001order due to the covid 19 health emergency and in order for the board of education to conduct its business this board meeting is being held via video conference and streamed live on youtube on the district website at www.ebnet.zoom.org in addition members of the public may provide comment at this meeting through zoom by entering the url meeting id and password you see before you on the screen upon joining the meeting your participation will be muted to ensure that there is no disruption to the business being conducted by the board of education will the secretary please call the role mr corrangelo mrs chu here mr sismar here mrs guass mr hong kia mrs lax here mrs reese here mr winston here president becker here we have a quorum please rise to salute the flag i pledge allegiance
002the new jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed in accordance with the provisions of this act the east brunswick board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published and posted at the board of education offices written notice was also provided to the sentinel the newark star ledger the home news interview and the principal clerk of east brunswick all board of education meetings with the exception of executive session discussions or video tape related broadcasts and individuals who speak at the board's public meetings should be aware of these videotaping rules good evening thanks for joining us tonight we'll start off tonight with our superintendent's report
003dr valesky thank you president becker good evening everyone on friday february 26 our district nurses called a denim day with the american heart excuse me victor dr valesky i'm sorry somebody needs to write themselves we're getting a lot of background noise thank you so much sorry that's all right i'm going to start over on friday february 26 our district nurses held the denim day to support the american heart association a total of 2 305 was raised and i'm gonna go off script here for just a second um i had the chance to thank our nurses for all their work at an administrators meeting we held earlier and i want to publicly thank our nurses and our school security officers who have been our front line throughout this entire endeavor and they continue to be and
004without them you know our return to school would would just be impossible so i want to thank them all for everything they do to provide a safe and healthy environment for all of us you're here our fifth graders are participating virtually this year in the law enforcement against drugs or lead program in 2019 officer reggie wright of the east brunswick police department implemented the lead program for all fifth graders in the east brunswick school district the program is an unparalleled prevention education and character development program the lead program plants the seeds of a healthy living and eating lifestyle the curriculum used for the program developed by the mendez foundation is called too good for drugs this evidence-based skill building program makes a positive impact on the students teachers parents and the entire community the 10
005week program consists of 10 lessons the first five lessons are skill development and the second five lessons are skill application just a reminder once again schools will be closed for spring break monday march 29th through friday april 2nd and this is coming from the new jersey travel advisory and one one that we have stated previously if you travel overnight to any u.s state or territory beyond the immediate region in the immediate region is defined as the state of new york the state of pennsylvania the state of delaware and the state of connecticut you will be required to quarantine from school for 10 calendar days after your return evidence of a negative covet test proof of a vaccine or proof of a positive cova test result in recovery within the past 90 days cannot be accepted
006as a substitute for the mandatory 10-day quarantine and this is being driven by multiple coveted variants emerging outside of new jersey and the fear of the department of health that they be brought back in the borders of the state for our staff if you plan to travel you must contact human resources in advance of your departure with dates destination and travel documents human resources will advise those staff who have voluntarily elected to travel compliance with the 10-day calendar quarantine is mandatory to prevent the spread of covet 19 in east brunswick schools if you plan to travel to any state outside of new jersey and return the same day with no overnight stay you do not need to quarantine if you are symptom free i'm going to say that one more time if you travel to
007any state outside of new jersey and return the same day with no overnight stay you will not have to quarantine if you remain symptom-free and students who elect to travel under all the aforementioned conditions will be required to participate virtually and cannot come into their school buildings before they fulfill the 10-day required quarantine so some of you are asking why is this so important and this goes to what i communicated earlier today based on a really strong assumption that the cdc will relax recommendations for distancing in school settings before april 19th i am planning to return pre-k to 12 students who for families who selected to school five days session format beginning monday april 19th which is the first day of the fourth marking period the impact of spring break travel covet infection and closed
008cap contact quarantines along with the final classroom distancing recommendations and requirements that may be in effect before our forecasted implementation will be driving our decision but be assured that returning students to school five days a week remains one of the school boards and my top priorities if we can accomplish it safely the learning model form for the fourth marking period will be open and parent access to change selections for every student on monday that's next monday march 22nd at 3 pm and the learning model form will close next friday march 26th at 3 p.m and all those changes will go into effect monday april 19th the first day of the marking period and this is your last opportunity to make a selection for a change in the learning model for this school year thank you
009thank you dr valeski so just to clarify for our parents if their child is currently in the full remote model but they would like to return them to the hybrid for the five day a week single session they will have an opportunity to do that next week and vice versa absolutely if you if you don't do anything so if you're if your child is currently in our hybrid learning model and don't do anything they are going to be moved to our in-person instruction model five days a week if you do not want your hybrid student to go to school five days a week and would rather they stay home in the virtual environment you'll need to go into the learning model or learning model selection form and pick the virtual option otherwise if you are
010currently virtual you want to remain virtual you don't have to do anything but if you're virtual and you would like your children your child or children to come back to school five days a week you'll need to select that change in the learning model forum okay and um okay thank you question sure oh um just for clarification because i've heard two different things if the students are going to be in school for the five days and a student either isn't feeling well if whatever reason is virtual for a day or remote for a day do they still call in or is their attendance noted when they show up online we're going to treat attendance as if well students who are attending the five day a week in person model we are going to follow our
011attendance policy so we're not going to give students the opportunity to come to school um you know like three days and decide to take a virtual day and then come back it'll be normal you know uh parent um you know excuses uh for medical conditions or appointments or things like that just as if everybody was in school okay now but my que of course they want to be in there but i'm saying like so the kid wakes up isn't feeling well the beautiful thing is now normally you'd keep them home from school if they have a fever or something like that so it used to be if your kids signed in they were in attendance so you're saying if they're on the five day that a parent would have to notify the school that their
012child is going to be doing the virtual learning yeah if they're if they're going to they would have the option if they are sick if you call in and say you know my child's not feeling well today but they they feel well enough to participate in the virtual component talk to the your child's principal and then we'll have an arrangement we'll figure out the details so they can move between the two we just don't want to give the opportunity for students to say i'm going to attend um the face-to-face person-to-person option because we have set aside seats we have figured everything out in terms of spacing and and then have them self-select that they're going to take a day off and go into the virtual learning model so that is we want parents to make
013that selection up front we want students to comply with that selection and obviously if there's an issue with illness and appointment some other family issue just as we normally would during the school year great than that just communicate with the building thanks laurie thank you dr valeski absolutely so the next item on our agenda is a tentative budget presentation for fiscal year 2022. i just want to remind the board um the tentative budget adoption is one stop if you will along the process that is the budget development it is a tentative adoption required by the state by a certain date however we are continuing to develop the budget and make changes right through we finally approve it in may so tonight what you are adopting is literally a tentative budget that we are working from
014so please don't feel that if you vote to adopt the tentative budget whatever you vote on tonight we are tied to again we still have the opportunity i know the finance committee will be meeting a lot things will be brought to the full board we still have the opportunity to make changes um right through may so without any further ado bernie can i assume that you're going to be doing the presentation yes so thank you mrs becker and good evening everyone um this is the first stop on the path as uh mr becker noted uh toward an adoption of the budget uh this tentative budget uh will begin with the review of state aid so what you see before you is a um historical uh chart of uh state aid and what has happened over
015the years we received an increase in state aid for next year which is attributed to two things one is enrollment specifically to support uh increases in enrollment and uh implementing the state funding formula which is embedded in the law for many years as i think we can see from this chart the state has not followed implementing the law for funding schools the last two years they have begun to implement that i think one of the things that's important to note is for the years beginning with the year that we dropped off in fiscal year 2011 that was a year that we had very significant cuts in in the district uh we had lost 100 positions i lost a um recognized world language program uh the charter school uh was first instituted and from that point
016forward for many years state aid remained virtually flat if we use 2010 as the benchmark and were to say well what if that 2010 benchmark had remained at the same level through those years the state would have provided an additional 22.3 million dollars just to keep level funding at that point in time so the district has had to shoulder a significant amount of the funding and has struggled over the years with how to best provide the programs and services to students when we jump forward to 2021 you'll see that there are two bars listed the first bar in blue reflects the original state aid on which the board adopted a final budget however due to the pandemic the governor had a second uh budget that came forth with making modifications and those modifications took effect
017in july after a final budget was adopted and as a result what happened was state aid was reduced by close to two million dollars after we had adopted a budget and so what the board had to do at that time was fill the gap and that gap was filled through uh one-time revenue sources as well as some reductions in uh cost areas so i think that's an important anomaly because uh that is something that uh is very easily forgotten and our real jump off point from the current year was at 22.2 million dollars moving forward let's talk about the budget impacts so what has impacted the the overall growth in the in the budget um so one of the things is the custodial and transportation savings that we had from covet 19. in balancing the
018budget for fiscal 21 we anticipated savings of approximately nine hundred and forty thousand dollars that went to offset the budget and provide additional funding that was a one-time occurrence that does that is not a recurring level of funding and so that no longer exists moving forward when we look at then on the next level uh the enterprise revenue our enterprise revenue has been very low if even at all existence during this period of time uh however we are anticipating some enterprise revenue into next year's budget however the differential is approximately 790 thousand dollars so that is a detriment to uh fulfilling the bottom line when we look at our ongoing costs collective bargaining contractual salary commitments that's an increase of approximately 2.59 million dollars health benefits projected at a net increase of approximately two hundred
019thousand dollars transportation services at approximately 340 000 increase facilities maintenance approximately 560 000 increase charter schools at 420 000 increase and insurance overall at approximately a one hundred thousand dollar increase these various budget impacts uh equal approximately six million dollars in terms of charter school i think it's also uh very important to note and and i i usually bring this up whenever we talk about budget but i think it's extremely important to note the impact that charter schools have had upon the district's budget this chart reflects the history going back to 2009 uh of the annual appropriations that are mandated by the state that the district must set aside to pay for charter schools in 2011 that was a significant impact to the district with the opening of the charter school in town since that
020time you see an ever increasing amount of money that is allocated to the charter school so even in times when there may have been slight increases in state aid most of that money was going toward the charter school overall since 2011 through the current budget for 2022 the district has appropriate appropriated mandatorily 29.2 million dollars toward the charter school that is money that has come out of the taxpayers pockets and that is to fund a charter school and as we've said many times um a charter school that's simply not required in this town not with the cadre of uh educational opportunity that we have in our district the tentative budget is at 170.7 million dollars it is in balance at this point in time uh it represents approximately a 3.79 increase over the original budget
021for fiscal 21. the general fund tax increase is two point almost 2.6 million dollars the debt service fund taxes will be reduced for next year resulting in a net tax increase and a composite increase of 1.69 percent key budget dates the public hearing on the budget is set for may 7th final adoption of the budget may 15th uh i remind the board that no later than the public hearing may any changes to the budget being made that is the final opportunity for the announced uh changes if there were to be any and of course uh as we always do we will make all budget materials available on the district website uh i anticipate that those will be posted i would say by monday at the latest and here's the information where that information will be
022available and that concludes the introduction of the tentative budget which the board will be voting upon this evening bernie why you still have the screens up you're faster than me i had a question on i believe it was a second screen budget impacts it was a list of budget impacts yes thank you these are things that are affecting the budget now not projections for the next fiscal year correct these are items that that um bring us to the differential on um from this year to next year so i know that there have been uh there may have been some questions regarding uh the increase in state aid and the increase in taxes but uh when we tally up these various components uh these components tally up to essentially the different uh what that what that
023dollar amount comes out to so when you say that transportation services is increasing 340 000 that is from the next fiscal year to this current year yes and is that because we really had decreased service this year no uh it is uh we're we will be we are looking at increases in costs for contracted services this is strictly looking at contracted services um which will uh likely go up a pro i'd say roughly two percent perhaps a little less than two percent okay yeah i was just trying to figure out that number okay thank you um if you wouldn't mind putting us back in gallery view and i'm gonna open uh for any questions anybody any board members have any questions at this time i don't see anybody okay thank you very much bernie a
024lot of uh things to consider and think about the budget book is online bernie it will be uh online by monday okay so yeah um lots of homework to do okay but it is available to all the board members the board members do have that information by the way yes we still have a lot of homework to do whether we do it today monday it's a lot a lot to take in a lot of decisions coming thank you thank you so much for that presentation it now brings us to the good of the cause of the public members of the public may provide comment at this meeting through zoo by entering the url meeting id and password provided before you on the screen in order to be recognized use the chat feature select the zoom
025meeting host then enter and send your name to the host you will be recognized to speak when your name is called and individuals will be invited to speak in the order in which we have received your request the board of education recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves in order to permit the fair and orderly expression of such comment the board shall provide a period for public comment at every meeting of the board and participants will be limited to three minutes duration is there anyone wishing to address the board we do not have anyone waiting in the queue okay seeing none i will close the public portion moving on to our agenda tonight we have one item on our curriculum agenda
026can i please have a motion for item number one contract institute for multi-sensory education so moved moved by laurie second by libra is there any discussion all those in favor aye opposed a shade motion carries there's an echo again i'm going to urge anyone at home who's watching to please make sure that you are new thank you moving on to our facilities agenda there is one item can i please have a motion for certificate certificate of substantial completion say that three times fast move by lori second second by leewoo is there any discussion all those in favor aye opposed abstain motion carries moving on to our financial services can i please have a motion to combine items one through ten tell me move by laurie second second by heather is there any discussion this is
027a roll call vote will the secretary please call the role mrs chu yes mr sismar yes mrs guass yes mr hong yes this is lax yes reese yes mr winston yes this is and uh president pepper yes motion carries we have one item on our food services agenda contract addendum our mark services can i please have a motion for this no moved moved by laurie second by barber is there any discussion barbara was that a wave uh it was a second it was a sign a second no question okay just want to make sure okay all those in favor aye opposed hi abstain motion carries on our hr agenda tonight we have two items can i please have a motion for items one and two so moved move by lorry second second by levo is
028there any discussion will the secretary please call the role mrs chu yes mr sismar yes mrs gloss yes mr hong yes this is lex yes this is rhys yes mr winston yes and president becker yes motion carries for a student services agenda can i please have a motion to combine items one through five move by laurie second by barbara is there any discussion will the secretary please call the roll this is true yes mr sismar yes yes mr hong yes this is lex yes mrs reese yes mr winston yes president becker yes motion carries there is one item on our transportation agenda can i please have a motion for joint transportation agreement with burlington county special services school district moved by jeff second second by levu is there any discussion all those in favor opposed
029obscene motion carries lou i believe our student rep is with us tonight is that what you have told me tony so good to see you so nice to see you again mr president becker mrs president becker call me you can just call me mrs it's okay um how are you what's going on in our high school i'm very good uh a lot of seniors are also very good and a lot of students in general are just very good the upcoming spring break always puts people in a good mood um as in terms of seniors specifically a lot of seniors have begun committing and it's so nice to see all of my friends uh get some acceptances back and start committing um and then those who haven't are awaiting decisions which are going to be coming
030kind of in bulk in the next two weeks so it's going to be an eventful two weeks for a lot of seniors and those of you who for those who also haven't committed um a lot of them will be visiting colleges especially if there were wasn't the opportunity to visit them over the summer in this upcoming spring break so uh also when they return they have to follow the guidelines um outlined by dr valeski earlier in this meeting about quarantining if they visited out of state um in terms of students not just seniors some students are even getting vaccinated which is exciting because that increases the chance that they'll return for the fourth quarter and a lot of seniors are considering returning for the fourth quarter because you know it's their last opportunity to be
031in the high school and um it's it's a nice opportunity especially if uh we get to go in more frequently so we get to get a little bit more face time with the teachers um and then some events are occurring virtually and in person um two are occurring within the next two days which is one of them is science honor society's trivia night which is a whole virtual event that's not just for ebhs students but for middle schoolers so it brings together all people who are interested in science and uh and it's nice to see that virtual event occur and then international club is also hosting class of cult clash of cultures um which is just another event to highlight our diversity and then in terms of in-person events you know everyone's always excited about
032prom addresses are being bought you know as the details slowly and gradually roll out people get more and more excited so that's nice to see and um it's nice because we're kind of returning more and more every day to normalcy and especially if we have like a may first deadline of people getting vaccinated then it's nice to see everyone just get back to normal may i ask without sounding intrusive if you have received an acceptance and made a decision yet or no i haven't made a decision but i have received a few acceptances most of my decisions are coming within the next two weeks so a lot of colleges say late march and early april but yeah i'm i i have a few acceptances and i'm still waiting on a lot of schools though the
033bulk of my schools i would say about 75 are coming in mid late march well we'll keep our fingers crossed and hope that you certainly get good news and i i have to give you and um all your fellow students not just on the high school the entire district so much credit um for um you for getting coming up here to our meetings and being cheerful and optimistic and up and reporting and this has taken a tremendous toll on everybody and our students as they always do are resilient and rise to the occasion i'm sure you have some days that are not as good but uh i just give you so much credit for um accomplishing what all of you have so that being said president becker could i say one thing tony i just
034wanted to pass on to your classmates the senior class you know my sincere appreciation for being so resilient this year and you know it's a year we we cannot replicate um but as we approach the end of the year we're going to make our best efforts to try to make the remainder of your senior year as as memorable as we can and i think we're all committed to that but a lot of credit goes to you your families for being so resilient and every east brunswick family every east brunswick student but um our seniors we're going to send them off at graduation on the football field and so i just wanted to send my congratulations on your your accomplishments your class accomplishments and um i can't remember when i was in high school i don't
035think i was waiting on a bulk of my acceptance letters i think it was probably just a couple not a bulk you know so congratulations to you thank you dr goliski dr velesky i know i'm putting you on the spot a little here but um is there anything that you're able to share with us at this point about uh plans for the seniors for the rest of the year or you'd rather wait until you have uh more details um i can share with you that that we are planning to have graduation on our football field and i think that was kind of revealed through board actions previously there are a number of other activities we're still working out the details on and making sure that we are compliant can comply with the governor's directives and
036executive orders at that time we expect there probably will be some changes forthcoming even before we dismiss for spring break and certainly after we come back from spring break so as we have more definitive plans we'll be we'll be sure to share with the community and with the board um but graduation is is assured that we're going to be on the on our football field for this year i was a little intrigued when tony mentioned dresses are being ordered for the prom of course you are i just but president becker i think you alluded to the fact that you were planning to go to any said prom in your former prom attire that's that's true tony i watched tony's face contort and i thought that was just that was cruel um thank you so much
037for that reminder of my faux pas dr velasquez greatly appreciate it um i can tell you my talks went back to the place i rented it from and i never saw it again yes i'm sure they had taxes back then but i i suppose something similarly um anyway i um i i actually wasn't asking about me i i was just curious if there were any details you could share with the prom or they haven't been finalized yet they are still being worked on okay okay thank you and by the way i'm going with lou so tony roulette okay on to committee reports information items and for the good of the cause for the board anybody have anything for us tonight i'm looking i'm looking i don't see hands raised thumbs raised so i'm going to
038assume no jeff how's the finance committee going we've been living it every week we've had uh right here on the board what more what more words can one add than what we've seen the uh in the last i don't know bernie what six meetings uh relevant to uh to that list what i will say is that the process has been very enlightening and the work of each department that has done staying on point with budget with all of the challenges that mr giuliani mentioned and and coming up with the budget and that they did with the things that go in that budget the tangible things i i mean i absolutely uh i'm in awe of of the work of each department and the presentations that they gave concise on point and uh the product what
039was brought then to the board stands for my statement you saw you saw what they did and i and i heard it so definitely a big shout out to that crew and uh nicely done thank you jeff i i particularly mentioned finance because i wanted to toot the board's horn for a minute i don't know if the public realizes um yes we meet uh every other thursday but the this board spends a tremendous amount of time in committees particularly something like the finance committee which meets almost once a week between january and may um and i tip my hat to all of you just your your efforts and your dedication and commitment to this district is incredible and the amount of time you're all giving is incredible so thank you so if nobody has anything
040else we do have a need for a closed session the board of education must discuss matters which are not appropriate for discussion in public meeting and these subjects that we intend to discuss are as follows those items listed in tonight's agenda the length of the closed session is estimated to be one hour after which a public meeting of the board shall reconvene in action will not be taken can i please have a motion to go into closed session move by laurie second second second by netherley wu heather heather by your nose all those in favor all right bye-bye oh i'm sorry any discussion all those in favor opposed abstain motion carries thank you for joining us tonight board members please log out of this meeting and log into uh closed session good night tony thanks
041again for joining us you