001foreign [Music] good evening and welcome to the Franklin Township Board of Education meeting today is Tuesday April 25th 2023. can I get a roll call Mr banano Mr Tsai Mr grippo Dr Hopkins Mr Jackson yeah Miss Maris here Mr Siobhan missing here Dr Smith Court here and for the record Sammy said that he was going to be late and um Mike is traveling can you read the open public meetings app please in accordance with the open public meeting ACT public law in 1975 chapter 231 Sunshine Law copies of the public meeting notice were sent to the Korean news the home News Tribune The Star Ledger the Franklin reporter tap into Franklin Township Franklin Township Clerk manager district schools offices and associations PTO presidents and posted on the district website thank you can I get a
002motion to adjourn to confidential please so move to move by ottoman seconded by Nishida on favor aye opposed we are a journey to confidential for the purpose of discussing confidential matters including Personnel negotiations and special education settlements and final Samson G Smith principal interviews minutes of the confidential session will be made public when the reason for confidentiality no longer exists good evening and we are back from confidential session reasons for the confidential confidentiality will be made public with a reason no longer exists can I get a motion to adopt the agenda please so moved seconds by artiman second advice all in favor opposed okay that um also includes addendum number 10 to the P section um Sammy would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance please foreign would you read the mission statement please
003sure Franklin Township Public Schools Embraces its diversity Fosters excellent educational Innovation and empowers all students to achieve their Highest Potential thank you and now we are on to the fun stuff a presentation for our volunteer recognition because can't do without our volunteers so we would like to thank our uh amazing volunteers for the past leadership of the Franklin High School booster club and Franklin Athletics booster club and the participants in the teacher Leadership Academy and school-based CLR teams is there a presentation Mary that yes thank you all for coming this evening as we recognize and thank members of the Franklin High School booster club and its descendant the Franklin Athletics booster club while we could not ever thank everyone who has been part of these organizations since their Inception over 50 years ago we tried
004to gather some of the leaders from the past 30 years some of the names we read we read about in some older Varsity dinner programs have passed away While others have moved away from Franklin but what struck me the most as I read over the programs from 1993 and 2003 was the familiarity of the names students who were named athletes of the year or booster club scholarship winners who have come back and are now District staff members volunteers named in those books who are staff members now and coaches who are still staff members the purpose of this organization has always been to support the student athletes staff and athletic program of Franklin High School and the Franklin Township Public Schools [Music] the organizations have over the years consisted of parents teachers coaches students and community
005members as their children have graduated some volunteers moved on others stayed and some new Warriors joined and brought a fresh perspective to the tried and true values of this organization service for our student athletes when asked why they volunteered some of our honorees said I wanted to help the student athletes have their best high school experience possible or because all of my three kids were three sport athletes from 1994 to 2007. I felt that this was the way I could support them in addition to supporting their coaches and our Athletic program what do our honorees remember most about serving working for a group of dynamic individuals who were sincerely committed to ensuring our student athletes needs were met others said that meeting others who have become their lifelong friends will be what they will always
006remember and what they are most proud of the overall success of the organization the fact that each year they continue to grow and find new ways to give back to our student athletes and teams and for Mr McLaughlin who was active with the booster club for many years he says my biggest accomplishment was convincing Marissa Gallagher to join and she has rewarded Everyone by staying and being dedicated hard-working member all these past years Mrs Gallagher has been president of the organization for the last 10 years and is getting ready to pass the torch to some new leaders next year foreign through the years the booster club has become an integral part of Franklin High School athletics they have provided scholarships for our student athletes coordinated all the Senior Day activities for our senior athletes including
007senior gifts and pictures they have provided game day chairs lightweight wrestling mats and financial support of a and a shed for the tennis team the organization has a lot of gift money for each athletic team to spend on an end of the year celebration or on other ones that are not covered in the athletic budget these include rings for state champions supportive team fundraisers for competition trips team banners individual banners event canopies and food for athletes what their contributions are not always material the sense of community that being part of that group brings along with the warrior Pride they generate is priceless they even keep track of alumni athletes and spread good news about them as I said earlier we would not be able to gather all those who have served in leadership roles in
008the booster club over the years but we do have a few individuals who we are able to reach out to some of whom are here tonight so if you are here please join me and Mr marglin if you could come up to the podium and receive a certificate of appreciation on behalf of the Board of Education come come on down you could read their names if you'd like everybody yeah read everybody I'm not sure everybody's here but if you would thank you um so I know that we have a long meeting tonight but you guys know better than to give me a microphone so I'll be really brief one minute um I you know I've been in district 21 years and when I started as a coach it was tmac and his crew and uh
009and you can see what they did just had a huge impact on the athletes and the parents and the community and uh from everybody that was involved at that point now the torch has been passed um and then where the torch will go moving forward I am personally incredibly in debt to the boosted club and everything the booster club has accomplished because we're like-minded and that everything we do are for the benefits of our athletes and our kids so thank you for all of that without further ado Claire Claire Anderson Brian bamrick thank you Nicholas dimaglio Marissa Gallagher [Applause] Andrew Hooper Patsy Hooper mestra rich Maeve McLaughlin you know where to find her yeah Andrew Hooper yeah Jody Meyer Karen netcal thank you Elaine Osmond bill would you know where she is okay usually where
010you can find Bill you find Elaine thank you to Eric can you give it to his mom I wasn't kidding when I said they were like a family Fred Simonson [Applause] um Rebecca oh Rebecca Solomon [Applause] I'm sorry I just have to and uh Walt wagos he's watching his grandchildren okay thank you everybody we really appreciate everything [Applause] oh I got this one already oh I'm I'm stealing your thunder no to what this one I already gave him this yeah I'm sorry yeah Tom o'clock we're gonna give him another one I'm sorry everybody if you could go and say uh shake the board's hand and then we'll take a quick picture with him can we do two for you okay sorry you pulled it that's what I thought you were waiting for the end because
011you were going to say something can we get our high school friends they want to get in there questions [Music] right now thank you organize them how you want Mary okay okay [Music] um and the last quote is from Howard Cosell the ultimate Victory and competition is derived from the inner satisfaction of knowing that you have done your best and that you have gotten the most out of what you have had to give to all of you who have helped our student athletes over the years truly compete to their best while you're giving the most of what you have had to give we thank you [Applause] thank you guys all right yes our second presentation of the evening is a recognition of our Equity team leaders thank you all for coming this evening as we
012recognize and thank members of our Equity teams both past and present in the summer and early fall of 2020 the Franklin Township Board of Education approved a system-wide equity needs assessment and adopted an anti-racism policy and its accompanying regulation the needs assessment conducted by Dr lanice Stevenson was a qualitative and quantitative analysis which enabled us to identify the factors that contribute to a sense of school belonging for students from traditionally marginalized racial and ethnic minority backgrounds and helped us to identify processes and practices that cause or contributed to inequitable student outcomes in February of 2021 the results of the needs assessment were developed into an equity action plan which was adopted by the board the plan focused on four areas anti-racism cultural and linguistic responsiveness Equity literacy and school belonging each with its own goals
013these goals were further developed into action steps which were acknowledged by the board in June of 2021 and subcommittees to track the progress towards these goals were created volunteer staff members from each School began attending the teacher leadership candidate Academy in 2021 school year these monthly mostly virtual training sessions led by Dr Stevenson guided the participants in first examining their own stories personal history educational experiences cultural background and implicit biases as the months progress the Focus Shift towards best practices in pedagogy and a look at the curriculum with an eye towards how students from varied backgrounds might respond to it in ongoing efforts these teams are learning how to use this information more to create a sense of belonging and Equitable opportunities for all students the discussions from these sessions fostered included topics such as
014curriculum revision teacher Recruitment and discipline while the discussions that flowed in and from the teacher Leadership Academy touched on a wide variety of subjects aimed at supporting goals in each area of the equity plan there were specific lessons and skills that all classroom teachers could benefit from these skills were honed by the school-based cultural culturally and linguistically responsive teaching teams these teams met separately following the teacher Leadership Academy meetings and brainstormed on how to take specific lessons on CLR and share them with the faculty in a way that would promote participation and collaboration time at faculty meetings was given to these teams so they could turn key their training to all teaching staff these team members remain a resource an example for their colleagues even after those trainings and so we thank them here are
015the names of those who have either served in the teacher Leadership Academy or have served on the school-based cre CLR teams the Asterix next to teaching staff members are those who have served for multiple years I'm just going to call each School up and if you are in the audience if you could come forward receive your certificate from Mr Plummer and say your name then you can shake the board's hand and we'll take a photo like the other group is anyone here from Franklin High School come on up I can make this let me see eyeshadow I can even do this okay if you'll say your name here hi my name is Warren Chen give him a round of applause [Applause] Franklin Middle School at the Hamilton Street campus [Applause] I know you you can
016say your name hi I'm Anissa busala good evening I'm Leanne Ingles [Applause] you can shake and we'll give them to you after anyone here from Franklin Middle School at the Samson G Smith campus [Applause] thank you if you would say your name Jill Santoni Josefina Ortiz Jared Shepherd [Applause] Shake will get you your certificate afterwards anyone here from Claremont Elementary School okay we'll be sending those in into office now anyone here from Connor Lee Road School [Applause] Rania Saba Maxine Robinson Janelle Lord [Applause] [Laughter] is there anyone here from Elizabeth Avenue School and accepting on behalf of his whole team who were unable to make it this evening is principal Greg Romero showed up right away Franklin Park School and Annex [Applause] hi Felicia osley Rebecca Solomon okay McGee go ahead you can shake first
017thank you Hillcrest School okay McAfee Road School I see a whole row of Pine Grove people [Laughter] [Applause] thank you hello Edgar Vasquez Molina Lorena Gonzalez Lauren Krauss Andrea lonesky Hennessy miles [Applause] yes I want to say a few words about these [Music] it is a party and for those of you who do not know me my name is Darren Plummer I'm my supervisor of uh equity and inclusion here in the district and I just want to talk first about the the types of people that our teacher leaders were they shine light in their classrooms they shine light in their buildings they shine light to their colleagues and that's aside from the professionalism the the Courage the intentionality they show up with every day for our students for our families and for each other in
018the buildings um I'm not going to say too much more to that I know when my time has run out Kenny so I just want to share that with you and thank them so much for their time commitment dedication to our students and families in our district don't go anywhere anywhere personally say thank you as well actually on Thursday I'm going to attend a meeting where there are districts across the state of New Jersey who are going to be talking about trying to organize what UFOs have spent the last two years already organizing so there are folks realizing the importance of the work that you engaged in and how important it is to improve the teacher-student relationship and to provide a better experience for our students no matter what what backgrounds what their you know
019what history no matter what it's important and folks are recognizing that and with that said I'm going to be proud to be there and Darren's going to be with me we're going to be proud because we're going to share what our positive experience has been and the work that you all have done to make an impact on so many students and the work is far from being done I realized that but know that there's not a lot of folks in your company and you are really blazing a path for a lot of other folks to emulate so we are super proud of you you do a tremendous tremendous tremendous job setting an example within your school so you know for me on behalf of our board who is very familiar with the work Mr Plummer
020and Dr lagrin Who uh should be super proud because he has done yeoman's work to organize and initiate a lot of what's taken place here so um credit to him credit to you all credit to this gentleman and all of our principals so proud of you thank you so much [Applause] surely I think Maybe Dan come up in the picture no you should get the picture Dan okay [Applause] the certificates are in the back I'll get them to you I just want to set the superintendent up with the budget and with this one next is budget okay before you guys all go um di Folk oh it is on oh so I like I just wanted to let you guys know that from the New Jersey school boards perspective um Franklin is so far above
021what other school districts in the state are doing because it's like that is who we get our PD from his board members so thank you to you guys for helping to accelerate our process which is getting our district to be um diverse Equitable and include everybody so um thank you so much for that I just want to let you guys know that so it's always nice to thank people for their hard work and now we are going to move on to our riveting public hearing on the 23 24 school budget thank you uh so most of the folks here in the audience helped to put this together so I will probably Breeze through a lot of these initial slides but I do want to spend a little bit a little bit of time on a
022couple of them um obviously this is very similar to the preliminary budget presentation that was just a few weeks ago and also very similar to the open public Finance meeting so this is the third go-round that we're doing this particular presentation speaking about many of the programs that will be funded with this budget so without further ado I would like to go to First thanking the Board of Education members that's okay Dr lagrin uh I'd like to first thank the Board of Education members um for helping with their input on the budget again this is our third go round we had an open Public Finance meeting where the finance committee worked with us to put the budget together we went on to a preliminary budget hearing where the whole board helped to approve a preliminary
023budget that was filed with the county State Department of Ed and then the state department of Ed is challenged to approve that and get it back to us so we can advertise it what you're seeing is the approved advertised budget so they're all our board members they all sit here in front of you and are intimately familiar with the budget as it was advertised here are all our budget managers and this is uh something that I wanted to make sure we highlight because there are about 38 positions listed here and many of the folks that are sitting in this room that have remained behind are folks that have input on this budget so the budget development process starts in September it doesn't start in January or February or March when State 8 is released or
024any of the other figures that were dependent upon it starts way back in September with the board approving budget goals and then these 38 people go to work to help us to arrive at our budget our annual school budget that once approved becomes the following year or in this case 23-24 school budget so lots of work goes into this kudos to these people and once approved they then manage the budget to make sure that nothing's over expended and that the things that were promised are delivered goals for tonight review the previous improved budget goals review estimated revenues and projected tax impact receive board input and public comment and Game Board of Education approval final approval for the budget budget goals I'm not going to take time to go over these this would be like I
025said no we did them in September we went over them at our preliminary meeting three months ago we went over them last month again and what you can see here and what I want to point out is the connection between the budget goal and the Board of Ed goal so our board has Board of Ed goals listed on every single agenda every single month and those goals are goals they work to arrive at in the beginning of the school year and then when they approve budget goals they approve goals to support that philosophy okay and even though these are future year budget goals they need to stay in line with the current thinking of the current board and so that's why you can see that connection and that's a hyperlink whenever you see blue on
026our presentation it's a hyperlink so later on when you want to go back when you have time you can click on those hyperlinks and you can see the distinct connection between what is a budget goal and what is a board goal we have them every year you know these are not unique but this year brought some unique challenges first and foremost over the last couple of years with the pandemic and pandemic relief and uh you know learning challenges brought about by the pandemic we were fortunate to get some federal funding that allowed us to support some of our programs and also support some of the rising costs due to inflation Transportation so forth and so on so there's about three million dollars in Esser funds that we've become accustomed to and what we had to
027do was figure out a way that we could continue our programs without sacrificing programs once the Esser funds are gone and over with which sr1 and sr2 the first two um bits of those relief monies will be over by September of this school year leaving only the sr3 amount of money for some additional programming that we have scheduled for this year so um you know that that's a good amount of money that we use to help offset budget increases that were on anticipated due to the pandemic and now we need to figure out a way and we did to continue with some of those programs steep increases in health care costs due to the implementation of chapter 44 and some other things like post pandemic people returning to the doctor so forth and so on
028so we've got a little bit of a hit there we've got additional increases in and these are all estimated by the way that's why you see the little squiggly and not the uh or what looks to be squiggly lines and not exactly equal signs we've got additional increases in transportation costs like anything else fuel prices are up Insurance prices are up we have a national driver shortage that we're still struggling with although in our district we're in pretty good shape but that then obviously increases the cost it takes to move kids around so you have increases there and of course we all know we're dealing with a national teacher shortage and we have vacancies ourselves the board has done a very good job working with the ftea and our Teachers Association to end our administrators
029Association to really develop create a nice Recruitment and Retention plan that we believe will help folks stay here and not only that help us to attract folks and really it gives us a little more flexibility when we negotiate and also provide some incentive uh stipends to folks who are currently here in hopes that they'll recognize that as or or see that as recognition for the hard work that they've done with us and hopefully that will help encourage them to stay with us especially like I said because so many folks are moving around nowadays due to the shortage especially in high need areas so those were all the challenges within our our our Revenue limits um which are regulated by the state department so um we were able to overcome them and you'll hear more about
030that from Mr Valencia when he gets up here to give you a little bit more on the numbers and then I'm going to Breeze through these slides because like I said most of you either help to put them together um and or if you weren't here for any of the other two presentations you can always go back and and look at this and click on our hyperlinks where I previously had thoroughly explained these but now we've got hyperlinks in here to help move this along a little bit so but you will see some things here you know the number one goal for the board is always to make sure the safety and well-being of our students and staff are well cared for and you can see some things here that are supported by this budget
031we have a mentoring program at the high school we have uh a effective School Solutions or ESS program at the secondary schools and that's a program uh that that is actually an outside vendor coming in to do some counseling for our kids therapeutic kind of counseling we've got an increase in safety offers one at each of the secondary schools that would include the two middle schools in the high school we got a new program that Dr our sawala brought to us our line wise program it's a new 24 7 uh internet monitoring program we got contracted salary increases for our wonderful class three Franklin Township police officers we haven't wanted every Elementary School one at the high school and our sros we have uh two and a half at the middle school level we share
032one between the two middle schools plus we have a full-time person in each Middle School we have a full-time one at the high school we have contractual rate increases for our officers for outside events we've been struggling a bit getting officers for outside events that we go through a third party vendor that the police have that assign those officers and we need to maintain a competitive rate we always had a little bit of a discounted rate so we've increased that rate in order to attract folks to take our jobs we think it's important and we want them SEL virtual parent workshops SEL is social emotional learning supports for students that we're going to be working with our parents this year providing some workshops to we've been doing a lot with staff now it's time to
033work with our parents so that's all new Under well-being and safety of students uh new Under sr2 or actually this is after two these are some of the things that we've either paid for in the past or moving out and I wanted to show this slide because you'll see things like um Transportation cost increases technology infrastructure technology licenses uh these are all things that SEL software these are all things that we had previously been funding with sr2 which ends September 30th 2023 which now need to move into our regular regular operating budget so again part of that three million dollars that we're talking about sr3 these are things that will be funded with a Federal grant next year and their academic summer school in this summer 2023 Elementary morning and afternoon tutorials transitional homeroom materials
034a phonics awareness program math game based programming High School supplemental online math programming Technology support technology infrastructure the teacher retention and recruitment plan which you know really is going to be a two-year plan a two-year incentive plan um and then some things in the sub grants that are part of esser3 under mental health supports under summer programming beyond the school day programming and then mental health supports so these are all things that will be federally funded but I wanted to show those to you because they're important and then we move on to professional development something that go a goal that aligns well to what the board's goal is in maintaining quality staff these are some of the things and you'll be able to click on those to see in the area of professional development some
035of the things we're working on staff with accelerated learning we want to continue with Orton Gillingham PD restorative practices we've been working hard on that Janelle has actually worked very hard on that with Mr Plummer and you know we appreciate that and we see that making a big impact right we yes we still suspend kids but we also want to teach kids how to better deal with situations when they arise so that in the future we don't have to suspend them because every day their home is one day less of learning that's how we see it right monetary incentives to promote educator retention monetary incentives to assist with teacher Recruitment and additional tuition reimbursement for educators we're firm Believers in the fact that our teachers need to continue to grow because if our teachers grow
036our kids grow we've got a budget goal here consistent with the board's goal to expand programming we've got an expanded Media Center program at the elementary level expanded fmstv production feeder program we've got a trade sampling program which we may be moving to the high school we're going to have a discussion about that and in I guess a week or so we had the development of a CTE program in business marketing again we've continued to grow our Career Technical education program we have one thriving program in video production we have another thriving program in dance and this is now getting into business marketing which was our promise and our next step um we're funding a new volleyball team so Mr Morgan has been after us for some time to get interscholastic volleyball and jsia competitive
037volleyball going at the high school so this will be a new program for Franklin and it'll be a new sport for Franklin and we're one of the few in our conference that doesn't have at least a girls team so this will be a new program for us it's boys and girls and we're excited about bringing a new program online we've got Elementary online Ela and math tutorials we've got Elementary online stem tutorials and we're starting with those now in the spring and they'll continue into next year and because we know we have the challenges in the world languages to find qualified professionals to teach World languages that's not going away folks unfortunately that is a field where there's not a lot of teachers in we've got some Creative Solutions that we've been working on and
038one of them is to support our teachers using the FL 4K World languages digital content program we started to do some of that this year our world language is supervisor would like to continue with that program with Dr loughran's blessing and we believe that it provides the necessary support for our teachers so I encourage you to click on that it'll take you to their website and you can learn a lot more about what that program has to offer and kudos to Ms Schneider who's been working with Dr loughran and Miss Ochoa and um Mr Quizno our world language's supervisor on a new program and trying to get some J-1 Visa teachers to join our team here in Franklin who would be certified World languages teachers so we're working on that actually trying to get some
039State support for that program and hopefully we'll do that so kudos to you Jackie and Dr lagrin and Armando and Julie for bringing that program here and hopefully that will bear some fruit for us and help us to attack this world language World languages uh teacher issue we've got the expansion of ESL programming at the elementary and secondary level we're actually going to be opening a new strand at the elementary level uh Conor uh not con early I'm sorry Claremont Elementary School will be starting a band of um Elementary ESL it's a growing population and we're running out of room in Pine Grove and you guys do a wonderful job don't get me wrong you do a wonderful job with our ESL and bilingual programs but we need some additional support in our ESL program
040especially at the elementary and secondary level so we'll be working with some additional staff there um under the district Equity plan we have an implementation of AP African-American studies and you can click on that to see what that's all about that is a college board supported program we're excited to bring that here to Franklin we're going to be one of is it 60 Dan am I somewhere in that neighborhood yeah it's about that not to be quoted but it's somewhere in the neighborhood of about 60 who will be in phase two of a pilot we're joining in on the phase two piece pilot we have Equity training and coaching which will continue you heard from our wonderful Equity teams in the building so we're going to continue with that we're going to continue our membership
041with the New Jersey network of superintendents which is really a district membership Dr lager myself and Mr Plummer often attend those meetings and they've been here visiting our district to see the wonderful work we've done and we go and see what others are doing and we share experiences and it's part of a professional study group it's a small amount of money for a lot of knowledge that we get and we're proud to be part of it a partnership with equal opportunity schools that's something we've had at the high school for a number of years and we're going to continue that was something that really opened our eyes to the work that we're doing now and why we needed to do it so we're very proud of the work we've done with equal opportunity schools and
042diversifying our AP and our honors programs as a result of our work with them and we want to continue that in future years I encourage you to click on that link as well because that's filled with information on what EOS has to offer by the way that relationship was something that came out of that New Jersey network of superintendents I was witness to a presentation that they made a couple of years back at the Panasonic foundation in Newark it was so impressive I came back got Dr lagrin all excited about it we did our research we brought the folks in got the high school excited about it and off we went um so we've got some other things um in the area of relationships to community at large community-sponsored interventions competition thanks to the San
043Ani Foundation website updates communication platform upgrades new mobile app continued District video productions uh Mr pinnix does a wonderful job with us on that and so does Miss Clark translation services something we do here in this District where any principal anybody if a translator is not available within the school they can at least rely on a service although it's not like having someone there it's at least having something and then we have our Township newsletter that we participate in with the township and share the expense of that and we'd like to continue that as well to get the message out about the wonderful things happening in the schools and we've got sustainable and green initiatives going on um one of the things that we've asked you to support as a district stipend or stipend for
044a district coordinator of school green based teams every school has now developed a team and in order to keep that ball rolling and keep things moving forward we want one person to centralize the effort and to share between the teams and keep things going in the forward Direction so that we can see real change within our schools and we've asked for that and we've funded that in this budget we've got a dedicated energy manager you know we've got our own solar panels now we're looking to do some more of that work so it's a small stipend part of additional duties for an already existing staff member I mentioned the Energy savings incentive plan and although there is no cost associated with this support for the community to know that the board is interested in making
045sure that we continue down the road of saving money in the energy area because more money we save on energy that's more money we can put toward the classrooms so if you click on that you'll learn more about what an energy savings incentive plan is and we have folks studying our buildings again we did it a few years back and we want to see what else we can do so that we can save some money in the area of energy anything we're asked to do would be funded with the savings and then beyond that the savings would again allow us to put more money toward the classrooms and an HVAC unit upgrades um at a FHS desperate need of some what we call Chiller air conditioning work at Franklin High School uh so that is
046funded in this budget uh Mr Valencia will talk a little bit more about that in a second and Franklin Park School really the building we call the annex which is the ecdc the early childhood development center uh desperate need of some work and we're getting some new units on top of that building plus a new roof which you'll hear more about in a minute and really this is just a summary of the Personnel change as you can see I mentioned I mentioned the three safety officers I mentioned the two SEL ESL teachers already we've got one social studies teacher we're adding to the budget and that's to help us accomplish the goals the goal of the board which is their policy which was part of our Equity plan part of our Equity plan was to
047add an additional graduation requirement that not other not a state requirement it's a local board requirement that um requires students to take a course that aligns to the goals the learning goals of our race gender and Equity course so every student starting with our current Junior snake is that correct Dr lagrin sophomores who will be Juniors next year right it will be Juniors next year need to get that accomplished if they haven't already there is some flexibility because some students may have locks in their schedule so we're giving the principal some flexibility if the board passes an amendment to their policy tonight that will give our principal some flexibility for those kids attending vocational school who might not otherwise be able to fit it into their schedule for whatever reason but for a majority of
048our students it's an additional graduation requirement that no one else has to my knowledge anyway locally or in the state but something we feel is very important and so did our Equity teams and our students by the way that was something that came to us from our students and a media center specialist at the elementary level and although it doesn't get us perfect like the doctor would like but we're getting closer we're getting closer so uh you know we got to keep chipping away we'd like to have one in every building eventually we'll still have some shares in the smaller buildings but it gets us closer to where we eventually want to be um the fine visual performing arts teacher I mentioned and then a custodian at EAS AAS has grown in size number of
049kids and also square footage of building we've been holding off on this because 2018-19 was when we were kind of done with that 1920 if you remember became an interrupted year we had a lot of other things on our mind and 2021 we still had a lot of things on our mind but this is something that we knew we were going to need to get to eventually and now that we're using our buildings the way the buildings were designed again finally thank god um we're certainly realizing the need for that support and I'm sure Mr Romero will appreciate that um and that really brings us to our revenue and appropriation side of the budget which is all the numbers which I'm going to let Mr Valencia talk about um so if you come up Lou
050Valencia is our school business administrator foreign thank you so this is the fun stuff numbers so um here we have uh this is just a summary of our tax levy so last year FY 23 tax level is 151.058 310. this year we qualified for an enrollment adjustment which is additional students which the state tells us what that number is 662 707 is What We additionally got which we can add to our um tax levy um when you add the two uh it's 154 177 437. um and I'll go into the healthcare adjustment a little bit later because of the increase in the state health benefits the state has allowed most uh districts to take this adjustment to account for the huge increase to the state health health benefits I believe it was a 15.1 percent
051um so total so we're allowed to take that adjustment which brings our total 24 tax levy to 157 818 35. um these are our capital projects that we're looking to fund using our capital reserve Dr ravali had alluded to earlier it's basically a savings account where at the end of each year we are able to allocate any unfund you um unspent funds to put into our uh capital reserve account to help maintain our buildings so this year we're looking to pull out 2.3 million 175 1 million 750 towards the upgrades for the chillers at the high school and FPS 145 000 for Paving throughout the district um 75 000 for flooring throughout the district we have to upgrade the meters at all of our schools 250 000 for our water meters 250 000 for that
05245 000 to upgrade some of the fire panels and then 35 000 for the SGS loading dock again and all these have to be part of our long-range facility plan which is approved by the state so we can't just um use this money for anything that's not part of our long-range facility planned foreign [Music] this is a breakout of our revenue for fy24 so you can see there's our tax levy which we went over uh two slides ago compared to last year we are up 6.9 million or 4.5 percent uh normally um we're allowed to go over the two percent because of the health care adjustment and the enrollment adjustment the state allows for that we have our funded balance which is money that is not spent from prior year that we use towards the
053next year's budget we were able to reduce that about 930 000 which is great because that means we're less reliant on prior year on under spending to maintain the budget tuition Revenue we are expecting it flat interest for reserves Flats we are withdrawing less money this year for Capital reserves miscellaneous Inc income that's up uh 250 000 that's because we have so are changing in uh interest rates and then also a uptick in some rentals which brings our total local Revenue to 162 447 oh sorry 162 million four hundred forty seven thousand eight sixty four point five million or 2.9 percent um these are the additional revenues that we get from the state so this is our state aid um we uh we got 5.8 million uh 5.8 million increase um this was due to
054an increase in certain categories Transportation special ed um I forget the other one the other one's uh I can't forget I don't remember the other one it's Transportation special ed security um so that's part of the reason why we got such a huge increase and you'll see later um when I do the comparison that money is being spent up because of the increases that we're seeing across the state for transportation and security extraordinary Aid that is flat and semi-aid that is up 52 000 um dollars total operating Revenue 24 million 2066. and then total operating expenses 186 million four four nine nine two six and then we have our special Revenue these are our grants our Title One title two title three Esser idea Pre-K um these are outside of the operating budget um so
055you can see we have a pretty big decrease of about two million dollars that is because Esser money is falling away um so we don't have that anymore so you see that falling then we have our debt service that's down about 217 000. part of that was the district had refinanced some of its bonds so we're starting to reap some of those rewards because of of a lower interest rate um add all that together our total revenue for FY 24 is 213 million 803.051. those are the budget to budget comparison so what we um appropriated for fy23 to what we appropriated for it to fy24 excuse me um increase of 1.7 in regular instruction increase in bilingual AIS alternative add of 600 000 increase in special instruction 1.5 million co-curricular 90 000 student Support Services
056713 000 out of District tuition 942 000 Administration and Technology we were able to bring that down a bit operation and maintenance 459 459 000 to help maintain the building and all the other security um uh that we that we need uh student transportation that's a 1.9 million again reason why we got additional State AIDS is because of the crazy uh increase to Transportation costs for districts um employee benefits 3.5 million that's an increase again on the other reason why we took the health care adjustment because um of that huge increase that the state saw um regarding their state plan Capital outlay uh one million 1.5 million down you know taking less out for um capital projects and in Charter tuitions up slightly 415 000 for a total general fund of 186 449926 or an
057increase of 8.9 million uh now we have our tax information um so for 22 our tax levy 157 101 265. um compared to our 164 387 049 for the upcoming year which is the difference of 7.2 million uh assessed value that's up 1.2 billion and the tax rate actually dropped uh 59 cents uh this is the impact um that we expect on the average home um the big thing to note here is that the assessed value of the homes as up 44 000 or which is just a little over 11 percent uh excuse me 11 percent um School tax rate of 1.25 you can see that dropped a little bit and then you know the taxpayers can look at roughly a an estimated 25 um increase in their monthly taxes on the school side and
058that's it questions for the board thank you very much um for the fourth presentation of this so but you're welcome thank you very much for and thank you to all the budget managers and everyone who's worked on the budget so board members do you have any questions Sammy Nishida Lori no thank you Phil tennis no Well Service no arteman no thank you okay um since this is a Public Presentation we're going to open this up to comments from the public on the budget only um so please state your name and address and come up I'll bring them a mic if they have a question okay well such service oh thank you what just raise your hand oh so can I get a motion to open up a comment you heard he moved it right and
059seconded second the second Lori all in favor opposed now we have the hostess with the most is Doctor of Ali if you have a question raise your hand and I'll bring you the mic yeah the president is the one out in the public has a question I'm close public comment on the budget moved by Dennis Sammy all in favor opposed the the public portion of that is now closed so now we are on to moving our budget or yes the chair of finance committee which you move on the budget please I would like to move that we accept the budget as presented this evening okay moved by Laura's second advice second arteman all in favor can you do roll call do you need roll call Brian okay yes our budget is now moved and now
060we are on to we do we have a student representative okay now we are on to our superintendent's report yes and I don't have a report this evening other than because I knew we'd be late I wanted to thank our volunteers once again those who remain here are Booster clubs uh you know volunteerism has been the theme this year and it should be a theme every year because our volunteers are uh phenomenal to our schools and we couldn't do it without them so we appreciate all their efforts and all their work and thank you Mrs Clark for organizing um wonderful presentations every month where we've been recognizing our volunteers I want to thank Mr Valencia and his wonderful team of folks who uh labored over putting the budget together the budget process is never easy
061um and undoubtedly there are always roadblocks and things that we have to overcome and you know Lewis and his team did a wonderful job Mr Bonanno our assistant superintendent for business also a wonderful job and thanks to all the budget managers I said we had 38 of them and again a lot of them are here tonight not by Design By the way it just actually happened that way for a variety of different reasons and uh but we do appreciate you coming out supporting the work that you do and um so again and thanks to the board the finance committee who all along stayed with us step by step as we met some of those challenges and then again the whole board again you know this is the third time we presented this over a three-month
062period we have been um going back and forth making the adjustments as necessary so we appreciate your support as board members and I know the budget managers appreciate your support and I know the kids certainly do as well so lots of neat things will be supported within the budget as you saw and we're looking forward to getting ready and getting plans together as we believe it or not start to develop next school year so thanks thank you um so to piggyback on what John just said we're all volunteers we're elected but we all um give of our time not just sitting here but we give of our time out in the community and a lot of school-sponsored organizations I feel slighted that I didn't get something from the booster club because I I was voluntau
063by Marissa to help the booster club but we all are out in the community helping and I kind of believe in top-down stuff so if we're asking you to volunteer um we need to be volunteers ourselves and I know that many of you volunteer in many many capacities with the schools and outside of the school so for that thank you and thank you to all of our volunteers the following Franklin High School students have will have their work published in Ramapo College's next book collection called the helpers these students shared stories about people who helped them succeed most in life within the next two months each of them will be published authors with a book available on Amazon it's pretty cool they are alanka fear e uh Mar in like I have a phonetic spelling
064of this and I still can't get it um Kayla Washington and Isabella Robles and earlier this month the Franklin High School drumline performed for Gotham football club the professional women's soccer team season opener at the Red Bull Arena the students played outside the stadium and on the field with Gotham's own professional drum line it was very exciting event and an awesome opportunity for our students to perform at a professional sporting event the following HSC students have won the Somerset County fire safety poster design contest first place is zarifa Mama Dila and second place is Anjali Montoya Lopez and third place is Gabriella IU Adu State winners should be announced next month and additionally Casey was a winner for the Black History Month essay contest sponsored by Delta Sigma Theta sorority Incorporated at Franklin Park school
065last week fifth grade student Addie um jagan Mohan was congratulated by several officers from the Jersey State Police for winning the 40th annual National missing Children's Day poster contest for the state of New Jersey Addy's work will be entered in the upcoming National contest and congratulations to all these kids because they did a fantastic job um members of the Franklin High School Dance Program have been invited to perform at the Gershwin Theater in New York City on June 19th at a show called arthro autism they're raising funds to support this trip and other endeavors please visit the district website for information on these students and the other wonderful things our students are doing and this is kind of really appropriate because this is Autism Awareness Month um some other things that I wanted to bring
066up um there are a lot of events going on right now in the schools and you can check them out on the district website their school events School sponsored organizations so everything's up on the district website the Project Graduation clothing Drive which is my personal holiday is on the 15th at Samson G Smith project grad and booster club are holding their food trucks which is and a rummage sale on the 20th um last week the Chamber of Commerce which bill is now an officer of um recognized Marissa Gallagher for her volunteerism and Coach Francis for her educational leadership um coach Francis obviously was the cheerleading coach and Marissa you just met was the um is the outgoing president of 10 years of the booster club and also last weekend warrior for Life another organization that
067is really near and dear to mine and Bill Hearth because we are warriors for life and we're second year and indoctrinated into that organization but it's a really great organization because it gives money to our students and they have given out um thousands of tens of thousands of dollars in donations for our students so it's a really wonderful organization but again check on the district website and um there's so much going on and plus Franklin Township Warrior Education Foundation which is um a foundation that the district has um is holding their golf outing on the 26th of June at the Blue Blue Heron Golf Club so check that out and um that's also on the district website under a school sponsored organizations and so that ends my president's report and now we are on to
068comments from the public can I get a motion to open that Miss lacorte May I I forgot to thank one person Maya Patel and I don't know if you remember Maya but she visited the finance committee when we were deliberating about the final piece of the budget and that was whether or not to create the volleyball team and we wanted to make sure there was enough interest and Maya Patel is one of our students at the high school who did a tremendous job over the last year year and a half collecting information and putting together a presentation that really helped to make us recognize that it was our next best step and she's still interested I just happened to look down at my computer and she emailed to see if the budget passed because she
069uh is following up and you know kudos to her she did a tremendous job and I wanted to publicly recognize her and also thank the board for listening and inviting her to our meeting and hearing what she had to say because the voice of our students is really um you know should always be taken into account and this is one instance where it paid off um that was a fantastic presentation that she gave and also the um gender and Equity class that our students are required to take before graduation that was also a presentation by students so they have a very loud extremely well prepared um an engaging voice and and we listen um so thanks for reminding me about that and now we are opening public comments on any on agenda items only can
070a good motion to open that move by Nishida second to buy a Samuel in favor oppose public comment on anything is now open so please step up to the microphone you're gonna have to walk this time because Dr Valley is sitting down um but he is available to bring you coffee um so if anybody has any comments from the public please step up to the microphone state your name and address say no comments from the public I moved to close the public portion motion close public comment by Bill seconded by Dennis all in favor opposed Papa comment is now closed and now we're on to our committee and liaison reports which include the Franklin Township Public School the um and Council we have a liaison meeting a couple times a year that happened on April
0715th um policy and curriculum happened on the 17th Personnel on the 19th facilities in Finance on the 24th are all going to be available online um so please read them online and now we are on to new business like to make a motion to move the following our one monthly reports M1 minutes of board meetings A1 travel and related expense reimbursement A2 a form harassment intimidation and bullying decisions A3 Teacher Appreciation Week A4 special education week A5 Autism Awareness resolution A6 sick awareness and appreciation month A7 2023 2024 pea budget revision A8 special education board policy statement of assurance A9 semi-action plan A10 settlement agreement a13 facilities use a through F A14 ftps YMCA care partnership a15 revised policy second reading and adoption a16 revised by law first reading a17 revised policies first reading a18
072revised regulation adoption B1 warrants and payrolls B2 Financial reports B3 contract approvals a through S B for change orders none at this time B5 Award of a competitive contract for district Vehicles B6 Award of RFP for attorney special education B7 Award of RFP For Occupational Therapy Services B8 Award of RFP for therapeutic Mental Health Services B9 receipt of bids student transportation B10 Award of bid student transportation b11 Award of RFP for architect of record B12 Award of RFP for Attorney Services B13 Award of RFP for auditing Services b14 Award of RFP for Physical Therapy Services B15 Award of RFP for nursing services one-to-one and substitutes B16 Award of RFP for contracted preschool with a private child care provider B17 equipment swap with Piscataway Public Schools B18 fiscal year 2024 ftboe estimated tuitions b19 Transportation contract
073be 20 fiscal year 23 state aid non-public B-21 approval of paid lunch Equity waiver C1 out of District students school year 2022 2023 C2 field trip destinations C3 field trip applications A and B C4 approve assessment software pilot P1 personal report number 10 dated today April 25 2023 with addendum number 10 P2 ftea sidebar agreement P3 District emergency closing days P4 ftea Association president full-time leave so once again there is a motion to move R1 M1 A2 to A10 a13 to a18 B1 to B21 C1 to C4 P1 plus addendum 10 through P4 okay R1 M1 A1 A10 a 13 18 11 and 12 are pulled B1 to B21 C1 to C4 P1 to P4 adding addendum 10. can I get a second please foreign please let's decide Mr grippo yeah yes were any of
074these discussed in the pre-reading that I should not be approving because I wasn't at that meeting were any of these at the meeting for this meeting because I didn't attend it addendum 10. okay so everything but addendum time yes to everything abstain from addendum 10. that I gotta verbatim yes to everything abstain from A14 because I'm an employee of YMCA yes for everything motion carries motions carry and now I would like to um introduce the new principle for Franklin Middle School at Samson G Smith um I think her name's Rebecca Solomon might know her [Applause] thank you all so much uh so moved as always I think this is my third time in front of you um accepting a principal ship and just really like to publicly thank all of the staff and students at
075Franklin Park School absolutely for preparing me but also Franklin High School just so proud to serve in this capacity and so appreciative of your trust in me um your dedication and support to our profession and just so proud to work beside each and every one of you thank you so much [Applause] thank you I'm sure people like Sammy got here foreign so you have time to write that letter now um and now we are on to um comments from the board members for good at the order can I get a motion to open that please so moved just a thought oh I'm sorry I apologize I'm like sailing through this can I get a motion to open public comment on anything so moved moved by Sammy second all in favor pose public comment on anything
076is now open present wait Nick dimaglio don't you have something coming up that you want to talk about okay no demiglio yeah we can't seeing no voluntary public comments I moved to close motion close public comment by Sammy seconded by Dennis Paula comment on anything is closed now we are on to good of the order um Dennis do you have anything for go to the order the end of the school I guess uh is it next week I guess the the high schoolers would know um where they are possibly going at next year the seniors so um uh good luck with them and um yeah it's that time of the year prom coming up graduation soon we're all levels um let's finish strong thank you Sammy do you have anything yeah sure um just wanted
077to to reiterate the thanks uh congratulations and I I wish you a lot of luck uh it's really amazing to see the same people like I think your name appeared like three or four times today in terms of different volunteers so it's it's not just that you guys are leading but you're leading by example you're actually participating and that's I think that's all the difference in the world so so much appreciated for for you and for your husband of course and and all that he doesn't uh to the whole Franken family it's great to see the work that Darren is doing and and much appreciated to to continue to appreciate those folks um so thank you to to all those folks that are here as well super important work uh and then the last bit
078is we had a meeting with the the Town Council recently and um I think that went great and I think I'm not sure we can devote sort of all the different pieces that we spoke about there but um there's a lot of exciting initiatives in the I feel excited that the Board of Education the Town Council at least are sort of meeting together to discuss some of these topics to increase Health Care availability to the community and to increase the the number of pre-K students that we're going to be able to to support I think we're like Far and Beyond any of the local townships in terms of how many of those folks um and that has implications to the parents to the families that can now you know work because their children are being
079taken care of we're now educating kids at a younger age which means that they have a probably higher trajectory throughout their life so a lot of that work is being done behind the scenes and I'm super happy and proud of that so just wanted to share that thank you Rashida I want to piggyback off of what Sammy said uh congratulations uh Rebecca it is amazing to see that you now have um touched every stage of a child's life I really appreciate all you've done this is also Teacher Appreciation Week um I have a quote from Sydney hook um who said everyone who remembers his own education remembers teachers not methods and techniques the teacher is the heart of the educational system and to all the teachers that are in front of me um thank you
080from bottom of my heart for what you do for Franklin and everybody has teacher even if you're your profession has changed over the years thank you thank you Lori I just want to congratulate Mrs Solomon and tell you that I am so excited for our SGS students because they will have the continuity of someone that has been at SGS in her past teaching career and really understands the school moving forward so congratulations we'll be there if there's anything you need thank you Bill so I got a few things um since the last meeting let's see this week I was at Franklin Park School to see that young man Mohan received that state award from the state police Rebecca that was really uh quite an accomplishment it's number one kid in New Jersey the first the
081the overall winner very exciting to hear about the volleyball team at Franklin High School we're beginning to continue to lift up the academic life of the school system which is important that ties into the booster club recognition tonight Marissa Gallagher has been a champion a real Warrior and it was also recognized by the Chamber of Commerce last week um I was at the Franklin High School Musical and that was a phenomenal the talent of our kids is just just amazing again with Rebecca here tonight taking over Samson I think it uh it'll it'll continue the good work at Samson and bring the school to another level which is really great YMCA Camp soar is uh something to keep your mind on that we have a great Camp going on at uh in Colonial Park this
082summer uh you can get more information on the wise website I was at the warrior for Life event and uh everybody look great I look great you know I had I mean it was just it was just a great did you take a picture of me but Darren I didn't okay very good um I was at Pine Grove too this uh this uh between the last few weeks for the stem activity they had that benefited the food bank and uh Miss miles did a just a great job with coordinating all that effort um I've done some uh some visit to Elizabeth Avenue School with principal Romero and the seitzer said on a new sign out there and he's uh he's really leading a great committee to to get that sign improved so there's been a
083lot going on in Franklin and then Rebecca good luck yeah Walter to all the Dei volunteers and folks in the school who are doing the work Mr Plumber thank you once again to the booster club Marissa and all the work that she has done she will indeed be missed and those will indeed be some hard shoes to fill but we have some amazing folks in Franklin so I know someone's definitely going to step up Nancy um and congratulations again Rebecca Solomon what's your why um I know your why is dedication and I know your why is commitment and I want to thank you for the work that you continue to do in our district we as a board Dr Valley and his team the parents and the students I know they absolutely love you I
084know you will be missed in Franklin Park but as you said those kids will definitely be looking forward to seeing you at SGS and last I want to read a quote by Harry Belafonte he passed away today he was 96. each and every one of you has the power the will and the capacity to make a difference in the world in which you live in daylight come and I'm ready to go home thank you artemin I have to Echo everything that was said and I broke the mic so I want to thank um everyone who came here I want to give a special thank and a special shout out to Mr Plummer um April is um sick heritage month and Mr Plummer did a phenomenal job by educating a lot of Staff about what who
085a sick is sick Sikhism is the fifth largest religion and people still don't know about who six are we wear turbans the men wear turbans and even till today um our boys who wear turbans are still bullied in schools and uh 68 of sick boys and girls are bullied in school and I'm really grateful and thankful that our district is way ahead of other districts in New Jersey and on the same note um congratulations to Rebecca Solomon I know you will make us proud and continue to make us proud uh you both are our Dream Team and um you know my son has been very fortunate he graduated 2020 from the high school and you were there and uh he will be really excited when I share that news with him that you will be
086going to Samson G Smith campus and I wish you luck continued success to both of you and uh you know you'll be you'll continue to make our schools a happy place to be for our kids thank you I talked a lot um but I just want to say that that we hear the name Solomon a lot we also hear the name Plummer a lot you guys for the founders of warrior for life um but there's so many other names within Franklin that we hear a lot because these are people that do and they don't ask to be seen um they're they're just giving of themselves be it um in a classroom outside of a classroom um there's so many ways that that Franklin people um give of themselves but also the people that choose to
087work here give them themselves and we only think of like you're just a teacher you're just a principal you're just para outside of being all those things they have um incredibly busy lives and their day doesn't stop when the bell rings to go home but they also give back of themselves and I think that that's a really important thing to remember and especially since this is teacher appreciation month Special Education Month Autism Awareness Month that one's personal to me um but there's there's so many ways that that you can get involved and you can make a difference so I ask that everybody do that and Rebecca good thank you thank you for being Rebecca and um thank you for everything that you do and Nick you're not going to see her anymore now um and
088in the words of Harry Belafonte daylight comes and I want to go home so we are adjourned foreign [Music]