board structure they were all counted towards ours just so that we're aware of kind of keeping up with things at the end of this calendar year two and a half of those hours do drop off so we have to keep over 16 to keep our certification so we just have to be mindful and we would have to do ethics anyway but we'll keep looking at the trainings that are available and we'll pick some
025for next year that are meaningful to the members as well uh next we very quickly discussed our Five-Year Plan and our progress we're in here for right now coming to the end of year four and we're in right now quite honestly it's quite Broad and very difficult to achieve so we're going to be working to give it a little bit more of a narrower Focus over the next year it is the charge of the governance committee uh under the guidance of Dr Freeman so that's not something that will be starting soon but maybe this summer or going into the fall we'll be starting to look at our next five year plan and let's see oh and we briefly talk about some of our new committees um one that we talked about and this is for
026you this is extracurriculars coming up to our community and for people who goes along with it talking about maybe going to an every other month schedule once you've kind of met with everybody like me because you've got the ball rolling and that's really going to be up to you that's something you want to do or not but that's something we've brought up only because of schedule as we add in another extracurricularly taught me that they could you know go back and forth so so that's something you want to talk to you about um but we should also those of you who did volunteer for extracurriculars we should start reading pretty soon because as an ad hoc you know we have a few things that we want to accomplish there and at least discuss and lastly
027uh the negotiations committee has to reconvene uh last time we used the HR committee we'd like to stick with that if everybody on HR is okay with that or if any you know if any other members have any concerns we'll obviously listen to them but that was our thought that's the way it went last time it seemed to work well we did a good job with our negotiations so as long as you guys are okay with that on HR that's the way you'd like to do negotiations again I mean I think that's everything I have together [Music] um [Music] um okay um started advertising that in this school and I just feel jobs.com and then the first three days we have the 400 years so it was determined that there was never really a clear
028version of rounds throughout the description um they're so far away all right we have a clean step of clean javascripts regarding the medicinal um [Music] protect them yes okay um we'll be working on the toilet they're working on the 2015 for 10 years yeah foreign positions [Music] 1.6 million dollars that was created by efficient Humanity budget is recognize greater revenues requires school districts and restricted unassigned Surplus facts over the Judgment backgrounds [Music] the purpose he said at least purchase the ceilings upgrade ones and that safe costs are also serving budget tax and um we've been discuss Appropriations remind them of communities through this new budget is incredible it's a zero things about again by redirecting resources directly towards classroom programs of instructions that is self other fixed expenses required in those traditional development additional staff
029the dominant analysts I mean it's increasing application Solutions expanding and expansion textbooks educational programs different amount of programming extensions is a budget translation especially in transportation transportation as well uh facilities are being upgraded at the high school Lafayette Lamont Elementary small swinging more than the points in the South Stream Lafayette a little bit see the bathroom Renovations the field looks absolutely incredible The Heist will feel house is the best boxer will get in the loops the high schools costs and the budget is at hand however the tax consequence of the residents uh we also um talked about a great reconfigurations basically our enrollment is coming up here uh where where the best time for the problem and The Architects of the unit view of community of facilities as a result of the Democrat academic the
030Amazon graphic study the following reports smaller schools are expected to have third grade which will remove approximately 100 450 students smaller school has the greatest enrollment pressure causes high student influentiality increase look that's more consider these options school hours will also be scheduling also deeply discuss we also discussed definition of human Sports programs and your competencies and with fun excuse me a chance to create children as part of an 88 AC upgrade uhcl overall the committee worked the entire hour and the presentation was I I have to say Beyond anyone's expectation and again a public thank you to our industry uh [Music] to see you know how things started our population is increasing so um you know having problems but again these are possibilities I heard you say um possible changes in school hours um
031I think that had to do with recognition of how difficult uh [Music] uh that probably issue with an entire year where we have so many different instructions that it's just generally addition to the student uh again that's about keeping our options open and the same opportunity to Improvement and trying to burst people for the potential concerns um [Music] no I think that's uh exactly it these are options that we presented you're currently looking through uh you don't have any conversations as to what would be the best option so they may or not it may not happen but we want to be in the public aware so it's not a surprise excellent any other questions please okay uh so for Community engagement uh um we didn't actually have the opportunity to host any committee members of
032us should say community members so what we did is we took the opportunity and look at the next three months with an accepted activity to see where we think food or at least become stable ongoing operation and so we identified a few different groups uh basically the kind of food Circle being seen this club in the house uh as the final three groups that we wanted to meet you um [Music] objectives [Music] um I think that's a great impact and I think what we're finding is now that we've reached out to um leaders Within These few years versus medium and monthly monthly group that's like so we'll just continue to stay in touch with all of those great committees out there doing fabulous Minister uh I'll always stay in touch um just through the phone
033call email foreign [Music] okay um every other month in February [Music] okay at this point now do we want to revert back and address the budget yes Mr chair um the way the agenda is set up is first we will have a presentation on the budget and invite the board members to come down to the first vote and then we'll have a public hearing where any members of the public have an opportunity to express their position on the budget and then we'll have great questions and then very good so at this point uh foreign foreign presentation um are very excited to present the budget community because we were very proud of you have constructed what we think is a near perfect budget when I say perfect budget what I need is a budget that expanded
034our educational programs to better meet the needs of all students all classifications while still being financially included and making sure we didn't put too much of a burden on the pump so before we start and I'm very big on this thing uh before you do a project that took so many people including so much input to so many people to kind of thank those that were involved we want to start with the Board of Education you all because uh you have given us Direction ideas you've been very active in the process and give us parameters to work with them that make it made it very easy for us to uh come to the budget that we have you want to give special thanks to the operations community all of the back and forth uh Mrs
035upco Mr Dawson Mr Januzzi this is either all the back and forth the ideas the questions which sometimes you think that we mind because they're giving us a hard time but it's not the case because what happens is when you ask questions you kind of make us sharper in terms of the way we're thinking what's expected what the community was like so we appreciate that very much also we I want to say personally because we started a new process which Mike will talk about a little later we started the process whereby we did zero budget which meant that instead of adding the percentage from the previous year which happened most of the time what we did was we started from a zero baseball you talk about the needs of our teachers our students our parents
036all of those things we broke the budget from the ground up which is very different to be scared because it takes a long time I know Mike was was sweating having a heart attack about how long it was taken initially but then they embraced it what ended up happening was we had so much input from everybody involved that it allowed us to get exactly what we needed so I want to thank the central office administration Beth Mike of course for working their magic also the school releases they were charged with going back working with the supervisors well the teachers to ask questions to give input which was something that hadn't been done before so the teachers everybody was pretty good luck and initially but once they engaged them they saw that the input was really
037going to be taken whatever happened was a beautiful thing we got all the input from all the stakeholders and mainly from our teachers who are the ones in the classroom who really know what students do what's going on in the classroom okay so our main goal are for the budget was very simple it was a develop a budget that supports an educational program that first meets the new the needs of all students so a lot of times we uh make a budget or a budget is made in order to address anybody on equal level but of course when we have different classifications we have different levels that need to be addressed such education differently talented bilingual all of those areas we really took a look at all of those areas saw what specifically they needed
038needed as a whole so that was the first thing and then behind that was the board charged this one was we look at how the community or the local taxpayer was going to be effective and I'm happy to say the impact on the remote Community will be awesome likewise said it was a teaser I won't tell you the dollar amount I let uh Mr Gorski tell you that but I can tell you there was minimal impact to the local taxpayer and we created an education programs totally outstanding what you'll see okay so three things we considered we can say the mission statement the board goes as you can see it kind of summarizes what we're trying to do the Bible Public Schools is supportive Multicultural community that provides an Innovative and academically challenging educational program
039while offering a variety of extracurricular and social opportunities that encourage lifelong learning so it's not just those things in the classroom these are all the clubs and the different activities that spark kids interests uh build ideas and um spark creativity that which is needed in order for them to figure out what they want to do once they leave our homes is that our district goals as Mrs news head talked about one of the goals was established or for me to establish myself as an education reader which I can say uh humbly that that's been the case and you can talk to teachers administrators to create a safe environment where students and Staff feel comfortable taking this and working collaborative that was a big push you know as we we talked about we don't talk about
040it often but one of the things we wanted to change was the culture the idea that everybody felt safe expressing themselves giving input taking risks and that has begun to happen I know with the board I say that the weekend reports where I kind of give you a little summary of what happens and I know some of you have are implementation with teachers you can actually see them here to change that is being made to the culture and last the qualitative and quantitative measures to inform in response I've talked about data data data from the beginning the fact that we must use data to measure how students are doing and to figure out what we need to do in order to get them where they used to be so we've spent a tremendous amount of
041time with that a lot of professional development we're actually at the point now where teachers are using the data in their classroom with something they appeared initially but now they're using it raining as our administrators and supervisors so that's the first step the first sign for us that we're moving in the right index and then of course our board goals pretty simple the Strategic plan which um I think this is the news that Mr Brown talked about uh the the adjustment or planning for the ever increasing enrollment and our facility needs and last but not least the continued professional development for the board which I'm happy to say that they will receive the uh what What's the title of the uh foreign okay when planning our budget we looked at uh some keyboards and considerations
042and you heard this in uh on this is upco's report we have increased enrollment our enrollment is increasing every day and it's not just the enrollment but it's the types of students that are coming into the coming students come in with limited English with uh interrupted educational uh experience which require more needs uh more support and this budget is going to make sure that we Supply that aging facilities as we all know our brothers are 100 years old that requires us to praise as well as well prepares throughout the years so we have to consider that we're making the budget and this is the New Jersey student learning standards which is you say data because the money standards we wanted to make sure that we started to focus our educational programs our teaching and learning
043on the actual New Jersey student learning standards which means the curriculum new programs and professional development and that's a student performance data which I just spoke about and of course the student ratios we want to keep our class size down so teachers can actually teach and pay attention to the individual in small groupies of our students rather than just teaching and letting the middle uh succeed and what happens when the fastest thing to do and the last as I said before was the the tax impact on the community which is going to be very excited all right and now I'm going to turn the program over to Mr voice who's going to get into the details of the budget the Bound Brook School budget for the 23-24 school year was developed within specific parameters set
044forth by the Board of Education to prepare a comprehensive zero-based budget within type Revenue meeting the needs of 37 projected additional students according to our demographic study for next year allocate an increased amount of resources the programs and instructions became that same thing over and over again but the goal established early on to Dr Freeman was to throw out the Playbook and come up with a new design for the budget called zero face which empowers the future principals supervisors and directors to design the budget to be accountable for the budget to have exactly what specifically what they need instead of a percentage put on last year it's got a one-size-fits-all it's a custom tailored budget for every store and every program it has expansion of curriculum programs and Staffing to broadly improve student performance that's
045our objective to push the needle on student performance budget for capital outlay projects taking advantage of the new New Jersey Rod grant program which reimburses school districts like Bound Brook for 40 percent of eligible project costs and other projects required for health and safety we've been waiting for this in our field for over a decade for the state to open up the rock Grant window again and it is wide open and we have an architect working with us in the applications of being prepared now and they're ready to submit and budget for inflation we are seeing increased costs predominantly in transportation we Outsource a lot of our routes through the ed Service Commission and they put them out to bid those bids are coming in extraordinarily High uh probably because of fuel driver shortages part
046shortages bus shortages and everything else that that industry is facing and also maintenance and janitorial services and energy are also areas of budget that are growing beyond our cap growth and and budget to cap meeting the needs of all students this budget has been professionally constructed to afford every student an opportunity for an exemplary education by well-trained committed staff in a safe and secure environment opportunity is made available through a comprehensive curriculum which offers diverse course offerings and co-curricular clubs and activities we believe that our proposed budget is efficient and we were recognized in our County budget efficiency review with the increased spending by going to cap this year the district has reduced the under adequacy status and what is the adequacy status adequacy is a state model which calculates what would be the necessary
047level to achieve and provide a thorough and efficient education to every pupil in the district last year the district was 3.4 million dollars under what the state considers adequate enough to meet tne we've cut that margin by more than half reducing it to 1.5 million under adequacy for the 2324 budget what is the budget creation timeline the budget began in November with the establishment of a budget philosophy and then we studied enrollment patterns specifically at every school we had a new demographer come in and study the enrollment data and do a five-year projection we review staffing needs at every school with all of the principles going through every section and staff need then we ask the principals to begin developing their budgets which they were all submitted timely before we left for when to pray
048because we're all developed from scratch everybody entered their items into our Genesis software and I'm pleased to say that with very few exceptions nothing has been cut or removed the principles did a very fine job in my opinion are budgeting for exactly what they need um and uh Dr Freeman Mr Fish and I are talking about on performance and then we go through budget defense rounds we met as a team within principal we went through every line item in their budget in their case it we ask for adjustments to be made so that we have parity amongst the schools and create efficiency and the final project product once it was all Consolidated was a Consolidated budget with some fixed editions for energy and things like that which require a percentage estimate based off of last
049year and then the governor's budget address is is uh usually the second Tuesday in February and then the release of state aid comes out 48 hours later by Statute tonight we're having the adoption of the tentative budget and then it will afford the board an opportunity to think just like when you lease a car and you could make the final adoption at the next meeting in April what is zero-based budgeting we've heard a lot about it so I wanted to get a technical definition here that are related to refer to I'm not going to read it to you but um it's basically a budgeting technique which all expenses must be just period or starting from zero versus starting with the previous budget and adjusting it by a percentage or increasing it where you ran short
050the year before it's a highly effective tool that helps eliminate waste and also creates buy-in and accountability with our principal supervisors and directors these can be refined along the way we manage the budget throughout the year and we can make adjustments where necessary and this is a comparison of traditional budgeting versus zero based again starting from scratch requires new expenditure justification is decision and goal oriented cost and benefit justification is required lines of business management and propose expenditures there's greater Clarity and responsiveness and it's more thought-provoking by every component that goes into the budget where does the money come from this is a pie chart of our revenues and and Bound Brook is fortunate that 58 of our revenues come sleeping that is a double-edged sword that is good in years like this one where
051we're getting an increase what's expected to be good again next year as S2 and we'll get to that in a minute is fully implemented it's a challenge where the state tax revenues deteriorate don't meet their budget estimates and uh you'll wind up with potentially a cut in stated um we're actually planning for that already because the economic conditions are changes every night so we're planning strategically for if that day should come and then federal aid is is about five percent of the budget going back to the revolutionary period the federal government has had a hands-off of education and deferred the design of education and the financing of Education to the states fund balance as Dr Kingman mentioned is one area that we can control administratively that's the effect of management of the budget it's recognizing
052revenues that were greater than what you budgeted and expending money less than what was uh budgeted and those savings roll over to a subsequent Year's budget as another Revenue source and miscellaneous Revenue the district is engaged in a tiered CD program with the bank where we're recognizing between 150 and 200 000 of additional interest Revenue compared to last year because of favorable interest rates the tiering of CDs um and also the management of camps there's a handout which is a comparative Revenue schedule and I'll just mention a couple highlight items we're going to post these slides and the attachments to the website so the community and the can have a look at it but one of the large areas that grew was fun balance because of the 1.6 million dollar creation of excess Surplus and
053also the state requiring that the uh restricted Surplus which went up to four percent of Appropriations and years past were the same the squirrel more money for cobit um needs is now forced down to two percent in that calculation goes into excess Surplus um taxes it's not the intervention is going to cap but not utilizing any Bank cap we respected the previous board's decision to budget under cap and although you're allowed to roll that money forward two years we are letting some of that expire and not using it out of respect for the taxpayers certainly we could find and Justified ways to present suspended but I think we're satisfied with without it other Revenue we have 2.3 million dollars of tuition Revenue coming from southbound Brook to put in two previous years of budget adjustments
054that rolled into that number Dan stated as Dr Freeman mentioned is up 5.6 million dollars we were close to having a balanced budget when the state aid was announced and then we utilized most of the money to purchase all of the fixed asset items that we're going to present in a moment instead of least purchasing them over five years and incurring about 160 000 a year in interest costs so it saves cap room for the next four years and saves money and interest and if you notice also the state requires a conservative budgeting with respect to federal grants they require you to budget only 85 percent of the prior year because of conservatism and the general fund tax levy um the 20th it begins with the 22-23 adjusted Levy for an enrollment adjustment which was
055eligible for because as Dr Freeman mentioned we're growing above average there's an adjustment for health care costs compared to the state health benefit plan which is going up 15 in premiums this year we do not have that we have a private plan and then that calculates the 23-24 tax levy cap compared to last year it's a 588 thousand dollar increase in the general fund Levy again no prior your bank cap has been appropriated you can read this at your leisure but S2 is an adjustment to the school funding Reform Act of 2008 which is the current budget law still it's Antiquated obviously because it was it was enacted as well in 2007 2023-24. this talk about a constitutional convention at the state level to come up with a new funding formula we'll wait to see
056but S2 was their most recent adjustment that basically took away adjustment Aid and to growth limitation uh tasks in the budget to afford under um in any districts like downbrook more money at the expense of overfunded districts who lost millions of dollars um and had to uh you know they transition their money back to the underfunded the goal is that next year when this is fully implemented underfunded districts would be at full funding according to this srfa 2008 funding formula previously the state had a model for funding schools that did not have the resources to fully fund it so school districts got less than the calculation from the formula this S2 is an important adjustment to say no you're going to get your full amount and we're going to do it in a fair manner
057taking it away from overfunded and giving it to the underfelled two types of state aid Equalization Aid is designed to support a District's adequacy budget that's our largest area of a 27.7 million dollars in categorical Aid which is a type of category the districts are rewarded for efficiencies and spending in certain areas like special education Transportation Security and so on general fund State AIDS 50 of our total revenues to support the budget and here's a comparison of the individual categories Equalization Aid at the top and all of the categorical AIDS in the middle and you can see that's a handsome 28 increase where does the money go over 50 percent goes directly into the classroom and that's that percentage is expected to increase for years coming 42.6 directly and then when you allocate benefit costs
058predominantly which contains to instructional features it's it's well over 50 Administration 7.9 capital projects 12.9 curriculum development 2.1 grant funding we receive a lot of Grants and there's a lot of administrative effort and time soliciting grants and managing the grants five percent Transportation two percent custodial Services ground security maintenance 8.4 percent and benefit costs is just one it's one of the largest line items in the budget last year the health insurance premiums here in Bound Brook went a 13.5 this year the state health benefit plan which a lot of school districts participate in as a pool is going up 15 down broke because of aggressive negotiating and because of competitive quotes has a number only increasing 3.9 and we're not finished negotiating that yet appropriation detail as a larger handout and it shows all the
059comparative line items of spending in the budget you will see significant swings and increases in the instructional line items in the budget and and just costing you if you're going to use this from an analytical perspective comparing in the last year because it's a totally different budget model it's a totally different Administration totally different board totally different district and board goals and it's it's in apple and new orange budget spending is driven by enrollment this is our audited Assa student accounts for 1718-223 23 24 was projected by the demographer we don't have those numbers yet we won't until October 15th of 23. but you can see the growth in population and a lot of that population is in Special Needs categories including bilingual and ESL programs which require one teacher per eight students so that
060eats up a lot of classrooms and a lot of resources what's included in the budget special education Transportation will be Outsource that again we're getting very high bids coming in from the ed Service Commission but everything's properly budgeted and estimated in the budget some of our facility needs we have we're upgrading um boilers at four schools and we're upgrading bathroom facilities in the high school and in another school we're replacing the track to make that a complete beautiful project at the high school and we're very proud of it uh perimeter fencing with the Rhode Island both are getting replaced the roofs for The Field House Press Box and other areas through the district are all will be changed these by the way are very expensive items and we'll get to the slide on that in
061a moment but these are generally items that districts have to go out for a bottle referendum to procure because of their expense we're doing it in cap in budget staff and curriculum programs have been have been expanded we have a fantastic Workforce Development program which is Cutting Edge led by Mr Ross Bound Brook School District offers direct programs student-based career for college credit and Industry certification at Raritan Valley Community College Workforce Center for Learning in conjunction with these courses these program offers work based learning opportunities for students that include jobs at Industries for 18 an hour which is also Campus High School credit hours or the funding for this paying for the grant previously we're still soliciting grants but to secure this program because of its benefits of the school district and students we're bringing
062it in the general fund tonight robotics program there's so much here to be proud of and you'll notice Dr Freeman's in almost every picture [Music] he's very Hands-On and he's a very effective superintendent from the ground up visiting every school talking with students so many of them know his name is from testing in hallway it's amazing and what programs are in budget I'd like to turn over to my partner thank you so with um in terms of curriculum one of the things that we do is every five years we take a review of different components of our curriculum and make sure that they're up to date um in this year we are looking at our language arts curriculum and of course it was adopted by us originally in 2013. we upgraded to a New Edition
063in 2016 and now are going for a complete new program this year so that's going to be a large portion of the curriculum budget uh we'll be doing a lot of curriculum writing and mapping this summer um some of it is for our math program that we adopted last year also again this um language arts program that we're adopting our ESL due to the changes in um the configuration of our classes and our newcomers program some of the um unexpected um things that have come up in the curriculum for ESL that needs to be Rewritten we have some new programs coming in at the high school as well we're taking a very close look next year at our multi-tiered system of support as every school district does we're putting some money towards there taking a
064look at um you know the interventions that are in place in each of the schools and then how we can offer additional tiered interventions um throughout the school day but also after school in the summer so that we're best meeting everyone's needs I'll show you a little bit with Staffing in just a moment on that besides new adoptions of curriculum materials we also have to replace textbooks that we currently have um either they're old they're outdated so we're going with newer versions of those technology replacement because we are a one-on-one District of course that's a big factor that we need to consider and we have additional online programs a lot of our textbooks that we have are now you know online for students but also teachers have asked for additional resources in the classroom that
065are online so we're making sure they have those available to them we are taking a very close look at our gifted and talented program and redefining that for next year Robin Griffin is going to be leading the charge on that and she has um started putting together a committee so you'll get more information about that and of course the increase to our English language Learners the majority of our students coming in right now are from Central America most of them are slice students meaning that they have a severed instructional with students we're also working with our different assessment again data is um driving a lot of the decisions that we're making in the area of curriculum instruction we use Link it right now we're expanding the resources that we're using with Lincoln we're um incorporating
066their intervention manager for next year um the dra3 will continue to use at the early levels also the Dibbles key math we're going to be expanding our ASI services in math so that will become a component there and special education uses IXL but we're also using that that's um again an online benchmarking platform that allows us to individualize instruction at student levels and allows for more independent learning by our students rather than teacher directed um we also considered professional development of course with new programs and um new uh textbook dad adaptations with the high school and middle school changing their schedules all of that factors into professional development bringing consultants in as well as sending staff out we were able to really increase engagement for professional development this year by doing those virtual PD um
067opportunities we are looking at some purchased virtual professional development platforms as well as Ed Webb which our teachers found very beneficial but what that allowed us to do is to free up some funding which we're incorporating into next year's budget to be able to send teachers out to conferences and workshops which in the past we were not able to do so it's been great to actually have teachers come and say you know can I attend something and be able to say yes you can that's that's a big um I don't know a plus for me professional memberships again with our staff looking to get involved in different organizations throughout the state we've been able to increase the funding towards that and our AVID program at the high school we increased funding towards that oh there
068we go so some of the staff but um positions that are in this budget um you know these are um all proposed right now we are working through our numbers um our enrollment numbers at each grade level um and one of the things that we did work out today was when we were looking at class sections and sizes um some of our grades we don't need as many sections which was going to free up some space for us specifically at Smalley school by doing that we already own those staff members in the current budget we're not looking for a reduction in force so what we're going to do is we're going to reallocate their positions into for example academic support instructors for math at both um the one two level and the three four level
069we already have it at five six we have two vacant positions at seven eight which I'm hoping not to advertising etcetera will be able to fill those but that was a need that we had that by reallocating those staff members will be able to better meet that need um we added as you can see a couple of ESL positions our ESL director will be actually joining us the first week in April she'll be in District again tomorrow tomorrow bring your wealth of knowledge with her so we'll be able to better Identify some needs in that department when she joins us as you can see there's also a gifted and talented teacher in there that gifted and talented teacher will work with grades two through six um for the next school year we already have some
070um programs and things in place at the middle school and at the high school we really need to look at what we're doing to accelerate the learning for our second through sixth graders so that's where we're starting with that initiative that's going to be a multi-year Initiative for us as you can see we're looking to um I guess take my position and break it into a couple of different areas um which you know not one person can do my job so that's but um we will be having a supervisor of instruction um next year that will be basically taking over for the curriculum and instruction part of what I do we're looking for a grant coordinator or business assistant um as you know I run all of our federal grants and programs from preschool all
071the way up through the high school that's a large portion of my job so there needs to be someone in-house who understands how to work with the staff with the administrators in each building to make sure we're in compliance and also be able to work on the funding side which will take some of the pressure off of our current business office in that aspect and that about covers the positions but you will see I believe total as of today we have about 19 in the budget that we're working with so some of these May um change a little bit or there may be you know just some tweaking of as I said not reducing staff but reallocating where staff is and here's some detail on the Capital Improvements and equipment that is budgeted in the
0722324 budget high school and Lafayette are getting bathroom Renovations badly needed and they are going to be ADA Compliant a fantastic bathrooms that serve this community for many decades to come when they're finished boiler Replacements are going to take place at the high school the units here uh there's three of them go back to the 1970s and uh usually there's at least one that is completely down there's a second one right now that's currently leaking and uh we're running on one these are a very inefficient units so their replacement is going to create efficiencies in the energy lines for years to come um architectural fees for the above is a is a rough estimate at this point um High School track and fence as I mentioned copy machines for instruction uh all schools are getting
073copy machines High School field house and roof replacement high school gym floor we're getting the Promethean boards which are interactive big screen monitors at many schools security cameras phone system and in all schools including the central office building are getting Capital repairs mainly to the roof the total in the budget is 5.6 million now the growth cost of all of this equipment and um upgrades is just under seven million dollars that because of this new Rod grant program we are estimating that we are going to get refunded to us 2.4 million dollars and that's a conservative number I wouldn't be surprised if it exceeds that which brings down the cost only to 4.5 million as I mentioned the additional state aid is going to buy these items out right so we do not have to
074at least purchase Finance them over the next five years we have a number of shared service agreements here again that's tough to read I apologize for that this printout came directly from the Department of Education software but we have a lot of areas here where we're sharing costs with the municipality uh other school districts such as Transportation jointers uh southbound Brook we do a lot of collaboration and that saves this District many many hundreds of thousands of dollars and then finally the presentation is going to include with the one of the tax consequence what influences the tax rate number one state aid districts that receive a underfunding a small amount of state aid generally have higher local taxes and a higher tax rate for the community fund balance is one area that Administration can control
075with effective management of the budget and that rolls over as a revenue source for future years and their Township rateables is another key area of the tax state what are raidables rateables are the aggregate taxable property values through the community and it's provided by the municipality every year they certify the rateables in town and we're very fortunate about because the rateables have grown over 80 percent compared to last year and I gave an analogy that I'll use again it's kind of like if you rent a uh a a Netflix movie for ten dollars and you're gonna watch it with one person your rate is ten dollars but if you invite some friends over now you have five people watching the movie your rate drops to two dollars that's a very simple way of understanding how
076rateables work the more readables the more aggregate real estate property values that come online in the community the more sharing there is of the tax level and increase student enrollment has a dramatic effect on Appropriations so we're very pleased to conclude this presentation by saying that last year's School tax rate was 1.290 and for the 2324 budget it's expected to drop to 1.210 which is an eight Cent decrease in the school tax rate which will save the average assessed home and Bound Brook of three hundred and ninety thousand seven hundred dollars three hundred and twelve dollars next year in school taxes I've I've been doing this for 23 years I have seen only one natural year where we had a school tax decrease in that time this is the second time and unlike the previous
077this one still has a plethora of Appropriations meeting the needs of a comprehensive student body while still returning a handsome School tax reduction [Applause] and uh I would I would like to sincerely thank all the principals all of the teachers who contributed in this budget there's a lot of hands that put together this funding especially like this uh thank Mrs Beth Fisher um she was influential in a lot of the design aspects of the budget having to do with curriculum and she served this District in my opinion very well for a long period of time and I would certainly be remiss if I didn't think uh and extend my sincere thanks to Dr Freeman whose vision of Education reform and his commitment to provide each and every student with every opportunity to succeed in an
078Ever increasingly competitive environment defining the budget process we brought in zero-based budgeting as a model and I will say that was one of the key components that is the main ingredient in the stew that is making this taste so good thank you [Applause] and the next part you will have a public hearing so any members of the public wish to comment on specifically the budget will have a form and an opportunity and then we will have 40 questions and then take a vote [Music] before [Music] location is move anything this evening um open it up to any word questions if any members have any questions on the tentative budget entertainment now um [Music] I mean I I I don't feel an architect any social worker so I I don't know yeah wow agree I mean
079is that something that when we're looking at work and I know it's not just I'm not an architect and I know that there's a variety of issues that have been addressed so is this a is that coming times that after you just explain a little bit on that because thanks for your question uh that 274 thousand dollar estimate for architectural fees is just that we do not have a proposal from the architect at this time it is a cloud percentage on the project cost which is customary to estimate this song costs it's a page holder and I expect that number to come and see that just one procedural question and the zero-based budget which I love um sounds like it worked really well I it feels to me like a hard reset that you would
080have to do hopefully not every year how often do you anticipate that process after thank you so uh one of the reasons we did it was to kind of change the mindset and to really focus uh put the focus on uh allowing the funds to reconstruction of course you have certainly anything else so the idea of uh would happen as we said like you said that that's a good description of it we wouldn't have to do it every year but we would go into the budget process thinking to ourselves okay what is it that we need to to change [Music] perspective if you do that [Music] you do something here is production any other questions in the morning I think it was an exhausted the question thank you Mr Januzzi um is item 2.6 which
081is the adoption of the 23-24 tentative budget it's a it's a very long resolution for all of the figures uh uh representative there that are required so it just needs a first and second in the world fall vote and then and then uh tomorrow Dr Penny and I will have our marketing Motors to submit the budget to the county along with all the checklists at this point mostly okay Mr Brown yes Mr Dawson yes Mr bezina yeah Miss Muslim yes yes Mr Bowman yes and Mr Jersey yes fourth president motion passes unanimously thank you and thanks to the board for the support of the tenants all right at this point we are open to the public schools to him any questions from February 15th bad motion explosion and we'll give it to Mr pal second
082thank you any comments of discussion Mr Bell yes Mr Dawson yes this casino yeah in sort of Miss Wilson yeah it's hard yes Mr Bowman yes awesome passes especially we are up to section six years [Music] can I have a multi a second definition any discussion that generally like has already applied it's um no you're right yes you're right this is something that was thought of at the last minute in order to help our students based on what we were doing with the SAT so we put it on foreign thank you any other comments of questions um it's about the new club [Music] and it said that um there wouldn't be a stipended position for it for three years how do you think about that we have volunteers through them yes that's uh it's quite
083a DM collected bargaining agreement about the first um two years that I clogged with Sabbath okay thank you requests is not the same problems um yeah you know everybody has one of these income different colleges they just happen to happen just around the same time all right and maybe this has been any change in practice or process related to continuing educational conference participation you know it's one of the things that you're looking to increase um you know in the past um professional development uh mostly was done in-house um and bringing through something is very expensive found that by working with uh just recommendations from the teachers and looking at different things that were available to us a lot of the professional development out there since um covet hit is virtual um it doesn't cost as
084much for the district so that freed up some funding for us to take a look at different ways that we could provide professional learning experiences for our staff um outside your District so you know as those opportunities become available and the funding is there we welcome that also we receive a good percentage of money through title 2A which is the voted to professional development um in the past we were always advised to hold on to a certain percentage of it um working with Mr Dorsey we are sending that down um so there has been additional funding available there which we didn't have in the past [Music] uh you know training training so that helps us to avoid the cost of bringing somebody in which is uh putting these open at this time or sending a
085bunch of people out so this this uh approach to Progressive benefits [Music] why are you doing point of view was to demonstrate the need for a clause [Music] it would also could have the effective studying activity because it would be difficulties so I think that if you were to look at our policies and our general perspective on how to explain this but if there are alternative ways that we can go about getting certain interests and the sensitive Investments I mean that could be an alternative uh was both phenomenal and you know um unsustainable I think it's the best way and so um you know you should have known it in the Public Presentation that there are additional positions for both understanding that and coming up with uh and unless there are any other comments I
086would close it here and ask for it I'm going to add those more comments and that is I'm very happy to see that there is available going on outside the district um that you get so much when you meet with other professionals and then you can bring it back and it's been too long that you know everything has been virtual I'm very happy to see this and I'm sure that the staff is feeling the same I'm very happy to see it yes Mr Dawson yes Miss Casino yes yes Miss hi yes Mr Palmer yes Mr Januzzi yes motion passes thank you motion promotion thank you Mr Dawson seven happiness about any discussion um thank you um [Music] it has has the ends put in for any field sentences here from all the other schools field
087trips for your school I think they have one in the spring of your your um the board a field trip yes all right please Mr Bell yes Mr Dawson yes this casino yes it's hard yes yes awesome thank you Mr battle second thank you Mrs hi any discussion um just about yes Mr Dawson yes yes this is up though yes let's listen yeah it's hot yes Mr Bowman yes Mr jamuzzi yes motion passes thank you everybody any members want to please yeah um during the um since the scheduling so um so the education committee um reviewed a presentation about new high school schedules that would be a rotating drop so of your eight periods you would meet with six classes per day um just curious your thoughts about that yeah just for any thoughts about
088the current high school schedule um and um thank you foreign [Music] everything I think you know just and the more opportunities [Music] of student representative um foreign [Music] capability exactly thank you all in favor um thank you again yeah I will stop [Music] everybody thank you [Music] thank you and it doesn't listen foreign thank you