001oh we should be good all right [Applause] very very short we should be all right call to order 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 bodies at which time any business affecting their interests is discussed and acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act and board of education policy zero one six two the board of education of the borough of bound brook has caused notice of this meeting to be posted in the board office and at baumerk high school and mailed our fax to the courier news bamboo borough clerk southbound brook board of education and any person who has requested individual notice and paid the required fee please stand for the pledge
002i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and [Music] justice go here mr bobby here all right um i guess we have to do it for the resignation do we have to yeah all right i need to i need to get a motion for 1.5 resignation of ms stevens motion mr bell can i get a second mr uh uh i guess take a roll call so if we vote no she has to come back no i'm just kidding you cannot vote oh ellie yes mr valentine yes yes yes and on that note i would like to uh uh express my appreciation to ms stevens for all of her hard work over what was it 10 years
00310 years uh on the board um she uh certainly was a an advocate for band brook and uh sad to see her dumb so thank her for all her uh hard work uh i did want to thank all of the young ladies and gentlemen that are here to get their student of the month and gem of the month uh so thank you as well for all the great work that you do so without further ado [Music] we'll have mr dr gallagher um just a couple just a couple quick things before we go to the students of the month uh first off i'd like to thank mrs stevens again for her time on the board um she was always a great asset to the community of denver with her insights and everything else um so again
004i like to personally thank her for her help uh on the board during my time here as superintendent um i'd like to make note that uh we did receive a letter from the department of special education and the department of education um as the board knows we were cited at the middle school for disproportionality in special education a young among black men for special classifications in special education um we appealed that based upon the number of transfer students that we received and the state came in and they just bought it and we were found to be 100 compliant so we are no longer in that disproportionality uh piece in special education so that is good news for us second is um the county um has a grant and they are looking to buy coded testing
005machines for next school year so i did ask uh for a machine for us for high school for codes and testing for next year um if they do get that grant so i wanted to make you aware of that um at this point in time i'd like to bring up dr s for walmart for students of the month good evening um [Music] thank you um congratulations to aria davila congratulations to jarrett lincard lincango um morera april students of mine thank [Applause] you at this time we bring up mrs clark for lafayette school for first grade lafayette's april student of the month is jairus mar castillo alvarado [Applause] and for second grade we have michaela castillo sanchez [Applause] and this time we have mr edwards for somali school [Music] okay good evening everyone our first winner
006recipient came painted de los santos [Applause] our next recipient is zach quesada [Applause] varela [Applause] our next recipient jimmy calderon [Applause] and our last recipient gisele corner [Applause] now we have mr chancellor the community middle school is pleased to recognize as uh its student of the month madison missouri the community middle school is also proud to recognize as its student's month jordan salazar sanchez [Applause] good evening down brook high school was pleased to announce our four crusaders citizen of the month recipients our first recipient janet marie marin cabral [Music] our second recipient i know he's going to make it tonight but aldo culture recipient number three jason villalobos [Applause] and lastly leslie perez thank you now we have our gem award presentation we'll start with uh dr hernandez uh dr f from la monadics with
007her gym award congratulations to mrs mendoza april's gen winner mrs mendoza is a licensed clinical social worker who provides support to our students families and staff being bilingual she is a huge asset for our bilingual students and families that need support mrs mendoza is always willing to help as needed and her expertise in counseling is evident through her work and the impact she has on our school the students enjoy creative counseling sessions and parents appreciate her availability and knowledge on various resources that are available to system she's a team player and we are so lucky to have her as part of our staff congratulations mrs ben jose and thank you for all that you do he's not here tonight so make sure to get the certificate tomorrow thank you [Applause] then we have mrs clark
008for los angeles lafayette's done for the month of april is lindsay henningston she's not here tonight but i did already give her her award mrs henningsen continuously advocates for her students working alongside mrs colombrido to maintain open and consistent communication with our families having extra adults in the classroom can sometimes be challenging but mrs henningsen always remains positive and patient while helping them become a part of our school community mrs henningsen continues to display kindness with every interaction and it truly reverberates throughout the building thank you mrs hennington for all that you do for our students and our families [Applause] and mr the evening edwards mr mages is one of our fourth grade teachers he continually plans accordingly with his co-teacher and team to be most beneficial for his students mr mages has worked diligently
009in running his background with dll learning he works with our esl teacher attends pd when needed and uses recommendations from supervisors to grow as an educator mr mages is not shy to wear a costume for halloween dress down for the 100th day of school or wear crazy socks for the week of respect mr mages like us all dealt with personal hardships during povid but he did not complain as for special privileges he just showed up from his long drive every day and get his students best he continues to support his staff school and students on a daily basis it is my pleasure to acknowledge mr mages for the gem of the month for april [Applause] hello again everyone the community middle school is honored to recognize mrs alexandra darwin as its gem award recipient for
010the month of april truth be told mrs darwin could win this recognition every month because she never slows down ms darwin is constantly looking for ways to help her students both in and out of the classroom when i think of someone who's an ideal teacher someone who inspires others and someone who motivates me each and every day i think of ali darwin here are some of the contributions ms darwin makes to her students at cms ms darwin organizes the annual book fair she invites librarians from the boundary public library to class in order to host book talks and instill a lifelong love of learning in reading mrs darwin continued this tradition virtually during the pandemic pre-pandemic mrs darwin conducted walking field trips to the public library and organized on-site presentations one of the novels that
011is part of the seventh grade curriculum is entitled touching spirit fair for several years now mrs darwin has hosted a virtual conference with the book's author ben mickelson the seventh grade students are able to interact with the author engage in question and answer and learn about the author's point of view ben mickelson will be visiting mrs darwin's class this year on friday may 7th mrs darwin helps students develop their writing skills and encourages them to submit their work to various writing contests one such contest is entitled poetic power it's a poetry contest and over the past five years over a dozen students have had their work published another contest is entitled young writers in which students submit mini sagas this year alone with thousands of entries nationwide 15 of our students were selected for publication
012which will be completed in june ms darwin applied for and was awarded a grant from the mark shown weather holocaust education foundation in each of the last two years which is used to purchase classroom library books and was also awarded a thousand dollar grant for library books from the akj from akj education several years ago along with another teacher at cms mrs donald established the national junior honor society is currently one of the club's co-advisors each year including this one when students are inducted into the high school national honor society they credit mrs darwin as being the teacher who made the most profound impact on their education mrs darwin is also the advisor of the middle school yearbook free coven ms darwin organized the annual rutgers day trip volunteered for chaperone for washington dc and
013pot summer school at both cms and middle earth as well as extended learning academy each year mrs darwin serves as a mentor for student teachers and new teachers to the community middle school and in 2019 her colleagues selected her as a cms teacher of the year amazingly mrs darwin has managed to do all of this while completing a master's degree in reading specialization and having a baby at home yeah exactly it is it is not an understatement to say that ali darwin is a superhero teacher who makes a positive impact on the lives of students and her colleagues each and every day [Applause] congratulations [Music] good evening again it's with great pleasure that we named uh dr marion stewart as the recipient for the balm brook high school gem award dr stewart is truly an
014angel in numerous ways but has demonstrated her care and compassion for all during this last year of the pandemic in addition to making and providing masks for many she has for the last two months or so been tirelessly working to secure vaccine appointments for any and all members of the district staff dr stewart has become adept by navigating the difficult and consuming tasks of locating and securing appointments and his facial graciously shared her talents with penny dbhs death she has provided relief and peace of mind to many for these reasons among others dr stewart is most deserving of going the extra mile recognition thank [Applause] you the gem award for the bedford school district is a middle school teacher mrs bennett has gone out of her way to organize part of our food bank um
015by getting donations through the bridgewater community and organizing those and bringing them here she's also gotten donations from johnson and johnson for our uh food bank as well as a number of bakeries to tony uh items as well to our food bank our food bank has been up and running for a number of years but obviously during the course of this pandemic our food bank has taken out a little bit different approach um as number of families in our district has has needed this service more than others and more than ever during this time of pandemic currently we take care of about 150 families in the community every week and uh this has been it has been instrumental in making sure that we have enough food for all of our families um every friday when
016we uh when we open up the food bank so this week this week this month's for the school district is uh mrs this is that [Applause] okay we're going to take a five-minute break while we change for a budget presentation i have to change computers in a few things so if anybody needs to leave one home or anything like that please feel free to do so now as we're changing our setup thank you get started so how uh the state determines our school funding i seem to go over this every year um what is an ad budget so it's a very complicated little formula that the state uses to come up with a thorough and efficient education or advocacy budget um and to determine the local uh failure for the public of bamboo and the
017equal disease need that comes from the state so again the local fair share is what the the public of denver will pay and the way they calculate that is the property value plus uh property breed plus income times income rate and they divide all that in half and you can find this on the school boards website is where i got this information from so this year the local fair share for bound brook is 12 million 813 855 the equalization that we're going to receive is 24 million 320 470 dollars so the the total e payable to the district i'm sorry we're supposed to get 24 million but the fee that we're gonna get is 22 million eight hundred eight thousand four hundred and fifty four dollars so when you look at our current budget um
018we're our total tax in this budget is 13 million 37 373 which is 223 518 over what the state says um is the local fair share so that represents about 1 of the current tax rate meanwhile um we are still owed or underfunded three million nine hundred fifty four thousand four hundred and fifty three dollars from the state so again you're supposed to receive 24 million three hundred twenty thousand four hundred new jersey received 20 million 366.017 and we get an extra 2 million um for our building project or our debt service and again you can find all of this on the new jersey school board association website so if you look at the tax increase over the last 15 years for the school board for the community the average tax increase to the borough
019of africa over the years over the last 15 years is 0.62 per year so in our strategic plan which we're going to be going to the year three or forty plan is our five goals culture culturally responsive proportionality and equity consistency continue continuity data driving instruction academic achievements due to motivation family and community engagement social emotional uh mental health and mindfulness so service door students we want to maintain our student teacher ratios continue curricular transformations reduce local taxes increase health and safety measures continue to the social emotional programs continue or expand our mental wellness programs continue industry counseling with clinical counselors expand our cte options and work study programs and adopt a new science curriculum k-p we want to continue to increase instructional capacity continue the district as a high performing district continue to implement
020procedures and policies to support construction continue our early reading intervention program increase our asi support expand our summit school program for the learning laws due to defend them we want to maintain our extended school programs for grades 1 through 8 our summer school reading programs from k1 and 2 expand our self-team special ed program to the middle school this budget will include the final new staff members a new work study coordinator a new special education teacher a new instructional aide and a new stem teacher for the middle school and i believe the special education teacher and the instructional aide are also going to the middle school there is no stamp deductions um increases to the budget obviously are health care costs contractual increases workman's compensation special education costs new staff well we do have a
021couple maintenance projects in this budget a new roof section of smalling for the art room new intercom system at the high school repointing the chimney at community school and automation projects for smalley school for temperature controls in the older part of the last building button was 32 million 798 thousand 300 dollars this year's website 965 um the difference of three million seven hundred eleven dollars three million seven hundred and eleven thousand six hundred and sixty four dollars a tax uh increase in zero dollars an increase in funds of one million nine hundred and seven thousand two hundred eleven dollars overall last year's overall weapons 37 million 430 188 this year's budget is 41 million 0084 878 the difference of 3 million 654 um our grounds this year's pain will be one million two hundred and
022seventeen thousand three hundred and forty two dollars um we have three years left on its lease at least we'll end in twenty three twenty four and that again is for the twelfth classroom edition of small [Music] projects on the horizon district is lafayette cafeteria but we're in the design phase of that we have a little lafayette classroom edition that we have to still consider we have a field turn replacement which is definitely on the horizon need to be done sooner rather than later replacing the field lights restoration of high school bathrooms high school boilers and led lights for some classrooms that we still have not gotten to um obviously again our cost per pupil is significantly lesser services compared to districts of our size throughout the state we rank you know in the top 10
023of those categories if not in the top five and that's pretty much where we're at so if there's any questions regarding our budget i'll be more than happy to answer them [Music] i just have a question um with that uh with the underfunding is this the closest to like being actually funded we've been for a while or okay i just wanted to this this is the this is this is the closest to being fully funded being in the entire time and i've been here for 17 years that's a good thing all right hearing no questions i guess at this point we are open to the public for agenda items only so if you have any questions about something that's on the agenda please come forward just state your name your affiliation hello lauren paxton president
024of bbea uh what are the rules to filling the vacant spot on the board yeah go ahead um we have to advertise for that position that we might we did send down that every time we're ready correct it's being processed yeah that advertisement should be going out shortly the resumes will be sent to me which i will give to the board on may 10th the board will have uh public interviews um for the for the open position on the board from there the board will make a determination of who they would like to fill that position um and then hopefully on may 24th the board will appoint somebody into that position will be sworn in okay so when you say public uh interviews you may that aboard the next board meeting yes okay thank you
025right official raleigh 745 school house lane um so i did post stuff on the computer but since you're here and i'm here and could you know add that back and forth um so uh on agenda item 6.16 i asked about what does a life skills teacher teach and where can we see the curriculum life skills is is a teacher that's going to be for our special ed population for the 18 to 21 year old population that kind of needs to learn how to live you know some basic skills of living um once once they leave school okay is it posted anywhere the curriculum is not done yet oh um the curriculum is in process but we also have to approve the job description before we even post for a position or do the curriculum or
026anything like that so okay and then i asked about uh 10.4 um i noticed about the cafeteria bills and um they're going to be used for paying other bills i'm just wondering is that because like why that is and then i i just thought that maybe it's because the kids have beaten the cafeteria this year so you have a surplus of money cafeteria account no be used the cafeteria um and currently our cafeteria account does is receiving monies through the summer food program because we are feeding kids so there is money coming into that account through the federal summer food program and we are paying bills to the cafeteria people for food um that we are purchasing to feed the kids and for equipment if we need to replace equipment okay so this 10.4 sounded
027like you're paying under you're not it's simply for food yes yeah okay hearing no one else online okay um this is from scott powell 312 park place 627 approval of non-represented staff salaries i notice that discrepancy and salaries for security aid positions despite the fact that those who are making less have been here longer if it is not an issue of longevity what is this what is a determined by um that is a personnel issue which i am not able to discuss at this time all right we're done yeah there's no other comments okay so five approval of minutes uh 5.1 uh resolve the bamboo board of education approves the minutes for the following meetings regular and executive meetings of march 22 2021 can i get a motion motion miss morris first and mr thomas
028ellie's second um any comments or questions does anyone need to abstain for those meetings i think you do i do on the last word um yes yes all right at this point uh six personnel resolutions district in high school resolve the superintendent recommends for approval the resolutions as outlined in personnel resolutions under district and high school 6.2 to 6.24 can i get a motion motion mr valderrer second second mr zupko any questions or comments um question on 6 18. yes is it advice like how would that work he actually the deposition is not necessarily just in the building that's the one that's going to go out to work sites he's going to make sure that those work sites are safe that they meet all of the future requirements make sure that these sites um visitations
029um i don't have an exact number at this point but i can get back yes um 614 uh approval of the national honor society it says that that this has to be the club needs to be uh in operation for three years for the person to get the cycling set standard or is that i mean no i believe it's two years it has to run for two years [Music] is sustainable okay any other questions or comments hearing none can i get a roll call mr ball yes yes yes yes yes number seven personnel resolutions middle and elementary resolved the superintendent recommends for approval the resolutions as outlined in personnel resolutions under middle and elementary schools 7.2 to 7.11 can i get a motion miss mustang can i get a second back in miss morris any
030questions or comments very nice the eagle scout service project that would be nice hearing no other questions or comments may i get a roll call mr ball yes mrs mustang yes [Music] yes yes number eight education resolution resolutions district in high school resolve the boundary board of education approves the resolutions as outlined in education resolutions under district and high school 8.2 to 8.4 can i get a motion motion is mars can i get a second second mr ball any questions or comments yes that calendar change is is a give back day okay um the summer school at the beginning says the kids are going to be required when are parents going to be receiving that once it's approved tonight it'll go out approximately um i would say uh for summer school probably about mid-may okay
031yeah i would say no later than tonight have the have the children and the parents been notified the ones that does that include high school students i mean i they still have a fourth well high school students it's a little different um high school students think that's a little more in june but they know that there are summer school options available but it always because it's credit based it all depends on when they know that they're actually failing for the year and when they decide right that's nice all righty number nine education resolutions middle and elements oh i'm sorry so i asked a yes mr zepco yes yes number nine education resolutions middle and elementary resolve the boundary board of education approves the resolutions as outlined in education resolutions under middle and elementary schools 9.2
032and 9.3 can i get a uh motion miss morris and mr uh thomas elliot any questions can or comments me a little bit more about the grand balloons we've been doing the last three years this year unfortunately it'll be virtually but they the two gentlemen come they play music they put on the show about uh you know earth day health uh cleaning up the environment science and the kids love it so that's not able to do it for free and virtually so we're all right thank you can i get a roll call mr ball yes yes morris yes yes [Music] yes 10 finance resolutions resolved the boundary board of education approves the resolutions as outlined in financial resolutions 10.2 to 10.14 can i get a motion motion mr vatalaire and mr thomas sally second any
033questions or comments i just have to extend from check hearing no other questions or comments can i get a roll call i think we have it yeah roll call [Music] yes uh at this time any other matters yes okay um you received a letter that i shared with you from a student from the high school regarding casting down um i know that i've heard back from a few board members um i think i could pretty much have the the gist of what um has been set back to me i just want to make sure that everybody's kind of in agreement with this before i give any direction to high school for next year um obviously this year um we're going to stay with our weight and credit cash and gowns um our yearbook pictures are
034already taken with white and red caps and gowns um so we're kind of in that position of um you know staying with with my red caps and gown for this year however the feedback i got was to consider going to meet one color gown for next year um seems the trend seems to be that um you know just having the one color down moving forward so my recommendation to you guys would be to consider going just with the red gown um for the next school year but again it's you know i mean your input and you're okay to do that before i give direction on it group here in the high school um about the um casting out of having white four females and and red for males and it really is um not representative
035of students who are um identifying in different ways organizations um so they they made the requests to have only one color down moving forward um so that way it's more inclusive of everybody um and not something that kind of segregates people depending on male or female um so that's the gist of the letter that the board received i asked the board to give me feedback directly so i can kind of get a consensus to make a recommendation to our high school principal for next year for guidance and direction so that's kind of where we're at um and that's what i'm asking for can we just have them pick what color they want between right away or is that just not gonna i don't think um i think we need something that's unifying okay you know
036one of the one of the big things when i was high school principal you know this mercedes right if we're gonna be crusaders let's beat crusaders let's pick a caller and beat mercedes so let's you know this is to me this is no different let's let's pick the color let's all be crusaders and let's go out as well if we're going to b1 let's be one so let's pick a color in b1 let's beat crusaders and that would be my message if i was the high school principal or crusaders once a crusader always a crusader we're going to be crusaders let's be crusaders i'm okay with that all right mr smith right next year please all right any other matters to come before the board uh i had the thing with the security um did
037we buff up security or anything like with the cyber attacks than the other two school districts um are we good with what we have currently i'm not sure you know this job so my apologies so um most of our backbone is very much up to date one of the things i did when i was superintendent i added an appliance it's called an intrusion appliance so we have a company that um has an intrusion appliance on our system so it's right behind our firewall so what happens is if anybody's trying to get through our firewall break in that extrusion piece of equipment notifies us immediately that there is a cyber attack going into our system and that has happened so we have been notified in before that you know we've had some issues and we've had
038to literally shut down our entire system to make sure they didn't get in so we do have that intrusion technology and that has helped us in the past um we have a creator of firewalls and our switches to make sure that we have the most up-to-date things um ishgard i believe is here he's done a fantastic job making sure all of our our updates are done on a timely manner everything is completely done he i found him especially after what happened at burns i was on him about that no one had the hillsborough was on my way on them again so um we're on top of this best we can i can't give you a guarantee that would never happen yeah because it's never there's no 100 percent we're not gonna get attacked and it's
039yeah i just know there's a lot of public the government stuff in schools that are getting attacked right now so i just want to make sure it's a lot hey trust me if there's something that probably keeps him helping me up at night it's probably that fishing for unemployment well we've already we've already gotten a number of those um and you know we've had to notify individual staff members that somebody can make a claim using their information yeah so we've been on top of that as well uh mr snell has done fantastic jobs he's worked with the employees we've worked right through unemployment um notifying unemployment that it is fraud and working with the staff to say unless somebody does have your information start monitoring your information because they're doing it with unemployment they can
040be doing with credit cards and other things as well so the other letter um so robotics is now a varsity sport is that correct yes so they get a letter and and everything correct yes so how do we get them the people to uh you know the uh mr houston and i'm not sure the coordinators of it how do we get them on the stepped road as a varsity coach now negotiations uh okay okay and then the other thing is what kind of what's the agreement for the fields um out there um for softball and baseball how does that work [Music] um we work really well together i think the borough and the school works really well together to make sure we accommodate each side um i don't have any complaints with it i don't
041think they have any complaints with it okay um you know we try to be as fair as accommodating to each other as humanly possible we try to help each other out as much as possible um you know i i really don't have a complaint about it at the moment is there any safety issues at the baseball the only thing i can think of would probably be defensive they haven't repaired um there was some some winter damage some i don't know if it was kids or whoever it was there was some centerfield and possibly maybe send our grounds a supervisor and maybe the baseball coach out and walk the field together absolutely that'd be great there's it's just been it's coming to my attention that there may be some safety issues so i'll send building some
042ground to eat me myself and the coach yeah that'd be great i appreciate that okay anything else i can think of more no no i'm not i'm not trolling for news information uh all right at this point well i'm gonna go down and take a look at the field and see what kind of damage it is and see if we can repair themselves behind smallie they may be on private property all right all right at this point we are open to the public for any discussion all right description 745 schoolhouse lane so um i posted this on online too about um when parents can get confirmation whether or not they're going to have a full day of school next year as in eating lunch at school and having a full day for next year for
043next year yeah i'm just going to have a confirmation of that i can tell you that's what we're preparing for we are preparing for a full day back to school everybody back in full day eating lunches everything else in school for next year you're preparing for that okay well in regards to mr tomaselli's question regarding the uh high school robotics if that's now a uh a varsity sport so to speak um and you said it was uh negotiable um i don't know i mean i don't i don't see why they can't just get moved up to a i guess something that's more equal to a head coach of a varsity sport you have a cba and you have a salary scale in there right but the activity changed from a dysport to a varsity sport
044with letters so okay but again okay i'm just putting out there i'm just putting after that that i agree with that it should uh i mean let's be at least talked about let's say i think we all agree with it but it's got to be done already right we have to do it through negotiations we'll be more than happy to sit down with you guys i'm i'm throwing it out there mr paxton the board will be more than happy to open up negotiations okay see nothing no one else no questions uh we need i need a motion to move into executive for number one a matter of rendered confidential by federal or state law number three material the disclosure of which constitutes an unwarranted invasion of individual privacy four a collective bargaining agreement and or
045negotiations related to it seven pending or anticipated litigation or contract negotiations and or matters of attorney client privilege and eight specific prospective or current employees unless all who could be adversely affected request an open session um we are not going to move anything except for hib when we come back so uh can i get a motion to go into executive motion mr val can i second mr thomas elliott okay all right like i said uh we are only moving him when we come back [Music] i'm very disappointed sir you look normal yeah come on i'm sure the kids look forward to seeing what you look like that's great mr smith i tried to get the gowns in midnight green but nobody went for it i tried all right we were grounded wrestling like 80s or
046something yes you