Dover Public Schools BOE Meeting - 3-14-2023

001right and then all of a sudden ly yeah all right now Miss Munoz will you please introduce yourself hi good evening everyone my name is Rosa Muniz I'm the district translator I'm here to no what no yes sorry good evening everyone my name is Rosa Muniz I'm the district translator I'm here to help with any questions or comments you may have thank you buenoches [Music] gracias thank you Miss Munoz welcome to everyone here and those of you watching the live stream to this March 14th Dover Board of Education meeting for those of you who wish to provide public comment remotely a Google form was posted on the district website at 6 30 pm and those remote comments will be addressed in the second public comment section this meeting which is hereby call to order at

0026 53 PM is in compliance with the notice requirements of the law public notice was posted in the office of the Board of Education and communicated to the municipal clerk and the daily record on January 10 2023 now can we please rise for the flag salute I pledge allegiance Mr slam may we have a roll call Acevedo present Miss Downs president miss Chrysalis present Mr Miller here Miss nutting here miss Phillips here Mr Robles president Dr Senor present Miss Mendez here we have a quorum thank you Miss Downs will you please read our mission statement working together as a community our mission is to Welcome All and provide opportunities for our students in a safe and accepting learning environment to become creative empathetic resilient and who choose to make an impact thank you Dr McLaughlin

003you want to start us off with our presentations sure thank you tonight we were going to have a preview of our Newsies play unfortunately the cast wasn't able to make it tonight for that preview uh they will be at our April meeting uh which is actually after the performance to highlight uh some of the pieces of the musical that I'm sure everyone will enjoy I do want to point out that the performances are taking place on the 24th and 25th of this month at 7 pm and on the 26th at 2 pm and that information is on uh the high school website at this time I'd like to invite to the microphone uh Mr Franks our director of Special Projects who has a special recognition for our crossing guards thank you Dr McLaughlin uh good

004evening everyone and thank you to the board of education for providing me with this opportunity to recognize our crossing guards I'd also like to thank Lieutenant Peterson um who is in responsible for managing the crossing guards across Dover there's 13 of them and he's here tonight in support of his staff so thank you lieutenant Peterson I'd also like to recognize and thank the assistant principals across the district for supporting this initiative Mr McCauley Mr ganio Miss Lucas Mr kionis and Mr Hicks all played some role in getting the information out organizing groups of students to walk out and recognize our crossing guards at their post at the end of their post and the pictures that were presented while you were waiting were all of our vice principals so thank you to them when Dr McLaughlin

005gave me the opportunity to recognize our crossing guards the wheels started turning and I thought of a few things and it did give me a moment to reflect on my time as a child walking to school I was a latchkey child walked to school about a quarter mile right down the hill walked home for lunch walked back came home at the end of the day and right at the corner you could see him from my house was a an older gentleman named Mr Anthony and Mr Anthony was impeccably dressed he had a very tall man he had charcoal gray pants perfectly pressed like a waistcoat looking very official charcoal gray a light gray shirt a black tie a policeman looking hat with a badge and a patch that's Mr Anthony the nicest one of the

006nicest men I have ever met when I was older Elementary fifth and sixth grade you get the opportunity to become a safety patrol member back in the 70s and what an exciting time it was when I was at his post sometimes you were you know at the parking lot or at the exit and guiding the children but when you got to be with Mr Anthony for that week it was an awesome week the reason I mentioned is 50 plus years later I still remember Mr Anthony there's teachers I may not remember there's other people coaches in my life that but Mr Anthony he left an impact and he was a crossing guard right around the corner from my house and he mattered in keeping us safe he mattered to me and I think that's why

007I remember him in the morning he would say have a good day at school on my way back from lunch how was lunch did you enjoy it yes I did Mr Anthony and on the way home from school in the afternoon he would say did you have a good time at school today did you learn a bunch yes I did Mr Anthony okay say hello to Mom and Dad and I'm sharing this because as much as he mattered to my safety and everyone else's safety he made me feel like I mattered every single day in times like now not every child feels like they matter or at least they don't hear it enough so to our crossing guards you are a constant in their lives you may not know it no one maybe has never

008told you this before but you do matter you're important to them you're a symbol of safety you're a symbol of consistency that you're there to make sure that the traffic is safe that their parents are safe that they're safe you get them from one Safe Haven School to another their home portal to portal so thank you so very much for doing that and I believe you deserve a round of applause for that for keeping us safe at this time I'm going to call your names one at a time come to me come right around the front I think is easiest I'll present you with a certificate and uh Dr saner has graciously agreed to assist and uh give you your gift uh your goodie bag they're all the same so uh and although although Martha

009Stewart and I both graduated from Nutley High School our skill sets certainly lie in different areas I did my best with the curling of the ribbon and the the tissue paper that is not in my skill set tissue paper I struggle with so without any further delay I believe and I don't think everyone is here but that's okay we'll recognize everyone first we have please come even join us get your certificate Martha Barrio Lucia [Applause] well in case you're wondering what's in the gift bag just a couple little items we have a very handsome Dover monogram mug travel mug to keep your hot stuff hot and your cold stuff cold we have a decorated Dover highlighter because you are the highlight of every student's day we have hand warmers in there for each of you

010for obvious reasons maybe you didn't need them too much this year but they are there for the future we have a bag of animal crackers for everyone because without you with those intersections it could be a zoo we have a hundred grand bar for each of you because we could all use the extra 100k from time to time we have a box of Pop Secret popcorn because it is no secret that you are all awesome and we have a bag of pistachios because we are nuts about each and every one of you all right next Arlene Belmont please come on down [Applause] and Carol Lolly [Applause] Elaine stillo [Applause] Kathy Cole Richard Cole yes the coals get two of everything congratulations Mr Coleman Hector Acevedo [Applause] Maria Crowley [Applause] and we have a couple more

011we're going to read their names I'm not sure if they're here but if they are please come up Gail Daly Dorothy iskierto Phil Paulson Grant Farley Paul Samuelson thank you very much everyone and thank you so much to our crossing guards thank you [Applause] thank you for that presentation Mr Franks and I will just Echo all the wonderful and amazing things Mr Frank's um mentioned about our crossing guards thank you so much um our next presentation is going to be some student recognitions Mr Nunez will you please lead us in the student recognitions Dr McLaughlin Mrs serigliano members of the Board of Education good evening I would like to begin our presentations this evening by asking um Leo Lorenzo and he's accompanied today by his wrestling coach Mr Dodd to come up to the front

012please Leo Lorenzo is being presented with our good Citizenship Award Leo is a ninth grader here at Dover High School and he received this uh he's receiving this recognition today because he assisted a student who had his bike stolen by being an upstander and making an effort to help the student get his bike back it is actions such as these that make me so proud as principal of this school because it shows the Integrity the empathy and the responsibility that we embody here we thank Leo for doing the right thing and more importantly embodying those tiger core values that we hold to our heart Leo please accept this Good Citizen Award as a token of our thanks to you [Applause] it is indeed an honor and privilege to present to you students who have done

013some amazing work over the past year or so throughout the Dover Community have truly embodied what it means to be a tiger and live up to the core values that we embrace they have done some amazing work and we would love to be able to highlight celebrate and appreciate the time and effort they have put into their work The Real World Experience lessons on collaboration research activism are skills that they will take with them for the rest of their lives and I would like to thank the County College of Morris and the Dover College promise program Partners in this endeavor who helped to spearhead these initiatives with these students I'd like to thank Mr Eduardo Lopez director of the Dover College Programs program Mr Juan Osorio his assistant director for giving our students an opportunity

014to do the work and I would ask Mr Lopez and Mr Osorio to come up to assist me in presenting these certificates to the following students students who worked on the Dover 300 program the first group of students I would like to recognize are these particular students these students spent over a year and a half researching editing scripting and putting together the Magnificent work of art that is over 300 history video Dover High School was proud to have the community together on January 15th to debut this video to the community our students learned what it meant to be a historian a documentarian and an advocate for this wonderful town I would like to present the students with the certificates I'm going to read the names of all the students however I do know that not

015all of them are here this evening but I would like to recognize and once I say your names you can come up Elena Mejia lady Cabrera oh Dallas Silva Espinoza Bruno Jason Martin Jalen Barraza Natalia Gomez and Luis Jimenez cannot be here tonight congratulations [Applause] thank you all very much this is all right don't go nowhere we got more I will um want to end my presentation this evening to talk about the students who participated in the Rockaway River Project these students noticed that a section of the Rockaway River was strewn with recyclable materials that came from the open bins in town which dispense these materials and in the Rockaway River during windstorms these students came up with some ingenious ways to ensure that recyclable materials stayed under lock and helped prevent them from being

016blown away during windstorms thus polluting the Rockaway River these students saw a problem in the community and they took it head-on with some amazing volunteer work and some strategies on how to help our residents with recycling efforts to help prevent them from happening from this from happening again in the future talk about a project that make it a lasting impact their efforts have created a great beautification of the area and our residents benefit from their efforts I would like to honor the following students with the certificates for their work Gerson Reyes Bettencourt Juan Vargas marolanda Juan Garcia Diaz Carlos Diaz rijo Henry Hernandez Samuel Hernandez Hernandez loose Silva Espinoza Raul bancor ladino and Gennaro Suarez Medina could not be here but I want to congratulate them as well on all their efforts thank you all

017for making an impact in your community and for being Advocates of the town of Dover Mr Lopez is a very quick picture taker thank you very much [Applause] thank you Mr Nunes um it is humbling to know that so many of our students are making such an impact already and I'm super excited for you all to become our leaders in the future so thank you uh Mr sonier will you please lead our next presentation it would be my pleasure good evening everybody and thank you for allowing me the honor to come here and um recognize our uh some of our student support Personnel in particular our counselors and the the members of our tiger wrap program Under the Umbrella of our partnership with Rutgers University I want to begin by acknowledging something that many might

018not be aware of um and probably too few districts and or at least it has not been in my experience that District leadership and Boards of Education are as aggressively supportive of student Support Services as Dr McLaughlin and Mrs liano um and the ladies and gentlemen of our Board of Education have been while I've been here I think it speaks very highly of your recognition of the the needs of our our community of the children in our community and the lengths that you will all go to support the efforts of the people that are here tonight uh so I I thank you and I hope that our community is aware um of your support of us and and I I hope I made that clear and we'll do so um with the folks that I'm

019going to introduce just now I want to talk a little bit about how we've um been able to expand and evolve our our school counseling programming by allowing us to expand in terms of personnel we have been able to put um a a full-time school counselor in each of our elementary schools as well as having two where they are most needed in our largest Elementary School North North Dover um and not necessarily the largest in terms of building space but in terms of the needs of uh of that population so we have tremendous um we've had really great success there with building something in collaboration with all of the the counselors at that level so Giselle Jimenez at Academy Street and Vanessa Duque at East Elementary uh East Dover Elementary as well as um Annabelle

020jacome and a proud Dover graduate Anna Rosa Acevedo at North have been working in collaboration with their building Administration but also in collaboration with one another to ensure that we have high quality but also Equitable and and equal School counseling services being provided at the elementary level at Dover Middle School we also have outstanding counselors in Sadie Salazar as well as Brenda Ortiz who also a very proud Dover graduate um I am excited to announce that they will both be transferred to Dover High school next year yeah I just wanted to see if Mr Jaime was paying attention they're not going anywhere um Mr Jaime Mr McCauley and both Brenda and Sadie would uh would not have that they're operating too well there the the needs of Middle School aged children are unique to say

021it to say the least and what Miss Salazar and uh and Miss Ortiz are providing is a very sound transitional counseling piece bringing children from sixth grade to ninth grade um did my mic go off okay so they're going to stay there Lou I promise all right we have uh a wonderful team at the high school where I'm I I have a pleasure to work every day not only with five remarkable school counselors but a collaborative and proactive Student Assistance counselor as well as our tiger wrap staff who I'm going to speak of first now through tiger wrap we have been able to provide Mental Health Services to over 100 children the last I checked with with Miss floor as we were up to 116 throughout the district she oversees a a program that not

022only works collaboratively collaboratively with administrative Administration and school counselors but provides also various programming to support Youth Development needs they provide group counseling they run various trips and they also organize and um and and run our our school or high school orientation offerings and that's just really the tip of the iceberg what I want to do now is recognize the moment the um the lady that I mentioned just a moment ago the person that organizes all of that and does so with poise and class and is a Relentless advocate for our students so I'd like to call up and recognize Miss Rosemary Flores now [Applause] in sticking with uh and keeping with the tiger wrap theme before Miss Flores came uh came on board in the year the school year 2020 2021 which I don't

023like to talk about too often we all know how that went down but the the tiger wrap program was very much in Jeopardy um and without this next person keeping it afloat making every effort to maintain what is an invaluable service and partner to our school counseling offerings I I fear that we we might have actually lost the Grant and possibly the program altogether and in as much uh or as important as that she always organizes what one of my favorite things and that is our pet therapy sessions so we get to pet dogs that come through our uh come through our building every now and then and she is a wonderful Youth Development specialist and herself a tremendous child advocate Miss Teresa Macaluso [Applause] the job of a student assistant counselor can be completely

024isolating in the wrong hands you might find somebody that has to work what they would say might be put on an island or somebody that um feels completely apart from the rest of the student Support Services team we are fortunate in our district to have um somebody quite different from that our student assistant counselor is not only proactive and collaborative she's also collegial she is she aggressively pursues outside um professional development opportunities she maintains Keen awareness of Trends in substance abuse and treatment she protects children and protects the district in terms of confidentiality making certain that we are fully compliant with with codes and statutes and she is very much a part of our student services team and so it's a pleasure to recognize miss Lynn Tucci [Applause] another thing that I'm grateful to Mr

025rigliano and Dr McLaughlin and the board for is allowing me when appropriate to hire from within um that's again not always been my experience and I feel that when the candidate is the best one available it makes only uh only sent it makes tremendous sense to promote that person or to allow them the opportunity to grow um one of my newer school counselors was previous to that my secretary um she was an amazing secretary and has grown into an outstanding school counselor without having a lot of time to transition from one job to the other she has taken to the job of school counselor and and run with it and continues to grow and one would think that she was in the role for several years even though this is just wrapping up her her

026very first year as a school counselor um I could not possibly say enough uh about Miss Grace Martinez [Applause] I'm going to introduce the next person uh the next counselor but a few a few statistics I wanted to share and this is not relative to one of our counselors but these counselors this team of of five professionals they have uh they have processed over 980 college applications this year they have attended more than 80 inrs 504 meetings they have welcomed scheduled and helped to acclimate at least at last check it was 100 brand new students since the beginning of the school year just just in our building so um more to that is just last week they helped to to facilitate the uh more than 30 of our families in the completion of the free

027application for federal student aid so this is uh this is a group that I'm very proud of and as I continue to introduce them by name just allow allow yourselves to remember this our team here is not only keenly aware of the social and emotional needs of our students they they balance that by maintaining high expectations in terms of academics and uh and post that secondary opportunities and outcomes the next counselor I'm going to recognize is one of the most focused individuals and one of the most assiduously assiduously devoted and dedicated professionals I've had the pleasure to work with um she had to be out on maternity leave last uh for the end of last year made certain that everything was in place for us to keep an eye on her graduating seniors on any

028students that needed specific attention she worked very closely with the young lady that would be her her maternity leave her placement she attended meetings virtually on occasion even while she was out I hope she doesn't get in trouble with her Union for that I didn't require it um her absence was was felt wholeheartedly and her return was most welcome and we're happy to be whole again with her back in the fold as her family grew Miss Julie badris [Applause] the young lady that wound wound up being Miss badgers's lever platement replacement was so good at her job that I decided we had to keep her um this young lady is in her first full year as a school counselor as is Miss Martinez but once again she brings with her professionalism and Poise that would

029that might fool one into thinking she had been involved in School counseling for for much much longer Miss Tiana Victor [Applause] speaking of promoting from within or hiring from within um this next professional is somebody that I I refer to as an agent of pure good um she was formerly a Spanish teacher with us and the first time that I met her she came into my office because she was going to do some home instruction and she told me Mr Sonia I I really like to work with the students that that are most needy I really the students that that have a lot of difficulties and that aren't maybe on the honor all the time I really want to work with the needy students and she meant it and she didn't come and ask for

030for assignments in AP classes or teaching honors classes she wanted to work with the students that she felt needed her the most and that's very much emblematic of her character in the year that we first hired her as a counselor we had a difficult time replacing her job as a Spanish teacher and so she would without being asked she would come to the guidance office and work on any period during any period She was not teaching again I do hope I'm not getting you in trouble with your union but that is that is the way that um that this woman operates um and if one of the questions that we ask ourselves as administrators when evaluating somebody um in in this job one of the questions is always um would this be acceptable if my

031if my child were receiving these services and in the case of this person and of all these people I would say that I would feel absolutely fortunate so with that being said let me introduce everybody to miss Johanna schwenk [Applause] I have one counselor left to um to recognize I would like to point out that he and I both uh have sons who are juniors in high school this year um they both have crazy hair all right not crazy yeah um Mr Irizarry is a an invaluable Irreplaceable uh stalwart in our department I kid him sometimes that he is doing um kind of the job of a of a director and not getting paid like it um he he oversees ASVAB testing for us he has been a spearhead of our Deloitte program with big

032brothers and big sisters he is as consistently positive a human being as I've ever met in my life I know that he has to have bad days sometimes he he just has to because he is a human being however I've never seen it uh and nobody that's ever seen uh seen this fellow has seen him to be angry uh or upset or to ever speak to any human being with anything but kindness in class and respect and that's what I I hope that our community recognizes and I hope anybody that is listening right now understands how valuable uh Mr Damian irizari is to our program it has been a pleasure to talk a little bit about these professionals and about our programming um I would like to say that there are several other um counselors

033throughout the district that weren't able to make it tonight I hope I've mentioned their names and if I whether I have or not they will receive their certificates during their PD sessions on Friday thereby allowing them to maybe receive some Applause from their their colleagues in in those meetings so I'm I'm happy that that will happen um but once again thank you I hope I haven't taken up too much time but I I do relish the opportunity um to recognize and laud our our student support family because they are the the best thank you thank you so much for that presentation and those um kind words that you shared about each professional um let's give one last thank you and Round of Applause to all the folks who are recognized this evening now the next

034presentation is listed as a William Patterson University and Dover partnership unfortunately because of the weather they were not able to make it um we're hoping that they will join us at our next meeting um so that is leading us to our audit presentation and I was just gonna make a disclaimer that um if folks while we welcome you to stay if you'd like to leave we won't judge you it will be a long one um as folks leave we can invite Miss mantel to to join us is she here oh there she is can you see me stand anyway good evening everyone members of the board thank you so much for giving me the opportunity excuse me for one second is there any way we can raise her microphone on the audio like we can't

035hear her okay is it on yeah okay I always wanted to be a rock star sorry about that I'm apologize but anyway thank you very much for allowing me to come here um the audit is not a popular topic so thank you for excusing people who um may not enjoy hearing it anyway it was a pleasure to be the auditor for the district I think you just have to hold it just a little bit closer so we can hear you okay it's an absolute pleasure to serve the district for the first year as auditor it was you know first year is always a little bit different and a little bit difficult and I think Ray would uh admit that it was a little bit but we got through it and I think we landed on

036both feet and I'm really proud of what you were able to accomplish in the past year so again we just re-released the audit today to Ray and you will have that available in PDF format to review and we will have the bound books ready as soon as possible my staff is working on them so tonight I have what I would have brought anyway to the meeting and that is a two-page recap does everybody have this uh it would have been shared electronically okay uh via email right so the audit is 163 pages I try to pull the most important information from those 163 pages and I was able to fit them on three pages so I think it's a snapshot of the most important information and so what I do is I show you what

037the fund balance was in June of 21 and what it was as of June of 22 and the increase and I did this in an inverse relationship so that the board members would understand that you may have total fund balance but a lot of that is committed for different purposes for instance you have capital reserve you can only access that by utilizing the budget or board resolution for capital projects you have excess Surplus that has to be put forth as a revenue in a succeeding Year's budget so as you take all those Reserve funds down you end up at the bottom with the unassigned fund balance and for the past two years due to the pandemic this State raise that percentage to four percent plus allowable adjustments the allowable adjustment is the extraordinary Aid so

038typically districts do not anticipate extraordinary aid but if you do and you receive more than what you budgeted you can add that to the unassigned fund balance and so that can be utilized for various purposes so at June of 21 that was one point a little less than 1.8 million at the end of June of 22 it was 3.2 million and at June of 23 that is going to revert back to 2 percent so that 3.2 million has about 700 000 of extraordinary Aid in it so that would bring it down to two point five million so about 1 million 250 is the differential that you'll be reducing the unassigned from four percent to two percent and in doing that you will either utilize it for Budget Appropriations or you can transfer it to capital

039reserve and maintenance Reserve depending on how the year plays out and I know that you're currently in the process of putting your 2324 budget together and we do talk about those numbers so again at the bottom of the first page I just show how the fund balance changed over the course of the year and so that one million 93 is the excess um extraordinary Aid and the biggest portion comes from what you didn't spend in your budget and for the last two or three years as you've dealt with the effects of the pandemic a lot of funds weren't being utilized or spent because operations were not at full force and also you had federal grants funds available to you from the pandemic that replaced what would have been board funds so that is the reason

040so it's going to be very interesting to see how every school district in New Jersey fares in 23 because that's going to be the pivotal year of getting back to pre-pandemic and then at the bottom of the page I always pay attention to how much fund balance is being utilized in the budget and the district brought that down to zero based on last year's audit 2.7 was reported as an excess so that had to be included in this year's budget the 22-23 and it was used for one-time expenses Capital expenses so then that put you in a very good position to be able to go back to zero for your 23-24 budget on the second page would just show how the capital reserve and maintenance Reserve changed for the year you actually created the maintenance

041Reserve during the year in June of 22 by resolution you budgeted a deposit to the Capitol Reserve during the year and then by resolution we're able to put another 670 000 in and then there was a budgeted withdrawal of 1.599 so at the end of the year June of 22 you had 5 million 784 in capital reserve and 500 000 in maintenance Reserve another area that was affected by the pandemic was the Food Service fund so you can see the operating revenue for the cafeteria is very low because of the federal subsidies that have come in so in June of 21 the fiscal year the district received 1.1 million dollars of federal and state subsidies in June of 22 fiscal year you realize 2763. and so again it's going to be a pivotal year to

042see how 23 fares as those Federal subsidies go away and the district is creating the operating Revenue to offset its costs and the takeaway at the end is the unrestricted operating net position at June of 22 was 923 257 and this USDA requires us to make a calculation of the net cash resources and that 923 000 was about 75 000 above the maximum it would typically be an audit recommendation but we felt it doesn't deserve to be an audit recommendation because you've been going through a period of change for the last three years and so we feel very confident that you will be within the maximum at June of 23. and then the last bit of financial information is the long-term liabilities of the district you have bonds payable on certain capital projects that were

043authorized in the past you have Finance purchases payable which used to be called a capital lease you have some leases payable and those are for some lease assets like copiers and computers and then the net pension liability this is the eighth year for reporting the pers pension liability very long-term liability it represents the district's portion of that obligation for everyone in Dover School District in the pers system for their expected life expectancies the pension costs and then compensated absences employees have accrued and that doesn't change significantly year to year so that's it for the financial end of it and then I like to remind the board that not only is it an audit of the financial statements but it's also compliance with njdoe regulations of which there are many and there was a new one

044this year where we we were required to look at the chapter 44. worksheets and so that was the new state employee health benefit plan and they were looking to see if the district achieved savings and whether that had to be a reduction in State 8 or tax levy and turned out that the districts really didn't save as much as they projected because employee contributions were less so that was one of the things we had to do and the third component of the audit is when you spend more than 750 000 in federal and or state grants and the district does spend more than 750 000 in both federal and state grants we have to take those programs we have to complete a risk assessment and we can't select the same programs year after year after

045year you have to rotate all the covet grants were new so they become higher risk just because they're new whereas the idea Grant is a grant that districts receive year after year so that is done by a matrix and so with all that auditing and all that examination and all those procedures the district had no audit recommendations actually we did we did the district has a capital asset inventory and it just needs to be updated so we did make that a recommendation rather than a management suggestion and so that's just a matter of hiring an inventory company to re-value the assets and then we just put a management suggestion in every report that we did for school districts this year just to be on the Lord to dot your eyes cross your t's in terms

046of those covid-19 grants because if you are selected for monitoring they will be um pretty thorough so that's really my recap of what's in the audit for this year and if anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer them thank you Miss mantel um does anyone on the board have questions thank you Miss mantel for the presentation and information I was very surprised by no audit recommendations or one right we have had the experience of having 10 11 sometimes 15 in the past can you tell us a little bit about that big difference from jumping from maybe 11 to 1. well I know you've had some changes in Staffing in the business office but we have an audit program of all the procedures that we need to do and we didn't find any problems

047with them another thing that we do is if you did have a problem in the past and maybe in the first three to five months of the year the problem was happening and procedures were put in place to eliminate that problem then if we see that Improvement in the latter part of the year we do not write an audit recommendation because we feel it's been addressed second question did you have to our previous audits to compare what we were um recommended in the past yes thank you you're welcome is there any other questions from the board are there any other questions from the book nope okay thank you Miss mantel thank you I'm I'm wondering have are the speakers always turn that way because I'm even having a hard time hearing the board members so

048I don't know man can we turn that speaker a little bit thank you so much so we are moving on to our first public comment on agenda items only the board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters to ensure fair and orderly expression of such comment each statement shall be held to a time period of three minutes public comments limited to items on this agenda shall be entertained for approximately 30 minutes upon the discretion of the presiding officer please understand that public comment portions of our agenda are not structured as question and answer sessions but rather they are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board the board may or may not respond to public comments

049however all comments are considered and will be investigated and addressed as appropriate please be courteous and mindful of the rights of others when providing comments comments may not be abusive obscene threatening or irrelevant please understand that students and employees have specific legal and privacy protections the board is not permitted to respond in public to comments about students or employees please be advised that you are commenting at your own risk any public comments that are directed at a particular individual or individuals could subject you to Legal liability for defamation public comment is now open is there any member of the public wishing to speak on agenda items only good evening Sue shower 346 West Clinton Street in Dover I want to try and make this brief because it's getting late here and you still have a

050lot of work to do but um in this evening's presentation from nissavacha which was it's great to see them back here in Dover they were with the town for a number of years so they are a friendly face they mentioned that uh the asset management was one of the issues that they found that I could have sworn I remember from two years ago when we did the forensic audit here in the district that that was also a recommendation and I thought we said we were going to be getting an asset management company at that time to correct the the forensic audit I could be wrong but that's I remember hearing that um the second thing uh when I was doing a lot of research work for the referendum I was very busy on the Department

051of Education website and there is a report that's due now that's normally due uh December 30th at the end of each year and it is our end of year which would be June 30th annual comprehensive Financial audit report every school district has to submitted if board members have never looked at it you should go to the Department of Education website and look at our years past they're all on there it shows the comprehensive comparison year to year so you can see this year compared to last year and that report was extended by the governor twice I believe if not three times between the December 30th deadline to I think March 15th which is tomorrow so I'm just wondering was that extended again or are we getting in under the deadline because when I went to

052the website today I noticed over's name is still not on the list with a new report um and then lastly I wanted to mention and I wanted to do it now at the beginning of the meeting so that when you get to the portion I'm hoping that you can give a little more information uh Thursday last week we had the parents Forum that was at the Dover Public Library and there were a couple of parents there that were very concerned about the increase in incidents of bullying and harassment in the school on tonight's agenda there's an abundance of incident activity and there has been each meeting there has been a lot of them though are unconfirmed more and more I am becoming concerned about the unconfirmed reports because if we are continuing to have unconfirmed

053unconfirmed is there a mechanism to check to see do we have habitual students that are involved in the unconfirmed is there a follow-up system for those unconfirmed students involved both the victim and and the act of it to follow what's going on with them are we following up to make sure they're okay after they've been told that their incident is unconfirmed excuse me Mr your time is up so please finish up okay thank you um I'm just concerned because it's growing and we seem to have so many more which in essence should be a good thing because they're not confirmed but how are those kids doing when they find out your incident has not been confirmed thank you Miss shower uh are there any other members of the public wishing to speak on agenda items

054only seeing no other members of the public wishing to speak on agenda items this portion of the public comment is now closed uh Mr slam I know that um in committee we have addressed this I'm wondering if you can refresh my memory and share with the full board and the public the um where we are with the uh Asset Management um portion of that audit and what like what are our Solutions what are we going to do so we've gotten quotes from two separate companies uh and that will be included in the upcoming budget um So the plan will be for them to come in and give us a better Baseline because I think there are a number of years where things are are missing which is put the report um made the report hard

055to reconcile at this point internally uh so when they come in the plan will be fun to give us a good Baseline and that way year after year with our accounting system uh by tracking any items over two thousand dollars or any um projects or Capital Improvements so we can then add that and then have them return to tag those items uh really just giving us a good starting point to make sure that process is accurate moving forward thank you Mr slam um I'd also like to say that our board um takes bullying extremely serious and these are conversations that are we we are having um so I just wanted to throw that out there um we are moving on to the approval of minutes uh is there a motion to approve the minutes from

056our January 24th session motion moved second we have a motion by Miss Visalus a second by Miss nutting is there any discussion yes if I may yes Miss Miss Alice I had presented um a few suggestions um and Corrections um regarding the minutes from I believe February um right from the ones before um regarding statements um for Miss Rosa Mojo's on introducing herself and making sure we accurately capture that as well as a correction for motion and second for board members are no longer here and I just wanted to make sure that I presented those questions as is an email and also publicly to all our board I believe Mr Sam you had addressed those um questions if you can just publicly State the answers please uh yes uh so there was a correction and

057then also a suggestion for the January minutes which would have been approved at the February meeting those are both addressed prior to the February meeting I'll win the February meeting would have been if it we hadn't had weather related issues thank you for that thank you Miss grisalez uh are there any other questions nope Mr slam may we have a roll call vote please Ms Acevedo yes Miss Downs yes Miss Chrysalis yes Mr Miller yes Miss nutting yes Miss Phillips yes Mr Robles yes Dr Senor yes Miss Mendez yes motion carries on to communicate the whole board Communications I am aware of are from Mr Dodd inviting us to the Dover High School wrestling team teacher appreciation night um and then the other one was from Lisa Lohman offering Staffing assistants are there any other

058whole board Communications that I am not aware of study Miss Mendez I did reach out to you I did have one for uh Mine Hill parent Just for information about our Optical um I guess that's in our agenda tonight um Optical Academy Academy yes um to please make sure that when it is referenced out to everyone to make sure it's in English and in Spanish unfortunately I guess the one that was circulating around was only ins that the only one that they happened to see was in Spanish and they were asking to make sure that on our district website so please have it in English too thank you Miss nutting I I do remember that conversation and um so there is a flyer in English and in Spanish it just seems that this person just

059so happens to see the English version um so we are moving right along a student representative to the board report Miss Calderon Alvarez good evening I would like to begin begin by sharing with students at Dover High School organized in February in the spirit of Valentine's Day on February 13th the class of 2024 set up in the cafeteria during all lunches for students to pre-order lovers bundles these bundles were sold for three dollars and included a mini teddy bear three Hershey kisses and a personalized no all packed in a little bag on February 14th these orders were given out and enjoyed by the students the junior class also sold carnations along with chocolates and plastic flowers that lit up during the lunches on Valentine's Day they were a huge success given the fact that most

060of the items were sold out before the second lunch that same day the Juniors also had the bake sale where sweets such as cookies brownies Donuts and cupcakes along with chips and drinks were sold the class of 2025 sold chocolate covered the class of 2023 sold the chocolate covered strawberries for a couple of weeks and handed them out on Valentine's Day in the morning during first period seeing the seniors also set up during lunch the week of the sixth for students to pre-order chocolate covered pretzels the class of 2026 held a bake sale the week of the 13th where they set up near the main lobby after school and sold many treats and drinks in addition to the classes the entire Club also took their time to cut out red Paper Hearts and write positive

061messages to hang them around the school February is also Black History Month and Dover High School made sure to celebrate it students had the ability to work on a project to showcase the importance of African American history and the strong leaders it has students were gathered in the auditorium to enjoy a presentation led by fellow students in this assembly the sub team performed students saying and shared information about individuals that impacted history it was a very special way of celebrating and it was very much appreciated and enjoyed with the student body and by teachers and staff as well moving on from February March is also known is also known as the month of empathy tiger rap took this opportunity to visit Academy Street Elementary and talk about kindness and empathy with the students on March

0629th Dover High School's peer mentors visited the Elementary grades one through six to present and practice empathy various activities were conducted with the students in order to reinforce the definition of empathy that they had already been taught for the younger grades activities such as cutting and coloring were involved while for the older students the activities were more discussion based this opportunity was very pleasant for both the elementary students but also the high schools the high school peer mentors March is also a month of great importance for the class of 2024 the Juniors the reason is that the NJ GPA testing takes place the New Jersey graduation proficiency assessment also known as the NJ GPA is an assessment that thus that tests students Reading Writing and Mathematics ability and must be taken since it is one

063of the graduation requirements students must receive a score of 750 or higher in order in order to pass of course there are other windows open for students who fail to achieve the minimum number of required points but by successfully passing this this assessment students will reach the requirements for graduation quicker this test was scheduled for March 14th and 15th but due to weather conditions students will be taking two English portions on Wednesday the 15th and two mathematic mathematics portions on Thursday the 16th hopefully everything plays out properly and the assessment results are positive for the well-being of the student's academic future thank you thank you Miss Calderon Alvarez is there any discussion based off of her report nope but as always miss College on average you are welcome to stay but you are also welcome

064to go we won't judge you um we are moving on to the board president's report since our last public session meeting Dr McLaughlin Mr Miller and I have met with the Department of Education the offices of Senator Ruiz senator gopal who happens to be the chair of the Senate education committee and we have communicated with Senator Buco actually we have a scheduled meeting with him coming up April 10th at his office um the sole purpose of these meetings are to find a way to secure the funding to address our District's needs I remain optimistic and will continue to knock on every door I am happy to share that the board members have begun the process of touring each School within our district to see firsthand some of our District's needs I had the opportunity to

065attend the Dover High School wrestling team teacher appreciation name Dover band boosters fundraiser and read to our North Dover third and fourth graders in celebration of read Across America week I'd like to thank the folks involved with organizing these events each of you contribute to our mission of working together as a community our mission is to Welcome All and provide opportunities for our students in a safe and accepting learning environment to become creative empathetic resilient and who choose to make an impact and finally I'd like to shout out our newest board members Miss Acevedo and Miss Downs for completing a weekend's worth of governance training thank you and that concludes my report [Applause] we are moving on to administrative oh first of all I'm sorry is there any discussion based off of my report okay

066so now we're going to move on to administrative reports Dr McLaughlin thank you good evening as of Friday 1028 students completed access testing this is a significant number of students and I believe an all-time high volume of students in Dover very special thanks to Nicole Mott Sally Wilson Felicia Sperry Mary potterkovska Angelica Rodriguez all of whom have been diligent about making sure that all students completed the access test and the access test is to provide it to all of our students who receive ell services so it's an important test to monitor their progress and uh one that we're not only required to make but one we rely heavily on Wednesday March the 1st the Bloomfield Health Department who are contracted through the town of Dover conducted in immunization audit at Dover High School immunization audits

067occur each year and are conducted on a school by school basis on Thursday March the second I was informed that the audit of Dover High School's immunization records indicated that we had a compliance rate of 31 percent these findings were reviewed with the school on Thursday morning March the 9th I want to emphasize and I think it's very important to emphasize that the determined number came from a review of students who were new to the building via out of state or out of country transfers into Dover High School the total number of new registrants audited was 85 and out of that number at the time of the audit 59 students were missing one or combination of more vaccines the immunizations varied across a range of different uh vaccinations and as of Thursday miss palesi or

068Dover High school nurse informed us uh that eight of those students had completed their immunizations further reducing the number to 51. we met today with Zoo fall and the Bloomfield Health Department to assist those students who are identified in receiving any missing immunizations it's important to note that newly arriving students must be permitted to enter school and cannot be delayed in the registration entrance due to immunization needs this has to be balanced with the importance of receiving required immunizations it's important however to correct any impression that only 39 percent of our high school population were immunized that is certainly not the case and we are working uh we actually we have two dates uh for in-house clinics or immunizations that are scheduled over the next two Mondays which should help those students I do want

069to bring up in addition to uh students needing a medical home which is sometimes a challenge there's also a quota on how many vaccinations are allowed to be given to us each medical entity uh within a given period of time so for example a zoo fall Hits a maximum amount of vaccinations so a student who needs a certain vaccination may have to be um asked to come at a later date when the new vaccinations arrive uh now the Bloomfield Health Department is helping us in petitioning the state to get more vaccinations so that that our students can complete this cycle uh this weekend I want to note that the Dover cyber Tigers will be in their first competition of the year at Robbinsville High School we all know that this is a new and exciting

070team and some of their competitions were delayed during the covet era uh but they are probably uh the hardest working team that we have uh in the district here on Saturdays and here many times well into the evening uh working on their crafts so we're very excited for them and we wish them the very best in this competition the district continues to explore space options as it has been mentioned for our students and options have been discussed in executive session today these of course must remain confidential at this time since they involve potential contractual agreements uh however on the space front I also want to note that preliminary site work has been initiated for the modular units and walked over Elementary and Eastover Elementary schools and we will keep the board up to date on

071the progress of those units the district has commenced registration for the 2023-2024 school year it is our hope to register new students as much in advance of the new school year as possible as it allows more efficient planning of space schedules and transportation so please expect to see our registration law and science appearing in the community shortly uh as Miss Calderon Alvarez mentioned in her report we recently celebrated black history month and I just want to make one note the board has a full report of the activities that occurred in each of our schools uh during during that month's recognition uh but uh Mr rigliano and I had the opportunity to attend a really special inaugural event at East Dover Elementary School where our fifth and sixth graders conducted a wax museum and those students

072took on the Persona of the person that they had researched they spoke in first person about their research identifying themselves they were poised they knew their subjects intimately they were really just so impressive and the the gym was full they had a portfolio presentations in addition to their uh to the script that they had memorized and really I think it was just so it was so impressive and we had such a great great showing of our parents it was an exciting event for the both of us and I know for all who attended so that completes my report thank you Dr McLaughlin I want to touch really quickly on the topic of immunization um how many high school students are currently enrolled we have as of the end of February 1136 students I believe I'm

073giving the correct number thank you so out of that 1136 students were saying the audit was conducted um with only of only 85 of our newly registered students correct and out of that 85 59 students were missing one or more vaccines correct um what barriers is the administration aware of for our community in particular when it comes to accessing health care or immunization quickly I want to amend my number for the high school it's 1163 students I think I interposed those two numbers 1163. so the barriers that our students it begins at registration many of our students from out of the country have uh to have their immunizations transcribed uh that's a specialized uh area not everybody can transcribe vaccinations internationally and uh often that that is the first area of difficulty is to make

074sure a that we have those records and B that they are able to be transcribed the uh another barrier as I mentioned before is the lack of a medical home many of our students do not have a family doctor Insurance poses an issue Zoo fall is a tremendous partner they're also our school doctors so they also they work with us um as I mentioned in this instance but we really all the time however as I mentioned before they not only have a high volume but they're also Limited in vaccinations each month so even in our meeting today that we had uh there was a reference from the school nurse about some of the families who mentioned that you know their appointments were two months out and you know they for these students in particular they're

075going to run some interference on that and try to get them in earlier but again it's it's both volume but it's also their own limitation on on vaccinations the other piece especially since this is at our high school level is that you we have many students who come uh on a refugee status they they may not have a mother or a father that they live with they may be living with a sponsor uh sometimes sponsors have multiple uh children that they are sponsoring and are responsible for there's challenges in in regard to those individuals servicing within a short period of time in that 30-day time period that immunizations are required uh those students you know getting to where they need to go and sometimes uh too especially when whole families are new they are still

076navigating the Health Care system and need guidance our our Liaisons do uh quite a lot of work with parents in terms of helping them meet their children's medical needs thank you Dr McLaughlin I'm wondering if we have identified any solutions right so I understand that zoofa health is overwhelmed and limited in the amount of vaccines that they are able to distribute have we identified any other community partners that are able to come in with maybe a mobile clinic per se um and help us with this issue and avoid us having an issue like this in the future at this point we we don't have any other similar type of partner I will say that the Bloomfield Health Department which is a newly contracted agency by the town of Dover uh appear to be um very

077supportive and also prepared to try to offer Solutions so for example on our vaccination days that we have scheduled for the last two Mondays of this month here at the high school you know they are providing nurses to help with that they also have an Outreach coordinator who helps families you know who are navigating the process in addition to our own Liaisons so they are certainly pitching in as well as making the case to the state about providing more vaccinations so that they can be available for our kids thank you um what does the law State about the immunization timeline for new students and I'm wondering um do we enforce this and why or why not uh new new students as I mentioned before do not have to be vaccinated to arrive in in school

078to start in school however there is a 30-day period in which time they are to be vaccinated however uh with much follow-up uh and with many efforts by some of the families as I mentioned before they may be given appointments that are more than a month out so it's a um it really is a uh a balancing act certainly we want kids to have access to to education we also recognize the critical importance of of immunization so we don't uh it is not an automatic that we say you can't report to school on the 31st day each student is dealt with in their own individual capacity we look at what uh parents or guardians or sponsors are trying to do uh what efforts they're making if they have an appointment that schedule oftentimes a confirmed

079appointment will allow a student to continue so as I mentioned that's uh it's it's we we try to balance both access and the uh real need for students to be vaccinated because that's important but I do want to mention one other element that exists in school districts that I think many of our parents are not aware of here and that is that in any school district and in school districts I've worked in in the past this was a often utilized option that parents would come and say based on their ethical objections they would not have their children's vaccinated in in those instances the state allows those students to continue in school without vaccinations I I do believe that many of our parents and I'm not saying that they would exercise this right but I believe

080many of our parents are not aware of that option so um it's just another element in this in this whole discussion that I think has to also be looked at thank you my final question or um suggestion is you know many of us on the board did not um become aware of this immunization issue um through normal channels we found out I know I did at a town hall meeting um so I'm wondering can we identify a process moving forward so that we're not finding out information at Town Hall yes uh so that was a concern of my own at one of the reasons I made pains in my report today was to provide the the timeline of when this was provided so this was actually reported uh at the town hall meeting before we

081had the debriefing meeting with the public health uh department so um and in fact that's really important because the initial findings of the of the audit Changed by the time we had the debriefing so there were there were some shifts uh that occurred slight shifts but nevertheless shifts in terms of the data um I did ask today in the meeting uh particularly since the newly contracted agency if that was a matter of course that immunizations results because I've never seen that before reported uh publicly not that it can't be because it's it's certainly information that can be accessed but not one that usually we come to Second Hand and uh that I was assured that that was um that came as a result of a different conversation of which the audit which had just freshly

082been done been used as an example they did not anticipate that that was going to be publicly shared um I just think that's important because you know it's a new partner we want to know how we're working together and certainly we're anxious to correct immunizations uh because of what they are because of their importance not because they're shared uh publicly so um that's how that came about I certainly as the board knows shares information with the board once I have verification of of information both uh information that sometimes is is I'm happy to share and sometimes not so happy to share uh you know because the Board needs all the information uh that concerns the the operations of the district and the interests of our students thank you Dr McLaughlin is there any other discussion

083Dr singer yes uh Dr McLaughlin thank you for sharing that information and I think Mr Robles also uh we calculated um you cracked my math that that's a 96 vaccination rate at the high school with the data that you just provided and I wanted to thank you you know this is a recurring theme but thank you for encouraging those Community Partnerships uh students and families who are new to this District new to this country um for highlighting the issues that they're having getting appropriate health care and um making that just a little bit easier but by providing it at the school and not just you know letting them figure it out so thanks to you our community Liaisons and I know our nurses are involved and anyone else who participated in bringing that uh making

084those vaccinations a little bit easier for our students to get Salas I was just curious if you two points of clarification um the audit was performed or done by the Bloomfield Health Department and what initiated that audit is that part of the regular writing yeah they're supposed to do that regularly we've had we we have regular audits by whoever the Uh current health department provider is um I should mention that I asked about our other schools they have audited uh some of our elementary schools are ready uh which uh they did not see any issues uh at this point uh they haven't fully completed I think the Middle School still has to be done but they didn't have concerns relative to the elementary schools thank you it's going to be my next question um you

085had mentioned that um the 85 number of students that they audited were from out of state or out of country is that only out of state of out of country not inclusive out of District perhaps transfers from other districts only out of state in Idaho my understanding from the description of the pool they selected were out of state out of country and um one last thing maybe related to we could not negate education to anyone who doesn't have immunization right um I don't know if everyone has heard about the situation in New Brunswick um with a student being registered right and coming an adult person registering as a student wondering um what if any you know similar situation with immunization um do we have to keep an eye out for that situation not to occur

086I don't know if I'm well immunizations are reviewed at the point of registration entry so that's uh and what we are some of the things that we're doing not just to respond to this particular audit but just to build in some better practices is to really provide parents up front or whoever is registering the student with a very definitive indication that it's timeline of 30 days isn't met that this that the student may have to be excluded from school so we don't always you know certainly that that is has been related verbally but that's also going to be provided in writing right from the point of entry uh the other thing that we intend to work with Zoo fall and the health department on is um is a regular uh a clinic if we can

087provide that here on premises one of the problems uh that zuffwall mentioned too is no shows you know at that that there are appointments and then you know individuals don't show up and they've dedicated medical time uh in the volume but if a student is here and we have parental permission to provide the immunization it's much more reliable that that it will occur so um so that's why we're doing it not after school but during school hours uh because we want to make sure that this gets accomplished uh and and as we all discussed today in our meeting uh what we're looking to do is to put create systems where you know this reoccurs we as I mentioned again bloomfield's a little new to us so I mentioned to them we get on the average

08840 40 students a month registering so if they were to come in and do an audit you know next month there's going to be new kids to look at so unlike many districts that really see their registration periods on a more predictable schedule we you know we're kind of uh we're always registering new students so it's important that whatever process we put in place isn't one that just happens once a year and um Dr McLaughlin one last question you mentioned that um you have found or Registration Department has found that a lot of parents are not aware of the out of immunization and their options to do that is that something that could also be provided information um to parents as they're coming in yeah I think we could certainly give that information out I

089certainly don't want to make it sound like we're encouraging anyone to do that it's just making people aware of their rights and and uh that if they you know if they do have have that type of objection that there is built into New Jersey's um you know system uh a method of providing that and basically really all that is is a letter um again you know I've received these for years uh that says you know unethical grounds I object to my child uh being immunized and then uh those those students are included uh in school thank you Mr Robles yeah just um to review I don't believe unless I missed it that you shared the actual number of immunized of the 1163. that wasn't something you shared correct I did not share that today no

090uh they would uh those students I I were previously audited if they existed at least that's my understanding of the audit process I I also want to clarify I don't haven't sat through the audience I can't tell you that every Health Department does the audit the same way I know how this or what it was done uh and they the students they looked at were not the whole body of the old high school students it was just this group of students and I would think that I know like those kind of audits they wouldn't pick the entire population they would probably do some sampling anyway I don't think they have the ability to to to go through all those records okay however there is a also a report that our each of our School nurses

091has to provide the state uh and now it's online it goes right into a central system that indicates students and their immunizations so uh there is an accountability system it's a pretty strict one as a matter of fact one of the nurses I talked to today wanted to know how quickly the documentation was going to be turned around so she could enter it into the state system so in addition to the audit that the public health department comes out and does there is a central database for immunizations that the nurses have to input immunizations in for every child in the school is there any other discussion Miss towns McLaughlin you had talked about how um some of them do not show up for their appointments how is that handled well that that is something that

092was related to us by Zoo fall so I don't know how Zoo fall handles that I don't know you know uh again these these uh you know I know that uh if it's a private type of Provider you could get charged for your appointment but since I think in most of these cases uh the individuals may not be charged for the appointment to begin with I don't know that that's a uh I I I don't to tell you the truth I really don't know how they handle missed appointments that would be an internals who fall process that I did not ask about I just heard from the zoof wall director that it was an issue that they were facing and one of the things one of the reasons why we planned these Mondays here in

093where Dr Schuman will come right here to to Dover High School to do the immunizations because it reduces the opportunity for a missed appointment thank you is there any other discussion nope Miss cyrigliano good evening this month I'd like to confirm that 70 students from Dover High school will be receiving the Seal of by literacy which I spoke about in previous reports the 70 students will be awarded in June at the honors night that is hosted by the guidance Department we are very proud of our award winners in this and in all categories we look forward to celebrating them and their achievements in June I'd like to highlight the Visions Credit Union grant that Dr Kalina received to support the work happening in our enrichment program I believe this is on the agenda for approval

094this evening the enrichment classes will participate in a steam project that utilizes electricity kits through the science whiz kit students will build circuits to create light a running motor and sound they will learn the impact of electricity on our society the work of New Jersey's own menlo's par Menlo Park wizard Thomas Edison will be reviewed and celebrated kudos to Dr cleana for her work on this initiative in partnership with the Randolph YMCA we are hoping to begin to offer our employees a significantly discounted membership rate after a period of a trial membership so that they can experience the programs and services of the Y prior to committing in addition new staff would be given this information as part of their welcome packet from Human Resources we are also working on offering free yoga meditation classes

095for our staff Mr Coniglio surveyed the staff for their interest and we are just about done finalizing the last details for this to run through the end of June more to come on this as our partnership progresses recently our technology department was notified by Apple that they will be participating in a pilot with a few school districts around the country Dover and Pascack Valley have been selected from New Jersey to participate the pilot would consist of a change in mailing out our repairs and and instead devices will be picked up and dropped off and serviced with the local repair vendor normally we fix as much as we can in-house but extensive repairs are required to be mailed out doing this pilot will hopefully significantly cut down on our technicians time spent mailing out these repairs

096also the decrease in time spent mailing those repairs would mean that the time a user has a loaner device should also be shortened Apple representative said names were submitted as potential schools for the pilot and Dover was the number one New Jersey Pick we are hoping that this pilot will become permanent and save all of us valuable time on our Apple repairs I would like to thank the work of our I.T Department in achieving this acknowledgment from Apple We are continuing our work with William Patterson University and dual enrollment in the aspiring Educators program for this summer to date we have 11 confirmed students who would like to participate in the aspiring Educators program and another 14 who have told us their maybes we've communicated this to William Patterson they are very excited for our

097participation tonight the board is asked to approve the aspiring Educators program under the curriculum section along with two dual enrollment courses for 20 23 2024 school year William Patterson wanted to be here tonight as you know they were on the agenda under presentations but the weather changed that last minute and they were canceled for today representatives from William Patterson will continue to be working with Administration in April and as Miss Mendes said they will be joining us at the April meeting so we can formally recognize our partnership with the university much more is in store on this topic the annual prom shop was held recently at Dover High School in total 250 garments were given out this included dresses men's clothes shoes evening bags casual clothes and jewelry students were excited to find outfits for

098more than just prom as we know High School is filled with celebrations including Sports Banquets graduation parties Quinceaneras I believe I tried to pronounce that right and sweet 16s we hope to help students find appropriate attire for all of these events faride Hernandez our dean of students and the prom team of volunteers are planning to have an additional session for clothing selection in March for students to pick students to participate who are unable to attend after speaking with Miss Hernandez we arranged another planning meeting to discuss how we can continue to support our students for this year's special prom as you know prom flowers hair makeup Nails can all be an added expense for many of our students and they will be they will forgo them we're hoping to find a way to offer some

099of these Services either free of charge or at a discounted rate so that all of our students can afford them and take advantage more to come on these efforts as we work towards them many volunteers made the prom shop a success this year I'd like to acknowledge them volunteers included students from our National Honor Society as well as six additional student volunteers who just came and offered their own time also there were 10 staff members who attended our staff member volunteers included Rosita carasquillo Lynn Tucci Don Sperry Isabel de Matos Julie Badgers Grace Martinez Johanna schwenk Tiana Victor Deborah Southwood Smith Tom horness wish Randy Capp thank you to all the volunteers who made this event a success for our students we sponsored several health insurance events with United Healthcare and Zoo fall in the

100past month we had three days with United Healthcare representatives and approximately 130 people attended this event and registered their family for health insurance in addition we had another three days with Zoo fall and another 90 families registered for insurance families can still contact Sioux Falls and one of their insurance enrollment coordinators we'll call them back to set up an appointment the number for that opportunity is 973-891-3425 some additional upcoming events for the board to be aware of Thursday March 16th from 6 15 to 8 PM is the getting to know Dover event at Dover middle school Thursday March 30th from 3 to 7 is another Optical Academy event at the Belmont building Wednesday April 5th 6 to 7 30 is a family engagement event for Academy Street families Thursday April 20th 6 to 7 PM

101is cooking matters for healthy eaters I believe Dr McLaughlin went to one of those uh Saturday April 29th from 12 to 3 is Nick's hope free clothing event that is at the DMS gym Saturday May 20th 11 to 3 is our health fair event at the DMS gym and navigating hope will be at the Dover Board of Ed Belmont parking lot on Tuesday March 21st from 10 a.m to 2 p.m navigating hope is one of our strongest Partnerships it's a mobile service unit that provides assistance with SNAP Medicaid TNN t-a-n-f utility assistance and housing assistance so they literally sit side by side when a Community member would want to come in and fill out some of those applications and that concludes my report thank you Mr igliano are is there any discussion based off of

102her report Miss towns I was just curious um how did they obtain the um the garments in the prom shop those were all donations so all of us that have bridesmaids gowns that we wore once and held on to um or some of us may still have our our prom attire they were all collected through um basically a call out to if you have this please donate I know one of the things um and I'll make a plug for it right now that we're still looking for is men's suits um it seems like the women maybe hold on to their prom and their their Brides gowns but we need men's suits um we're also releasing Mr Nunes is going to release a video for a gentleman to learn how to tie their ties so we're

103not leaving that out we're providing as much assistance as we can to make it make sure everybody's ready for that problem I will say that um I have some gowns that I'm I was hoping to fit into one day again um but I guess I can part with them uh any other discussion based off of the report no Mr slam you report please good evening everybody I'm going to start with some facilities updates um the first item is the Academy Street remediation so we're currently in the process of interviewing Architects um Once An Architect has been selected we'll be scheduling an in-depth analysis to avoid any future order intrusion issues based off of the anticipated scope and cost of this project the remediation has been included in the proposed 2324 District budget which additional detail

104can be provided on that during the budget presentation at the next meeting for the high school cafeteria there was a change order submitted which you'll you will see on the hand carry tonight due to the circumstances surrounding the change order I requested and received a credit uh from the district architect and also from the vendor involved so essentially the district will only be paying one third of the change order amount without getting into detail due to the circumstances during that change order the next item is Academy Street HVAC uh yet again the electrical panel uh ship day has been pushed back the architect is issuing a letter notifying the vendor that delays are unacceptable and that we are demanding an alternate solution if you recall this has probably been maybe the fourth or fifth time

105that this uh one circuit breaker or sorry electrical panel rather has been delayed and it's holding up the entire project it's literally the last piece we need to complete this project um so once secure that panel will be installed and then the rooftop unit will be activated or balanced and activated uh you still over classroom renovation materials for a project are being delivered uh demolition has been completed and framing work is in progress uh the next meeting is scheduled for March 21st and that's an internal meeting for the high school security basketball we have a site meeting scheduled for tomorrow material materials actually appear to be available sooner than anticipated which is crossing my fingers a nice change of pace um the timeline regarding the scheduling of work will be discussed at tomorrow's site meeting

106uh and then it is anticipated that the North Dover uh roof uh a portion of that roof will be replaced over spring break so I just wanted to make note of that so moving on to finance I want to provide a very special thank you to Michael Esposito as you'll see on the agenda tonight uh they made a 32 000 donation to The Lucky Esposito cheerleader scholarship and I also want to probably just a little bit of information on that scholarship So the lucky Esposito cheerleader award is given a memory of Lucky Esposito from the highest Dover High School class of 1945. uh lucky was a varsity cheerleader at duber and also participated in softball basketball and many other school activities as a parent she was very active with the Dover PTA and football booster

107club uh lucky was it a lifelong double resident always maintained a special place in her heart for Dover High School sports and cheerleaders so thank you again Mr Esposito with a very generous donation so the next item I like to discuss tonight we have the preliminary budget uh on for approval so this must be approved uh in order to be submitted to the executive county superintendent of schools by March 20th again this is the preliminary budget um that March 20th date is required by New Jersey statute after County approval the full budget will be advertised uh in the paper we have to wait for that approval before we can put it in the paper uh and then it'll be also available for public inspection um and then there'll be a final budget presentation at the

108April board meeting just want to discuss a few items of note uh related to the to the preliminary budget so the district received an increase of approximately 10.5 million dollars in the equalization Aid and I want to get a little bit of detail on what Equalization Aid is so Equalization Aid is a type of state aid that is based on the state's calculated difference between the fair local share which is the amount the state determines the district can regionally contribute to its local tax levy and the state determined adequacy budget so the district's adequacy budget represents the total amount that the state determines is required for providing a thorough and efficient education for every pupil in the district so a very important thing to keep in mind is that even with this increase um we're

109still 7.2 million dollars Below adequacy based off of the state's calculations and the 2023-2024 state aid um notice so I I wanted to bring that up and and have that out there so everyone was aware so the proposed budget as I mentioned previously uh will be discussed in detail at the budget presentation April 25th April 25th board meeting we do anticipate uh large increases and fixed costs um I'm sure as everyone has seen unfortunately one of the things that's become very true is everything is getting more expensive um so there are things you know that our fixed costs we don't have control over those costs and they are increasing in addition to those fixed costs we also anticipate additions to better support students and staff um and then another important note is that um this

110upcoming year will be the last year of the American Rescue plan sr3 funds uh so we need this in this budget we will be starting to incorporate um some of those salaries and some of the services that have greatly benefited our students that we want to try to maintain after those funds expire so we're just trying to look ahead and and plan for that by incorporating that into into this budget So based on the increase in fixed costs the new additions and the corporation of staff and support previously funded through sr3 funds uh it's my recommendation that the district increases the tax levy by two percent uh we also utilize an enrollment adjustment for 386 764 dollars and that's a help account for the costs associated with increasing enrollment we also have a substantial increase

111in health care costs um I think it was brought up at one of our meetings prior this year so the state health benefits plan went up by 15.1 percent we're not in that plan but that just shows kind of a benchmark of of what is happening with health care costs uh right now across the board um so because of that large increase and because of the increase that we're projected to experience we are able to use a health enrollment cost adjustment and I'm recommending that we use that for 909 thousand dollars um that's not the full amount of the adjustment we could use and in fact even with these adjustments there will still be 1.2 million dollars in Bank cap elbow so essentially that those are funds that could have used to increase the tax

112Libby that were we are not going to be using so what that results in is a 9.8 percent increase in the tax school year tax levy and I want to make a clarification that's the school year tax levy that equates to a town calendar year increase of 4.9 percent which is approximately 12.24 cents for the average assessed home in Dover per month or five dollars and 88 cents for the average assessed home in Victory Gardens and the reason you'll see the difference there has to do with the equation which um at a certain point everyone's going to get tired to hear me talk about it but uh there's an equation from the seat that has to do with equalized valuation and that goes back to 2009 uh when the um Victory Gardens was merged into

113Dover uh each year when we get our estate Aid um we get percentages that split up the cost for the tax levy um and it goes down to a very specific decimal point I think it goes out like six or seven spots so it's a very precise number uh so each year we use that to calculate that this year it shifted a little bit last year it shifted and I think Victory Gardens had a little bit higher than the year before this year it shifted now Dover has a little bit higher than his current year um so that that's the pretty much the recap of the um preliminary budget information again we'll go into much more detail at that final presentation uh in April uh and then the last item I know I have here

114is that another um item I had spoken about previously the uh Capital maintenance funds for emergent needs we've actually received the 84 844 uh so at this point we had a previously we had applied for it now it's been received and we are applying those funds towards a replacement of each rack building system controls at the high school and that concludes our report for tonight thank you Mr slam is there any discussion based on Mr slam's report no okay so we're moving along to Boe reports uh Mr Miller any updates from the Morris County Education Services Commission yes since our last meeting there's been two ESC meetings uh of no the last meeting they approve their preliminary budget of over 50 million dollars and they improved uh contracts for transportation which included our district and

115many districts in the county um of the the entire budget for the ESC 81 is made up of regional transportation services uh 11 for special education services and they run a Central Park School for special education and that's like six percent so but most of their services has to do with regional transportation and we're hoping in the future there'll be some other services that we could take advantage of thank you Mr Miller um Miss Phillips your legislative report okay um okay so over the last two months a number of Senate and assembly committees have met to advance various pieces of legislation relating to schools the following are currently under consideration high efficiency accelerated learning grant program which is aimed at mitigating the effects of learning loss as a result of covid-19 will require the New

116Jersey Department of Education to establish and administer a high efficiency accelerated learning grant program to provide high impact tutoring opportunities to students throughout the state online application for School meals would require the New Jersey Department of Agriculture in consultation with the New Jersey Department of Education to develop an online school meal application within one year of the bill being signed a district that currently offers an online School meals application would be required to switch to the New Jersey Department of agriculture's application schools that do not currently offer an online school meal application would be required to make every effort to implement the online application and schools that implement the online application would be required to continue to make paper applications available as well group setting info in IEPs would require the IEP of a student

117with a disability receiving special education services in a group setting to include the number of additional students in the same group and the number of teachers present during the provision of special education services in the group setting districts would be required to revise each IEP to include this information during the next scheduled review and at each review thereafter grief instruction would require the State Board of Education to adopt and districts to implement New Jersey student learning standards permitting pertaining to grief in the Comprehensive Health and physical education content area at its next required update of the standards the standards would be included in grades 8 through 12 and would address the physical emotional and behavioral symptoms of grief coping mechanisms and resources available to students the New Jersey Department of Education would be required to

118also provide districts with age-appropriate resources to support implementation of these standards Mental Health Service guidelines would require the New Jersey Department of Education in partnership with the New Jersey Department of Human Services and the Department of Children and Families to develop School District guidelines for providing Mental Health Services to students the guidelines would address topics as establishing sustainable Partnerships with Community providers providing culturally sensitive Mental Health Services and incorporating new technology including providing Mental Health Services through virtual or remote means the New Jersey Department of Education would also be required to create a database of available Mental Health Resource providers throughout the state survey on Holocaust instruction would require the New Jersey Department of Education to develop and distribute to school districts a survey regarding instruction on the Holocaust and genocides the survey would be

119designed to assess whether and how school districts are implementing existing instructional requirements regarding the Holocaust and genocides and any additional resources or training that teachers need to provide instruction youth disconnection prevention would establish the position of Youth disconnection prevention and Recovery ombuds person in the New Jersey Department of Education and established the school disconnection prevention task force the duties of the ombuds person would include collaborating with school districts to develop and Implement a Statewide strategic plan of action collaborating with a variety of governmental agencies to address the challenges facing student dropouts developing best practices consistent with the recommendations of the school disconnection prevention task force and Advising the commissioner on ways to prevent students from disconnecting from school and strategies for re-engaging students who have already disconnected from school the duties of the school disconnection

120prevention task force would include examining current data on disconnected youth researching programs and initiatives addressing School disconnection examining possible contributing factors for students leaving school identifying effective ways to reduce the number of disconnected Youth and Advising the youth disconnection prevention and Recovery ombuds person on the task force findings youth Suicide Prevention would require the New Jersey youth Suicide Prevention advisory Council to prepare a report regarding suicide prevention instruction in public schools the report would include identifying The Suicide Prevention instruction currently provided to teaching staff members and students reviewing the effectiveness and sufficiency of such instruction identifying methods Public Schools may use to identify students who may be at risk for suicide or self-injury identifying best practices in public schools for the prevention of Youth suicide and self-injury and identifying opportunities to enhance access to mental

121health treatment in public schools providing School Meal information to parents would revise the type of information that must be sent to parents and Guardians at the beginning of the school year regarding the district's School Meal programs and also establishes a new requirement that school districts ensure parents either apply for School Meal programs or submit a signed card provided by the district indicating that they have received the application and are not interested in participating uh Rowan vet teach pilot program would establish the vet teach pilot program which is designed to help address the educator shortage by helping facilitate teacher certification for State veterans under that program Rowan University would enroll veterans who served in the armed forces on or after September 11 2001 the program would lead to a baccalaureate degree and completion of the requirements

122necessary to apply to the New Jersey Department of Education for a Certificate of Eligibility with Advanced standing in certain endorsement areas and lastly the following is awaiting action from the governor CT scholar Awards would require the New Jersey Department of Education in consultation with the Department of Labor and Workforce Development to establish a Career and Technical education scholar Awards program which would annually recognize outstanding CTE students and that concludes my report Miss Phillips thank you so much for masterfully squeezing in two months worth of legislative updates into that thorough report thank you you're welcome we are moving along to the Morris County njsba report Miss nutting yes I attended the Morris County New Jersey school board um meeting on January 25th just some of the highlights that they talked about they do have upcoming event

123um for March 29th of recognizing their UNS unsung heroes at uh CCM that night so it's going to be a nice event that I'm hoping that some of the other board members tried to attend also I will be there um also there was one thing that stood out to me in that meeting and with everything that we do for our students and our teachers and our staff the one thing that they did sit there and say to us was try to always remember your parents too so in efforts of trying to accommodate everybody and make sure everyone is happy think about our parents and really get their information and their uh focus of trying to work with us also so that was nice they also have the upcoming meeting like I said on the 29th

124of this month and they also have a meeting in May 4th and for that one it's celebrations that they will be uh having that meeting for so hopefully everyone can attend thank you Miss nutty uh Miss Crystal I say Mine Hill ad hoc committee report thank you uh the Mine Hill ad hoc committee uh has met um I believe um last month and um the committee has provided details for further negotiations to the attorney for him to present to the full board under executive session I don't believe that that was in this sex reception but we're in the process of approving the negotiations and I'm assuming for next month will be at that we're moving on to administrative approval is there a motion to approve items a through J and the hand carry addition to

125item a so moved second I heard uh motion by Miss nutting and I think a second by Mr Miller is there any discussion yes Miss Mendez I have a few questions thank you regarding item f um I just thank you thank you for planning ahead and ensuring the safety of our students and the staff in case of emergencies regarding item h can you speak to how the comprehensive Equity plan benefits our students education so the comprehensive uh Equity plan is one that is done um can be done uh as often as annually um it is a really a compilation of our procedures that look at affirmative action issues that look at student protections and staff protections and how how the district proceduralizes that who responds to it uh so uh that as you might note

126the district is not required to develop a new plan if the existing plan is one that still meets our needs which is what we're recommending tonight thank you and regarding item J what guarantee can Administration provide to the board that video and live feed of this MOA with our police department will not be used inappropriately to criminalize any youth or be used for any disciplinary way so one of the reasons that we we are putting forward this mou is to uh to really codify how camera access would would occur uh it can occur through two different ways either through a live feed or through recordings access to live feed would be available to law enforcement on an emergency basis by emergency you're looking at a defined crisis one where there's actually an identified criminal activity

127occurring a crisis uh you know to use some of our particulars uh you know examples it could be a an active shooter in a building or it could be uh a unidentified individual who's not uh who's not responding to requests to leave the building and they're looking to locate that that was a recent issue in a New Jersey school district those would be examples of emergencies uh the um other requests to see either live feed or video recordings would have to be made in this instance they'll be made directly to my attention from the police department they would be reviewed uh first of all for their Merit you know why why is this needed why is it necessary we also look to make sure that there's no um unnecessary FERPA involvement so identifiable information about

128students you know if you're coming if you need to look at a certain instance and there is student identities that are involved that don't need to be uh that has to be looked at so there's a number of considerations for any any requests of that nature um we've had requests for recordings in the past I mean our camera usage has increased now we have interior as well as exterior cameras and we also have increased exterior camera coverage so we really felt that this mou was necessary but we've had requests in the past we've looked at them based on those merits oftentimes they're ones that I uh utilize our district attorney in looking at with me to see whether or not those are justifiable in certain instances if they're not and it has to do with

129some type of case that the uh that the police are working on we may require them to obtain a subpoena and offer it in order to get that so um the the very purpose of this mou is to do exactly what you said to protect our our kids privacy to make sure that no one is exposed unnecessarily thank you and one last question that I did not submit and so I understand that if you cannot answer it regarding items A and B um thank you Miss Mendes for highlighting um what our board does in regards to HIV reports um I was wondering if uh Dr McLaughlin or other Administration could speak a little bit in regards to the increase of unconfirmed or the public comment by Miss shower at this point or anything that we

130can add in regards to the process of how we are taking care of and please use language that is protective of actors and targets yes yeah I won't give any examples uh what I will say is that reports throughout the state show arise in HIV I think that that's been fairly well uh publicized and documented uh so that and that could be for a variety of reasons uh we know that there's a speculation as to whether or not there covert contributions to that increase but certainly too there's I think at least in the case of our district there's been a real awareness campaign uh if if we go back uh a year or so ago to when there was a board presentation on HIV there were a number of requests by the board of education

131at that time for the district to do more to make sure that our students and our parents knew what the HIV process was there was a specific request for school assemblies at the beginning and at the midpoint of the school year we have done that we've provided each student and each parent with a pamphlet at the beginning of the year outlining the process we've publicized or stop it application which we've had for a number of years but which has been more recently used a great deal more than it has been not just for him it's an anonymous reporting system so students are making use of that and parents can as well to to make reports of any concern that they have so we are certainly doing that in regard to responses to HIV I would

132divide that into both proactive and reactive responses so proactively there have been a number of programs that have been put in place I'll use since Mr Jaime is here I'll use his power of being seen program which has been ongoing for a couple of years his ambassador program which is meant to create empathy and understanding with older youth working with younger youth there have been kindness count program and character counts programs in our in our schools there were presentations uh this year on Ryan's story both at the high school and at the middle school so there's been a number of proactive initiatives and we know that those have to be ongoing they can't be one shot and none of those ever completely addresses and solves HIV but what it does is certainly makes progress in

133terms of students hopefully understanding what how their actions can affect others and really the importance of respect for each other and how and kindness and how important that is in terms of our reactive pieces I want to emphasize whether an HIV is confirmed or non-confirmed uh is really dealt with irregardless of the of the outcome there are two ways that hivs are responded to one is through consequences and the other is through remedial measures and both of those occur and they typically occur I I may go as far as to say that a hundred percent of our hivs have both consequences and remedial actions whether they're confirmed or non-confirmed but uh let's just say that close to 100 or have that the um the difference is that consequences are from our code of conduct they're

134things like detention suspension uh things of that nature perhaps loss of privileges uh but our emphasis although they're they're um are typically consequences there are always remedial actions because the remedial actions are meant to stem these types of events from occurring again pure mediation uh is is one example of that uh our counselors who we heard referred to tonight really uh when there's an incident we'll create a schedule of check-ins with both the offender and the offended to ensure that the uh type of activity that was occurring is no longer happening uh Rutgers uh which is in all of our buildings we heard a little bit about tiger wrap tonight I do want to emphasize that the Rutgers clinical program is in each of our school buildings and oftentimes the Rutgers can clinician is involved

135with students after an HIV because things come out of that investigation that shows students on both sides of the issue need support so that though and by the way those are communicated to parents um it's it's not a required form that the state gives us it's one that we've created here in the district that provides information about their child not not the other children but about their child that describes the incident what the outcome of the HIV was but also what actions the district are taking in regard in regard to uh to supporting their child so um and and I do want to also note which I know the board is aware of that parents are provided with a letter after the first reading certainly uh confirming with them that they know that they have

136the right to appeal an HIV decision and we've had some appeals uh uh on an occasional basis that have before the board so I I think you know I know that when Mr pandolfo presented to the policy committee this month he presented a more specific overview of what we're doing with HIV but I think I'm capturing the categories that he presented I just want to add to that we certainly don't while we we see the numbers are increasing we're we're not done looking for for a resolution right so we're continuing to speak to other anti-bullying coordinators across the county um I think we need to start to look outside of our County because Stover is unique in our County um so a program that works in Randolph might not necessarily work in Dover uh we

137also reached out to the county office for any assistance that they had because their Vision on programming is much wider than ours I believe Mr pandolfo has a meeting with both this other District ABCs and County Representatives before the end of the month so we're both hoping that he'll bring back some more knowledge some more information some more programs we actually just met today with a partner that we already work with Big Brothers Big Sisters we work with them now in the Deloitte mentorship program but now we're looking at reintroduce them as a possible partner for some of our students whether it be actor a or actor B either one of those students might need the support of a big brother or a big sister to help them get through you know some sometimes in

138in child development that can be tough and if they don't have two parents in a household they might be a perfect fit for a Big Brother Big Sister so might that be listed on one of these reports as a as a recommendation absolutely that a referral would be made to Big Brother Big Sisters so I think yeah our our numbers look alarming but we're not done trying to find kind of what the magic fit is here for some of our students thank you for um having such a comprehensive answer on the spot in that moment without planning I I appreciate the care that you have for our targets for our actors as well because they're still our children and things happen so thank you very much for addressing this HIV situation so eloquently Mr Miller

139yes I have a question two just two questions one on the emergency evacuation agreement the only thing that I'm wondering because I know Logistics is a is an issue and how do we transport you know large volumes of students since we don't have that many buses do we have another plan with some other Transportation agencies right so this uh this emergency evacuation would be for major evacuation for a very significant incident and uh we have come together as a County uh Morris County uh not every not every town is interested in it but a number of them are uh and this is not only a reunification plan that involves CCM uh which they are committed to uh their director of safety uh is is a part of this Committee in this undertaking but also uh

140these would be shared services among the districts who signed the mou that include Transportation so for example uh Roxbury Denville Rockaway if we would have an event would commit to canceling what they have for an emergency and sending their buses to us and we're coordinating that and we would do the same uh for for another District who who's part of this uh because um really even some of the districts that have generous Transportation fleets are still challenged if if they had to move a high school you know in a moment's notice no that's great that's good to know that there's that plan in place um my other question has to do with uh the video memorandum of agreement with the police department assuming that if they have a login into the system and they're they're

141following the process I'm assuming that logging into our system there'll be an audit Trail to show exactly when they've logged in and what they were looking at right each each individual would have a unique login uh that would be tracked and the the purpose and the documentation that of awareness would also be a part of that thank you perfect Dr sander thank you um and thank you Mr Miller and Ms Chrysalis I had very similar questions um about the Moa um I just wanted to comment that I really like the format of the new school calendar I think our community will enjoy that as well a little more user friendly and in line with what other districts are doing well two of our Shapers of that are sitting in the back so I see them

142smiling any other discussion seeing no other discussion we have a motion by Miss nutting a second by Mr Miller to approve items a through j under administrative approval including the hand carry addition to item a Mr slam may we have a roll call vote please Miss Acevedo yes yes Miss Downs Miss Chrysalis yes Mr Miller yes Miss nutting yes Miss Phillips yes Mr Robles yes Dr Senor yes Miss Mendez yes motion carries we are moving right along to Personnel Miss nutty um on the motion upon the recommendation of the superintendent and the board approves the following Personnel resolutions a through nine with the hand carry change on a three and seven is there a second we have a motion by Miss nutting a second by Miss Phillips is there any discussion Dr saner um yes

143first of all it's so nice to see a bunch of clubs I think it was at Academy Street School um so that's really great to see that we're meeting our students um other needs but beyond their academic and this has been popping up all year so it's really great to see that um I do have a question about the teacher Mentor mentee um I believe it's item nine um I think that I recognize some of these teachers having been hired and starting in our district since the beginning of the school year and I was um just curious as to uh why we are we are approving this now and wondering if these Partnerships and Mentor mentee relationships have been happening since the beginning of the year especially for those teachers that started at the beginning

144of the year yes they they did they did start some of them are catch-up resolutions to to approve them for payment is there any other discussion whiskey salads I just wanted to Echo um what uh Dr zainer was talking about item nine and wanted to shout out Academy Street school for having so many on the agenda it's great to see their dedication I look forward to seeing um as many from other schools as well and exposing their children and their students to that and regarding item nine it is great to see this truly embracing the tiger away in our school Community by our teachers um being role models and stepping up right up above and beyond so thank you for those two great items so I do want to emphasize all of our schools are

145providing an array of clubs uh actually academies coming in with a few more at the end because they have a new principal who's been working to develop some more but all of all of the elementary schools um have a robust offering of clubs so um thank you for shouting out uh Academy but I do want to make sure that I didn't leave the other two guys out this question Miss Acevedo item two there's a reassignment for um for Mr Frank for it's June 12th through June 30th is that correct just for a week and a half he's being reassigned um I'm sorry it's number two item number two um Frank Thomas Mr Frank from 8th grade mathematics to basic skills in the Dover Middle School yeah I I don't want to I have an answer

146for you but it's specific to the person okay and it's Personnel so I can I can answer for you and sounds good private thank you is there any other discussion can I comment on the one resignation that we've had in this is the first resignation we've had in two agendas but I want to comment specifically on Miss heisterman's contribution to our district before she leaves because our next board meeting will be after she leaves um Miss heisterman came in in the I believe it was the 2021 school year and picked up our bilingual and ESL and World Language department on her own and shouldered that for quite a while until we brought in a director and since then that department has grown to now over a thousand students and Miss heisterman is is leaving us

147as a supervisor to accept a position in another District as a director and so that was her trajectory we are very proud of her we're sorry to see her go she made a very much a positive impact on the students in that department and I look forward to hearing about her success as she continues on and her new adventure so I just wanted to send a little appreciation and love out there to miss heisterman thank you for that Mr Agliano um I have a question about item three um I'm wondering if you can describe the need for an assistant director of facilities maintenance and custodial services at a salary of 80k as opposed to additional maintenance and custodial staff so it's it's really exactly because we have been adding uh maintenance and custodial staff uh

148We've we've grown the department significantly as well as increasing our facilities at both delk1 and delt 2 which we've devoted uh separate shifts of custodians to we we now have a an official electrician an official plumber we have a a carpenter on board so we are really um building up the department much of the work that is done for example many of the water fountains that you've been seeing on your tours the new water fountains were installed by our own plumber which you know saved a significant amount of money from Contracting with a Plumbing Service uh but the the other piece of that is as we've expanded it's a big staff it's a lot to Monitor and uh over and above all of that the board is keenly aware of how many projects are happening

149there are multiple projects that require uh quite a bit of attention by our director of facilities this project alone here not to mention the significant project that's been occurring at Academy Street uh the both the HVAC project and now the the downstairs of water intrusion project we have had um with the rental properties some of the things that we've had to do is to address New Jersey Department of Ed regulations so those rental properties were not uh previously Public Schools so our director facilities has been uh intimately involved in that as well as addressing some long-standing issues regarding chemical storage in the district Lighting in the district and I think that we heard many of us heard in different forums that we're at during the referendum that you know people still see areas that we

150need to improve in our facilities so if we're going to do that we really need to provide both the individuals who are going to do the actual work and the support and the knowledge of and I have to indicate that we're extremely fortunate because this assistant is a fully certified facilities director which is hard to come by so having two individual tools with that certification is is really good for us as a district and I will just indicate that I think that the the particular rate is is one that um that I'm happy that we were able to provide I think it's a a a competitive rate but not uh certainly not one that we're um that the district is overspending on so uh that's that's my explanation for that that particular area thank you

151Dr McLaughlin um is there any other discussion just assessor data do you foresee that we are going to be able to keep the rate for the substitute teachers at that rate for next year the rate is an answer's rate uh we still have so it's it you know it's it's clearly understood that this is a a supplemented rate um using esser's funds we one of the things we have to do at the end of the year because we still have a year left investors and we still have a balance so what we have to do is decide where we devote those remaining Esser funds to we may be able to continue to support this upright or we may need to return to a standard rate uh I think that that's something um you know once

152everything flushes out towards towards the end of the school year we'll be able to decide uh we'll certainly want to do it in ample time to provide notice to our sub pool um particularly if we're going to be able to keep the essence rate because we don't want them going somewhere else uh we'd like to keep them I've been working Mr Franks in particular it's one of the areas that he's in charge of he's been really working hard to interview and continue to supplement The Substitute pool we did have a one a day recently which doesn't occur often in a school district anymore of 100 coverage so we've had a few of those this year which have been real causes for celebration uh it really means that our internal staff do not have to cover

153classes for each other which makes a big difference to their work day and so so we are working hard and hopefully when at whatever time we do go back to a standard rate it will be a we will be able to provide a competitive rate that we're able to retain a good amount of the subs but certainly we do we do stand out a little bit uh from the rest of the county as some of my colleagues remind me of when I go to County meetings uh but it's been good and my thought is that when Subs come to Dover even if they're attracted by the rate that they'll find that this is a great place to work and want to stay here so those funds end next year you said the funds were so

154we we still have S response for next year we have not made a final decision you know we have some choices on what they'll be um utilized for okay thank you and if we can just clarify uh next year's school year or calendar year next year school year thank you is there any other discussion seeing no other discussion we have a motion by Miss nutting a second by Miss Phillip Miss Phillips I'm sorry um to approve items one through nine with the hand carry additions to items three and seven under Personnel Mr slam may we have a roll call vote please Miss Acevedo yes Miss Downs yes Miss Chris Ellis yeah yeah Mr Miller yes Miss nutting yes Miss Phillips yes Mr Robles yes to items a one and two abstain from item three and

155yes to items four through nine Dr Senor yes Miss Mendez yes motion carries are moving along to negotiations Miss nutting so for negotiations update we've had a couple of meetings with our DEA and we've also had some with our administrators um we do have some upcoming meetings and we are moving along with that said can we have a five minute break absolutely um as long as no one's opposed we are taking a five minute bio break thank you thank you foreign so we are officially re starting at 9 30 p.m um we're moving right along to governance Mr Robles thank you uh I'm actually gonna let Scott lead us in some uh explanation of the meeting that took place on February 14th I wasn't able to attend but he'll share some of the information and

156I'll make a motion after that okay thank you so the governor's committee held their first meeting and the first item on the agenda was select the chairperson and since Benjamin wasn't there he was elected so congratulations uh so the um other items that we discussed were policies that were on the agenda tonight one of them was one five five board member participation at board meetings using electronic device uh we discussed the fact that um we want to be able to conduct business in a normal manner when we are here whether it's electronic or in person uh and in the um the policy electronic equipment must permit the board president to recognize the board member to make comments ask questions vote and fully participate in the meeting as if the board member was present at the

157meeting so currently the Board of Education doesn't have the equipment necessary to do that so the the committee is recommending that we suspend this policy until such time we can adequately provide the necessary electronic equipment and then discussing with Dr McLaughlin he's already discussed this with the tech team so that they can look into some solutions for this the other policies that were reviewed was 152 board officers the committee will recommend approval of this policy the recommended changes do not change the current understanding of this policy which will continue to have officers vote on voted on with verbal vote and set a term limit for president to no more than two consecutive terms the next policy 161 was call adjournment and cancellation minor changes through Strauss Esme did not change the original intent of this

158policy and the same goes for 0162 notice aboard meetings um the changes also do not change the intent one of the comments that we had was that we have to continue to send information about our meetings to two newspapers to give proper notification the committee was opening at some point we wouldn't have to provide to the newspapers because it's costly because I don't know who reads newspapers anymore in that form so Mr Robles will present those other items that we discussed we were reviewing materials from the ngbsa conference with a broader understanding of gov what the governance committee would do and we recognize that our next meeting we're going to be reviewing all the district policies to determine within that category what is the number that would be the the policies that we would always

159review as part of governance the zero series District policies most of them pertain to governing the conduct of the board but not all of them so we we just need to determine that we also um looked at uh how we want to codify some other processes that the board follows that's kind of Unwritten so we're going to look at that and um we discussed the superintendent evaluation process in which we're we have an outline of a time frame of when these things need to occur and we need to actually put some dates to those the next discussion was on policy zero one six seven public participation in board meetings during the reorganization meeting in early January public comment was read that targeted negative views about a board member and their family these comments were discussed

160and deemed unacceptable by committee members after review of the policy the policy states that the presiding officer May interrupt warn or terminate a participant statement when the statement is too lengthy abusive obscene or irrelevant since the statement had not been reviewed ahead of time there was no time to determine whether the comment aligned between the value of public comment on educational issues or the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters of community interest since the comments did not appear to fall into either of those categories it was felt by the committee that those comments should not have been read in public the committee is working with the superintendent to recommend that our board attorney review public comments and read them to the public the district translator would read any

161public comments received in Spanish after a board discussion on this issue the governance committee would recommend that we make changes to this policy thank you Mr Miller Mr Robles thank you Scott So based on this information shared by Scott I would like to make a recommendation that the board approved items one and two as per the agenda motion by Mr Robles and a second by Miss Chrysalis is there any discussion and then Dr Cena I was curious to um regarding item number one um how did we do this before if currently the district does not have the necessary equipment how was this done before answer the only thing that I remember was they had a laptop with the person's face facing the public but you couldn't really get the sound and and so when you

162looked at that it wasn't as if the person was here but it was only one time that that was done the other time someone used a cell phone and they relayed the message but when you look at those two options they do not reflect what the policy is saying but there are ways to make it work so that it's if they are here McLaughlin how what would you see needed in order to follow the actual bylaw as it's written what equipment or what I I don't I don't know the answer to that at this point I and I think it would be a couple things one looking at the capacity and how it would interact with what we're already doing here because we have a live stream set up we have to look we have

163a microphone system that's suited to the live stream so we would have to make sure that whatever we did was not interfering with that or compatible with that obviously we have to look at a cost mechanism so and we'd also have to have some kind of proposal so at this point we don't have any of those things thank you I know I didn't submit these questions ahead um and because I didn't have the report I was curious in regards to um oh sick 162 notice of board meetings we use two newspapers in print is there any way to switch them to electronic versions and would that change um follow the law still and change I think you have to ask Mr crude on that one because I believe the legal requirement is still two newspapers

164yes the legal requirement is still newspaper two newspapers they are they pass a lot it's very interesting eventually it takes a long time for these things to catch up yes they passed a law a number of years ago saying you can also put it on your website which I don't know why we needed the law to tell us that but people I think thought at the time maybe they would say well you can put it on your website instead of in the newspaper right now it still tell says two newspapers I off the top of my head I'm not sure if there's a distinction or even newspapers even have a distinction between putting an ad in the only in the electronic version versus an electronic or newspaper version that's a very good question I'd have

165to check and see if there's been anything on that yet please yes and um one more comment regarding the CSA process please don't reinvent the wheel um I don't know if you have had access to what previous board leaderships have created so if it's useful to you and you think that it's appropriate um I I would encourage you to use it um whatever if you do have access or not to it so that way it was a lot of work um but you know I understand that things change we all the information is provided Dr saner that Miss money mine is a comment it guards to to the I guess the discussion about public comment so just two things it's a fine line between someone's First Amendment rights um and our initial statement and and

166not allowing people to make irrelevant however you want to turn them irrelevant or defamatory comments um I think it's easy when the comments are uh presented electronically but I would encourage the committee to maybe develop regulations uh a regulation so that Ms Mendes or future presidents of the board it's the live ones that you have to make an instant decision on and so that we can be consistent in our um allowance or disallowance of comments and those decisions have to be made like in a snap you know in consultation with a board attorney so I think maybe a regulation would be a helpful um item to create for to make sure that we're being consistent thank you Dr saner um Mr crew if you can um because we've discussed this in length you and I

167so if you can't just um yes I'll try to keep a quick version um I think Dr sander already um hit sort of the biggest note to understand you know we could talk about relevance and things like that but the First Amendment comes into play we are a public body the board of education is a public body and so it's governed by the First Amendment members of the public have rights to to speak um I I think that the from a relevancy standpoint you know sometimes things seem obvious but the the open public meetings act actually has sort of a language in it um I'm going to paraphrase it because I don't have it in front of me but it has language that says the board of education is required to have a period for

168public participation at each of its meetings that actually wasn't always the case that was only added maybe 10 or 15 years ago in the old days there was actually no legal requirement that you even had to have public participation most boards did but it wasn't required but now you're required to have it you can have at least one session you can you can limit the time you can live at the time for the speakers it's all permitted but you have to have at least one session with the public meetings act says is that the session is for the members of the public to speak about I'm going to paraphrase it any issue that they feel may be um you know I'm going to say relevant but related we're relevant to members that members of the

169community of the Board of Education might be interested in or something like that so it's pretty Broad so it's it's very difficult I think it would be very difficult to be too specific in developing a policy or regulation to try to you know control public speech it's a very broad basis and it's it's also difficult even with defamation we have a statement and the board has a statement before public comment to warn people that if you say something that's potentially defamatory you're speaking at your own risk because it again because of the First Amendment it's hard for the board to to shut down comments it's not really a favorite thing to do but it is appropriate in some circumstances interestingly I think in some ways it's easier to deal with the live ones than it

170is to deal in some circumstances than it is to deal with the the submitted ones because with the live once I have sometimes when someone starts to I haven't had it happen here but when someone starts to say something where they're like attacking a staff member or they're saying something you know I I'll stop and I'll caution them remind them again that what they're saying could be defamatory but there's actually reported Court decisions that say that you can't cut someone off just because they're being negative or saying negative things about someone you know that the people have people do have a right to speak so again I could go on we could go on for a long time but the the idea is it's it's a it's an interesting subject it's a sensitive subject and

171you have to be careful in terms of how you how you apply the law in that area Miss Mendez I respond I know that the policy is very specific in what the board president can do to try to redirect the person if if it is something that's not related to education or is very negative but we recognize that especially a live person you're not going to be able to stop them if they're going to continue and certainly even giving the three minute Mark doesn't mean that you're going to be able to stop them but at least it gives some guidance that you can try to direct the person so that we want things to be relevant and and useful uh that you know takes us towards a path of bettering the education of our students

172and you know making comments about somebody on the board in their family doesn't really do that so hopefully with the live person the board president could be able to reason with them but I would be interested in seeing if there's any other mechanisms we can put in place so that the person in leadership knows what options they have to try to redirect the conversation I think we could have it again this is a subject that could warrant a fair amount of discussion and it's legal advice and legal discussion so sometimes maybe we could have a separate training or discussion on it on on the First Amendment issues I think you know the relevancy issue is tricky um I I would say as an example if something clearly has nothing to do with the school district

173whatsoever then it's it's probably okay to to try to say you know sorry this doesn't have to if somebody wants to talk about you know some you know like endangered turtle in Colorado or something um trying to come up with an extreme example then that's something but you know beyond that you know if it's potentially related to the school district or the Board of Education in some way it's hard to shut down so do we need a review do you need to review our policy that's in place 167 because I'm referring to exactly the wording from that policy right I mean I it's I believe I I've looked at it quickly in the past I mean I think it's very similar it's a stress estimated policy that's very similar to policies that most districts have

174um but certainly we could talk about there are ways it could perhaps be modified and we could talk about you know potential language and things like that I mean that one's not on the agenda that's not on the we're not we're not there's no motion about that one tonight no no it was just part of the report to discuss the fact that we we were discussing that we're trying to follow the policy and how do we use the policy to help redirect comments that according to the policy are not relevant study and then perfect um my question and I didn't send this before um I don't know I think I remember saying it in the past um working with the town since we are working with them and trying to become a community um District

175the sign that's on JFK Park is it possible or feasible for us to actually work with the town and have our board meetings announced on that electronic device that's on the highway so that is announcing it to our community we can certainly ask and we are it's a good time to provide an update that I think we're in the final stages of the sign our own electronic signs uh which you know would be visible throughout the community as well so um y'all make the request um and um and ask if they if they would be willing to put that up there just quickly to comment it it sounds like a great idea but unfortunately it's not going to obviate the need that you still have to send the things yeah it's just saying another layer

176of stuff especially since newspapers like Scott said not everybody reads a newspaper before you go the lights back they're turned off I don't know if that affects our live stream or anything no we're still clearly visible you can see our beautiful faces um my comment is about I don't know if the poor board um I can certainly present the motion um once to um invest and spend money on a Mr crude coming to the governance committee to have that detailed guidance and legal advice for um oh one six seven I think that that would be useful but um is that where we also want to use our funds at that time he is expensive I just think it would be if he could just comment on the policy and how we interpreted whether or not

177the way we're planning on going forward is good enough we wouldn't need them to come to a governance committee meeting to do that I I could certainly first of all just let me comment that I I think our our fees are reasonable but having said that um I um no I could certainly present something um some comp you know maybe mark up a put some comments into the policy and give you a little of a language from the Court's decisions I think just to give you some guidance as to what I think the the issues are to consider any other discussion I have a really quick comment and or question I'm unsure um I'm wondering if we suspend um the um board member it's it's bylaw0155.1 I believe and not zero it's actually listed on

178the agenda zero and I think it's point one um if we suspend that bylaw I'm I'm wondering if that leaves um the board member electronic participation obviously not governed by the by by bylaw and does that leave us open to um communication when it comes to that right like right now we have a clearly defined bylaw of how of what the mechanism is to um do that although we don't have the tools to get it done if we suspend the bylaw we have nothing so there's essentially there's no there's nothing governing it there's no precedent so to speak and anyone can just ask to participate um electronically Mr crude what do you think okay um on that one I'll say a couple things one I'm not sure I don't have the policy in front of

179me I'm not sure if it's given what the board I think wants to accomplish I'm not sure if it's necessary to suspend it but it probably doesn't hurt to suspend it but I don't think it's necessary because as the policy probably says that for someone to participate you have to and this is this is not just a policy this is the law and that's what it's based on the public has to be able to hear the remote board member but just as importantly the board member has to hear the rest of the board and the public so every that's the most important thing the visual part is not really important it doesn't matter if you could see the person but the the key thing is that the remote board member has to be heard and

180has to hear everything that else is going on so that they can participate as if they were here and so if you can't do that then you can't then the person can't participate remotely whether the policy is effective or if it's suspended it doesn't really matter the second thing about that is the guidance from the courts and the Attorney General it goes back a ways um pretty consistently said that in order to do that it's best if the board should really have a policy that permits it so I would say that if you suspend the policy so that you don't have a policy then it that would be sort of a blanket thing that you shouldn't be allowing it the during that period until you you know reinstitute the policy one of the problems that

181we have here in this room I think is that um you know I've been at boards that have done this occasionally even years ago and you know lots of times it was as simple as having a cell phone with a microphone next to it and if it was turned up enough and it was turned up properly everybody could hear each other it actually worked but um here even with the speakers with the with the HVAC system going it pre I think it presents unique difficulties because um it just be I think it's going to be difficult without some kind of change in the equipment or something for every for everyone to really hear each other clearly on all sides of the uh of the equation so yeah I I agree the phone does not work

182we can barely hear to hear each other that we're here in person so miss Mendes just quick historical right this is something that the board at some point opted to do and wanted to do it was not a requirement or anything like that so it was really about trying to be as inclusive when when flexible when people needed to be artists than their peers at times or you know things like that so it's really something that I don't know if those of you that were here when we did that um it was really more of an option technically I don't think it's a big deal I think it could be done I just have to do a little research that's all can we is there any other discussion no seeing no other discussion we have

183a motion by Mr Robles as second by Miss grisales to approve the items under governance one and two Mr slam maybe have a roll call vote please Mr Acevedo yes Miss Downs yes Miss chrysalis no to item no to item number one yes to item number two with the exception of no to notice of board meetings until we can find out the electronic versions Mr Miller yes Miss Dunning yes Miss Phillips yes Mr Robles yes Dr Steiner yes Miss Mendez yes motion carries thank you we are moving right along to student achievement and curriculum Dr saner thank you Ms Mendez and thank you for reminding me that we changed the name of this committee late last year and apologize for my confusion um I would like to report that we met on both February 7th

184and March 7th um if we had a theme for these meetings they were opportunities for students so we spent a lot of time at both meetings discussing the Partnerships with William Patterson University and so if board members have not already seen the minutes uh more information is available there I don't want to repeat that as I know they're coming in uh April and so I'm very excited for all of you and people at home and present in the audience to hear about all of those wonderful Partnerships we also discussed meeting the needs of slice students or students with limited or interrupted formal education this has proven to be a significant issue in our district and I'm really happy that Dr McLaughlin and Mr ergliano are focusing in and you know trying to find ways to

185meet the unique needs of these students we learned about the new attendance policy uh procedures at Dover High School which have resulted in a six percent decrease in tardies we learned about the beginnings of an option two program which would allow students sort of non-traditional pathways um to utilize what our students are already doing as well as passions of theirs um to help them graduate um and so this is something that students will be learning about as they move into next year as well as the new program of studies for Dover High School which includes um a bunch of new courses and they meet you know students at all different levels and interests so some highlights uh honors abandon honors choir a couple of new AP courses AP macro and microeconomics AP pre-calc a dual

186language class on Latin American history and literature and then some computer classes including Final Cut Pro two so a lot of new options for our students and I was really happy to see that they there was a little something for everyone not just uh you know targeting one group so very nice options to see I'm excited for the presentation uh by uh William Patterson University because there's a lot of options opening up with them as well with that being said I would like to move that we accept items one through 25. second we have a motion by Dr saner a second by Mr Miller Excuse Me Miss Mendez I can't read my own writing it was one through 23. thank you we have a motion by Dr saner a second by Mr Miller is there

187any discussion Mr Miller just one question uh on the um the trip field trip request the robotics World Championship in Houston which sounds awesome but I can't tell is it just for the instructors is it also for any of our students oh proving it in in hopes that they can qualify an attempt and it's yet to be determined I hope to qualify because it just so happens I will be at a conference in Houston the same week that they're there so you never know never know okay thank you I have um four questions or comments um regarding the writing four right the Cyber Tigers I'm so excited um to hear that Dover tubular Alloys um their sponsorship for it so I'm very excited that we can partner in that way um regarding six and seven

188and I know I read this also from the committee's um notes I want to thank Miss um Marianne Wilson Vasquez owners of Sabor Latino for their stipend donation since the district is covering tuition can um you please share your plan on how Transportation will be paid and provided for this program Transportation would be provided if students needed so some students are able to just drive themselves and that would be fine but um the other school districts the students are closer to the campus so that stipend can be used for public transportation when we looked into that it it would be way too long of a commute for our students to try to do that with public so we'd like to provide the bus and ensure that they can get there safely and not have to

189use the stipend for that great regarding the 2324 DHA changes on programs under new courses I see that there is a dual language that Dr singer commented on it with the Latin American history I'm excited to see this um can you share um how would this course be open to all students or what the criteria would be for them to take this the course is open to seniors only but that is definitely something that we'll observe throughout the year and possibly open it up for juniors for the following year the course is taught by two teachers an English-speaking teacher and a bilingual teacher so they're they're literally co-teaching the content so the class makeup would be in and of itself both monolingual students and bilingual students and we're keeping it at seniors because we're looking

190for more of an integrated discourse between students so we're hoping that offering it to that senior level will provide that that opportunity for that higher discourse great could you expand on the room usage report showing that at diver high school there are 25 open room periods over the eighth period and space constraints So currently there are there are 25 classroom spaces uh available in the during the course of the school day at Dover High School um part of our presentation in April when we talk about the budget will be some significant additions to the staff to reduce drastically reduce uh Reliance on Sixth period teachers we estimate that the teachers that um that would be freed up would create 68 classes that would be free throughout the day but also there are new teachers coming

191in to take them so we are still playing it very close to the vast in terms of having open classrooms uh periods one through nine one of the things that we're working on right now with our leadership team at the high school is as early as possible to develop a room usage plan once schedules input has been completed the end of March so that we have a an efficient and um clear understanding of of the rooms that are available where they'll be and how they'll be dispersed throughout the schedule one through nine well that my last question is not an item on the agenda I heard Dr saner again comment on it from the committee notes about the UMES or less programs please program thank you wondering how do you see this benefiting our students

192like why is your focus on this so this actually would indirectly impact our students this is a grant for teachers who are bilingual who already hold a certificate in a Content area but still need to take some courses and pass the OPI to become bilingually certified it's a free program offered through a grant from the U.S Department of Education and William Patterson it was sent out by our human resources department unfortunately I don't think any staff have have taken advantage of this um but it's it's open we certainly can continue to to send it out it's a total of 18 credits there's also assistance that can be given if somebody feels they might need some for the OPI test which is the final test for you to get your bilingual certification so again it's part

193of our partnership that came out when we met with William Patterson they brought it to us we shared it out so it does impact the students because we're always looking for bilingual teachers so thank you is there any other discussion seeing no other discussion we have a motion by Dr saner a second by Mr Miller to approve the items one through 23 under student achievement and curriculum Mr slam may we have a roll call vote please Miss Acevedo yes Miss Downs yes Miss Chrysalis yes Mr Miller yes Miss nutting yes Miss Phillips yes Mr Robles yes Dr saner yes Miss Mendez yes motion carries we are moving right along to community relations Miss Phillips Community Relations Committee met on Tuesday February 14th during this meeting we discussed modifications to the description of the proposed citizens

194advisory committee and the application process the application has been drafted in modifications to the policy have been submitted for consideration given that we made substantial changes to the policy it is now subject to two readings with the first reading occurring tonight and the second reading to occur at our April meeting assuming that the policy is approved and adopted by the full board the plan would be to launch the application for the citizens advisory committee on May 1st members of the community relations committee will make plans to attend both the Dover Board of alderman meeting and Victory Gardens council meeting to promote the advisory committee in addition the community relations committee plans to hold a community Forum in May to promote the advisory committee and answer any questions the public might have we plan to finalize

195the dates these dates at our next committee meeting which is scheduled for next Tuesday March 21st um with respect to community events I attended the parent University hosted by Tiger wrap on Wednesday March 1st and the community Forum held by Dr McLaughlin Mrs serigliano and Mr Nunez on Thursday March 9th one of the topics discussed at the March 9th Forum was how to increase parent involvement while this is certainly not a new topic in our district it is one that we need to continue to focus on this is evidenced by the fact that only one parent attended the parent University which was held virtually and only a handful of parents attended the community Forum on March 9th ideally this would be a topic that both the community relations committee and citizens advisory committee will look

196at in the hopes of developing new creative and effective ways to increase parent involvement throughout our district and lastly in addition to some of the other events that were already mentioned this evening reminder that the Dover Middle School play is going to be on March 31st at 7 pm and April 1st at 2 pm and the Academy Street turkey tray is on Friday April 21st with the door is opening at 6 pm thank you thank you Mr Philip um are moving along to policy Miss Downs the policy committee met on February 7th and March 7th there are a number of policies and regulations up for the first reading most of them are recommended by stress as May or up for abolishment the second reading for the mentioned policies are on or at our April 25th

197meeting I moved to approve policies one through five we have a motion by Miss Downs is there a second we have a second by Miss Phillips is there any discussion I have um perhaps a comment or question uh it is regarding the first reading of policy p9140 which is the citizens advisory committee I'm wondering if um we maybe changed some of the wording in the policy the older proposed changes to the policy um right now it says in creating a new advisory committee which shall consist of 10 members from the public um I am proposing that that says up to 10 members of the public um and then the other portion that I have a comment on is Citizens advisory committee members are appointed for a period of one Year and may reapply for appointment

198upon expiration of their term I'm wondering if we can somehow reword that um to say are appointed for up up to a period of one year or until December 31st of the year they were appointed um I think that just makes it a little bit cleaner in my opinion any thoughts I have no objection since I wrote it okay um I'm not sure there's two ways we can go you can make a motion to amend the policies as you've stated and then the board would vote on that to amend it first before you vote to approve it or if no one objects to the changes you could just ask if no one objects to the changes then you can just make the changes in the half the book but John this is only the first

199reading so couldn't couldn't those changes be made before the second reading they could yes they could all you could pass it as if so if there's three options all right first option you can make a motion to amend it now on first reading and to prove it as it for the first read but either way it's going to be a first reading two you could get everyone to agree and approve it in the first reading with the changes or three we could just take those changes into consideration and make them for the second reading just quick comment on that generally speaking if you make substantive changes to a policy after the first reading then it may need to go back for a first reading again because you'd be essentially sort of starting over but those

200didn't sound to me like substantive changes they were just sort of changes in you know the practicality of how it's going to work so I I would think it would be okay to make those on the second reading and still approve it on second reading okay um so we will leave it as is for now uh we have is there any other discussion no we have a motion by Miss Downs a second by Miss Phillips to approve items one through five under policy um Mr slam may we have a roll call vote please Miss Acevedo yes Miss Downs yes Miss Chrysalis yes Mr Miller yes Miss nothing yes Miss Phillips yes Mr Robles yes Dr saner yes Miss Mendez yes motion carries we are moving right along to finance and Facilities Mr Miller okay so

201we actually had a meeting on February 21st and March 8th um I'll just give a quick summary I know a lot of uh the items were discussed in Mr slam's report on the February 21st uh meeting um we reviewed the audit report in detail which was reported tonight um I know that there were insurance broker interviews and architect RFP was released on 217 and we discussed the budget request from budget managers and looked at additional Revenue sources we also discussed Rod Grant from a facilities perspective um on the March 8th we um we spent time interviewing Architects for the the district contract um and had a lot of discussion on the preliminary budget um So based on the fact that a lot of it was reported by Mr slam I move that we approve items

202one through Thirty and on the hand carry adjustments to items one five and seven replacement of items 21 23 and 24 and new items 25 and 26. attack we have a motion by Mr Miller a second by Miss nutting is there any discussion I miss Miss netting um I did send this to a question in for our last meeting but because it was canceled due to weather um it's a question of how much with inflation and the cost of supplies and everything that's going on what is it per I guess student for educating them so I know we have stuff going up for our teachers and their benefits and everything like that but how much is it per student to educate I could pull up that exact number real quickly sorry about that I missed

203it because it was from the last one and it was a month ago that I sent it but he's looking it up I did forget one thing that we also discussed I just want to put out there was the fact that we continue to look at uh post post referendum paths forward um and what other options that we'll have to help increase space within the district thank you Mr Miller I don't know what's wrong with this microphone it's not you it's not you computers are on slow because the batteries Get Low okay if you need more time perhaps we'll go to miss crisales or so what I suppose so what I pulled up is the 2122 per people cost uh tuition letter we get it from the state each year there's a delay in this

204letter that's why I'm speaking to the 2122 letter uh after you submit your Autumn you only spend your awesome after the audit's complete and then what happens to State analyzes those numbers and then provides each district with a breakout of what a tuition would be you know based on Greed um so that number will um uh be different depending on the grade so I can read off a few of those grades with the numbers to you right now so for example preschool and kindergarten uh it's thirteen thousand five hundred forty two dollars uh grades one to five is thirteen thousand nine hundred and seventy six dollars uh grade six to eight is thirteen thousand five hundred forty two dollars and then 9 to 12 is 13 925 dollars that's based off of the prior year

205so each you know if it's a year you're behind okay and that's not including anybody that has special education needs or any other different category they do offer um information that too so lld um mild to moderate is thirty four thousand and thirty three dollars uh multiple disability is 67 968 dollars um and then preschool disability is listed as eight thousand thirty six dollars and then autism is eleven thousand three hundred and seventy three dollars and that's based off of the expenses uh during that year okay thank you thank you just a quick note so that would be internal programs so that wouldn't account for out of District placements beautiful thank you Miss Lisa I do have a number of questions so I will try to go through them quickly especially um or maybe one

206by one I see that it's easier and item number eight can you speak to the benefits of coordinating Transportation through the Warren County Special Services School District I know that we've struggled with transportation so basically that just gives us a kind of a backup option normally we go through Morris County and services but if for some reason we weren't able to get Transportation uh through their bidding Services we could go to Sussex and then also could give us potential opportunity if for example maybe someone that's contracted out there is going to a school that we also need to go to with one of our students that maybe Morris County doesn't have also a student going to there's a possibility there where you could combine routes and split the cost with another District thank you for

207items 11 and 12. I it is with huge sadness and and disappointment that I vote on placing students right and Staffing trailers for more space is it possible at some point to have to present to the full board on a public setting how this extra space at North over and Eastover is benefiting or helping our students education yeah yeah absolutely we once those uh modular units are in place we'll indicate what you know who's using them perfect for item 13 um I want to acknowledge publicly Lake kopak and Elk special children's committee and the Elks youth programs can you share with us how this donation will benefit the Dover students and special education department so this donation uh which I don't believe we have ever received before so I wanted to really um thank the

208elk special children's committee specifically the requirements were that it be set aside for special education students so we are looking at um to be used as to build up our social skills programs with our speech therapists in our autism classrooms and with students that have specific communication needs great great work thank you I know that for item 14 miss agriano you gave some details on this item in your report in the spirit of transparency just because I have emailed the questions I wanted to present the inquiry um could you share how the three and sixth graders can participate in this steam project um so again the enrichment classes will participate in the steam project that encompasses electricity kits uh through the sciencewiz kit students will build circuits for lights running Motors and sounds they'll learn

209the impact of electricity on our society as it was developing and they will highlight the work of New Jersey's own Menlo Park wizard Thomas Edison that will be reviewed and celebrated with the students for all three to sixth graders for the enrichment classes thank you I keep missing that for um item 19 the Center for Behavioral Health is psychiatric evaluation available in Spanish language especially if they feel more comfortable in that native language and if not how are we handling this in the district so we continue to struggle and look for specifically psychiatric therapists who are bilingual um but the the actual um contract I believe that you're approving tonight was that first speech no that's for psychiatristown I apologize there were a number of different yeah contracts on there but this in particular this

210vendor will allow us to provide evaluations in a more timely manner as many of the Specialists have a one-year waiting list and we we'd rather get more vendors approved so that we're not having a child sit on a waiting list thank you for item 20 can you direct us to the actual budget line that specifies who makes tuition payments to the district and what amounts are received I couldn't find that specifically in our finances document so that would be on the revenues page if you go to should be row tuition receivable from individuals it's listed as one million eight hundred fifty thousand five hundred fifty four dollars and that is tuition from our send receive agreement with Mine Hill and I'd like to note that is down about 192 000 from the year before thank

211you for item the next one 21. um what are some examples of unrestricted miscellaneous um so these this basically it's almost any Revenue that doesn't fall under tuition tax levy state aid or a refund um a lot of times these are refund from prior years uh once you receive a refund outside of the year that the expense was actually um they expended and for lack of a better way to say it I kind of talked myself in the corner with that sentence uh so once you're outside of that year you couldn't refund the account line that they sent the expense came out of so it'll be a miscellaneous Revenue um some other other items could be um you know if there's fees [Music] um money associated with the self-insurance program for laptops if there's uh

212District property that's sold through um fed gov deals uh as we if you recall we sold a truck uh at one point we sold a plow you know things like that just really um revenues that are hard to anticipate but what I do to project you that is I look at a few years back and kind of see what we've been averaging and then try to put a conservative number there because you never want to over budget your revenues thank you what about um for 22 item 22 can you um can you update us on the latest enrollment increase and which warrants this adjustment that you're presenting to the board so that number is actually from the New Jersey state software um basically uh uh what they do is they project how many students will

213see in 23-24 in this instance they're projecting that we'll have 144 additional students in 23 24 and then what they do is they take that number and they put a weighted average to it so if it's less than a one percent increase in your enrollment then they get to zero average and then once it gets to between one and two point five percent uh it gets assigned at 0.5 and then once it gets between a 2.5 and 4 it gets a 0.75 and then anything over four percent is counted on a one the one so essentially that 144 student increase that they're projecting then Falls to a 76 student weighted increase and then that is directly associated with the three thousand sorry the 386 764 dollar enrollment adjustment that is available to us we also

214had an enrollment adjustment available to us last year um we did that ticket and that fell to that banked cap number that I referenced previously uh banked cap is good for three years after that it expires and you no longer have the authority to use it okay for 23 and 24 would the entire nine million 17 000 and change be used for only the Academy Street water intrusion northover and East over HVAC projects so this is actually part of one of the resolutions that got pulled and replaced initially there was a withdrawal from capital reserve for 917 000. um as referenced earlier during the audit the Auditors presentation we were notified that districts would be going from the four percent fund balance to the two percent fund balance however guidance was that would happen at

215the end of the year um so a bit of a surprise for me when I went and went in and I was entering everything into the software they want you to push that through now so they're reducing it in in this 23 24 budget year in the budget software um so essentially what that meant was instead of now withdrawing from capital reserve we now have an excess Surplus amount which is associated with that two percent um and we're actually going to deposit 505 000 into capital reserve and then use the rest of that access Surplus to fund these projects and I will note though it's not going to fund the entire project so if you were to add up the cost uh estimated cost rather for the Academy Street project the North Dover and Eastover

216HVAC projects that'll be approximately 2.6 million dollars and that's after accounting for SCE Rod grants that we're hoping we were able to get for those two HVAC projects and just as a reminder the rod grants if awarded would cover 40 of the cost of those two projects however we don't anticipate that we're going to be receiving any approval or notification of whether we've received whether the application would have been approved probably until at least September and I am looking at the item number that I have on my notes may have changed but there was an error on the architect engineering number and just wanted to make sure that you have corrected it yep I missed I missed a zero I saw it well I will update that on the minutes thank you I was working

217on that one late at night I figured thank you for that Dr Cena um I just wanted to um acknowledge item number uh 31 which was the donation from Neil Casal music Foundation of three guitars um to Dover High school so again I have no idea who they are or if they have a connection to the community but you know wonderful that people in our Greater Community are thinking about our students and I had a question about the Elks donation I remember reading that there was a ceremony will someone from the district be representing yeah Miss hardenberg attended and represented she didn't jump in the lake but she represented it was one of the um people would volunteer to jump in as as uh like a cold you know an ice plunge um but in

218order to receive the funds we just had to participate in the ceremony she said maybe next year maybe next year this question seeing no other discussion we have a motion by Mr Miller a second by Miss nutting to approve items 1 through 30 with the hand carry amendments to items one five seven twenty one twenty three twenty four and hand carry items 31 and 32. uh Mr slam may we have a roll call vote please Miss Acevedo yes Miss Downs yes just a point of clarification is that item 32 with the hand carries yes yeah okay I don't know if I heard 32 I apologize yes Mr Miller yes Miss stunning yeah Miss Phillips um yes but um for the bills list I have to abstain from payment to vendor 1950 Interstate Waste Services of

219New Jersey thank you Mr Robles yes Dr Cena yes Miss Mendez yes motion carries foreign so we are moving along to some informational items upcoming Board of Education meetings uh April 25th is our next Board of Ed meeting um currently we have on the calendar May 30th and June 20th but coming up later in the agenda is um approval is being requested to adjust those dates to May 15th and June 27th we have a number of use of facilities which is awesome because there was a point where we didn't really have any so this is great and we are moving along Miss Mendes if I may yes may I just highlight the use of our facilities by the Girl Scouts I know that they have been trying to make inroads in Dover for quite some

220time and it's good to see that they're using our facilities and hopefully providing some really great programming and other opportunities for our students thank you Dr saner um we are moving along to Old business and I will toss it over to Mr Miller um I just wanted to mention briefly uh Miss Chrysalis and I have been part of the New Jersey school boards Association firearms safety task force which you all know was created as a result of our resolution that we were trying to push through school boards when they decided to create this task force all of us received the final report on the processes programs and practices for safety and school Home and Community it's about 50 pages so if you haven't had a chance to look at it please do there are a

221number of items that were provided that will help us promote education within our district lesson plans presentations on gun safety for kids creating a healthy climate in support of school climates that support the well-being of students and mitigate risk there's also a sample School Board resolution that I would like for us to consider at our next board meeting on safe and secure homes schools and communities so if you can all take a look at that I know that participating with a lot of professionals on this group was very enlightening and it was amazing how they were able to put together such a comprehensive amount of information in a short period of time with 50 pages and Miss Chris Collins and I have our names on it like we did a lot but really not the

222professionals did it I respectfully disagree I did a lot I did a lot of research a lot of reading I hope that this is report will serve as a catalyst for discussions on the importance of firearms one of the reasons why I wanted to push the resolution that we approved in the board was really to move our systems to change the firearms from age from 18 to 21 and that is one of the recommendations that came out of this report it was a little a little bit of a pain trying to get that under I have to say continuing advocacy and asking why not why yes I'm trying to keep the political aspect of it out or the you know being bipartisan and I think it was a success and I think all of us

223at the sport who approved that resolution should take some pride in this report I hope that you can read it from cover to cover because it was a lot of work for a lot of people so don't let it go to waste let's move though our job is not done yet and and part of what they encourage us to do is to be able to that this report is going to be going to legislators and other governing bodies and that we on our own can promote this to our local Representatives so that legislation could be passed to increase um gun laws that would limit individuals from getting them and yes we did a lot of research I didn't mean we didn't do anything but it just seems like the document when they start putting it

224together was there was a lot being done that I was amazed at how it came together so I hope that you all do take the opportunity to read through it's very comprehensive and for our next board meeting I'd like to make sure that that resolution is on our agenda to be passed such critical work thank you is there any discussion based on what Mr Miller and Ms G Salas just reported no so we are moving along to new business and now I will toss it over to Dr McLaughlin who will give us some background on this sure I um I would like to ask the board uh to consider changing uh two upcoming dates of board meetings one for May and one for June uh the in our effort to avoid conflicts with the town

225meetings we scheduled a May meeting for the Tuesday following Memorial Day um our calendar our school calendar requires us and it's it's also our agreement with the DEA that if we have not used our snow days that is the first day we give back uh to to the staff and students as as a day off so uh wasn't something we were thinking of when we well of course I always think we're going to use all our snow days and but uh and we very well could use our days but this wouldn't be I don't think this would be something we'd want to take up on a more emergency basis so looking forward to may I would recommend that we move the the May meeting and this is a specific date and I'll tell you where

226this day comes from as long as we are moving the May meeting I'd ask that we do that to the 15th which I know is not a Tuesday and the reason is because by Administrative Code that is the deadline for renewing non-tenured teachers right now uh if we make the date later in May which we had it in which we were prepared to do we would be making sure that the non-renewal uh the renewal process excuse me was completed uh earlier two weeks earlier you know uh actually almost three weeks earlier than required in April it takes away sometimes you really want to take a long look as long a look as you can at your non-ten your teachers and we don't want to give any of our teachers short shift uh if we did

227it on the 15th we'd meet the state deadline we'd also continue to avoid a conflict with the town since it's not on a Tuesday so that's the suggestion for May and for June um we did avoid when we put together the uh the board meeting calendar we avoided graduation date but did not take into consideration that the day before graduation is Middle School moving up and they we rent a stage for two days uh economically uh and also logistically getting a stage uh we really need to have the same stage for for two consecutive nights if we move our board meeting a week after graduation it avoids any problem with conflicts with the uh the moving up ceremony at the MS thank you Dr McLaughlin is there a motion to change our main meeting date

228from May 30th to May 15 and our June meeting date from June 20th to June 27th we have a motion by Miss Visalus is there a second second we have a second by Miss nutting is there any discussion just wanted to know make sure that there was Quorum I would not be able to make the May 15th Monday meeting is there any other discussion seeing no further discussion um we have a motion by Miss visales a second by Miss nutting to change our May meeting date from May 30th to May 15th and our June meeting date from June 20th to June 27th Mr slam may we have a roll call vote please Acevedo yes Miss Downs yes Miss Chrysalis yes Mr Miller yes Miss nutting yes Miss Phillips yes Mr Robles yes Dr Senor yes

229Miss Mendez yes motion carries to a new business item advocating for school-based school-based Youth Services Program and I will toss that over to Dr saner thank you Miss Mendez um Mr sonlier at the beginning of this meeting did a really nice introduction in highlighting the importance of our Rutgers Health clinicians and tiger wrap and our board has a strong history of advocating as evidenced by the gun violence resolution that turned into the task force um Ms grassolas and I feel very strongly that these programs and you know upon suggestion from Dr McLaughlin that these programs serve a critical critical need in our district um we receive approximately 286 000 from the state um now as part of their funding for this program and the governor's proposal is to phase this targeted funding out and switch

230to a model where all districts get um some funding and this change in model would adversely affect a large number of students so for example in the letter we State information that Dr McLaughlin shared with us that as of the writing of the letter we had 116 students that were Active cases um and 146 referrals this year so far we served 201 cases last school year and in addition to individual and group counseling tiger wrap is available for emergencies and if we follow the governor's proposal where there would be a centralized Hub that would not allow a student who is in crisis today to walk immediately um into a room and receive services from someone that they can build a relationship with so we're recommending and hoping that the rest of the board can support

231the letter in an effort to maintain Our school-based school-based Youth Services Program funding as it stands currently thank you um is do we is there a motion are we is that even gonna make much I make a motion that we approve and send the school-based Youth Services Program letter to the entities listed um in the letter which included the governor the um acting Commissioner of education njsba and I'm missing one but another entity New Jersey Department of Education thank you second we have a motion by Dr saner and a second by Miss Visalus is there any discussion seeing no discussion um we have a motion by Dr saner uh second by Miss Visalus to approve the um sending of the letter uh advocating for school-based Youth Services Program funding uh Mr slam maybe have a

232brokerable please I'm sorry can I interrupt really quickly oh it would be helpful and we did this before if we're sending one letter as a um as one whole board it would not hurt for you to individually also send that letter or a template of it to all those contacts on your own the more the merrier and last time it worked very well sorry thank you okay Mr Slim Mr Savino yes Miss Downs yes Miss Chrysalis absolutely Mr Miller yes Miss nutting yes Miss Phillips yes yes Mr Robles yes Dr Senor yes Miss Mendez yes motion carries thank you moving along to new business item board leadership forum in an effort to continue healing our relationship with the community and forging A New Path forward Dr McLaughlin Mr Miller and I would like to host

233a board leadership a board leadership Forum to engage the community um so with that is there a motion to improve a board leadership Forum in April 2023 at the Dover Public Library second we have a motion by Miss grisales a second by Miss studying is there any discussion excuse me I'm sorry we have a motion by mrsales a second by Miss Phillips Dr Slater um I was just wondering if you would just uh elaborate a little bit more is this basically a community we're just renaming and Community Forum with the three of you or is there a different type of format with this one um there's no special format that we've discussed it's just um um another Avenue to engage the community and also for the community to have a one-on-one with um the new

234board leadership um is there any other discussion okay so we have a motion by Miss Visalus and I will get this right a second by Miss Phillips to approve a board leadership Forum in April 2023 Mr slam may we have a roll call vote please Miss Acevedo yes Miss Downs yes Miss Chrysalis yes Mr Miller yes Miss nutting yes Miss Phillips yes Mr Robles yes Dr sandor yes Miss Mendez yes motion carries that's hostile over to Mr group I just want to um ask I have a new business item when you think appropriate and he's meant this place okay we have a an additional new business item uh which is a motion we'll ask um the uh the board to to move in second approve the following students for continued non-resident tuition-free attendance due to

235their individual circumstances student ID I forgot my reading glasses that's not the student ID 7097-489-950 to attend Dover High School through the close of the 2022-23 school year student ID 689-0029271 to attend over High School through the close of the 2022-23 school year and student ID 1906-112747 to attend East Dover Elementary School through the close of the 2022-23 school year is there a so moved sec you have a motion by Mr Miller a second famous studying is there any discussion seeing no discussion we have a motion by Mr Miller a second by Miss nutting to approve um I am not going to go through that again but we know what we're voting on right there's no need for clarification okay Mr slam may we have a roll call please Miss Acevedo yes Miss Downs yes

236Miss Chrysalis yes Mr Miller yes Miss nutting yes Miss Phillips yes Mr Robles yes Dr Seiner yes Miss Mendez yes motion carries so much I'm glad that I'm the last one maybe it'll stick more um I wanted to encourage you my fellow board members to continue to prioritize your training capacities um recently Miss nutting Dr Seiner and myself reached a new level of knowledge by completing necessary training hours um for Dr Cena and I testing and was involved and successfully passing the requirements to become a verified Master board members and Miss nothing could you speak to your accomplishments since we weren't unable to touch base prior to tonight I have officially become a certified board member I will be receiving my award this year at one of our in jsba thank you I just wanted

237to applaud thank you for sharing that message and thank you Miss Visalus Dr singer and Miss nutting to your continued commitment to um becoming the best board member board members you can be thank you thank you much appreciated um is there any other item of new business before we move along to public comment Miss Acevedo should you be talking about the Dover Education Foundation because it's come up twice in uh the pilot project with the town and also with the Casa Verde Wellness cannabis store and I feel like we I don't know enough about the Dover Education Foundation you know just by the synopsis that we received about it so I think it would be in our best interest to know what this what this is thank you Miss Acevedo um I will start and

238then perhaps Dr McLaughlin can piggyback off of what I um share the Dover Education Foundation is in no way connected to the Board of Education um I know that recently at um Town Hall there have been some pilot agreements put forward that included the Dover Education Foundation as the beneficiaries of that pilot agreement and also gave them a privilege of meeting with our Board of aldermen to discuss I don't know what so I think I just need to make it very clear that there is no connection between our Board of Education and the Dover Education Foundation Dr McLaughlin is there anything that you like to add I know they are I think that's an important uh piece in Eddie Ed Foundation kind of works in a similar way for district they have their own board

239they have their own bylaws uh they uh they are basically uh philanthropic uh group that uh as part of their mission um serves or is dedicated to serving the educational Community um I I am a non-voting member of that so uh I I'm not a full member but a non-voting participant I guess that's what I would say uh and uh Mr rigliano is as well uh but we're there to help inform some of the needs of the district and if there are questions in that regard uh not to to perform any actions so I guess my um my hesitation in reporting out is that's not something that entity has uh asked me to do you know that's so I think that uh as and they are in their beginning um beginning stages a lot of

240this right now is uh an incorporation time uh you might know anybody who's been involved with the non-profit there's a lot of paperwork and a lot of registration that has to be done uh but certainly uh I think if if the board is is interested you know I will uh convey that uh to the uh to the Educational Foundation board and uh probably at this point they're going to say there's not much to share yet because they're just getting started but I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth and again I'm I'm not the spokesperson for that group so uh that's why I've not made it part of my reports uh I I'm sure as they they get going they'll be anxious to share what their activities are what they're all about um but

241I'll certainly uh indicate at our next meeting which by the way is not yet scheduled uh that um you know that that the board is uh is interested in the activities of the foundation Dr McLaughlin um with the um knowledge that you do have of the Dover Education Foundation um in their philanthropic work what um what can you share about what they plan to do with any money raised right yes they they have I sincerely not defined that yet the the activities of the foundation have been around its incorporation and uh and actually you know recruiting uh new board members that's that's really what they've been focused on um so um you know I've been at all the meetings and I know that at this point um I would say that just haven't gotten to

242that stage yet you know there's a this is the fourth Foundation I've been a part of in different school districts that I've been involved in um they're they're all pretty similar uh in terms of what their intentions are and how they do it you know sometimes um it all depends on you know uh the particular groups I've been in groups that have been heavy on active fundraising other ones that have depended on donations um but they act like a board you know and decide where the priorities are what they what they want to support and uh I think at this point it's it's early in that stage but um Miss Mullen is the president of of the Ed Foundation I will convey that that again that the board's interested and if let's see see what

243what the foundations board wants to do in terms of sharing out information so Dr McLaughlin for clarification the current makeup of the Dover Education Foundation has no um direct connection to any of the board of education's um Financial dealings correct that's correct correct um when the foundation originally came together there was a uh board member liaison that uh but that wasn't something it wasn't that that individual is no longer on the board of education they're actually on the Ed Foundation uh board um and I I have not been asked by the uh Foundation to ask the board for a liaison at this point I'm not saying they're not interested I just haven't been asked is there any other discussion I have a question Maybe for Miss Acevedo how did the confusion or the comment and

244end up in town regarding the Education Foundation and the Board of Education can you give me some background Ms Crystalis your guess is as good as mine I have no idea what's going on at Town Hall um no and no yeah yeah and I I don't know how um got connected to us I I don't know I don't know is there any other discussion okay is there any other item of new business okay so we are moving on to um public comment the board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters to ensure fair and orderly expression of such comment each statement shall be held to a time period of three minutes public comments not restricted to items on

245this agenda shall be entertained for approximately 30 minutes upon the discretion of the presiding officer for those who wish to provide public comment remotely a Google form was posted on the district website at 6 30 PM remote comments will be read by a member of the Board of Education the Board of Education will alternate between in-person and online comments please understand that public comment portions of our agenda are not structured as question answer sessions but rather they are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board the board may or may not respond to public comments however all comments are considered and will be investigated and addressed as appropriate please be courteous and mindful of the rights of others when providing comments comments may not be abusive obscene threatening or irrelevant please understand that

246students and employees have specific legal and privacy protections the board is not permitted to respond in public to comments about students or employees please be advised that you are commenting at your own risk any public comments that are directed at a particular individual or individuals could subject you to Legal liability for defamation public comment is now open is there any member of the public wishing to speak yes thank you um again Sue shower 346 West Clinton Street in Dover um the the first comment that I wanted to make is really just something to add to a little history again in Dover many many years ago zuffal Clinic was much smaller in than it is now and it has expanded quite a bit but the Dover district realized that we were having a problem getting services

247for students Health Services for students because the priorities of zoo fall also are to serve the entire town so in prioritizing that Dover students were having to wait and that was for a number of services some emergent and some were services that could be scheduled so that's when we started the practice of hiring an independent physician Clinic um for ourselves on a yearly basis and renewing that on a yearly basis um so there's that the second thing that I wanted to say um it was not mentioned tonight again the transportation costs for preschool is that any impact you mentioned a number of things that impacted an increase in our tax levy of um I think the the between the two numbers from last year to this year is about 2.3 million dollars and that equates

248to an increase for individual homeowners of about 144 000 on uh 144 dollars per year on the low side so it the the cost of 1.7 million that was mentioned in January About Preschool Transportation I didn't hear anything about that and I didn't hear any questions about that is that included in the 2.3 million dollar increase from last year to this year that's number one and then again to point out I hate to be the dead horse but to point out at an increase in taxes this year of about 144 on the low side um if we had piled that on top of a referendum increase of anywhere from seven to eight hundred dollars we would be closely touching the one thousand dollar increase a year for taxpayers and as Mr slam mentioned costs of

249everything have increased beyond the point where any of us could budget for what our increases are going to be in a month let alone a year so I thank you for mentioning now all of the options that you are looking into to secure additional space when we're needed for our students I appreciate that but let's keep in mind that our taxpayers were going to be impacted and were asked to be impacted let's not forget that when we when we search out New Alternatives as to where we can go in the district thank you thank you Miss shower who has the online we don't have any okay so is there any member of the public in person wishing to make a comment nope and so we have nothing online and no one in person okay so

250public comment is now closed um Miss Mendez I just want to clarify that the um online someone has access to it right I don't anymore I think Dr McLaughlin currently can see it okay yeah thank you there's nothing there um Miss shower I just want to uh reiterate that any um decision regarding addressing our space needs or referendum or any of those things going forward will involve the community from the very beginning I just want to make sure that um I share that with you Mr slam really quickly are you able to um address the comment about the preschool transportation funds uh yes so last year or the current year was 1.7 million was the number that you were referencing which I had referenced in a prior uh meeting uh so part of our effort

251to lower that number is trying to take someone with more of those Rats on in-house um so right now we're projecting about 1.5 million for the preschool transportation thank you um are no other comments right I will now um entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting at 11 01 PM oh wow you are all ready um I have a motion by Mr Miller uh second by Miss nutting all in favor say aye aye any opposed meeting is adjourned good night everyone if you can help and clean up