001good evening uh prior to us logging into this zoom meeting the board met through a different zoo link for a closed executive session where our meeting was called to order tonight we start with um a hit public hearing on our budget but before we start there i just want to ask our board attorney mark toscano to verify that everything that's listed on our agenda as far as closed session topics is accurate and up-to-date does that reflect what we discussed does there's no auditions tonight okay thank you so we will begin now uh with our public hearing on the 2021 2022 budget and for that i will turn it over to our superintendent dr david adelholt and thank you michelle and good evening everyone i'm just going to share a screen uh to for members of
002the public annually the board of education is required to go through a process with respect to a public hearing for the official board adoption of the budget um we start each year with a just a reminder of our our mission statement to make sure that we're empowering all students to thoughtfully contribute to a diverse and changing world with confidence strength uh strength of character and love of learning and as we think about our budget we think of it in sort of these six buckets we think of it from the perspective of budget as a planning tool that it considers contingencies it manages risk it's financially responsible to the taxpayers it's a reflection of our values and it considers safeguards and buffers no one could have imagined in the 2019-2020 school year that we would be
003buying ppe um right so we we had to think of contingencies and make sure that we were being physically responsible to meet the budgetary but also the the safety needs of our community and same same goes true for the 2021 school year so we always have to be thinking forward about you know our we have to work within the constrains of the adopted budget as well um the budget has a budgetary process and timeline um and so we start our budget almost as soon as our budget is adopted for the following year and we do that through thinking through our staffing thinking through our programmatic spending looking at our curriculum instruction and we gauge in a series of conversations over months as we think forward for our program for the 22-23 school year budget meetings
004start in december officially as we have budget presentations between december and march the board adopted the tentative budget on march 9. the tentative budget is then sent to the county uh executive county superintendent uh the county executive county superintendent and the their budget staff review the budget they review and approve the budget once we have their approval we're allowed to then advertise the official budget which has been done and then here we are this evening for the official um official hearing i want to say thank you and recognize our business officials our business staff dr russo derek mead and the business staff at the board office and throughout the district with all the different budget managers building principals uh building secretaries that work with the budget um thanks to all of their hard work the
005district has for 12 consecutive years received their certificate of excellence for financial reporting from hasbo we also have received the meritorious budget for the last six years and there's a tremendous amount of work that goes into making sure that there's good processes in place the auditors for the last three years have had clean findings of the budget and just a real credit to our budget staff throughout the district a lot of uh times we forget that the district is also a very big organization with 1300 employees and over 220 million dollars of operating expenses and there's a whole business team that that works behind the scenes to make that all run from hr to personnel to accounts payable to transportation and food services so just a real credit to all that all those staff members
006this year not unlike others but we we do find ourselves in a position where we do have some increased tuitions uh from how to district costs um out of district students we are required again to meet the needs of our children and meet their needs through the ieps for our special education and sometimes that does mean that students need to be placed in programs outside of the district those outside programs have costs associated with them that they go up at specific sometimes specific rates and sometimes outside of those rates so this year we're seeing over six hundred thousand in additional tuition increases um this is year two under facilities of custodial contractual renewal uh we had been with a company called aramark we left our mark of may of last year we're just coming up
007on our one-year anniversary with abm abm transition has done a phenomenal job through the pandemic we're very pleased with their services at the same time abm came on they primarily moved to a cleaning program and we brought back over 20 staff to district with operations foreman mechanical hvac plumbing some of the trades electric and we also brought back our grounds team so those now district staff associated with our building and grounds department as well as outside custodial staff this year we changed mid-year to being self-funded um and so by being self-funded we're still with aetna but we do a lot more of the management work of the health care plan as a cost savings so that's some additional work that our business team has taken on but we also had a mid-year change in state
008health benefits this is a change that was done through code educators were allowed to look at their plans through open enrollment and make a determination whether or not they wanted to go to a plan that had a cost savings to the educators that cost savings to the educators did have some additional costs borne by the by the district that is not a function of the educators as a function of the plan so it is their right to select those plans so there are some additional costs that were a mid-year cost for the district that was unanticipated a budget this time last year but it also has some ongoing costs moving forward built within the budget so we do some additional health care costs built within the budget with special education there also is some programmatic
009growth and so you do have some additional staffing needs around special education with transportation and again um there's there's room both route renewal and there was approximately 50 routes in district that were not renewed uh renewals are when you you basically uh a outside vendor can choose to just do an automatic renewal or force a rebid if it's after a certain amount of time so we had just under 50 routes that had to go through a rebid so they did board some additional expenses so we had to put some extra money towards transportation and with special education programs there have been some new developments that have brought forward some additional students needing services and with that there are some out of district tuition routes that were additional costs um that we need to factor in
010further you do have your contractual salary increases for your affiliated and non-affiliated staff and as many know we have a lot of construction happening around the district the energy savings improvement program otherwise known as the esip is about 27 million dollars worth of work of energy savings throughout the district uh this is separate and apart from a referendum as you may know the ecip is done on a 15-year bond essentially at least purchase and so when you do that you have to start paying your annual expenses and so we are in year two of going into those costs um and when we are there we're ahead of the savings because it's still being implemented so we're we're paying for some of the work as the work's happening it's paying for some of the savings so
011we had to increase some of the monies to make sure that before we receive the full operational savings with respect to big picture uh items many of these i just spoke to so i won't repeat those but special ed healthcare costs capital projects is um each year we do some annual work around the district uh usually above and beyond or associated to the referendum or above and beyond the referendum and this year is no different uh technology in knowing no time more than the present have we seen the need to make sure that we're supporting our infrastructure supporting the number of devices making sure that our network is protected and our staff does a tremendous job with that we always look at staffing needs annually and last year we did um hold back on hiring
012over 20 budgeted positions and we also reduced a bunch of positions that we're working to re-establish in this year's budget transportation i noted uh salary and crisis i noted and then pp and health and safety we we do anticipate that the need for health and safety measures in the fall and over the summer and throughout next school year are still going to be in place whether with sanitation with with hand washing with masking with with temp checks and all the other components around some of the specialty equipment we need to buy for some of our more restrictive programs with some of the more close contact um some some specific special education programs that um have closer proximity um so there's some protective equipment that we bought from for staff um and students so we know
013where there's gonna be additional ppe in health and safety that we're going to have to consider throughout the year and while there's a current downtrend occurring in new jersey we also know that at any point we can see an upsurge and we need to be prepared for lots of different eventualities so whether making sure that we have one-to-one access for the fall is really important because we don't know what's coming at us um as we sit here in april um it's hard to predict what september will truly look like from a device perspective so we need to be ready with making sure there's a device for every child and staff member um so when you look at big picture uh expenditures uh health care uh a 500 000 increase salary uh negotiated uh salary increases
014of 2.27 million transportation we have a million dollars budgeted in technology there's 255 000 worth of additional devices added to the budget line is essentially adding one more grade level of devices into the budget building and grounds now you see the caveat of community education there our community education program has traditionally contributed 400 000 into each year's annual budget uh towards building in grounds as a contribution from the facility rentals and the programs that are run in the after school and early morning and summer programs this year however that program is running to really provide needed supports for families and we're running at a loss this year and so we are unable to make a direct contribution out of community ed as a result in the general fund budget we have an increase of 400
015000 in the building and grounds line specifically attributed to the loss of 400 000 contribution from community ed and then capital projects of 8.7 million of addition of capital expenses outside of um outside of any of the referendum work and i'll speak to that in a later slide as you see here the revenues that we can generate the district has a you may hear that there's a two percent allowance and that's two percent on the general fund tax increase uh there also is the ability for two different types of allowances one's called or spending growth limitation adjustments one's called on health care adjustment but with a change to state health benefits there is no health care adjustment and there's also the potential for an enrollment adjustment but enrollment adjustment requires a 10 increase in a
016given school year so there's no enrollment adjustment and then you have bank cap and what bank cap exists of is when you do not spend your spending with your full spending authority in a prior year upwards of three prior years you can roll that that spending authority forward this year we do use some of that spending authority from prior years to make this year's budget and then there is a state aid increase state aid is the other place where we can get funding a year ago in february we were notified of a state aid increase of around 1.1 in june after we created our budget we were we learned of a 779 000 reduction so we had to make a cuts in program in the end of june and july that 779 thousand dollars was
017re-established by the governor in his in his proposed budget and an additional 875 000 was provided in addition of that so in the paper they'll say it's a 1.655 million increase for a district from a budget to budget standpoint it's an 875 000 increase over where we were a year ago when we voted on the budget from the state aid perspective i say proposed budget because the the legislature approves the budget at the end of june and as we learned last year you could still lose funds after you award your budget some of the big category considerations i've spoken to some of these already so i'll go through these relatively quickly i mentioned the health care changes and the net impact for the new jersey educator health plan um the building and grounds year two
018uh transportation again about 50 routes not being renewed and going out through re-bid and there is a minimum wage increase that happens mid-year financial and operations are reference the ecep costs now there's two components to that there's one is the operational cost but there's also the cap reserve costs because when we budgeted the ecip originally the esip came in the terms of approximately as i said i believe it was around 27 million the district had a contribution to reach that goal um and that was because we chose some additional projects above and beyond what the savings would would um allow us to allow us to afford um so the district had to contribute uh additional funds and there's it was done over two budget cycles this is year two of the contribution um there are
019some additional insurance increases some additional retirement contributions and some additional health care costs retirement contributions some of the additional building and ground staff it just requires additional district contributions towards their retirement components special ed i referenced the district tuition increase again referenced over 600 661 additional routes were previously referenced and we do know that um there were disrupted programs this year for for many of our special education students and there's going to be some uh responsibility on behalf of the district to continue to to make sure that the educational programs were met and any educational services that weren't met that we do still have a forward responsibility for that will be determined through an iep review process so we do anticipate some additional cover 19 impacts around special education regarding staffing we referenced that there
020were vacancies due to the uncertainties held heading into 2021 we have added back some of the rift positions of elementary and support positions making being very mindful of next year's class sizes and also being very mindful of our intervention programs that we can provide for students also in the area of special education there were three and a half positions that were withheld from being funded that are reestablished in next year's budget school psychologist bcba which is a board certified behavior analyst occupational therapist and speech therapist reference capital projects prior the ease of payment uh there's some additional work at wyckoff that's being proposed in a phase uh an additional phasing uh in addition to the referendum um and so we are currently under review with that and more information will be forthcoming but we are
021budgeting the money there if the board chooses not to award that aspect of the project the money goes back to capital projects so this is allowing a budgetary allocation for both wykoff and additional library funds that if the board chooses not to award those projects those funds return to capital projects but the way the monies work and the process works you have to allocate it on the budget line otherwise you would not be able to bring that spending authority forward board always has a right not to award the projects there are various hvac projects built within a lot of motors and systems upgrades that have been identified in addition to the esep or cause of the esep work we found some burned out motors and some roof work that needs to be done around motors
022up there on a couple different projects and some work over one of the town center chillers that that is hvac related uh dutch neck there's outside doors for many of the um or many of the outside doors of dutch neck are in need of repair so there's some door replacements happening over there and some additional funds towards the libraries and these there's nine of the 10 libraries are to be completed through the referendum as you can imagine with the referendum one of the challenges we're seeing is the price of goods has skyrocketed recently if anyone's tried to do a local project a kitchen replacement a a bathroom a fence project and you've seen the cost of plywood you've seen the cost of supply and labor skyrocketing uh we're facing that with our bidding and so
023we are going to be very mindful of of the close out of the referendum over the next two years this is a very active summer with projects at community south grover is actually nearing completion ahead of schedule fire alarm work heating ventilation air conditioning or hvac work at millstone and high school north media centers should be occurring at dutch neck and millstone river the high school north projects are out to bid again and we have gone through the drc development review committee at plainsboro and next we'll head to the planning board at plainsboro on the wyckoff project before we can move forward with that project from a budget parameter standpoint again just an unknown every year it happens there we do not know what our prescription or healthcare costs will be as we have a
024mid-year renewal so we also have to protect ourselves in our budget to make sure that we can um absorb any kind of financial hit um as we're in motion with our budget and as i noted we had a 390 000 increase between january and june uh this year due to some changes in health care selections and at any point the district could see such kind of increases again because only about 30 percent of our staff made that allocation so we could still see larger financial impacts if more staff choose the educator healthcare plan that the state is now offering again going back to revenues um i mentioned the two percent in allowances then we have health care adjustments the enrollment adjustments both are none uh there's a bank cap allowance we have an expiring set
025of 621 000 in this year's budget if the board did not authorize that spending authority we would have to either cut additional programs um or we would lose those funds in perpetuity so this year's budget brings forward the utilization of the 621 thousand 243 dollars next year it would remain at approximately 392 000 but after the 2223 school year bank cap ceases to exist for wwp as there is no health care adjustment no enrollment adjustments and where our authorizations are have expired so after the 20 122 budget year or 2223 budget or excuse me the budget will only be allowed to go up at two percent and there will be um some difficult decisions ahead for the district um that we'll have to consider i mentioned the capital reserve projects and that's the 8.7 million
026of additional contributions um that comes from our capital reserve account um and i mentioned the state aid increase already when it comes to the enrollment in town just there's a slight increase for west windsor and a slight decrease for plainsboro and the reason why this is important is because our taxes are split across two fiscal years but also based in their split on the enrollment uh component so it just it just tells us how our tax base is split um we just wanna always take a look at the tax payer guide to educational spending now this is one of several data points on budget but we do think we deliver a an excellent an excellent educational product for a below cost value so we work really hard to to be efficient with our budget to
027use the dollars wisely and to honor our taxpayers but meeting the needs of our students and our staff and so it's just looking historically um from 1011 down you can see just the way the budget budget increases go um but you can see the total the total tax levy increases in the right hand column and you can see that this year we're at 2.37 percent slightly higher than 2021 but decreased from 2019 uh 2020. and the important component of this slide and this is about the allocation of revenues is is really uh slide uh line three here the total local funds 170 million in 2021 174 698 and 141 and 2122 differential of four million dollars um and a change of two point three seven percent if we look at five um budget categories that
028we just look at transportation increase of a million special services net increase of 644 technology net increase of 255 salaries net increase of 2.2 in finance and operations 766 um you're looking at five million in increased spending right right there um just on five budget categories um so when you look at that additional 4 million you add the 875 000 of state aid we're basically 5 million uh um 5 million up in categories and the local plus the state tax increase is just about 5 million and then there's some slight budgetary shifts across the board but you get a sense that we're we're using every the spending authority and and we have reason to do so with with the obligations we have in front of us um how does this impact the tax payer um
029in plainsboro on the average assessed home it's a net increase of approximately 177 uh dollars um in west windsor it's slightly higher at an average assessed increase of 266 dollars now one of the uh impacts there is west windsor had tax tax appeals in the tune of 37 million that impacted the tax base different the assessed value is different and that's why you see a slightly different impact to west windsor than plainsboro again tonight's budget comes forward with a 2.37 uh general fund budget to budget increase uh and that's the recommendation that was uh approved by the board on march 9th at the tentative budget instead the award we the budget we bring forward this evening as well i'm going to stop sharing screen and open up to members of the board for any questions
030it doesn't look like the board has any questions am i right all right thank you dr aderhold so that will close the public hearing and that brings us to our opportunity for public comment just on the budget we'll have two opportunities for public comment on everything else you want to talk about but right now we're going to just talk about the budget so the board invites thoughts and reactions on the 2021 2022 budget from members of our community who submitted written comments to the board secretary prior to the submission deadline for this meeting and from those who have signed up on the form to comment via video and or audio that was open and available on the district website up until the start of this opportunity for public comment on the budget any reading comments
031that were submitted prior to the deadline for this meeting will be read aloud by the board attorney for three minutes in accordance with board policy zero one six seven members of the public who did not submit written comments and who have signed up will be offered the opportunity to make their comments via video and or audio members of the public will not be permitted to submit both written comments and make additional comments via video and or audio each comment should be directed to the presiding officer not individual members of the board and must be made in accordance with the procedures and three minute time limit set forth in board policy zero one six seven if the comment extends beyond three minutes speakers will be asked to conclude their comments and may be muted by the
032moderator once an individual has finished their comment or their three minutes has expired their audio and video will be turned off by the moderator so dr adejol do we have any public comments on the budget and president we don't have anyone that submitted written comments we don't have anybody who's signed up to speak thank you so we will close that so at this time i need a motion to approve the 2021 2022 budget louisa and loy are there any questions or comments about the budget thank you chris hey we'll start with mr flares yes yes ho yes ms crook yes miss mckeon yes miss maliga yes mr whitfield yes missouri yes ms juliana yes ms cash yes thank you and our public hearing will adjourn um our student representatives have been very patient listening to
033our presentation on the budget so at this time i will turn it over to eddie and alison our high school north reps to hear what's going on over at high school north hi everyone good evening so i wanted to kick off today's report with a tonight show update and so it concluded on saturday april 17th this year and for a virtual show the viewership was pretty good we averaged actually around 250 viewers during the twitch stream and all profits generated from audience donations as well as sponsorships from local businesses will be donated to the emmanuel cancer foundation as for the end of the year event updates we have the nhs induction which is going to be on may 20th senior prom which is june 4th and jprom which is going to be june 12th and
034all three of these events are going to be in person and they're going to be taking place in this really nice marquee tent that's me coming up this week and as for graduation it's gonna be on june 18th and this year students have an opportunity to choose between two options so the first one is doing a virtual graduation which is a lot like the type of graduation we did last year and then there is an in-person option that opened up that's going to be held in the nj cure arena in trenton and that's actually where graduation happened in previous um pre-covered years and so it's good to see that some things are looking more like they did before covid and then lastly coming up this saturday actually is going to be senior college commitment slash
035declaration day and in celebration of this pictures of students in their college merch are going to be posted on the senior class class senior class council instagram and social media and then also the week leading up to the commitment day which actually happens to be this week is a senior spirit week and they're having themes like beach throwback and more okay that's all for me i'm gonna go ahead and hit it over to eddie thank you good evening everybody um as usual i just wanted to talk about some of our club updates so um our hsn climate team has recently conducted a survey whose results will be used to help the team design and implement program programs that promote a positive school culture and climate while addressing vulnerabilities for student learning our peer leader our
036peer leaders have been planning this year's mental health week as well as working on a video for next year's freshman orientation um our hosa team recently competed in hosa states on march 20th and march 21st and um out of all the competitors 16 students meddled and 12 of these students are advancing to the hosa international leadership conference additionally two of our high school north students have been elected into hosa state office so i just wanted to wish a huge congratulations to siddharth satish and prisha oza our med forum has been planning a panel call that will be taking place during the first week of may this call will feature a panel of pre-med and med students who will share their experiences during the application process as well as their general experiences for student council election
037executive board elections for the upcoming 2021 to 202 school year are taking place right now and class council elections will be taking place soon following the end of the executive board elections also third marking period ended on thursday april 12th and we will be currently and we are currently in the last market period of the school year and one final update on the spring sports season started recently and will be taking place until june 20th so that's it for me and i wish i hope everybody has a great rest of the evening thank you very much for your reports we really appreciate it and your patience tonight that brings us to the first opportunity oh no before i go there uh dr admiral do you have anything else you'd like to talk about at this
038point i can wear out an audience so i'll just simply say that um uh thank you to our student reps for their patience through the the budget um uh presentation uh there are some recent changes with the governor with respect to capacity limits primarily outdoor capacity limits that we're currently evaluating the department of ed just issued some interviewer guidance around graduations most of it's just see someone else's updates but they issued something so we have something to look at so we'll be doing that um this week it doesn't really change most of our planning because of the outside tent marquee that the the district supported that is uh going up as allison noted um it started going up today um so it's an 80 by 310 foot tent um that will allow us to do
039a lot of the outside events for end of year activities for our high school north high school south uh students with award ceremonies induction ceremonies musicals um in a in a safer environment with the outside air flow and socially distanced um also of course graduation as allison noted um we are taking precautions and making sure that we have um both videotape component caps and gowns that south went out today i know north is working on it so that we can do the videotape submissions like we did last year at the end of the year as well as an in-person component we know not everyone will be comfortable we want to make sure that we have a way to recognize all of our students in case some students are not comfortable participating in person but we
040also want a backup plan quite honestly because prom is about 11 days in front of graduation and should there be some kind of super spreader event um whether at prom or uh in the and the after events we want to make sure there is official way to celebrate our students so we have multiple pathways going here to make sure that we can celebrate our seniors one way or another um we of course we hope that everything goes off without a hitch but we want to make sure in a time period of covid that we we we don't take any chances here um and i do want to also just recognize our equity leadership team and the work at anthony jones and student work student reps and clubs and activities at both north and south and
041middle schools with preparing for uh the month of may with aap pi recognition as asian american pacific islander month for the month of may there'll be programming occurring at both schools with assembly opportunities guest speakers and specifically want to just recognize some of our clubs our high school north chinese club high school south chinese club or high school south asian diversity initiative or high school south korean student union a high school north sassa or high school south sassa all organizations have been involved in helping to plan events at the high school level and working with our club and activity advisor so thank you all for the work they're doing in recognition of aapi month coming up in may thank you thanks for them so first opportunity for public comment the board invites thoughts and reaction
042on agenda items and items of concern from members of our community who submitted written comments to the board secretary prior to the submission deadline for this meeting and from those who have signed up on the form to comment but via video and or audio that was open and available on the district weapon site up until the start of this first opportunity for public comment any written comments that were submitted prior to the deadline for this meeting will be read aloud by the board attorney for three minutes in accordance with board policy zero one six seven members of the public who did not submit written comments and who have signed up will be offered the opportunity to make their comments via video and or audio members of the public will not be permitted to submit both
043written comments and make additional comments via video and or audio each comment should be directed to the presiding officer not individual members of the board and must be made in accordance with the procedures and three-minute time limits set forth in board policy zero one six seven if the comment extends beyond three minutes speakers will be asked to conclude their comments and may be muted by the moderator once an individual has finished their comment or their three minutes has expired the their video and audio will be turned off by the moderator this public comment period shall be limited to 60 minutes we don't have anyone that's signed up to speak at that meeting but we do have one written comment okay thank you so if it's okay i'll read the written comment perfect uh the written
044comment tonight comes for jennifer richards uh and the comment is the special education parent community in wwp is eager to see the giraffe report from the program review that was recently completed but as we all know a report is simply that document and the real meaning happens when actions take place based on what was learned we all know that there are improvements to be made to better serve our special needs students wwp special education parent teacher student association or sepsa looks forward to working closely with the district administration on examining the recommendations from this review and identifying how best to move forward and actually improve how special education services are delivered in wwp we believe that the parental leadership is absolutely critical in ensuring that this review does not simply sit on a virtual shelf
045but is used in a meaningful way and was worth a significant effort everyone put into it we are excited to read the draft report when it comes to the board in the next few weeks but are more excited to roll up our sleeves and work with james earl karen slagle and the special ed special services staff to make wvb the best district possible for all our students especially students with ieps thank you jennifer that will close our first opportunity for public comment uh now it's time dr adele do you have anything i i could simply say we're eager to read the report as well so we have not received it um but we have worked with with pcg which is a consultant we sent forward a uh timeline to work on building an action plan
046so that when the report is publicly made available in september and we'll have a public presentation at the september board meeting that will have an action plan that will be representative with uh parent involvement staff involvement administrative involvement and we appreciate the the comments from steps i look forward to working with them through the process thanks so at this time we're going to hear from our committee chairs to get the committee reports we begin with the administration and facilities committee and for that i will turn it over to tony flores thank you uh administration and facilities met on april 20th as usual we began with a uh update provided by dr adelholt uh concerning the progress of virtual and hybrid school operations he shared that the return uh for more students to in-person instruction is
047going well approximately 65 65 of the students remain on virtual instruction and about 35 percent are attending school in person as we enter the fourth quarter the district is preparing for an increase in student activities and award ceremonies as was mentioned before a large tent at high school north will be installed in order to ensure the ability to hold events such as the national honor society induction high school musicals junior prom prom and a variety or other variety of other district events the district also continues to review schedules in order to develop the four master schedules and safely accommodate more students and staff on grounds some of the challenges include implementing the current social distancing requirements and managing large lunch groupings particularly at the high school level then we discussed policies and regulations revisions you'll
048see on your agenda this first reading for policies concerning employment of support staff members political contributions student records and uh recruitment by special interest groups uh the changes made are relatively minor their really driven by the change of the uh the new every student succeeds act uh replacing the no child left behind uh act and most of their changes are just references to the new laws also on your agenda for uh the second reading and we recommend their approval uh during the voting portion of the meeting uh revisions to the earned sick leave law every student succeeds act uh title one fiscal responsibilities student surveys analysis and or evaluations every student succeeds act complaints for policy and for the regulation and again as was mentioned at our last meeting those changes are mostly driven by
049uh changes to the law and references to different code sections and terms and doesn't really affect the way the district does business also on your agenda tonight is uh the avid contract for the 2021 2021-2022 school year avid stands for advancement via individual determination and is a program that supports students with high academic potential that are in need of targeted supports and intervention the program is being phased in over four years and a new ninth grade cohort is identified each academic year and then we got an athletic an update on athletics and the spring athletic season has begun with athletics returning to middle school student to the middle school students at grover and community students at high school south and high school north have begun competitions health protocols are being strictly enforced unfortunately the district
050had to quarantine the north girls lacrosse team through a positive covert 19 case additionally the district has concluded the interview process for the head football coach and is recommending the hire on tonight's agenda the district expects to open athletics fully for the fall 2021 season concerning the special education review the district consultant public consulting group has completed data collection for all special education reviews this past week the members of the administration and pcg began working on a timeline to charge an action planning committee pcg plans to deliver a draft report to the administration in may concerning the referendum dr adaval provided a general overview of all the projects the highlights including a review of high school south grover middle school and community middle school expansion projects hvac heating ventilation air conditioning upgrades at north and
051millstone river with various components of the project on making substantial progress the grover edition is targeted for completion by june of this year uh phase two of the south renovations and additions are progressing well with the remaining utility and earthwork being addressed this spring work on the playhouse is predominantly above the ceiling at the catwalk level and electrical work for lighting power uh lighting and power for the theatrical equipment is progressing demolition has been substantially completed at the library child growth and development room and the guidance child study team area uh also on that tuesday the district architect and dr atohold uh presented the wyckoff elementary expansion to plainsboro's development redevelopment review committee the committee's authorized the project to move forward to the plainsboro planning board concerning equity the diversity equity inclusivity coordinator mr anthony
052jones continues to collaborate with staff and students to implement events for women's history month across the district planning continues regarding pan-asian american heritage month in may and structures to build a strategic plan for the implementation of strategic goal for the equity goal are underway and to that end the leadership team and subcommittees have been named to develop the next steps finally we reviewed a revised job description for the media specialist job and the committee recommends its approval on tonight's meeting at tonight's meeting uh next meeting is scheduled for may 18th are there any questions okay seeing as there doesn't look to be any questions i will now turn it over to dana krug who'll give us the report coming out of the curriculum committee hello good evening um the commit the curriculum committee also met
053on tuesday april 20th um rich steck the joined us he's the district k-12 science supervisor and he shared the vetting process for selecting a new textbook for the high school science class descriptive astronomy after several textbooks from various publishers were vetted by the teachers who teach this course openstax was selected because of its alignment with the district's strategic goal work and its ability to support teaching and learning in astronomy next melissa pearson also joined us she's the k the district's uh k5 math supervisor and she said shared a new math resource called foundational math this too was vetted this time by a team of elementary building leaders supervisors teacher resource specialists and basic skills math teachers who met with the vendors they reviewed the print resources in digital format student resources and manipulatives online tools
054and other digital resources the team recommended bridges in in math in mathematics program the comprehensive program includes components for number number routines rich tasks rich texts investigations and explorations to support the development of deep mathematical understanding all resources to support the philosophy and structures of math workshop the committee recommends the adoption of bridges foundational math resource for elementary grades k to 5. the implement implementation will be a multi-year progression starting with kindergarten first and fifth grade in year one which would be next year to 21 22 of the of the rollout next the committee recommends approval of the preschool summer virtual camps which are being offered by community ed the committee also recommends approval of an agreement with northwest evaluation association to supply the web-based web-based measures of academic progress or many of us know
055as map in math reading and language arts assessments for students in english and also in spanish the cost of the materials through next year june of 2020 two is approximately it's just under 62 um the committee also recommended approval of several professional development opportunities all which will be virtual uh three staff members to attend a one week teachers college summer reading institute in either july or august at a cost of 850 each one staff member to attend a one week teachers college summer writing institute in august at a cost of 8.50 and one staff member to attend a one week teachers college summer phonics institute in august also at 850 and three staff members to attend a one day diversity equity and inclusion rutgers university workshop in in may at a cost of two hundred
056dollars per person our next committee meeting date is tuesday may 18th thanks dana does anybody have any questions about the curriculum report all right i'll turn it over now to get the finance committee's report and for that i'll turn it to louisa ho thank you the finance committee had a virtual meeting on tuesday april 20th first the committee reviewed agenda items for today's meeting staff briefed the committee on the budget hearing to be held today also the committee reviewed the finance section of the board agenda staff shared the monthly financial reports and indicated that no lines are overexpended or under and there are sufficient funds to complete the year the budget is tracking similarly to prior months with a 4.98 reduction in the total amount of the budget spent to date the reduction is due
057primarily to self-funding health care and the lag in processing monthly claims and that the district is holding some positions vacant there are several motions on the upcoming agenda for referendum purchases including state contract purchases of door controllers and communication devices including installation at cms cooperative purchase agreements for audio video communication and science equipment for cms and grover also included is the cooperative purchase of 2700 dell chromebooks as part of our technology refresh this represents refl placement chromebooks for three grade levels three change orders are included on the agenda two for salt storage sheds and one for the high school south site work also there is a motion to dispose of obsolete equipment the majority of the finance section of the agenda consists of transportation items there are many motions to renew transportation contracts within the
058allowable consumer price index increase of 1.69 for the 2021-22 school year there is also a quote for a special ed route and various transportation jointers finally there are requests for approval of several virtual workshops and conferences for staff members after this the administration discussed the next steps for the 2122 budget administration will meet with plainsboro municipal officials next tuesday to discuss the budget hardcopy a copy of the final budget calendar was shared with the committee the public hearing will be virtual and take place on april 27th tonight the net taxable value of west windsor decreased by more than 37 million for the tax impact calculation in addition the value of the average assessed home went up by over one thousand two hundred dollars these changes that are out of the district's control caused a slightly
059higher tax impact than if the value of the community had remained the same township officials shared that this should be a one-year issue as it is anticipated that the new housing coming online should offset the current year decrease in value a staff updated the committee on construction in the district for both capital and referendum i think tony covered the referendum work pretty well already majority of the energy savings improvement projects are complete they are still working on commissioning graphic interface programming staff training and punch list items the solar installation continues at hawk high school south and high school north these projects should be should be completed for a summer startup there will be an agenda item in may for a change order to the ecip for the energy recycling ventilator replacement at village and the
060various rooftop unit repairs at grover as anticipated in the 2122 budget under capital reserve projects the district still needs to approve a two-year agreement beyond the one-year warranty to monitor the performance of the equipment we need this in order to satisfy the requirements to get the final 1.1 million rebate which is part of an incentive program the agreement may be on the board agenda in may dr aderhold updated the committee on how the return of additional students to in-person instruction went last week overall it went well the teaching staff required for in-person instruction returned as required overall the staff and administration appeared happy with the return of the students we did have to quarantine the high school north girls lacrosse team due to a coveted situation the goal is to have graduation at the cure
061arena this june based on current guidelines changes will have to be made to normal procedures to maintain social distancing the committee is next meeting on tuesday may 18. thank you louisa are there any questions for the finance committee all right we'll move ahead now to the portion of the agenda where we get to vote we'll begin with administration items one through eight can i please get a motion tony and morton are there any questions or comments on the administration items thank you chris you're with miss ho yes and ms krug yes miss mccune yes miss maliga yes mr whitfield mizovich yes mr flares yes ms juliana guest yes could i please get a motion on curriculum and instruction items one to five dana and graylin are there any questions or comments on the curriculum items
062thank you chris okay we'll start with ms krug yes miss mccune yes miss maliga yes mr whitfield yes yes mr flares yes michelle yes ms juliana yes ms cash yes could i please get a motion on finance items 1 to 70. roy and louisa are there any questions or comments on the finance items louisa warned us about this are there any questions or comments thank you chris let's start with miss mccune yes ms maliga yes mr whitfield yes yes mr flares yes miss ho yes it's crude we didn't hear you dana he muted yes yes [Laughter] uh miss juliana yes ms cash um yes but i need to abstain please on item number 70. so yes on everything else okay uh could i please get a motion on personnel items one and two plus the
063addendum robin and rachel are there any questions or comments on the personnel items you have something charity no okay thank you chris we'll start with ms maliga yes mr whitfield yes yes mr flares yes ms ho yes ms crook yes ms mccoon yes miss juliana yes ms cash yes on tonight's agenda we voted on a number of retirements that i would like to acknowledge at this time karen slagle our director of special services is retiring after five years with the district linda buer an elementary school teacher at maurice hawk is retiring after 23 years with the district vicki cox is a teacher resource specialist for reading intervention and she's retiring after 32 years with the district mark dausman teaches science at high school south and he's retiring after 31 years in the district diane kosar
064is a teacher of special education and she's retiring after 16 years with the district and lisa o'shea ira teacher at cms is retiring after 33 years with the district these six employees represent 140 collective years of service to our school districts just incredible and i want to thank them all for all their hard work and the legacy that they leave behind and i wish them happy healthy retirement ahead can i please get a motion to approve our minutes from march 23rd louisa and dana are there any questions or comments all those in favor say aye aye aye aye any opposed or abstention abstain you got that chris thank you are there any liaison reports oh is there any new business that brings us to the second opportunity for public comment the board invites thoughts and
065reactions on agenda items and items of concern from members of our community who submitted written comments to the board secretary prior to the submission deadline for this meeting and from those who signed up on the form to comment via video and or audio that was open and available on the district website up until the start of this second opportunity for public comment any written comments that were submitted prior to the deadline for this meeting will be read aloud by the board attorney for three minutes in accordance with board policy zero one six members of the public who did not submit written comments and who have signed up will be offered the opportunity to make their comments via video and or audio members of the public will not be permitted to submit both written comments and
066make additional comments via video and or audio each comment should be directed to the presiding officer not individual members of the board and must be made in accordance with the procedures and three minute time limit set forth in board policy zero one six seven if the comment extends beyond three minutes speakers will be asked to conclude their comments and may be muted by the moderator once an individual has finished their comment or their three minutes has expired their audio and video will be turned off by the moderator this public comment period shall be limited to 15 minutes madam president nobody signed up and that will close our second opportunity for public comment thank you and with that i need a motion to adjourn um martin and rachel all those in favor say aye aye we
067are adjourned thanks for coming out tonight we'll see you next time have a great evening