001You did the entire thing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. We are going to get started here. Call to order. In accordance with the Open Public Meetings N.J.S.A. 10:4-6, adequate notification of this meeting has been provided by advertising in the Courier News and posting notice in the Board of Education Administration Building and district schools and filing notice with the borough clerk. I hereby [snorts] call to order the regular public meeting Tuesday, March 17, 2026 in the Lincoln Middle School Cafetorium, 400 Dellenav, at 7:04 p.m. This meeting is broadcast live. For details, check www.denellenschools.org. Moving on to item number two on our agenda, uh roll call. Mr. Peppe, could you please call the roll? Mr. Anderson. Present. Mrs. Condit. Present. Ms. Ibach. Present. Dr. Gendrano. Present. Mr. Mitchell. Present. Mrs. Moore. Present. Mr. Saoudnoy. Present. Ms. Schimpf. Present.
002Mrs. Excuse [clears throat] me, Mrs. Schimpf. Present. >> [snorts] >> And we have a quorum. Fantastic. Moving on to item number three, uh executive session. The Dunellen Board of Education will now adjourn into executive session to discuss items that fall within the specific exceptions to the Open Public Meetings Act, C. N.J.S.A. 10:4-12b. The confidential matters Excuse [clears throat] me. Discussed by the board during this executive session include items related to individual privacy, collective bargaining agreements, as well as personnel. Any discussion that does not need to remain confidential will be made public as soon as it is practical. Minutes of the executive session will not be disclosed until the need for confidentiality no longer exists. All individuals who may be discussed in executive session have been adequately notified. Action will take place after the conclusion of
003the executive session. May have a motion, please. Uh may may have a motion to go in executive session, please. Move to go to exec. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, we'll see you about 7:30. >> Mhm. >> Okay, we are back. Good evening. Good evening. So, um at this time I'm looking for a motion to come back to public. Move to go back to public. Second. All those in favor? I. >> I. Opposed? Okay, moving on to item number four um on the agenda. Pledge of Allegiance and moment of silence. The flag is It's not. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Will you all please remain standing
004for a moment of reflection and respect for our troops serving throughout the world, our troops who have served, and our troops who are have made the ultimate sacrifice in the name of our United States of America. Thank you. Okay, moving on to item number five, student recognition uh encompassing of February and March. I will turn it over to Mr. Ross. Thank you, Dr. Gendrano. Good evening, everyone. Good evening, parents. Hello, students. It's wonderful to see you all here. Um we have two months of our students of the month recognition. February student of the month recognition, as you remember, was postponed due to an amazing snowstorm, um which all of the kids probably had an incredibly good time at, um but of course that puts everything on today's meeting. So, thank you all for being here.
005It's wonderful to see you. And what we're going to do is we're going to uh bring our administrators up school by school. And um students, you're going to come up and you're going to accept a certificate from the principal or the assistant principal, whoever's here. And you're going to stand up in front of this banner, which we're going to bring out. Um and at the end of it, uh we're going to let your parents stand up and take lots of pictures of you. Um and then you get to sit down. Okay? Does that sound good? All right. >> [laughter] >> All right. So, let's start with Donnan High School. And uh All right, we have Ms. Powell here. All right. >> [applause] >> DHS Assistant Principal, Ms. Ashley Powell. All right, good evening. So, we're
006going to start with our February Student of the Month for ninth grade. Jackson Fairchild, come on up, Jackson. >> [applause] [applause] >> So, Jackson is currently excelling in honors courses while also serving as a treasurer of for the ninth grade class and a member of the baseball team. His teachers describe him as dedicated, focused, and bringing a great sense of humor to the classroom. Jackson's commitment to both his academics and school community make him truly deserving of this recognition. Congrats, Jackson. >> [applause] >> Come back, Jackson. Don't leave us. Stay? Yes. All right, next is Giselle Castro. Is Giselle in the building? >> [applause] >> I don't see Giselle, but Giselle is our 10th grade student of the month for February. Giselle's teachers describe her as a pleasure to have in class, consistent consistently [clears
007throat] demonstrating kindness and a willingness to support her peers. In addition to being a strong student, she's also an avid piano and guitar player, self-taught. Mr. Lynch told me today that she's self-taught, which is awesome. Showcasing her dedication and talent beyond the classroom, Giselle's positive attitude and commitment to excellence make her truly deserving of this recognition. Congrats, Giselle. >> [applause] >> Our 11th grade for February, Sophie Carranza. >> [applause] >> No Sophie. Sophie Carranza um is a talented student both in and out of the classroom. If you saw Annie, she was Ms. Hannigan. She did an awesome job. Her teachers describe her as an active participant who consistently shows enthusiasm and genuine interest in her learning while producing outstanding works. Beyond academics, Sophie is a dedicated member of the drama club, recently shining in her
008role as Ms. Hannigan in Annie, and is also involved in sports such as soccer and track. Her passion, commitment, and well-rounded involvement make her truly deserving of this recognition. Congrats, Sophie. >> [applause] >> And our senior student of the month for February, Nicholas Tejada Cantopoulos. I saw Nico. Where are you? >> [applause] >> Congrats, Nico. So, Nico is our 12th grade student of the month for February. He has demonstrated a strong commitment to his academics and school community throughout his time at Donnan High School. His teachers recognize and appreciate his consistent participation and focus in class, as well as his strong work ethic and positive presence. In addition to his academic efforts, Nico's also a member of the baseball team, showing dedication both in and out of the classroom and on the field. Nico's well-rounded
009contributions make him truly deserving of this recognition. Congrats, Nico. >> [applause] >> So, we're moving on to our March Student of the Month, Kayla Lajunesse, ninth grade. Is Kayla in the building? >> [applause] >> So, Kayla is our ninth grade student of the month for March. Her teachers describe her as a pleasure to have in class. She's attentive. Um she participates and is able to express her ideas clearly in writing. Beyond excelling academically, Kayla's also an active member of the fall cheer and track, showing dedication both in and out of the classroom. Her enthusiasm, focus, and well-rounded involvement make her truly deserving of this recognition. Congrats, Kayla. >> [applause] >> Now, our 10th grade student of the month, Ben Howard. I saw Ben. >> [applause] >> HI, BEN. SO, CONGRATS TO BEN HOWARD. He's our
01010th grade student of the month for March. He is a driven and focused student, currently excelling in all his honors courses as well as AP Computer Science. His hard work is reflected in his straight A's on his report card. It's a testament to his dedication and commitment. Beyond academics, Ben serves as a sophomore class officer and is actively involved in sports including football and basketball. His leadership, determination, and well-rounded involvement make him truly deserving of this recognition. Congrats, Ben. >> [applause] >> Our 11th grade student of the month for March is Alex Gowell. Is Alex here? >> [applause] >> No Alex, but Alex is a caring and dedicated motivated student. His teachers describe him as an active participant, brings an excellent attitude to class every day. Beyond his academic achievements, Alexander's kindness and willingness to
011support his peers make him a positive influence in our school community. His dedication, positivity, and thoughtful character make him truly deserving of this award. Congrats, Alex. >> [applause] >> And our 12th grade student of the month for March is Zarina Courtin. Zarina. >> [applause] >> So, congrats to Zarina, our March Student of the Month for 12th grade. Zarina is a focused and determined young lady who's ready to take on college and all the opportunities ahead. She's an active leader in her senior class as an officer and is involved in the Black Student Union, winter cheer, and spring track. Her teachers describe her as hard working, reliable, [clears throat] and always willing to support her peers. Zarina's dedication, leadership, and positive attitude make her truly deserving of this award. Congrats, Zarina. >> [applause] >> And congrats
012to all the students of the month for February and March for Donnan High School. Way to go, guys. >> [applause] >> Parents. Hello. Hello. Parents, feel free to stand up, parents, if you want to take a picture. We'll pause for a second. Howard, it's okay if you stand up. Yeah. Take those certs and There you go. There you go. Be proud of that. Perfect. All right, thank you, DHS students of the month. >> [applause] >> All right, Lincoln Middle School, we have Ms. Caufield. Ms. Caufield, WELCOME. >> [applause] >> OKAY, WELCOME EVERYBODY. CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL the students of the month tonight. Um I'm here to announce for Lincoln Middle School. So, I'm going to start with February. Our sixth grade student of the month was Aiden Mitchell. I know I saw him. >> [applause] >>
013It is my pleasure to recognize our sixth grade student of the month, Aiden. This student consistently stands out as his active participation in class and his eagerness to share his ideas and personal experiences a help enrich discussions for everyone. He is a hardworking and diligent student who takes pride in his work and always puts forth his best effort. His curiosity is evident in thoughtful probing questions that he asks, which often help deepen understanding for both himself and his classmates. Additionally, he is friendly, respectful, and always willing to help others. He's a valuable resource to both his peers and his teachers, and he's a positive attitude in both the classroom and the hallways. Also, a very loyal member of Mr. Perry's Dungeons and Dragons Club. Congratulations, Aiden. >> [applause] >> Next for February, we have our
014seventh grade student of the month, Melanie Angeles. >> [applause] >> Um Melanie is a friendly and positive member of our class community who works consistently and brings kindness and respect to those around her. She works well with peers and helps to create a supportive and welcoming classroom environment. She's always polite and helpful and puts her best effort into everything she does. Uh Melanie's strong work habits and dedication to learning truly set her apart and make her wonderful example for others. I have personally witnessed Melanie's kindness that she meets all sixth, seventh, and eighth graders in our school with. Congratulations, Melanie. >> [applause] >> And our eighth grade February student of the month is Charlotte Dubrow. >> [applause] >> Charlotte truly shines in class. She consistently asks thoughtful and higher order thinking questions, actively participates in
015discussions, and brings enthusiasm that makes learning engaging for everyone. She pays attention, follows directions the first time, and demonstrates exemplary behavior every day. She's hardworking, positive, and always willing to help others, setting a strong example both academically and behaviorally. Her dedication has earned her high honor roll for both the first and second marking period, all A's in all of her classes. Congratulations to Charlotte. >> [applause] >> Moving on to our March student of the month, starting with sixth grader Celeste Wiggins. >> [applause] >> Celeste is caring and kind, always willing to help both classmates and teachers. She is driven and sets goals for herself, working hard to achieve them. Very impressive for a sixth grader. Her intelligence shines in the classroom where she thinks critically and asks thoughtful questions and is always curious to learn
016and know more. She shows up every day ready to learn, participate, and give her best effort. Through her positive attitude and dedication, she sets a strong example for everyone around her and has really adjusted very well to Lincoln Middle School. Congratulations, CELESTE. >> [applause] >> NEXT UP, WE HAVE OUR SEVENTH GRADE STUDENT OF THE MONTH for March, Elise Evangelista. >> [applause] >> Elise is a true standout in the seventh grade and a joy to have in every classroom. Every single one of her teachers say so. She approaches every assignment with a hardworking spirit, consistently going above and beyond to produce her absolute best work. Beyond academic dedication, she is polite, respective respectful, and always willing to help with both teachers and peers. Her positive attitude and strong work ethic make an excellent example for everyone
017and should be very helpful in the success for the rest of her seventh grade year. Congratulations, Elise. >> [applause] >> Last but not least, we have Sincere Chandler for eighth grade student of the month. >> [applause] >> Sincere consistently gives his best effort in class, actively participates, and volunteers to help both teachers and classmates. His friendly, positive, and always willing to lend a hand, making him a true role model for his peers. He also shows great care to our school community, taking responsibility for putting up and taking down the flag every day, even when the feels like was 3° outside, he was out there. Sincere's dedication to his learning is evident, and he was on the honor roll for first marking period, but that just wasn't enough. He set a goal for himself, and he
018made high honor roll in the second marking period, all A's. Congratulations to Sincere. >> [applause] >> Parents, come on. Stand up. Feel free to come up to the front and grab some pictures. Why don't you guys scoot in? Scoot in. Scoot in. Scoot in. Hold up your certificates. Ms. Caufield getting the picture. There you go. Awesome. All right, awesome. Congratulations, LMS students of the month. >> [applause] >> All right, moving on to Faber. Who's coming up? Mr. Tenant? Ms. Moody? Got the whole crew. All right, let's hear it for the Faber administration, Mr. TENANT AND MS. MOODY. >> [applause] >> HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY. LET'S GO. >> [applause] >> BEYOND EXCITED FOR STUDENT OF THE MONTH. MY MOM WOULD HAVE been super excited to get a a cert certificate for student of the month on
019St. Patrick's Day, let me tell you. Our first for February, our pre-K, we have Charlie Mundy. Charlie, come on up. >> [applause] >> Clap it up. Charlie Mundy was chosen as student of the month because of her kind and caring heart. She's always willing to help others and quickly steps in to comfort her peers when they need support. Charlie comes to school every day excited to learn. Her positive attitude and love for learning make her wonderful role model for our classroom. Clap it up for Charlie. >> [applause] >> For kindergarten, Lianne Calderon Castillo. >> [applause] >> Here. Lianne is a very hard hardworking young man who always tries his best. He comes to school ready to learn with a big smile and a kind heart. He is the first to lend a helping hand whenever
020someone needs it and tries his best to be good example for his classmates. We are so lucky to have him in a caring and hardworking student in the classroom. Keep up the amazing work. Clap it up. Clap it up. >> [applause] >> Two students in first grade. First, we have Michael Kowalec. Michael, come on up. >> [applause] >> Michael was selected for student of the month because he's an incredible student and an incredible friend. Michael comes to school every day with a smile on his face, ready to learn something new. He's creative, curious, and consistent. Michael's always following directions and doing the right thing. He's an incredible role model to his peers. Michael is kind, respectful, and helpful to his teachers and all his classmates. He's a thoughtful friend, always making everyone feel included, and
021speaks kindly to everyone in the class. Michael is a fantastic sample and truly deserves to be student of the month. Clap it up for Michael. >> [applause] >> Next up in first grade, Melvin De La Cruz Mercedes. Melvin. >> [applause] >> Melvin is a sweetheart that loves being around others. He brings our class him so much joy and laughter every day. Every day comes to school with a big smile. He's doing a great job learning and continues to make progress in all subjects, especially reading and math. This year he started reading independently. Clap it up, Melvin. Great job. >> [applause] >> He is a pleasure to have in our classroom. We love working with him. Melvin, awesome work. >> [applause] >> Second grade, we have Dominic McNair. Where's Dominic? >> [applause] >> Dominic has made
022amazing growth this year. He approaches tasks with increasing confidence and works independently in our classroom assignments. He is well-liked by others and he student as a student and contributes to groups positively, showing kindness and cooperative behavior. Great job, Dominic. >> [applause] >> Third grade, we have Sofia Flores. Sofia. >> [applause] >> Sofia is such a hard worker and thriving in third grade. She's always working consistently and advocates for herself. She tries her hardest on all her school work so she can show her teachers how much she has learned. She's always kind and loves helping out teachers and her classmates. Sofia sets a wonderful example for her peers. Clap it up for Sofia. >> [applause] >> Fourth grade, Nadia Attia. Nadia. >> [applause] >> Nadia is an extraordinary student to have in class. Her attention to
023detail shines through as she gives her full effort in everything she does. Nadia enjoys learning new skills inside and out of the classroom and will vocalize her interest and topics of study. Nadia actively engages her classroom lessons and and discussions and always willing to help a lending hand to her teachers and her peers. She enjoys working and playing with other students in class and is generally a kind friend who exudes positive energy and light. We're so proud of you, Nadia. Great job. >> [applause] >> Fifth grade, Nadia Pucar Espinosa. >> [applause] >> Nadia has worked hard so hard this year. She's incredibly kind and always comes with a positive attitude to class. They are pleased with her progress she has made and can't wait to see what the future holds for her. Clap it up
024for Nadia. >> [applause] >> Special area, Snow Donato. Snow. >> [applause] >> The special area teachers are pleased that Snow is their February student of the month. Snow is a joy to have in class. She's a friend to all her classmates, helps teachers and students and is eager to learn. The special area teachers look forward to seeing Snow in the classroom and enjoy teaching her. Congratulations, Snow. >> [applause] >> So February, we're going to do the picture for February then we'll do March. >> [applause] >> Next up our March student of the month. First up pre-K, we have Nolan Davenport. Where's Nolan? >> [applause] >> Nolan was chosen for student of the month because he is a true role model. Each day he works hard to complete his task and always puts his best effort
025forward. >> [snorts] >> He works well with others and consistently shows kindness to those around him. His gentle tone and friendly nature make him make his peers enjoy playing and working with him. Nolan is always willing to help others, both teachers and classmates, whenever it is needed. Clap it up for Nolan, please. >> [applause] >> Kindergarten, Aya Khan. Where's Aya? >> [applause] >> Aya comes to school each day with a big smile and a kind heart. She's always ready to help her classmates and teachers without being asked. Her caring nature and love for learning make make our classroom happier make our classroom a happier place. We are so lucky to have her in class. Clap it up for Aya, please. >> [applause] >> First grade, David Trejo Calles. David. >> [applause] >> David is an
026enthusiastic learner. He puts his best effort into everything he does. He is helpful in the classroom with his classmates and teachers. During the week of Read Across America, David became to the rescue of a guest reader that had fallen in the hallway. Amazing, David. That's good stuff. He was calm and confident when coming to the classroom to get help. We are so proud of him. David, clap it up for David, please. >> [applause] >> Second grade, we have two students. First is James Coglin. JAMES. >> [applause] >> JAMES IS SUCH A SPECIAL part part of our class. He comes in every day with a big smile and a kind heart and truly makes our classroom a happier place. It has been so nice to watch him grow this year and we are so proud of
027him and how hard he works and how well he's willing to try and do his best in everything he does. Clap it up for James, please. >> [applause] >> Next up, we have Alicia Trejo Calles. Alicia, come on up. >> [applause] >> This is David's sister. So both of them are up here. Awesome job. Well done. There we go. Alicia is amazing. She really has come out of her shell this year and is really doing hard work on everything she does. She's expressing herself by using her voice a lot more. It is nice to see her confidence grow. We can't wait to see her continue to blossom in class. Great job, Alicia. >> [applause] >> Third grade, Melissa Gonzalez Salgado. Melissa. >> [applause] >> Melissa is a very hard worker brings a positive attitude in
028class. She's always making the right choices and helping her classmates and the teachers out. Thank you so much, Melissa. Great job. Clap it up. >> [applause] >> Fourth grade, Michael Merino. Michael. >> [applause] >> Michael shows outstanding effort and participation in his work in both ELA and math. He is always willing to help his classmates contribute positively in the classroom. Congratulations, Michael, on all the work and curiosity. Awesome. Clap it up. Clap it up for Michael, please. >> [applause] >> Fifth grade, Reina Pegero. REINA. >> [applause] [applause] >> REINA IS AN OUTSTANDING example of what it means to be student of the month. She's a well-rounded and responsible, being part of choir, STEM, and environmental club and was even an ambassador for Read Across America. She's consistently putting forth her best effort in the classroom,
029completing all her work, and maintaining great grades in all her classes. Beyond the classroom, Reina shows kindness and respect to everyone around her, making her dependable and support her peers. She leads by example, always with a positive attitude, and does everything to the best of her ability. Clap it up for Reina, please. >> [applause] >> And for special areas, Carlos Kenes Flores. CARLOS. >> [applause] >> THE SPECIAL AREA teachers have selected a kindergarten student this month and it's Carlos. This child is always tries his best. The teachers enjoy spending time with him. He's always making friends and working with his classmates. He's caring and a great friend to all. Our student of the month, Carlos. Clap it up for Carlos, please. >> [applause] >> And please clap it up for the March student of the
030month of February school. >> [applause] >> Parents, come on up for pictures. >> [applause] [cheering] [applause] >> All right, so let's get a uh big round of applause for all of our students of the month for February and March. >> [applause] >> AND UM SO PARENTS, WHAT WE'RE GOING TO DO is we're going to take about a 10-minute break. We have this is double-sided. Uh so if you want to come up with your child and take a picture, feel free to do so. We're going to pause the meeting to allow you to do that. Thank you for coming tonight. Congratulations to you and to your children. >> [applause] >> That's right. You got to take this all in. Same night. Right? But here's it upside down. >> [laughter] >> No problem. >> [applause] >> Yes.
031That's right. You want us to take you all together? Oh, you want to Oh, wow. This is the pin. >> [cheering] >> I'll wash it later. I'll wash it I I can't figure it out. So I did the This is how much you >> All right. All right. >> [laughter] >> Congratulations. Hi parents, students. Thank you. Congratulations. We're going to uh move forward with our meeting at this time. So, have a wonderful evening. Thank you for coming. Ms. McNair, nice to see you. Congratulations. See you. All right. Okay. Uh moving on to item number six, president's remarks. So, good evening, everyone. Um welcome to our board meeting this evening. Uh I wanted to take a moment to congratulate all the students from River and Reim March again who were recognized this evening. We're so proud
032of their accomplishments and uh keep up that great work. I did want to mention since we met last, uh a couple things happened. One, uh on March 7th, Mr. Anderson and I were privileged to participate in the second annual NJSBA Leadership Summit for Board Presidents and Vice Presidents. The objective of that summit was to establish the board as one mindset and the topics included regionalization, advanced governance, strategic oversight versus micromanagement, internal dynamics, cultivating a culture of productive descent, and crisis and conflict, managing difficult board environments. It was a great experience and we plan to share details of those topics in future discussions. Also in that time, we uh I had the honor to uh participate in Read Across America where um we read to our elementary elementary students in the Read Across America program. That
033was on March 6th and there were many folks who participated, Mayor Salant, town council folks, and other notable folks in our community and adjacent communities. This was a highly successful event. The students and teachers were so engaged and appreciative. Um a big thank you and kudos to Ms. Willoughby, Ms. Ms. Libliner, Mr. Tannen, Ms. Moody, and their teams for making this event such a great success. Also happening on um on March 12th, um Mr. Anderson and I celebrated our student athletes at the DHS Winter Sports Awards. Congratulations to all of our students um and athletes who are student athletes who are receiving their letters and awards. There was a very special tribute to uh Dave DeNapoli as this was his last awards ceremony before his retirement later this month. Uh congratulations on your retirement, Mr.
034DeNapoli, and I would like to thank you on behalf of the board for all of the fantastic work and tremendous contributions you have made over uh so many years. Your legacy is forever woven into the fabric of our school district and our great town of Dunellen. We will miss you greatly, sir. Enjoy your retirement. Also, uh we had the uh spring musical, Annie, on that ran from March 5th through 7th. The Dunellen The DHS High School uh The DHS Drama Club had fantastic performances of the spring musical, Annie. Bravo, bravo, bravo to the cast, the crew, the musicians, Ms. Clemens, Mr. Sitera, Mr. Geiger, Ms. Piano, our school administrators, Mr. Lynch and Mr. Tobin, um our district staff, the PTO, and parents of the Drama Club, our community volunteers, our broader Dunellen community, and anyone
035who may I have I may have missed that helped to make the show a resounding success. The show was awesome and exceptionally done. Bravo. Staying healthy. As the weather changes again and again and again, um it is important to underscore that healthy kids mean healthy schools, which means a healthy community. Bottom line, we encourage you to take the common sense precautions to minimize the spread of infectious diseases that can really um impact our school month uh school year. As I have done uh for for some time now, um monthly celebrations. So, in March, we're celebrating uh Women's History Month, National Irish American Heritage Day, um month, excuse me, uh National Developmental Disabilities Month, and on 21st of March, International Day of the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, 31st of March, International Transgender Day of Visibility. And
036I mention these to underscore uh the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and most importantly, belonging in the fabric of our daily lives and the impact that has in our community. Open, honest, and equitable communication that is respectful, positive, supportive, fair, and most of all, kind goes a long way in strengthening our community. Lastly, I know we'll go into more detail in the presentation later this evening, but I wanted to thank Mr. Ross, Mr. Pepe, and all of their teams uh for their hard work in putting together uh the budget that we're going to go look at tonight. Uh we most certainly appreciate it and have we have a lot to discuss. Thank you, everyone, for your time and listening. Moving on to the superintendent's report, Mr. Ross. Thank you, Dr. Gendrano. So, we'll start
037the superintendent's report off with the student report. So, I will turn it over to Ms. Lisa Marie. Thank you. Um so, for tonight, on behalf of the high school, uh we have already stated that Annie was a a production that was very wonderful. Um they even had a standing ovation, so we are very happy about that. Um it is towards the end of the year, so a lot of field trips are coming up. Uh things that are our field trips that are already happened is the River Town Valley field trip. Uh ENL students went to a program that was given to them in only Spanish. So, we're very uh proud of them for uh pursuing that. Uh 11th graders also went to Kean and other field trips that are coming up at the moment are
038the Black Student Union heading to a research facility in New York City. They're getting a tour. Uh NHAS prints going to the Princeton Art Museum and the National Art Society planning on going to the Met. Um we also have are having Spirit Week for Neurodiversity Awareness. Um and then to be done is the spring sports that have become are begun. Uh scrimmages are happening this week. Spring break is also coming up, which we're very excited for, obviously. Um practicum practicum uh documentation is coming out for seniors this week. College Planning Night is happening next week along with volleyball uh the ninth grade orientation. Um yeah, the ninth grade orientation for the upcoming eighth graders are happening also next Wednesday. And the volleyball tournament is happening this Friday. NJGPA has started for the juniors today and
039it's going all the way up till Thursday, so we wish them luck. Thank you. All right, thank you, Lisa Marie. Um we are going to move on to our first of two presentations tonight and that is the SSDS report uh presentation for uh the current school year, period one. So, I'd like to invite Mr. Altmire up and we will get that presentation set up. Okay, good evening, everyone. Uh like Mr. Ross said, I'm here to present the Student Safety Data System incident collection of violence, vandalism, weapons, substance abuse, and harassment, intimidation, and bullying, as well as the HIB trainings and programs for period one, which is September 1st through December 31st of 2025. So, we'll start off with the individual schools, Dunellen High School for the SSDS report. Incidents of violence, vandalism, substances, weapons, and
040HIB confirmed is zero. Other incidents leading to removal was zero. HIB trainings was six and HIB programs was 14. Lincoln Middle School, incidents was four. Other incidents leading to removal, zero. HIB trainings, seven, and HIB programs was 12. John P. Faber, incidents was zero. Other incidents leading to removal was zero. HIB trainings, eight. HIB programs, 15. District-wide HIB trainings was five and HIB programs was zero. District trainings and programs, trainings provided, district HIB policy with bullying prevention instruction, anti-bullying Bill of Rights Act, bullying and cyberbullying, HIB on the basis of protected categories and other distinguishing characteristics, code of conduct, positive school climate, culture with diversity, diversity and inclusion, ethics and boundaries, social skills, relationship improvement, school safety, suicide prevention, sexual harassment policy and prevention, HIB law update, and finally, affirmative action. District trainings and programs
041continued, programs provided, Week of Respect activities, assignments, discussions, announcements of positive culture and diversity, school violence awareness activities, kindness incentives, daily spirit days, morning announcements, positive school culture days, mindfulness, daily announcements, bullying lessons, peer leadership and safety patrol, social and leadership classes, school wellness specialist, social and emotional support system. Targeted populations, district administration, students, teachers, paraprofessionals, substitutes, coaches, custodians, administrative assistants, volunteers, substitutes, board members, and parents. The HIB investigations for Faber, there was zero. For Lincoln Middle School, there were four investigations and one of them ended up being a confirmed HIB. At DHS, there was zero investigations during report period one. District-wide trainings and programs, trainings, understanding harassment, intimidation, and bullying laws as stated by the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act, staff, cafeteria, custodians, volunteers, coaches. Human dignity, anti-discrimination, inappropriate staff conduct, staff sexual harassment,
042student sexual harassment, hate crimes and biased incidents, public complaints and inquiries, harassment, intimidation, and bullying. District HIB policy 5512, understanding harassment, intimidations, and bullying laws as stated by the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, protected characteristics, suicide prevention training, legal one HIB law update for the ABC. Programs, school safety, climate team meetings, October 6th through October 10th of 2025 was the Week of Respect. October 20th through October 20th was school violence awareness week. October 27th through October 31st, Red Ribbon Week. Teacher culture and climate committee, monthly meetings, preschool parent engagement evenings, and there were multiple. Trainings and programs specifically for John P. Faber, trainings, anti-bullying law review, district policy, code of conduct and prevention, school climate and cyberbullying. District HIB policy with bullying prevention, suicide prevention, student training on ABR, prevention, school climate, and code of conduct,
043HIB law update by the ABS, and school safety team. Programs, Week of Respect, October 6th through October 10th, classroom lessons and morning announcements, daily spirit days and kindness incentives, school violence awareness week, October 20th through October 24th, classroom discussions focusing on violence and kindness, Red Ribbon Week, October 27th through October 31st, daily spirit days, morning announcements by students, social and emotional supports, school-based wellness, PBIS, anti-bullying ambassadors, mindfulness, character education program/counselors, You've been caught being kind and respectful, social skills, friendship lunches, student wellness clinicians, trekking Mexico assembly, warrior martial arts assembly, Ruby Bridges walk assembly, and invention convention. Trainings and programs for Lincoln Middle School, trainings, anti-bullying law review, district policy, code of conduct and prevention, school climate and cyberbullying. District HIB policy with bullying prevention, suicide prevention, student training on ABR, prevention, school climate and
044code of conduct, HIB law update by the ABS, school safety team, designing a menu of behavior intervention options, rethinking responses to conduct and behavior concerns, inclusive scheduling, school counselor association fall conference, school peer mediation. Programs, Week of Respect, October 6th through October 10th, daily spirit days for unity, classroom discussions focusing on tolerance, acceptance, and respect, daily announcements by students, school violence awareness week, October 20th through October 24th, daily announcements by students, classroom lessons, social skills classes, sixth grade cycle, lunch bunch groups, building relationships, social skills and leadership, social and emotional supports, school-based wellness, honor roll assembly, holiday presentations, student voice group. Trainings and programs for Dunellen High School, trainings, anti-bullying law review, district policy, code of conduct and prevention, school climate and cyberbullying. District HIB policy with bullying prevention, suicide prevention, student training on ABR,
045prevention, school climate, and code of conduct, HIB law update by the ABS, school safety team, restorative practices, Leadership for Life class, and programs, Week of Respect, October 6th through October 10th, discussions held in classes with students focusing on tolerance, acceptance, and respect of all groups, school violence awareness week, October 20th through the 24th, discussions in classes focusing on violence awareness/reporting. Transition project, DHS peer leaders, student-led activities focusing on positive adjustment to high school, dealing with peer pressure and good life choices, Project Connect activities for ESL students, positive school culture and unity activities, freshman focus, discuss behaviors in school, healthy relationships, social and emotional supports, school-based wellness, grade level assemblies, Renaissance assemblies, honor roll assembly, and school-wide band and choir concerts. It's a lot of information. Does anyone have any questions? Uh, yes. Uh, I have
046a question in in terms of a lot of the trainings and the programs that are listed, are there or is there any data on like participation specifically such as percent of participation to the um, population? Or is there something tracked like that? Um, the only thing that we can track is through Vector, I know. We can track the, um, the amount of staff and personnel that go through individual trainings. So, that is something we have access to. Okay. And that's through an LMS for all these trainings, right? I'm sorry. Uh learning management system, it's all online or how are these programs Yes. delivered? So, through Vector is the program that we use and they are online and district-wide um staff from all three schools and central office um participate in that. Could we get like
047some of the data out of that to see what the participation is and see how we can enable um you know, higher levels of participation on that? Sure, that is something that we can look into. Okay. I'm sorry. Oh, is it? Okay. It is 100% for staff participation. Oh, that's good. Uh could you also highlight like standout training sessions that receive like say the highest positive feedback? Uh to be honest with you, I haven't spoken to the individual people to receive that kind of feedback at this point, but again, that's something we can look into and get more information on that. And then uh with the 100% participation, part of that feedback is understanding or some information where maybe they need more support within a certain training package or or area cuz there's such a
048wide breadth of things that they go through in training, is there something that they would like to see more of? Uh again, that's something that we we could pitch to the staff and we could look into um to gather that kind of feedback moving forward. Okay, thank you. Welcome. I was actually going to piggyback off of that and ask if like we can get like a survey or something like through the like the staff and their response like if they experienced like just to learn if they've you know, learned gleaned anything new from those um sessions. Yeah, definitely. This is something that we could definitely receive feedback from. Yeah, and also with any training session that you have, um participation at 100% is is fantastic, but the next step would be efficacy and how well
049these programs are actually either adopted or how they really enhance uh you know, the the the life, the culture, the training, the understanding within the the the teacher population as well as administrators. Sure. Like the uh what's the impact, right? Yeah. The impact and or you know, some of the results that you can see where it maybe increased uh certain areas in positivity or uh lowered areas where there were concerns that the the training showed exactly efficacy and results. Sure. So, quick question. So, these programs, just to make sure I'm understanding, these are all required programs, right? That everyone has to take or they're Uh Is that why it's 100%? Because they're required to take it? >> Yes, certain ones through Vector are require all staff members to take. Okay. See, that's why it's 100%.
050They have to. Um and I did have a question going back to your slide that had a compilation of the HIBs, if you wouldn't mind. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um looking at those numbers, it's it's just curious to me that there's none at Favor and none at DHS and five at a five total at LMS. I'm just curious, is there any kind of background or any kind of thing that you you can give more um I don't know what's the word I'm looking for. Any more um insight? Yeah, insight. Thank you. Insight into what that pattern is. I mean I was going to say root cause. Yeah, well root cause, I mean there's that too. But just it just seems curious that there's we're not seeing any of those at Favor and at DHS, but we
051are at LMS. And I mean yeah, just wondering like if there's if there's perhaps a a reason or a pattern or or something why those are popping and not in other schools. To be honest with you, that that's a great question. Um I know we have a few additional ones that have come in through uh report period two, which is starting January 1st, but um as of that first reporting session, September 1st, other than the job that they're doing down at Favor and at DHS, I would say let's pat them on the back at this point um with the way they are handling situations with students, whether it's teachers, counselors, administration, whoever it may be. Okay. The I mean, that does bring up a point because we've noticed that the areas that have the highest
052uh HIB reports are really in the Lincoln Middle School over the past couple reporting periods. Uh maybe it's something that there's more support that's needed within Lincoln Middle School or is there other root causes? I know you already elaborated on that, but not only in this report, but it's also seeming to be a trend and maybe having that trend as part of this this deck would be really good, too. Sure. And I can just speak based on experience as far as being in the middle school. Um middle school, as you know, is a very challenging uh few years for students. And unfortunately, um they can go from making a negative comment or a nasty comment to someone and then the following day be friends with that person and that may end up still being an
053HIB investigation even though it's a one-time incident, an isolated incident. So, it's a challenging few years. So, unfortunately, I don't think that's going to diminish or or go away. Unfortunately. Uh I All right, thank you for your time. All right, thank you, Mr. Altmeyer. We're going to move to the budget presentation. And this is a budget discussion presentation, not the tentative budget hearing. And um so, I'm going to do we have we we've advertised the meeting for the 24th? Is that is the meeting on the 24th happening officially? Okay. Good to go? All right. So, the the tentative budget hearing was scheduled for today um originally and in past years, the governor's budget address has occurred at the end of January and then more recently mid-February. And so, after the budget address is delivered by
054the governor, 2 days later, school districts receive um state aid information. This year with uh Governor Sherrill coming in and uh in her first year, her budget address didn't occur until March 10th, right? Which means that we didn't get state aid information until March 12th. And so, we, just like every other district in the state, um are in a very precarious situation. The state did change the guidelines for the submission of uh school budgets. They moved it back 1 week. Yeah, 1 week. Um and so, the board will be holding another meeting on March 24th to adopt the tentative budget uh at that time. But given where we are and the fact that we have state aid, we thought it would be prudent to share information um in presentation form. As you remember, if you
055were here in February, we did uh provide Mr. Peppy provided very detailed information about cost drivers and cost increases. And so, at this point, uh I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Peppy to talk more in depth about some of the costs, some of the revenue side of things, and uh and that'll sort of prompt the conversation that we have about budgeting moving forward. Mr. Peppy. All right. So, those of you who have heard me speak before know that I like actually my favorite shirt that I saw this evening from our students was the young man who had shenanigans written across. So, that that's generally what people think of when they think of me. Unfortunately, this is not going to be that kind of presentation. Um we're going to talk about a budget that's
056our first since I've been here, our first challenging one. We've we've had some good times, but this year is not one of them. So, we're going to talk about where we are. The board's going to have to provide some guidance to myself and Mr. Ross as far as you know, what what we put forth for the budget that we're going to present next week. Um so, let's start with a just the objectives for the presentation. We want to give you a little update on the or review the timeline for the budget process, talk about um the district goals and how they impact the budget, talk about major expense drivers, which I did share some information last month about that and I'm going to share pretty much the same information with a little bit of uh
057new information. Um discuss again the available adjustments and banked cap, which we did talk about in the past, also, and finally talk about different tax impact scenarios. And so, that's when we're going to need the board to discuss and come up with a plan as far as like which of those scenarios they would like to move forward with. Um so, the budget timeline, we share this every time we talk about the budget. And one thing that's new here in March, we've added the new board meeting, which will be next Tuesday. And um that is being Well, Mr. Ross already explained that's because of the late governor's address and the late state aid. So, we didn't have the ability to have a full budget presentation for tonight. Um so, we're giving you what the information that's
058behind it. We'll make the decisions about how we're moving forward with um taxes, and then next week we'll have a full presentation of the tentative budget. Yes. Oh, yes. This presentation is online if anyone at home would like to see it or anyone who's here when you get home would like to see it, or I guess on your phone. Um Okay, so that's the timeline. These are our district goals. Uh you've all heard these goals over and over again, and this has been a a guiding principle for us as an administrative team and as leaders of the district, these are the things we're thinking about for the past really couple of years cuz there's only been minor change over the past uh year. So, we're looking at academic success, school uh student wellness, operational efficiency,
059and community engagement. These are the things that I used when I was tasked with trying to figure out how to balance a budget based on the information I'm about to talk about. And so, when making the difficult decisions, I refer you know, reflected back on these um these goals and said, "Okay, what things are going to have a se- severe negative impact on these goals if I cut them or reduce them?" And then I left those alone and I went to other things that we could continue moving forward with these goals while making some other sacrifices. >> [snorts] >> So, the expense drivers, um there's a new number on the screen. For those of you who paid attention last time, you heard me tell you that we had an estimate from our insurance broker of
060a 25% increase in medical benefits. This past Friday, on a conference call, he broke the bad news that the quote came back from our insurance carrier, and it was actually a 39% increase. So, that is significant. Um I did go back and refine my numbers. I was able to find I had you know, another month's worth of data from this year for my prediction for next year, and it was it did help a little bit. Um however, we still when you put together the 4% of our budget that is needed just for our salary increases, and add that to the 39% for the medical increases, that's $2,500,000 that we need to find. And [snorts] in addition to that, we have the other two rows of tuition costs um for out of district. This is both
061in- um for out of district tuition rates because tuition rates for everyone increase as our budgets go up, so do theirs, and the districts that we're sending students to are charging us more. So, for out of district, our tuition rates have increased, and also we did have a an uptick in the charter school enrollments from last year's budget presentation to this year. Um we [snorts] just to clarify, we didn't have an uptick from what we currently have to what the state is projecting for next year. However, what we currently have is more than what we projected last budget season. So, from last year's budgets to this year's budget, that number had to increase. So, that's $390,000 for the tuition. And then just a few of the big ticket items that um these these are things
062that switch. They go up and down from year to year. This year, these are the ups. Um i-Ready, which we've been using for a few years now that was originally purchased on a 3-year purchase with ARP funds, and so we're coming up to the renewal for that. So, that's a new purchase this year. Um cell phone storage is because of the new law, so we put some money aside because we are going to be having conversations in the next few months about how are we going to implement that law, and we're going to to have some need for storage um units to uh meet that cell phone law. We also have textbooks. It just happens to be a year where the um amount we need for textbooks is more than it was last year. That's
063something that goes up and down every year. And Chromebooks, we're in a um we're starting a plan. I've been working with our tech department with, you know, planning out how this looks long term, and we've we've kind of come up with a plan that's going to be sustainable for time to come, but in the past, it's just been we bought we bought what we needed that year, and we didn't really plan ahead. So, now that we're planning ahead, we're putting a bigger purchase of Chromebooks, and it will then stay at that level. It won't go up and down. Like, it'll be we have a plan for it'll be a comparable number year after year. So, all of those things together added another $500,000 to the budget. So, if we keep our everything exactly the same
064as it was this year, plus these costs that we don't have real control over, we're looking at $300- $3.4 million of additional money we need. Now, to put that into perspective, our local tax levy, for every 1% that we increase, we get $134,000. So, a lot of $134,000 is to get up to $3.4 million. That's That's where we are. That's the the challenge we have is how do we make this work? There's some good news. One piece of good news is that we did get an increase in state aid of about $1.2 million. So, we said we needed 3.4, we got 1.2 from the state, so we still need 3.4, 1.2, 2.2. We still need over $2 million that we've got to find. Another piece of good news is that because of the way that
065I've managed the budget for the past couple of years, um I've always understated certain revenues, and so this year to help bridge that gap, I stated them more accurately. Those revenues are our bank interest. And uh well, it's really that's the biggest one is miscellaneous income, which is mostly bank interest. So, in the past, I've always budgeted that very low just in case interest rates tanked and we didn't get what we were expecting. This year, I used real numbers based on what we've been getting. I still went a little under, but to just to be safe in case interest rates go down, but it's a more realistic number. So, that added another few hundred dollars of available money. So, that ate away at that, too. So, we're under $2 million that I need that we
066need. >> [snorts] >> So, the only places that we can make up that difference are um increasing taxes or cutting programs and staff. Those are the only ways a public school district can bridge that gap in a in a budget. >> [snorts] >> So, I just want to talk about this for a second. The debt service information just it it it's not necessarily a direct impact on what I just talked about, but it's something to keep in the back of our mind. I have um produced budgets for the past 2 years that have resulted in excess surplus at the end of the year that we were able to then deposit into our capital reserve. So, one of the things we have to remember is that the bonds that were sold in in 2020 were sold
067with the intent that the district was not going to levy taxes to pay the debt service back. So, every year, we withdraw about a million dollars from capital reserve to make the debt service payment so we don't levy the taxes, which is what we told the voters we were not going to do. So, keep that in the back of your mind. I do need to generate that money every year to put back into capital reserve so we have it again for the following year. So, that's something to remember. Okay, so as I said, we can talk about um cutting programs and positions or whatever we can find in that part of we're going to have that conversation. I will happily hand the microphone to Mr. Ross. Um but when we talk about what are our
068available avenues for um levying taxes to help bridge this gap, this slide, which we've talked about before, um this explains all of it. So, first of all, every year, we have everyone in the state knows there's a 2% tax levy local tax levy cap. And most people by now have heard this the story that it's really not a strict 2% cap. There are adjustments that the state makes available without needing to go for a second question. Those adjustments come when you have a increase in enrollment, a increase in health benefit costs, and then there are a couple of other ones that don't apply to us, like tuition costs, which we don't have a sending receiving tuition situation. So, for us, over the past 3 years, we've had available to us enrollment increases. Um one of
069the 2 years we did not have a health care increase, one we did. And each year, we have decided, or the board has decided, that we were going to levy 2% and no more, which is very helpful for the taxpayers. What [snorts] it does though is it means that there was money left on the table that we could have levied without having to go to a second question. That money becomes banked cap. That banked cap is then available for the next 3 years. So, we have 3 years worth of banked cap. This is money that we could have levied over the last 3 years, but chose not to. Plus in adjustments for this year, and this year we don't have an enrollment adjustment, but we do have a 1.5 million health care adjustment because of
070that significant increase in our health care costs. And also because the state had a significant increase in their health care care costs. >> [snorts] >> So, all of this said, by law, the board has the ability to raise all of these taxes. No one in here wants you to raise all of these taxes. Okay, that's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying this is the law, this is what's available. So, the the decision that has to be made is how much of this is the right amount so that we can continue and not have to cut programs and um and staff in light of the last slide that talked about needing another you know, almost 2 million dollars. Um so, this is the story. We have the ability to raise taxes up to I think
071when you add it all together it's something like 29%. Clearly we're not going anywhere anywhere near that. But, is there uh a need per- perhaps this year to go above 2% to use some of this available adjustment um or banked cap. And in our case, we would really only use adjustment. We wouldn't get to the banked cap. Um so, that that's kind of where we're at. That's where we are with the budget. We have these huge increases, unfortunately. We did get some state aid, which helps, but we still are short by a couple million dollars, and we have to figure out how to raise that. So, what would this look like for taxes? Uh so, we put this chart together. And again, there's a disclaimer at the bottom, and we won't I'm trying to make
072it clear that no one here, not myself, not Mr. Ross, not any board member, is recommending that we raise 29 raise taxes 29%. We're just looking at what are the scenarios, and what would the impact be so that a prudent decision can be made that's a good balance between trying to keep taxes as low as possible, but being able to continue to fund the programs that are starting to gain some some steam in the district and showing some progress. >> [snorts] >> Um so, this slide uh the the $500,000 row is bolded because that's approximately the average assessed home value. So, on the left we're just giving four scenarios. If you have a house worth $250,000, then the first row shows what a 2% increase would would mean for you. Those are annual numbers. If
073you have a million-dollar house, the bottom row shows you what a 2% increase would mean for you, which is $291. And you can see as you go across. So, this is the situation. We need 2 million in order to raise uh 2 million, uh I should have done the math. Give me a second. Remember the day when calculators were a separate thing? Now it's your phone. If I go 2 million divided by 134, 040, that would be a 15% increase to bridge that gap. So, clearly, you know, Mr. Ross and I know we're going to have to find some way to to cut something, find some efficiencies. We're not asking you to go to 20% or 15%, but just so you know, that's what it would take to make us whole without having to make
074any difficult decisions. So, the question is how how far do we want to go so that we minimize the things that need to be cut. And that's what I have. I anticipate there are many, many questions, so let's get started. Or maybe I just shocked you. Okay, so I know it's small beans in comparison to what we're talking about overall, but on your slide um with the cost breakdowns for curriculum, instruction, tuition, and personnel, you talked about with Chromebooks that we're kind of starting a new plan, and you indicated we'd be buying more than what is needed in the district. How much more are we talking? So, first let me clarify. It's not so much that we're buying more than what's needed. It's that we're spreading it out so that it doesn't jump up. So,
075if we bought exactly what we needed to get through next year, the following year we might need to buy twice as many to to fill the gap. So, we looked long-term and said, "This purchase that we put in the budget for now is sufficient that we could budget the same amount year after year, and it would keep us replenishing at a rate that would never let us run out of usable Chromebooks." Okay. But with that said, you you are asking like what's the impact? Well, really what I was trying to understand was cuz I that makes a lot more sense. My concern was the idea of buying a boatload of Chromebooks up front. No. >> They only really have a shelf life of 5 to 7 years if we're lucky in terms of technology updates.
076So, then we we chance only using a computer for a short amount of time, but what you explained makes sense that that's not what's happening. I I think that's kind of what might have happened in the past, which is why we're at a point where it's not and it's not the same number that we need every year because we had a year where we bought a whole bunch, right? So, we're trying to avoid that exact thing. Um now, that's not to say that I couldn't cut back on the number there. And and if, you know, once we get an answer about the percentage and and we start talking about, "Okay, which things are we going to cut back on?" That might be one of the things that we decide, "Okay, we're not going to cut
077it out, but maybe we buy 50 less, right?" To save a little bit of money there, and we'll look at other places where we could cut back a little bit. With with the i-Ready curriculum, you said it's expiring, we need to renew it. Um is there any kind of like negotiation in terms of like the renewal? $100,000 is the i-Ready. The the i-Ready is $130,000 for 3 years. Um I already have been starting the conversation about can we pay it over 3 years instead of paying the whole amount up front. I don't have an answer on that. Um but if we can do that, then clearly we'll do that regardless of whether it's in the budget or not. We'll do that cuz that'll help us with something else. Sorry, it they said they couldn't hear
078me. I was asking about the renewal of the i-Ready cost, and if that could be renegotiated. >> [snorts] >> Yeah, the air vent is a little loud. Yeah. You said you were considering cutting. Um are you going to give us examples or a list of things you may plan on doing that? I know you don't want to discuss it right now, but will we get Yeah. I can discuss a little bit. I mean, it kind of depends on how much money we need to make up, right? So, if at the end of this discussion we end up where we need to make up a few hundred thousand dollars, I have a list of this and that. I really can't go through all of it cuz it's too many There's not like one item that's going
079to cut three or four hundred thousand now, but I have like 10 items that are each 30 or 40,000 that I can, you know, or maybe or 70,000 I cut it back to 35. So, I have a list of things in facilities, in technology, um e- even in there there's some um uh there's some benefits that I could reduce the amount that's budgeted. So, I have a list of things that I'm planning on looking at. Now, if we come back and it's, "Oh, we need to find one and a half million dollars," that means that's when I'm going to turn the mic over to Mr. Ross, and we're going to talk about positions. So, are these things that you and Mr. Ross are deciding, or will they come up in committee for us to break
080down, and you you'll come into our meetings and explain how much we can save, and what we'll lose, or how does that work? Um we're not going to have committee meetings cuz this meeting is happening 1 week from today. So, it'll be There will be communications. So, I think it will be a a presentation. However, if what we present next Tuesday, if the board has a different direction you want to go, I don't submit the budget until after the board approves it. So, there are things that we can you can provide direction and say, "We don't want you to cut this, we want you to cut that." And then Mr. Ross and I go back the next day and use our pencils and figure it out. So, that meeting is what, in a week? So,
081when can we expect to see >> [snorts] >> I know I'm putting you on the spot, but when can we expect to see these lists? Um I would Typically we we um post a agenda on a Friday before a meeting. So, I'm going to set my goal is to be that like Friday we'll have when we would post an agenda, we'll have some information. If we can get it to you before that, we will. Yep. And also, you know, don't If you have thoughts, either bring them up here or or send an email to Mr. Ross and just say, "Hey, just something I'm thinking about." You know, we we can that can help guide us as as we work over the next couple days to to identify what we're going to do. Okay, so just
082to to a disclaimer, we're not saying that we're going to increase a large amount. But for this year, in order to make up the difference, theoretically, you would have to raise a a double-digit percentage. Right. >> But that would have to happen each and every year. We'd go back to the drawing board and increment from that 2% base another set because this is still going to happen each year. Is that correct? Um Mike I I would say probably not because the biggest cost driver this year is that medical benefit, and the reason for the medical benefit being so high is our claims. So, we had a year where we had some very very high claims. You know, obviously, I'm not going to speak about individual people, but there are claims out there for 6 700,000
083dollars. There's also a number of claims that are in the 75 to 100,000 range. So, when the insurance company puts all that together, basically, what the insurance company does is they say, "Here's how much we paid out in claims. Here's how much we collected from you in your you know, your um dues Do Yeah, what are What is the word they use? What the payments that we make, right? And this past year, they paid out more in claims than we paid. So, they actually lost money on us. So, that's why they have to do this. Now, even if those claims that are out there right now continue, the chance of having a high number of more of those happening is very unlikely. It doesn't mean it can't happen, but it's very unlikely. It's more likely
084that it would kind of stagnate, and we would have a typical 5 to 10% increase next year, which is still a lot, but that is a little more manageable, especially if we get increases in state aid the way we've been getting them. So, no, I I don't think it's a matter of that we go up, say, 10% this year, and then we're going to have to go up 10% again next year. I think what happens is the lower we go this year, that puts our base next year lower, which means that next year we're going to be having this same conversation. Not necessarily because the medical benefits increased again, but because we had such a low base because we didn't increase the year before, and we had to cut things. >> Yeah, that's where I
085was trying to get to. So, thank you. So, it's you know, it's it's like um It's like a slippery slope. >> Yeah, it's like compound interest. You go up a little bit each year, it compounds. If you choose not to go up as far as you need to, you end up having to go up double or more the next year at some point in the future. >> Right. For the sake of the audience, it's like running really slow behind someone that you're racing, and the gap just keeps getting bigger year over year, right? Yes. Okay. So, also going back to the bank cap, like when we increase taxes, then we can then we can pull that revenue, right? The bank like once we So, that will that also then for the next year kind of
086So, there there's a caveat to that. Okay. So, let me talk about that. The way that the laws are written is a district can raise up to 2% without any question. That's that's the cap without having to go out for a second question. The exceptions exist. First, the very first one is enrollment. And it's interesting the way the state does it. The enrollment adjustment happens before the 2%. It's the only one that happens before the 2%. So, let's say our base budget budget was $50 million, and and we have an enrollment increase of a million dollars, then you go to 51, and then take 2% of that. In this case, we don't have an enrollment, so it doesn't matter. So, our base is the same either way. Then, the other adjustments, the health care, the
087tuition, the other ones that don't apply to us, those you take after the 2%. And you can only take them if you went to 2%. So, you can't say, "Well, we're not going to go to 2%, but we're going to take 6% of health care." I mean, you can do that cuz you just say 2% and 4% health care. It's same thing. But, the idea is you have to use the 2%, then your adjustments, and only when you've used all of your adjustments can you touch the banked cap. So, this year, for us to touch that banked cap that expires next year, that 848,000, in order for us to touch that, we would have to levy 13.2% the original 2% plus the other 11.2%. Now, I don't think anyone's recommend that. So, I don't think
088we're going to touch banked cap this year. Um and [snorts] as long as we have large adjustments available, we'll just use the adjustments, and we'll keep generating more banked cap for future years. And that's fine. I'm not saying it's a you know, that that's the way that it works. If next year we have no adjustments available because health care is has a good year for some reason, and enrollment stays stagnant or whatever, then we could have a conversation about maybe using some of the banked cap that's expiring that year, if we need it. You know, depending on how much we do this year, we might not need to dip into that next year. I I can't predict what expenses are going to be. >> [snorts] >> But we do know that that 849,000 will be
089disappearing after this year. That's correct. And then the next one will be 70 796 that would be our first uh bite at bank cap next year. Correct. >> [snorts] >> And then we'll likely generate more banked cap this year because we're in Right. >> not going to use the full 11.2% you know, we're we're not going to levy a million one and a half million dollars of additional taxes. So, whatever we don't use of that will be banked cap next year. >> [snorts] >> Rich, do you have a range of where you could make cuts that don't include staffing and programs versus a threshold of when that does have to start happening? >> [snorts] >> Um I can't speak for staffing, but I can tell you that from the rest of the budget, I I
090based on the exercise I went through to try and create a balanced budget when we didn't know what the state aid was, um where it got to where I wasn't comfortable anymore was I I probably could take where we are right now and go back maybe 400,000. I I think I could do that without like really really stressing. Like once I hit that is when I'm going to really start sweating and trying to figure out or maybe going to staff, you know, maybe going to some other kind of cut. Okay. So, that's kind of where you feel as though you're saying it wouldn't involve staff or programs. I I'm pretty comfortable saying that I could do that without cutting staff members. Yeah. Or or like whole programs. Okay. >> [snorts] >> I just wanted to
091put this slide back up cuz I think it's important cuz as you're thinking through this, this helps you kind of see what the impact of the decision is going to be. Right. And you kept the slide at 10%. Well, I mean, I I don't think anyone thought we were going to go any higher than that. Right. Yeah. So, just just to reiterate, right? So, 2% is the you know, what we would you know, the the the start. Um if we were to do all of it, you know, the um for the health care adjustments as well as the banked cap, that would take us and the 2%, that would take us to like 29% total. So, that's like the the widest absolute widest range before we'd have to go to uh ballot question. Right. Right.
092So, the 2 million that we're short translates into All of this is I'm just making sure that I'm I'm I'm reiterating this to make sure I'm understanding it clearly. That 2 million translates into about 15%. >> That's right. that we'd have to levy. Did you mean 15 and 16? >> Just to maintain what we have because of the um to maintain programs, to maintain staff, to maintain what we have today. That's what we would have to That's what we would have to We would have to levy to be able to maintain that. Correct. Right. >> [snorts] >> And one other point, the lower that we would go this year, higher we'd have to go next year because we'd have to catch up. I would I don't know if I would say it that way. That's
093not a That is a true statement, but I I true-ish. I would say the lower you go this year, the more of a hole we'll be in next year. And every year, there's going to be this kind of a conversation where it's a difficult decision of where's the balance between like everything we need to not have to worry to, you know, not having to raise taxes, like somewhere in between there. Um the less you do this year, the more of a hole we'll be in next year we'll be having the same conversation. You could go 2% every year. We would just have to start cutting things. A lot of things, yeah. A lot of things. A lot That means we'd have to cut positions, maybe programs, maybe both. Right. You know. Going back to the
094slide that shows the percentages, right? Like uh This one? That those increments, that means it that is demonstrating how much more Correct. Right. In addition to like that's how how much higher each person's >> That's the delta. Yep. So if I have a $500,000 house and let's say we went to 5% I would pay 335 more dollars next year than I did this year. So that's not the total cost per household but rather more. No, if that was the total cost per household that would be recommending 40%. >> [laughter] >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And when we do the the tentative budget presentation next week we'll have a slide that shows the actual impact of what we decided to do. We couldn't really put that together because we need a decision about what percent you know,
095we're going to raise. >> [snorts] >> And just to say it just to say it another way, right? So make sure I'm clear. 15% again gets us to basically where we are just to maintain. And whatever we go below that digs us a bigger hole for next year. And it's just a question of how fast we're going to be digging that hole in future years. Right. And and also to put one other thing in perspective, the increase we got in state aid this year was a 6% increase right which is the max. That was the max. Yeah, that's [clears throat] not a law. That's just what they've done for the past 2 years. I would expect they're going to stick to that for a while. They are doing no one gets a cut of more
096than 3% and no one gets a increase of more than 6%. So the state aid scenario that we saw this year or not scenario but the state aid that we saw this year was the best possible outcome we could have gotten. That's correct. Which was slightly just slightly more. And if we got the same state aid outcome next year and we didn't have a 40% increase in in health care we might be okay. Right. Um again depending on where we end up now. If we if we stayed at just 2% then I can rest pretty you know, rest assured that we're going to be having the same conversation next year. And the at the farther up we go the more likely we can just have a regular maintaining 2% in the future. We might still
097need to go up. I I don't know until we see costs. Right. Yeah. >> [snorts] >> And um also just as a reminder cuz this was shared with the board at um I think a month ago, we have about a million and a half to million dollars worth of additional requests, the budget briefs. So the way that we manage our budget is we start with like basically maintaining the same things. How much do you need to maintain what you have right now? And if you want to add something new, you have an idea or you know, a new program, a new position, some new um expensive supplies, we have the budget manage managers put in a budget brief. For the past couple of years we've been very fortunate that our aid has been enough to
098support some or many of those budget briefs. This year we've already said we're we know we're not going to be able to support any of the budget briefs because we can't even support just a you know, maintenance like we're we're looking at the other side of it now of you know, how do how do we reduce costs? And we're trying to be as creative as we can. Like nobody wants to cut a position. That is like the last thing anyone wants. Um programs it kind of depends on the program and what you would how you would replace that need. Like cuz a program that we're you if we're using a program and it's not really having any impact, well then we can cut that program, right? But a lot of the things we're doing right
099now are showing some signs of of growth and so if it's an expensive program, we could say well, is there some you know, less expensive way to meet that same need that's for our curriculum and education folks to you know, see if there's something out there and that can help us in these times too, but Excuse me. But that's not going to solve a two million dollar you know, that's going to be a few hundred thousand dollars maybe for a program or two that you replace with something cheaper. And so separate separate but related to this, you mentioned about the debt service aid. We still have to find a million every year to be able to to to stay true to the promise of not increasing taxes to the pet taxpayer from the 2020 referendum.
100>> Right. What what we have to do is make sure that there is enough in our capital reserve to be able to withdraw a million. So right now at the close of 25 we actually had a pretty good size capital reserve but we had to withdraw a lot of that for the PK project. PK project, right? So after all is said and done, I don't have a real number but I'm thinking we're going to be somewhere between one and a half to million dollars in capital reserve at the end of this year. So if that's where we end up at the end of this year >> [snorts] >> and we can't make another deposit at the end of this year then we would have enough for next year to make that withdrawal but we wouldn't
101have enough for the following year. Right. If we have a good year again and are able to make another significant deposit that helps us for you know, the deposit may be more than just one year's worth. So we just have to watch the capital reserve and make sure that it's balance never falls below like 1.2 million to make sure we have enough to make that withdrawal. And that debt service goes on to 2029? No. Uh 2035. 2035. So 20 the the debt bonds that were sold in 2012 expire in 2030. Okay. >> the the we talk about debt falling off because in 2030 we will no longer be paying those bonds. But the 2020 ones that the district is paying the debt service portion out of is goes to 2035. Right. So it's It's 10
102years this year and nine more. It's it's two of them, right? The one in 2020 and the one in 2012, right? The one in 2012 is is funded through the state debt service aid and a local tax levy. That's already there. Like that's been there. >> Right. Um it's so it's about $740,000 that we are have been levying for debt service every year since 2012. >> Right. >> [snorts] >> So our full debt service payment every year is over two million. But a portion of that is paid by the state and that 2012 tax levy. The 2021 we are not levying taxes so therefore we take that money um the difference between what we owe and what the state provides through debt service aid, we pay out of capital reserve. Got it. >> [snorts] >>
103Okay. If there's no more questions, we'll take our seats and move on with the conversation. All right. So first of all, I just want to thank Mr. Pappy for the very detailed presentation. Um I know that we all appreciate it. It is not ideal news but it is the same news that pretty much every school district is facing right now. Um I was told Middlesex has a 50% increase in their health benefits cost. Um and you know, it's a just a a quasi political statement, you know, um the governor stated that taxes are not being raised at the state level which means there's no increase in state income tax or sales tax or things like that. But then the burden shifts to municipalities and we're all in this position um fundamentally structurally the way that
104school districts are funded is a broken model. Um we have a 2% local tax increase levy and there's not a single cost in the school district that increases uh at or under 2% year over year. Every labor contract, every bussing contract, every facilities contract, um the cost of software and obviously health benefits being the absurd driver in all of this, everything increases at more than 2%. So where we find ourselves now is not a unique position, right? It's actually just the tough spot that we're all in. There is a lot of conversation about regionalization or consolidation. I have a strong sense and we all know what this has been a conversation for 50 years um but I think there's a much stronger push for that type of thing to occur in the future. We've looked
105at different health care models. Um Mr. Pappy was actually discussing uh obviously we're looking at shopping health care um to find better pricing but also there are um there are health insurance funds that are conglomerates of small districts. And obviously, if you have more scope within your um the the the personnel that are covered by the health insurance policy, it's much easier to spread costs around. For a small district like ours, if we have three people who have really significant injuries or medical conditions, it you know, with such a small number in our pool, it really is a an outsized effect. So, that's kind of where we are. The state health benefits plan went up 31%. And so, you know, I could say a lot about kind of health care in this country as generally,
106but from a practical perspective, you know, Mr. Peppy provided very clear information. We will make a recommendation to the board at a number that we think is a fair number that balances the conversations that we had in committee and also taxpayer the impact on taxpayers and also the sustainability of the district. This won't be a like a menu choice option, right? It's not going to be we can cut this or that choose. We're going to make administrative recommendations based on the conversations that we've all had as a team over the last 2 months. And the current position that we're in, which is actually worse than it was on Tuesday when we had this conversation originally, but try to make a you know, a sensible recommendation that um doesn't have an impact on staff members and
107doesn't impact students directly, but allows us to cut back in some of the areas that we may be you know, over expended or cautiously expended or conservatively expended. Um You will remember that we did have a significant contribution to capital reserve from fiscal year 26 from 2025. Right. Right. We're in fiscal year 26. From fiscal year 25, that audit was presented in January. And so, in that budget year, budgeting was very strong, very conservative, very cautious. This year's budget is less so. We have to be much more realistic about the position that we're in. Next year's budget is going to be a very lean budget. And you know, fiscal year 28 is going to be a very hard budget for the district to manage without reducing FTEs. Just plain and simple. And that's kind of
108the reality that that most districts are in, unfortunately. So, that's going to be a conversation for the future, but in the meantime, we will take the feedback that we've received and make a recommendation, you know, in the next couple of days. Again, to the members of the public, the tentative budget hearing will be presented next Tuesday at time. At time to be determined. A message will be sent out through Parent Square and it will the public notice will be posted on the website. It's either going to be 7:00 or 7:30. Um So, that information will be shared and the the tentative budget presentation will be put online. The presentation that was just provided does have all the relevant information and makes very clear what the information is there for and what it shows and what
109it doesn't show. And so, please see use the information, refer to the information. If you have questions, Mr. Peppy obviously is your first line of financial questions, but certainly either of us are happy to answer any questions, board members that you have. All right. So, moving on with my rest of the presentation, I'll do some stuff and then you want to do construction after that? Give yourself a little break. All right. Yeah, I have a it's I have a short update today, short superintendent's report. Just a couple of important items on the agenda that I want to call out. The first is we have our eighth grade is traveling to Middlesex College on the 25th for Middlesex Student Day. This was something that we implemented introduced last year. And really the idea and you heard
110Lisa Marie Nevins talk about getting [snorts] students on the college campuses to give them a concept of what it might be to be a college student. And so, last year we had a team from the high school, a group from the high school and a grade level from the middle school attend Middlesex College. Um And this year our eighth graders will be attending. This is actually next week. And so, the entire grade will go. They'll get a tour. They'll get some information about the school. And you know, as you enter high school, it's really easy to to sort of miss the idea that ninth grade is really important. And every year of high school is actually really important towards, you know, your graduation. And you know, we see the highest number of absenteeism in ninth
111grade. We see the highest levels of dropouts in ninth grade because that transition is sometimes hard. So, the goal is really to try to to support that. The high school has done an excellent job of transitioning students in. We think if we can get our middle schoolers to kind of get that concept of what it's like to be a college student, that'll be helpful as well. So, I commend Mr. Tobin and Ms. Caulfield for their work on that. And I'm sure they're going to have a great time. I also want to thank the folks from Deloitte. Last year we had the first impact day in the district. It was related to the preschool backpacks with supplies. This year Deloitte is donating plants plus labor to to install those plants at the high school. And this
112is part of the company wide impact day. We have a resident in town who is a Deloitte staff member. She's brought this to the district for the second year. We're we're very grateful for for Deloitte and for all the folks that will be participating in that. We also have our grant application for this is the third round of the high impact tutoring grant. We have received the first two rounds of it. This is $80,000 worth of high impact tutoring. High impact tutoring is one of the strongest scientifically based um approaches for moving the needle for tier three students. So, students who really need a lot of additional one-to-one or one-to-two support. And so, we're hopeful that we can receive this grant, which would provide us a lot of opportunity to provide Wilson instruction and additional
113instruction for students who are in in the highest need. And then also, I just want to congratulate Flip McGoan, who is going to be taking over as the interim athletics coordinator for Dave DeNapoli, who's retiring at the end of this month. Flip came in this year and coached football. And he's been just a great fixture in the high school. And I know that he'll do an excellent job in the in the next few months as we move to fill that position full-time starting for next school year. We had a couple of presentations over the last month that our staff members participated in. The first was at Manville Insight, which was on March 6th. We had two groups of staff members present. The first was strengthening systems and structures through MTSS. And this is really about
114the district's journey from kind of an I&RS based program to a tiered system of support at Faber. And the presenters were Ms. Bruder, Ms. Giordano, Ms. Healy, Ms. Kraus, and Ms. Penisi. These are the five interventionists. They did a phenomenal job and their session was really well attended. There were a lot of administrators there and counselors there, directors of special services. The team, you know, they know their content. They presented beautifully and it was a great presentation. We also had our school wellness specialist present insight on establishing an in-house school-based wellness program. And this is this is a presentation about the district's transition from 24-25 no Last year was the first year of the of the transition away from Thrive, which had been paid for through the federal funds, to our own school-based wellness program
115that was really put together by Dr. De Oliveira and Dr. Santanello. And the two Ms. Curtis and Dr. De Oliveira did another outstanding job at their presentation. The Women's Leadership Conference was also held on March 10th. And Ms. Chapkin, Ms. Van Ross, Ms. Timinski, and Evelyn Swift, who is a principal who's done a fair amount of work with the district, presented Inside Out Leadership, Strengthening Systems Through Empowered Voices. And you know, we we understand that their presentation was was very well received as well. So, congratulations to all of our staff members. It's great to have the Denali name out there and having these folks presenting out in public on areas of their expertise is just amazing. I also just want to highlight the special education partnership for dispute resolution. This is something that came across
116our desk probably in October or so. And I spoke with Dr. Santanello. She was very interested in applying to this. This is a partnership with the Department of Education's Office of Special Education and SPAN, which is the Statewide Parent Advocacy Network. And it is really about early dispute resolution. And so, it's the sort of overview of the program is supporting districts to develop really proactive approaches to dispute resolution when dealing with parents of children with special needs. And there were three only three districts in New Jersey were selected. Denali was one of them. Mount Olive and Manalapan English Town were the other two. And so, the partnership focuses on strengthening the district's capacity to address special education concerns proactively, collaboratively, and at the local level before they escalate into formal disputes. There's targeted training, resources,
117and direct support to redefine and strengthen the CPAC, the formerly known as Dreams, the special education parent advocacy group, to ensure that family voice is meaningfully integrated into our practices. And the initiative reflects the district's continued commitment to improving communication, building strong partnerships with families, and ensuring positive outcomes for students through equitable and effective practices. As you know, we've been doing a lot of work with inclusion, which is really kind of an inward-facing initiative, really an external-facing special education initiative. And very grateful for Dr. Santanello for her leadership on this. We have testing going on in the district. Access testing for multilingual learners just wrapped up. The NJGPA, which is the 11th grade graduation assessment, began today and it goes through Thursday. This is the first year of the new platform, Accelus. Is it Accelus?
118I forgot who the vendor is, but we did a pilot in the fall, which went okay. The test is actually very different than it has been in the past in terms of administration, which is a challenge, but we'll get through it. Everybody's doing it. This is the week of testing. And makeups are Friday and next week, and then we have the NJSL window late April into May. So, that's my report. I'll do the enrollment report and then I'll turn it over to Mr. Peppy. So, we now are at 1422 in district enrollment. We have 86 out of district private pre-K students, I should say. At Faber, we have 611 students. At the middle school, we have 316. And at the high school, we have 409. So, 1422 is the highest enrollment that we've seen this
119year. Last year, we ended the year at 1424. So, we're pretty much, you know, where we where we have been. And, you know, we'll see where we go for the next couple of months. With that, I will turn it over to Mr. Peppy for a construction update. Okay, for March construction update, this is construction update number five. I always like to begin with the assumption that there may be people watching who are new to this conversation. So, I would say check out the construction updates that are on our website. Every update has the same first paragraph, which talks about the background of the project, which is a expand preschool expansion project, where we're creating eight new preschool classrooms. Um The second paragraph is a recap of the last update. And if you're looking at the
120the PDF online, you can click on a link to the previous to the same, you know, where the previous updates are posted on the website. For the timeline for this update, we only had a few things. It was about 3 weeks from the last update, and it's been kind of a slow 3 weeks. Not slow, but just the same thing happening. There hasn't been a lot of new stuff. So, we had our construction meeting number seven on February 26th, and construction meeting number eight on March 12th. And in between, we did have a pre-installation meeting, which is where we brought the third-party inspector in to meet with the contractor and the architect and the construction manager and the district and talk about the project. And the specifically, we're talking about the footings that are being
121installed to to make sure that the inspector was on board with and and could provide some advice to the contractor as far as the best best methods to move forward with the project based on what they saw in the ground. So, it was a very productive meeting. We got a report afterwards, and the contractor is now moving forward with starting the installation of the concrete footings. General updates, the project timeline we've completed really haven't completed much. We've continued the work of the excavation and the beginnings of the footings. If you're in the construction business, you'll know what I'm about to say. If you're not, I'll try and explain it. So, what they have installed now is called rebar, which are like those pipes. You've probably seen them when you drive past construction on the highways,
122and there's this like metal bars coming out of the concrete. And what that does is it helps the when they pour the concrete, those bars help to what's the word? Um reinforce the concrete. So, the rebar is installed, and they are ready to pour concrete. So, that's exciting. Upcoming tasks are just continuing. There are 14 total footings that need to be installed, so that's going to take a little bit of time. That's what they're working on mostly. While that's happening, there is some minor demolition work. There are things that still need to be taken out, like a water fountain here and there, and some ceiling things, maybe rerunning some pipes, things like that inside as they prepare for when they're going to start the actual installation of the new classrooms. And And we're also renovating
123the cafeteria, the APR. Um So, that's that. We are At this time, I I normally would have a schedule update, but we had some discussion in our last construction meeting about where they are with the schedule. And the uh the architect and the construction manager gave the contractor some feedback on how they were providing their updates. So, we're waiting for them to revise and get back. So, at the next update, I'll have a schedule update, which is basically just letting you know, is it on schedule? Are we behind? How far behind? Are we ahead? Which doesn't happen with construction projects, but it could happen. Um And then the I guess the last the only fun thing that's happening right now is we did get to select some colors, so that was fun. We met in
124Mr. Tenant's office and picked colors for floors and doors and walls. And that was kind of exciting to say, you know, the first glimpse of what it's going to look like. You know, right now, if you were to go into the construction site, it's all what what has been taken apart and big holes and piles of dirt. But to actually look forward and say, "Oh, the classrooms are going to look like this." It's kind of fun to have that conversation. And there are no new change orders. And just for anyone who's new to the conversation, a change order is when something occurs that wasn't anticipated, and there's an additional cost or sometimes a reduced cost, which we have had. And so, right now, we have no new change orders. There were some from the last
125update, so feel free to read through those, and that is my construction update. Okay, thank you, Mr. Ross. Thank you, Mr. Peppy. Any questions, guys? Okay, moving along. Item number eight, public comment on agenda action items to be voted on. In accordance with policy 0167, 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 on school matters of community interest. At this time, the board invites public comment on agenda action items to be voted on only. The board and administration will take notes during public comment, but will not provide substantive responses to questions or concerns raised by individual speakers. If necessary, the superintendent may provide a brief response after the entire public comment period is completed. The board appreciates and
126welcomes feedback from the community, but is not at liberty to engage in back-and-forth dialogue with members of the public during this portion of the meeting. Prior to making your public comment, please state your name and municipality. Please note that all statements must be directed to the presiding officer. Please come to the microphone at this time if you'd like to make comments on agenda action items to be voted on only. Prior to beginning your comment, please state the action item to be voted on that you would like to comment on. Last call. Okay, moving along to item number nine, committee reports. So, at this time, I will turn the floor over to Ms. Eibach, who is the chair of the education committee for education committee report. Bless you. The education committee met on March 10th, 2026
127at 6:00 p.m. Those present were myself, Ms. Moore, Ms. Shenf, Dr. Gendrano, Ms. Dropkin, and Mr. Ross. The education committee discussed a number of items, including a wide range of staff personnel, professional development, and coaching activities occurring throughout the district, information related to the ongoing grant work across the three schools, the preschool registration process for the 2026-2027 school year, policies and regulations on tonight's agenda, the budget information for 2026-2027 school year, and a variety of other items and confidential matters. Thank you, Ms. Eibach. Moving on to personnel committee, going to turn over to the personnel committee chair, Ms. Shenf. Thank you. Personnel met on March 10th at 8:00 p.m. Present were myself, Mr. Anderson, Mrs. Condit, Dr. Gendrano, Mr. Peppy, and Mr. Ross. The personnel committee discussed a number of items, including staffing information for
128the current year, including the recommendation of Philip McGuinn as the interim coordinator of athletics, which is on tonight's agenda for approval, updates about the evaluation process for non-tenured staff members, detailed information about the 2026-2027 school budget, and a number of confidential items. Thank you, Mrs. Shepp. Moving on to 9C operations. I chair that committee, so let me give you the report. So, excuse me, on March 10th, the operations committee met. In attendance were myself, Mr. Mitchell, Mr. Saeng Noy, Mr. Pepe, and Mr. Ross. We discussed a number of items including a number of items on tonight's agenda for approval including a donation to DHS for plantings by Deloitte as part of its impact day initiative. Detailed information about the 2026-2027 school budget. District security information and enhancements. Internal facilities work occurring throughout the district. A
129change to the board meeting legal notice requirements related to advertising in a print newspaper. Which requires that appears on tonight's tonight's agenda for approval. And a variety of confidential matters. So, to round out the committee reports policy, we don't have an update on that. And negotiations, we'll be talking about that in executive session. So, moving on to item number 10. Approval of the minutes. Looking for a motion to approve the minutes from the February 24th board meeting. I move to approve the minutes from the February 24th board meeting. Second. Open for questions or comments? Last call? Okay. Mr. Pepe, can you please call the roll? Mr. Anderson. Yes. Mrs. Condit. Yes. Ms. Eybeck. Yes. Dr. Gendrano. Yes. Mr. Mitchell. Yes. Mrs. Moore. Yes. Mr. Saeng Noy. Yes. Ms. Schimpf. Yes. Mrs. Shepp. Yes. Motion passes.
130>> [snorts] >> Thank you. So, moving on to item number 11, board action items. So, looking for a motion to approve all of item 11 which includes A, B, C, and D. For um So, looking for a motion to approve um 11. I move to approve item 11. Second. Okay. Open for questions, comments? I did want to note, I think correct me if I'm wrong, guys, that there's an addition to the addendum to the staff list, right? That's what this is. It's not an addendum, it's a correction to the A rate. Oh, okay. Thank you. So, a correction to the staff list and that's in 11 And and the new version is up on the website now. >> new version's on the website. >> website is correct. Okay. Cool. Thank you. Any questions, comments? Dr.
131Gendrano. Yes, sir. Mr. Mitchell. Yes to all, abstain to 11B11 line 8. We're not We're not voting yet. >> We're almost there. Not quite yet. But I I get it, you're not going to you're not going to give up your shot. I got it. Um So, any any other questions or comments before we call roll on this? Okay. Mr. Pepe, could you please call the roll? Mr. Anderson. Yes. Mrs. Condit. Yes. Ms. Eybeck. Yes. Dr. Gendrano. Yes. Mr. Mitchell, it's your turn. >> [laughter] >> Yes to all, except abstain to 11B11 line 8. I'm sorry, can you say that again? 11 11B11 line 8. B Yeah, B >> B11 B118 I just want to clarify for all board members that there are things that you are required to abstain. Voting for yourself to go to
132PD is not one you are required to. You're more than welcome to. So, just just put that out there. So, now I got what it is. 11B I'll watch the video to get that one. Mrs. Moore. Yes. >> [laughter] >> Thank you. Mr. Saeng Noy. Yes. Ms. Schimpf. Yes. Mrs. Shepp. Yes. Okay, the motion passes. Okay. Wonderful. Dr. Gendrano, I request that we suspend the rules and take up the second reading and adoption of bylaws P1054 and P1062. Thank you, Mr. Saeng Noy. Received. So, board members are there any objections? Can I just clarify what's happening so make sure that all board members are in the >> Absolutely, please. >> Yep. So, the bylaws that we're looking to revise are the ones related to the posting the legal notice posting and the law actually takes
133effect April 1st. So, if we waited for another month, we wouldn't have the bylaws in place in time for the effect of the law. So, I recommended that the board consider, which is a legal thing to do, doing both the first reading and the second reading on the same night. This bylaw has been shared with the board members so they know what the changes are. They're very minor. It's really just saying that we are no longer going to be required to post in a print paper that all of our postings are now going to be on our website. We have, just for the everyone's knowledge, we have been posting twice a month and we will throughout the rest of this calendar year. On the Courier News online, we are posting a notice that explains that
134from now on all of our postings will be on the district website. And so, that's in line with this new law. So, what we're trying to do right now, what Mr. Saeng Noy asked, was to suspend the rules, which is a Robert's Rules thing, because we typically, as a board, this board will usually will approve a policy or a regulation or bylaw in one meeting for first reading and then at a separate board meeting would do the second reading and adoption. So, we're suspending the rule with the board members everyone seems to be on board with that so that you could vote both the first reading, which you already did, and now the second reading tonight so that this will take effect immediately so will be in place in time for the start of the
135new law. Does that make sense? Second Mr. Saeng Noy's motion. It's actually not a motion. So, it could be, but Mr. Saeng Noy made a suggestion. He made a recommendation. Dr. Gendrano asked if there were any objections. I would say that you probably should open it again now that I explained it to see if anyone does have an objection. Absolutely, thank you. Um So, are there any objections to to um to um to the sus to >> to suspending the rules. Suspending [snorts] the rules, thank you. >> [laughter] >> Am I the only one who found that fun? I think I am. So, hearing no objections the rules are now suspended. So, do do I have a motion to approve the second reading and adoption of bylaws P0154 and P0162? I move to take up
136the second reading and and approve the bylaws P0154 and P0162 for that adoption. Okay. Open for questions, comments? Last call? Okay. Mr. Pepe, could you please call the roll? Okay, this is a vote just on this second reading and adoption of those two bylaws. Mr. Anderson. Yes. Mrs. Condit. Yes. Ms. Eybeck. Yes. Dr. Gendrano. Yes. Mr. Mitchell. Yes. Mrs. Moore. Yes. Mr. Saeng Noy. Yes. Ms. Schimpf. [clears throat] Yes. Mrs. Shepp. Yes. Okay, so those bylaws are now official and just for clarification, that suspension of the rules is only in effect during this meeting. As soon as we close this meeting, that suspension no longer exists. Okay. Wonderful. All right. Moving along to item number 12, old business. Are there any topics from previous board meetings that we'd like to to bring up and continue
137discussion on? Was that Was there a topic or Oh. Oh. Mr. Anderson. Oh. Oh, okay. Um Okay. Is there any new business for item number 13? Yes, we have some new business. Mr. Mitchell would love to share. See, if I if I do that, you have to share. Press the If you press the red button, you don't have to hold it down. I just wanted to announce that Warrior Martial Arts here in Dunellen awarded VIP passes to each student who earned student of the month for January and February. They will receive a free class and a free t-shirt, and that's uh good at the uh Dunellen location and the South Plainfield location. Okay. Yes. >> And thank you to to Warrior Fitness for that generous contribution to our students. Uh I I was uh >>
138Nicely done. Wasn't I the student of the month like 13th grade? No? Okay. All right. All right. Any other new business? >> [snorts] >> Okay. Moving along to item number 14, president's remarks. Uh nothing to add from what I'd said before. Um moving on to item number 15, public comments. Any school-related issue or topic in accordance with policy 0167, 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 on school matters of community interest. At this time, the board invites public comment on any school-related issue or topic. The board and administration will take notes during public comment, but will not provide substantive responses to questions or concerns raised by individual speakers. If necessary, the superintendent may provide a brief response
139after the entire public comment period is completed. The board appreciates and welcomes feedback from the community, but is not at liberty to engage in a back-and-forth dialogue uh with members of the public during the this portion of the meeting. Prior to making a public comment, please state your name and municipality. Please note that all statements must be directed to the presiding officer. Please come to the microphone at this time if you'd like to make comments on any school-related issue or topic. Last call? Okay. Moving on to item number 16, executive session. So, the Dunellen Board of Education will now adjourn into executive session to discuss items that fall within specific exceptions to the Open Public Meetings Act C.N.J.S.A. 10:4- 12b. The confidential matters discussed by the board during this executive session include items related to
140individual privacy, collective bargaining agreements, as well as personnel. Any discussion that does not need to remain confidential will be made public as soon as it is practical. Minutes of the executive session will not be disclosed until the need for confidentiality no longer exists. All individuals who may be discussed in executive session have been adequately notified. Just uh uh just for the public to note, we will return uh to public session um after executive session for board discussion, but action will not take place um after the conclusion of the executive session. So, just want to make that um make make everyone aware of that. So, uh may I have a motion to move to executive session? Move to go to exec. Seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. We'll see whoever is left here at
141the end of executive session, and then we'll adjourn from there. >> Mhm. >> I mean if you want to If you want to bring up a chair so it's not so like, you know, just you know Yeah. Okay. All right. All right, so looking for motion to go into public. Move to go back to public. All those in favor? I. Opposed. Okay, so now we are here to talk about All right. Yeah. All right. All right, so with the resignation of the current superintendent effective the end of the year, the board is tasked with the um finding a new superintendent. And this board has determined it's going to do this in two phases. Um which are going to happen simultaneously, but one will take longer. So the first phase is going to be finding a
142interim superintendent to start July 1st, and then the second phase will be which will, like I said, will be happening concurrently, will be uh a full superintendent search, and an RFP was sent out on March 6th, 7th, somewhere around there. It was out for 10 days, and yesterday was the deadline um for the RFP responses. So we're here to talk about the firms that have submitted responses to the RFP. We have five of them. I'm just going to read them uh the firms and their proposal cost. Uh the board members have access to the actual proposals, so you can take a look at them when you have time. You only received them last night, so it'd be hard for us to have a full conversation about that now. But just so that we have a
143record of who has submitted their applications, and then I'll be looking for some guidance as far as who we want to bring in for interviews in the special meeting we're calling for next Tuesday. Okay, so we have These are in I I'm reading them in the order of cost from lowest to highest. Lowest to highest. Lowest to highest. So the lowest cost was $14,000 from Kathleen Helowa Educational uh Consultants, and I apologize if I butchered that last name. Um the second one, which came in at 15,500, is from New Jersey School Boards Association. The third one, which came in at $19,000, was from SEA. And the fourth, which came in at $21,500, is HYA Associates. And the final one, which came in at $25,000, was Comegno. So those are the um proposals that we received.
144As I said, you all have access to them, so you can look at them later, and um let me know, but I I just wanted to kind of hear from the board your reactions to those proposals. Do you have any suggestions as far as do you want to just invite all five, or do you want to review them and then give me, you know, a list of three or four to bring in, and um we'll set up the meeting for next Tuesday. Mr. Pepe, just to clarify, for SEA you said 19,000. Is it 19, or is it 19,900? >> Thank you. I need new glasses. It is $19,900. It's this font. The nine and the zero look too similar. Mr. Pepe, you you uh made a recommendation of 10 minutes. I No, I was go
145I I I gave examples of times that we could do. That's what I meant. >> So 10 was one of them. >> 10 minutes, we could interview all of them like an hour and then have a discussion. Mhm. We Sorry to interrupt. We don't also have to have time in between so they don't necessarily, you know, see each other or interact in between. Yeah, as I was saying, we could probably be in 2 hours we could discuss and have them in and out. >> Mhm. If we do 10, 15-minute ones, yes. Yeah. So if I may say, I don't mind having all five show up just to hear what they have to say, and see what $25,000 gives us as opposed to 14,000. Mhm. I would agree with all five. Bring them all in. That
146makes sense, I think, you know, to give each applicant appropriate time and, you know, attention. I feel like, you know, that would be helpful. Mr. Pepe, would you say that that's a typical amount of time? Um unfortunately, I don't have the experience to answer that question. I I have not been through this process. I do think um if you do the 10 minutes, you might want to consider a second round, which would delay the process. Um but you might get what you need. I I don't disagree that you there is a chance that in 10 minutes you can you can get what you need out of them. Um we're going to need to put together a list of questions, so I guess if we're looking at a 10-minute interview, then that list of questions has
147to be like three questions. Right? You really if you want to have any kind of conversation about about that. We might be able to do that. I'm just saying to put it Oh. I'm sorry. Um if we wanted to do a more extensive where we had five or six questions, then we would probably need more like 20 to 30 minutes. I was going to say the last time we did that, we had we only had three. So we were able to allow a little bit more time. So. I I don't know. Um I I mean I guess we should hear everyone, but in lieu of what's happening with this budget and the prices, I mean even though a $25,000 firm may look nice, I don't know how well that would go over in the midst
148of us wanting to raise taxes as well. I don't know. As as a taxpayer, I'd be looking at us sideways about this $25,000. That's just me. I think I kind of agree with that. Like maybe we interview the three lower ones that's all under $20,000 for the cost. Just to push back. Maybe the $14,000 people say, "Oh, well, I can do what they can do. I'm just not going to charge you for it, but we don't know what they're going to say they're going to do if we don't hear them." Did I know we just got these. Did anybody have a chance to look at all of them because in in my overview there was a a definite difference between the lowest offer and some of the others in terms of I I do think
149we want to be fiscally responsible and I agree with that. Um and I guess my follow-up question would be to Mr. Pepe in terms of what we can support reasonably, but beyond that I also think there does come a point in time like we're looking for someone to run our district. We don't want to have to be back at this table ideally every few years doing this. Is it more prudent of us to find a good firm that meets our needs and does what we need it to do to successfully ideally land a candidate the first go around than in 3 years, you know, we we put out $14,000 now and in 3 years we're back doing it again because we were hasty. That's a good point. That's a good point. Well, and the interview
150process comes at no cost too, right? Like so we wouldn't be required to offer like have a down payment or something, right? For the interview and so Correct. Okay. I think we can double check this number, but just as a matter of perspective, I think in the last search that we did in 2022, we I think it was $15,000 that we spent. And I thought I think we caught hell from the public for that. But You caught hell for spending $15,000? Well, yeah, but Yep. But it's also, you know, everything's more expensive 3 years later, well. >> [snorts] >> So, I I think just what I'm hearing from the board members is that there is concern about the higher price ones, but perhaps it's worth at least giving them an interview. Is that fair? Yeah,
151I think that's fair. All right. So, we are going to interview five. I will call them tomorrow. And um Dr. Gindrana, you'll coordinate putting questions together. You know. So >> I mean delegate to Oh, yes, delegating, yes, okay. >> [laughter] >> So, the question is could we just put a Google sheet out or yeah, use Google Sheets to kind of capture our questions? You can. I mean that's up to the board to decide how you want to manage that. You can talk about it now or you can just delegate someone to It's just a task. It's how do you collect it, you know? I think that makes sense. Who Who can do it I can I can put questions on there asynchronously. All right, sounds good. Do we need to then set up a deadline
152for when questions need to be in by in order for us to narrow down which questions we'll be asking at next week's meeting? Yeah. So, what what we have 7 days basically to less than that, right? Less than I'm thinking if we end up everybody on here has five questions, right? We need to narrow it down to a small number if we're only doing 10 to 15 minutes like Rich said. So, we would I would think want to do that before next Tuesday. Yeah. Oh, so I'll just throw this out there. Questions in all questions in the Google Doc by end of day Thursday? Friday. Friday noon? Friday evening, close of business. I'm going to keep pushing it. I know. I know. I'm okay with Friday end of day Friday. If you all are we
153can commit to that. That's reasonable. But then we'll we'll have to have how how do we want to figure out how we whittle it down? If if all of us writes five writes five questions, that's 45 questions. How do we get to three? We come with the questions we like the best. Okay. I I can help with that process. I think Yeah, I don't think we have to decide the specific once you have the questions, if you give them to me, I can organize them, send an email to the full board with some format of of asking, you know, rank your top three. Yeah. Will it be on the Google? Mhm. Yep. Yep. Mhm. Well, no, they'll all be in there once you get the top three, right? Yep. So, the questions should be numbered
154then. Yes. Yep. Uh I would advise also putting your initials next to it in case you need some clarification on what what that question is. Okay. That's a good idea. So, we'll have final questions by Sunday night, Monday? Saturday morning? Well, you said have them by Friday evening, by Saturday morning it should be done, right? Well, no, we're entering the Google entry into um Google Sheets by close of business Friday. So, how many how many days do you need or whoever's organizing them to put them together. How much time do you need to do that? Depends on whether my son's pitching on Friday night. >> [laughter] >> Yeah. Yes. Um >> [laughter] >> So, yeah, I mean I'm going to say I'll commit to by midday Saturday. Oh, awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
155If I get it So, what's that? What? Till the the end of the weekend? No, I said midday Saturday. Okay. That's a quick turnaround. Yeah. Okay. I mean, we you don't have a lot of time, so No, we don't. I want you to have time to to digest and you know, take the ranking seriously. God bless you. Bless you. Thank you. So, it will have I guess what same person ask the same all three questions or we split it up or You mean during the interviews? Yes. We can decide that next Tuesday. Okay. Okay. So, I think we've completed the business we needed to complete. I think you're right. All right. Uh before we close this up, any last thoughts, guys? Okay. Motion to adjourn. Moved. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Let's get
156out of here. >> [clears throat]