001Good evening everyone. Adequate notice of this regular and executive meeting setting forth day, time, and location has been provided in accordance with the requirements of the open public meetings act on January 8th, 2025 by prominently posting a copy on the exterior and the lobby bulletin boards of the office of the board of education which is a public place reserved for such announcements. Transmitting a copy of this notice to the record, the Wayne today, tap into wayne.net and the municipal clerk in the district website. Roll call. Mr. speaking >> Here >> lantry is here >> too. >> No problem. >> Here's present. here. >> Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time the board's going to convene into executive session. We have two personnel matters that we need to discuss. We should be back no more
002than a half hour. >> Mr. Kaggno, can we move the executive sess? Can we do our presentations first and then move the executive session? >> Yes, sir. We certainly may. >> Okay. Thank you. >> We're going to do the flag salute. I'm to that. Please stand for the flag salute followed by a moment of silence. >> 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. >> Thank you everyone. Please be seated, >> Mr. Sudadino. >> Yes. >> So, is it the will of the board, I I just do my superintendent report and in that I'll introduce um our student representatives, but also recognize our special student guests here today. All right. Welcome everyone.
003Welcome to the September 25th board of education meeting. You know, way back in January of 2022, um the assembly passed a bill 3392. In that bill, it required that all boards of education have student representatives as member of this esteemed panel. Wayne has always uh been like a pioneer in this area and have had student representatives for a long history. I'm happy to introduce two of them today. Um, on my far right we have Zach Krobase. Give giving you the best pronunciation. Matt, Zack >> Kubsik. >> Kbopsic. Now, I may not pronounce his name well, but I'll tell you, he long snaps well. Zack, I'm going to read his whole history here, but Zach is a is a fine long snapper for the Wayne Hills football team, and I got to see him up close
004and personal. He towered over me and uh made me feel very minute at that event, but he does a really job. And the funny thing was I was at the uh dinner beforehand for seniors and I was just talking to someone about how I advised a student years before that to give their hand a try hand at long snapping because I knew colleges looked for long snappers and gave scholarships. Guy taps me on my shoulder and says, "Hey, I'm happy to meet you. I'm Zach. I'm going to be at the next board meeting and I'm the long snapper. So, we were just talking here about, you know, keeping it going and doing the long snapping. So, Zach is a high Wayne Hills senior. He embodies leadership, heart, and service. For four straight years, he's been
005class president, played football for four years, and has been an active student ambassador for the Leo, a Leo club member, and taken part in DECA. Zach is the third brother in a in a row in his family to serve in this role on the school board. He uh clearly understands what it means to give back. His passions are people and service, and he's already done so through much of his local charities and community programs. As he heads off to college to study business, Zach hopes to bridge some gaps, create partnerships, and help others find the resources and supports that they need. Not to be outdone by the statue of Zach, next to him is from Wayne Valley, Caitlyn Khan. Caitlyn got to know her a little bit. She likes running, >> right? And running. Plays
006guitar and piano. Um, I offered some advice. I do play a musical instrument. It's called the radio. Um, Kayn is a senior at Wayne Valley High School. After graduating from high school, she plans to pursue a degree in engineering. Throughout her time at Wayne Valley, she has been actively involved in a variety of clubs. Caitlyn is currently the treasurer of the blue team for SDA, one of the lead organizers from the 2026 Wayne Relay for Life. That is a a group and an event that I hold dear to my heart and a board member for the model UN. Additionally, Caitlyn serves as vice president for career development for our DECA and chapter and has been an active member of the robotics team and a small all girls robotics club. So very nice and congratulations and
007thank you for both for joining us. Isa at this point you want them to introduce themselves. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Uh why don't we do ladies first? Uh Caitlyn take over. >> Hi my name is Caitlyn. I'm from I'm a senior from Wayne Valley. >> Hello. I'm Zach. Uh thank you Mr. Citadino for the introduction. I'm from Wayne Hills and I'm very happy to be here and thank you all for having me. Um On behalf of Keep. >> On behalf of the board, I welcome you both. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. Should we start with our >> You want to give your bio or Sure. or your report? Your give report. >> Do you want to go first? >> Oh, okay. >> I'll give my report first for Wayne Valley. >> Wayne Valley's
008first month back into school has been a great success. To start, the club fair will occur on Friday, September 26th, which will feature a variety of over 30 clubs. With the club fair occurring, all students should keep their eyes peeled for club meeting times. On Wednesday, September 24th, Wayne Valley's Deca Club had a fundraiser at Hometown Crearyy, which was a great success. Earlier in the week, senior sunrise was hosted on the football field at 6:30 in the morning. All seniors were invited to bring blankets, food, and enjoy the sunrise with their peers. On September 17th, Wayne Valley hosted its back to school night. Parents were able to follow their kids' schedule and experience a short meeting with the new principal, Miss Grimbleis. Volunteers from the National Honor Society made sure each parent was able to
009navigate the school. The National Honor Society has officially sent out its letters for the 2025 to 2026 inductees. Many hardworking juniors and seniors were given these letters and will now be given the chance to apply. The National Honor Society has met has had many events for students to volunteer at lately. These include family math night, Lafayette family fun, and the freshman orientation during the summer. Each event went smoothly and were enjoyable for the families and students. The Wayne Valley Marching Band has been working hard at work this past summer. In August, they had band camp, which was a complete success. On Saturday the 27th, the marching band will have to defend their 2023 and 2024 back-to-back state championship title at Randolph High School, where they will compete against seven other marching bands. In a few
010weeks, on October 11th, Wayne Valley will also be hosting the annual Micro McGrath Memorial Music in the Wayne Valley Marching Band Competition. This will feature 16 bands from nearby areas competing and it starts at 4 p.m. Wayne Valley Photo has been working hard for fall sports media days. The only sports left are girls volleyball and boys soccer. Throughout the month of September, Wayne Valley Photography has captured girls gymnastics, soccer, cross country, tennis, football cheer, marching band, field hockey, and football. Student Dance Association has finally announced its 2026 show dates. The show will take place on April 23rd, 24th, and 25th. It'll be led by this year's president, Charlotte English, and vice president, Isabella Bickford. More information will come out soon, and overall tryyouts are on the horizon. Wayne Valley's fall show, Almost Main, has been
011announced. Auditions took place on September 11th, and the cast list came out shortly after. The show will feature seniors Katie Prickin, Jaylen Song, and Charlotte English. The show will take place November 13th, 14th, and 15th. Also, football has working hard throughout the season. The team is led by a new head coach this year, Chris Benquista, who is leading this team to a success. So far, the record is 3 to1 with two wins being over 27 points. Their next opponent will be Hackinack on Friday, September 26th, and the theme for students will be neon. Senior quarterback Daniel Ferillo has thrown an impressive 939 total passing yards. Wide receiver Bryce Flower leads the team in receiving with 361 yards, while running back Eliza Estz has been a key force in the running game, racking up 402 yards
012so far. Senior football player Kyle Betts was also chosen as week 2's North Jersey football player of the week. Wayne Valley has been working hard in all aspects, and there's many more to come in future months. >> Thank you, Zach. >> And now for some good news about Wayne Hills. Our athletics program has started off the year strong and we have 389 students registered and participating in our fall athletics. Teams have been competing since the end of August and have represented Wayne Hills Wayne Hill as well both on and off the field. Boys soccer is off to a fast start with a record of 4- one with one tie as well as our football team with a big 4-0 record. Girls tennis is nine nine and three with a perfect record against all Big North
013teams. and our very own student Helina Kim participated in the Tech Girls program as one of 13 American finalists. Tech Girls is an initiative of the US depart Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, which aims to expand STEM around the world, especially among young women. The 23-day experience featured an immersion in the community and STEM career exploration. Michael Cantilli, Brandon Stone, and Owen Gatis were featured on the Super Football Conference Network live podcast this Wednesday, September 24th. Being on the live show was a great recognition for their excellence in broadcasting football games for Wayne Hills TV. The Spanish Honor Society started off childhood cancer awareness month by hosting a lemonade stand on back to school night raising nearly $100 of their goal of $3,000 to fund pediatric cancer research to find better
014treatments and cure childhood and find a cure for childhood cancer. In addition, the executive student council and 10th through 12th grade class councils are now selling yellow wristbands and bracelets to fund raise as well. The Wayne Hills Patriot Marching Band received a score of 74.56 in their first competition of of the season at Jefferson High School on 920. The band placed second in their division and scored third overall. Wayne Hills photo students Sarah Patino, Kinsey Piston, and Alexa Saft each had works published in Wayne Lifestyle magazine's September issue. August issue featured Picture This Contest winners. Ava Rener, an AP Photo4 student, had her image selected to be on the cover, and 10 other Wayne Hills photo students' work were featured throughout the issue as additional winners or alongside editorial content. The Wayne Hills Student Council
015led a new fundraiser to kick off the year called Paint a Parking Spot. Treasurer Gray Sone came up with the idea back in June and advisers Britney Sylvestri and Amanda Morgan worked to make it happen with the support of administration. Interested seniors were able to submit a $30 donation to the student council for the for the opportunity to paint their very own parking spot. Seniors painted their assigned spots with their own supplies and their pre-approved pre-approved design to make their spot unique. Cala's Paint and Wallpaper Company in Wayne was a huge supporter of the fundraiser. They graciously donated gallons of paint to the seniors just to help out their local community. 151 spots were painted and over $4,550 was raised from the fundraiser. These funds will be used directly to benefit to directly benefit the
016school through schoolwide events, staff appreciation events, and a a senior scholarship. This new event really brought everyone together. That's all the good news from Wayne Hills. And now we would like to thank a couple of schools for their big donations. Um I'd like to thank John F. Kennedy Elementary School for their donation for funds for kindergarten field trips with $220 donated. >> And I'd like to thank the Anthony Wayne PTO for their donation of five picnic tables at 5,976 and.72 cents to Anthony Wayne Middle School. >> Thank you. And we thank all our donors and we are here for you guys. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us. Be more than happy to more than happy to help you out. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you again.
017Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right, Mr. President, I'm just going to wrap up my uh administrative summary, then I'm going to go right over to the podium to honor some more students we have here with us. Um, I just want the public to be aware there's a a calendar that'll be reviewed tonight and voted on by the board members. Um, there were some additions made to it. Uh, the word Christmas was placed on the 202526 calendar. that hasn't been there since 1997. Um in the December suggested holiday recess. Um so the board after discussion um added the word Christmas to the date the 25th and continued on with the holiday recess in there. Um additionally Veterans Day will be posted on the district-wide calendar of events on our district website. Um, another reason
018for this uh adaptation of this budget was through negotiations with the WA and the MOA that came out of that. There were two minimal days that were added uh to the calendar. And just for cleaning the calendar up, we took out Saturdays and Sundays because the calendar really only reflects days in which the school the school would be closed and we're always closed on Saturday and Sunday if you haven't heard. So, we eliminated those two days from the calendar. So, it just makes the calendar more e easier to read because it takes up less space without having Saturday and Sunday there. Um, thank you for reminding me about uh Wayne Valley football game. I'll be there Friday, tomorrow night against Hackinack. It was great to see you play last Friday night. Um, and thank you
019for the invitation to the the senior event for football and cheer. Um, turn this off. I'm going to go right over to the deis and do some recognition. [Music] Thank you. It's pleasure to do this. My first time doing a recognition here at Wayne and it's going to be one of many. Um, first we want to recognize um we have two brothers here today and it's a great recognition to have two brothers. I'm going to pull up uh the youngest first uh of the two. That would be Vincent Thornton from Pine Lakes Elementary School. Can have Vincent and his family come up? Any family? Anyone who wants to come up with you, Vincent? Okay. Uh, just a little reading about V. Vincent excelled in the 910 age group, winning first place in high jump and
020triathlon and third in javelin at the US A track and field regional 2 championships. He was the 2025 New Jersey state champion in the high jump and placed sixth in the javelin at a state level. At the national championships in Savannah, Georgia, Vincent placed second in the high jump with a jump of 4'2 inches. And he also placed 12th in the triathlon, which includes the high jump, shotput, and the 400 meter dash, and 43rd in the javelin out of 80 competitors in the entire nation. Vincent plans to continue similar events and adding new ones such as the pentathlon and the 80 meter hurdles as he ages out of the triathlon. He credits much of his success to the strong support in the of the system, including his mom, dad, and his coaches. [Applause] >> All
021right. So, let's have one of his at home role models come up. This would be Joel Thornton. Joel, come on up. Now Joel placed 15th nationally for in the age group of 11 and 12 year olds uh for the high jump 4T and a/4 in. This was the second time finishing in the top 15 in nationals following a similar result in 2023 the Oregon Junior Olympics. Joel qualified for nationals in both high jump and 80 meter hurdles but narrowly missed qualifying for the pentathlon a heavily competitive event in the region. Despite a busy spring with multiple sports, Joel trained for Junior Olympics with the help of his father and independent coaching. So congratulations to both of you. >> Can parents come up? >> Whoever wants to come up whoever from the Thornton contingent Congratulations. Thanks.
022>> Thank you. >> Congratulations. >> Thank you. >> One more. We're good. Okay. >> Thank you, gentlemen. All right. Now I need big TJ. TJ Roberts from Thunder Day Elementary School. >> All right, TJ, turn that way. Look at the audience. TJ Roberts is a fifth grader at Don's Day and he won shotput gold at the region 2 championship for all Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and New York. He then traveled to compete in the national level at the U United States Track and Field Junior Olympics in Savannah State University competing in the shop hut where he placed 14th in the nation out of all of those kids doing the shot. Amazing. Great job, TJ. [Music] Thank you. Congratulations. >> Thank you. >> And you first. Thanks. >> Congratulations. [Applause] [Music] Congratulations to all our athletes
023on behalf of the entire board. Thank you. At this time, we're going to uh take a motion to move into executive session. We're going in for two personnel matters in a legal matter. Um we'll be in approximately 35 minutes or so and action will be taken upon um possible action will be taken upon reconvening. Have a motion. Mr. Fatio, Mr. Jerano. Thank you everyone. I'll take a motion to reconvene. >> Motion second Dano, >> Mr. Mr. Mr. Paul. Right. Uh revisions to the agenda tonight. We have one revision to the agenda. Under emerging human resources, item number three, approval of additional compensation. Number 11, Fairview Lake Encampment, elementary chaperones, nurse, principal, $89 an hour for teachers after 4 PM to $89 to 89 to $50 for Paris after 10 p.m. Additional $250 total nurse after
0244 p.m. At this time, I'll open the meeting to the public for agenda items only. This portion of the meeting is open for citizens for comment on agenda items only. Residents are asked to state their name, address, and subject matter. Comments may be limited to three minutes per person. Members of the public are discouraged from speaking negatively about an employee or student. Board bears no responsibility for comments made by the public. Comments regarding employees or students cannot be legally responded to by the board. Other comments may be responded to tonight or at a subsequent meeting under old business. I'll take a mover. >> Motion. >> Mr. Jordano, Mrs. Landry. Anyone from the public wishing to speak on an agenda item? >> Seeing no one, I move to close. >> I second. >> Mr. Pacus, Mrs.
025Regaloso. >> We'll move on. Do I have a mover for the agenda? >> Like to move the entire agenda in one total. >> Mr. Mrs. Regaloso. >> Any discussion on the agenda? Seeing none. Roll call. >> Mr. Alwood. >> Yes. Motion carries. At this time, we have some retirements. Mrs. Regalosa. >> Okay, here we go. I'd like to talk about Margaret Joyce Forbes. Um, she'll be retiring from the transportation department on August 31st, 2025. Uh, Joyce began her career as a van aid on September 1st, 2017. Over the course of her eight years of service to the Wayne Township public schools, she has been a dedicated she has been dedicated to her work responsibility of assisting students with special needs. Joyce also assisted the driver with safety student management and took care of students boarding
026and leaving the bus daily. Joyce has truly been an asset to the transportation department and her years of experience and knowledge will be missed. Her positive attitude and kindness made everyone's job more enjoyable. The transportation department and the Wayne Township public schools wish to express their sincere thanks and appreciation for her outstanding support and dedicated service. Her commitment to the special needs students of the district will be very hard to replace. Margaret will be missed but never forgotten. We send you a heartfelt goodbye and well wishes from all your colleagues here in the transportation department. Best wishes for a long, happy, and healthy retirement. Congratulations, Margaret Forbes. Thank you, Mr. Jano. >> Uh, mine is for Jenny Bogdan. After many years of dedicated service and education, Jenny Bogdan is retiring from her role as a
027valued member of the Ryerson school community. Jenny has served both as a power professional and as the lead power professional for the past several years, offering her skills, patience, and compassion to students and staff alike. Her commitment to supporting students, especially those with the greatest needs, has left a lasting impact on countless children and their families. Jenny's expertise in the applied behavior analysis has been instrumental in the success of our multiple disabilities classrooms. She has consistently gone above and beyond to ensure students receive the individualized attention, encourage encouragement, and care they deserve. Her calm presence, skillful guidance, and deep understanding of each child's unique strengths have made her an irreplaceable part of our team. As a lead power professional, Jenny also had been a role model and mentor to her colleagues. She has shared her
028knowledge generously, modeling best practices and offering steady support to new staff members. Her professionalism, warmth, and team oriented spirit have fostered a positive and collaborative environment benefiting benefiting both staff and students. Jenny's retirement is a bittersweet moment for our school community. We will miss her deeply uh excuse me, we will miss deeply her daily presence. Her legacy of kindness, expertise, and dedication will continue to inspire us for years to come. We wish her the very best as she embarks on this next chapter and hope it brings her the same joy as it brought to so many of her people during her time at Ryerson. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Badesu. >> I'll be reading from Naban Elsamara. After more than 20 years of dedicated service in our custodial maintenance department of Wayne Township's public
029school district, we proudly recognize and celebrate Naban Alamara. Naban began his career with the district as a part-time custodian where he reliably hard work and commitment to quickly set him apart. Through the years, his dependability and strong work ethic earned him the role of head custodian at Skylar Kfax Middle School, a position which he held with distinction for over a decade. Nabah's um contributions have left a lasting impact on our schools, staff and students, and his presence will be truly missed. We extend our heartfelt gratitude for his many years of service and wish him all the best in a well-deserved retirement. >> Thank you to all our retirees for your service to the district and your service to our students. At this time, I'm going to open the meeting to the public for general comments.
030This portion is of the meeting is open for citizens to comment on any topic. Residents are to state their name, address, and subject matter. Comments may be limited to five minutes per person. Members of the public are discouraged from speaking negatively about an employee or student. The board bears no responsibility for comments made by the public. Comments regarding employees or students cannot be legally responded to by the board. Other comments may be responded to tonight or at a subsequent meeting under old business. Do I have a mover? >> Motion. >> Mr. Pacos, Mr. in favor. Anyone from the public wishing to speak? >> First, just make sure the mic's on. >> Thank god the press is here. >> Hopefully, we know what we're doing here. All right. Thank you. Um, appreciate the time here. This
031is Ferris with Tabin to Wayne. I'm just um going to use the public forum here to announce a couple of cool uh events that we've got coming up. Um starting with the P County 200 club. We've got a few P County 200 club members here on the board and we appreciate you. The 200 Club uh supports our uh first responders in Pay County. Should any of them die in the line of duty, we come and we deliver a check for $15,000 for the family. Uh, and we set up college scholarships for any of the kids involved. And we're doing our fall fundraiser on October 14th at 6 PM at the Grand in Totoa. And we'd like to invite you all to come. Uh, you can buy tickets at pc200club.org. pc200ub.org. Uh, it's going to be
032a fun night. We're not really doing a lot of announcements. We are going to announce something cool. Uh but beyond that uh it's just going to be a whiskey and a cigar experience there as well as we have uh Wayne magician Gian Johnny Palumbo who's a mentalist and magician performing there too. So it'll be a fun night and hope to see you out there. Um I'd like to thank uh the candidates for uh for board of ed who uh joined us at our candidates forum last week and we appreciate uh your um helping us out with that and supporting it. And I want to announce that October 6, we're having a mayoral and council candidates forum. This is going to be held at the auditorium at Pay County Community College at the public safety academy
033at 300 Oldm Road brought to you by Tap into Wayne. 6:30 to 7:30 is the mayoral candidate. I think you're going to be there, right, Don? Um, and 7:45 to 9:15 is the council at large candidates forum. Uh it won't be live uh but it'll be recorded and Chris Teen the Wayne business administrator assured me that it could be put up on the township website for review later. We are taking questions from Wayne residents. Just go to tap into wayne.net take a search for my uh articles about the forums. Uh they're in the election section and then uh you'll find a link to be able to uh include some questions. And the last thing which has to do with the schools, um, uh, for the third year in a row, we are announcing the Tap
034into Wayne Roco Civella athlete of the year scholarship program. We've got $8,000 in scholarships as we've raised from the Wayne Surgical Center, Conan Ward, your Edward Jones financial adviser and academy orthopedics. And we'll be awarding three scholarships at the end of the year to students that we choose uh, from the pool of athletes of the month. So each month the schools send me their picks for the athlete of the month for Hills and Valley. We write up a real nice article. We get them some prizes from towns uh uh businesses around town and then from that pool we do the athlete of the year scholarship dinner um in June. So thank you so much. Have a good night and see you at Waynequest. >> Thank you. >> Did I mention Waynequest? I forgot it. Did
035I mention >> I didn't. Right. >> You missed that. >> That's the biggest one. All right. So Waynequest is I saw I'm playing my game around Wayne. I'm putting you to sleep. This is my big scavenger hunt like game uh that I do around Wayne. And this time I'm part partnering with the Wayne Chamber of Commerce. And uh on the morning of October 19th, we're going to have a bunch of Wayne residents driving around to places in town and playing little minute to win it games that will earn them clues to be able to figure out where a safe is and how to open it. Uh it's going to be a lot of fun. It's a spy themed adventure, so we're turning Wayne Township into a game board. Uh so we'd like to see you
036there. We need uh we need a really big group to really make this game super fun. So, uh to sign up for that, go to waynechamber.org. Waychamber.org. And just go to the events page. And that's the morning of October 19th. Now, I'm leaving. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. >> Hi everyone. My name is Chrissy Salentacis. I uh live at 14 Garvey Road. Um I have two uh children who are attending James Fallon and uh I think all of you probably have heard of many parent from many parents at James Fallon um this summer and at the beginning of the school year regarding the issue of um class sizes in the fourth grade. Um we've written many emails to all of you and to the district. So um I wanted to follow up on that issue.
037We've started the school year and we have um 29 students in two of the classes and 28 students in one of the classes and last year these classes had around 21. So there's a significant increase. Um, and as you know, we've written dozens of emails to the board and to the district. And we've written two emails that were um co-written by all of the parents and um about 49 families signed those emails. Um, and the we appreciate everyone's responses and we appreciate that everybody's been in communication with us and we've had phone calls as well with the district and we appreciate that as well. Um the the main thing that we've been told is that the situation is being monitored. Um and um what we most recently wrote to the board and to the district
038about this um was in an email that was sent from um one of the parents, Alicia Adams, and was um signed by 49 families. And um I just want to read a portion of that email because it was long, but the reason I'm reading it is because there is a question in that that we hope um will be answered. Um so we said, as the James Fallon parent said, we appreciate that some provisions are in place um regarding class sizes. However, the two full-time paraprofessionals and the um provisions in place that she's referring to are that there are two paraprofessionals in um two of the classrooms, but those are IEP par profofessionals that were there previously. They're for IP students. Um so those full-time pair professionals in two of the three classrooms are assigned to
039specific students with IEPs. By law, their role is primarily to support those students, which means that they cannot reasonably assist the other students in the room. This raises significant concerns about how such large classes will be adequately supported and whether all children will receive the attention they need to succeed. And further down, we said, "We also have suggestions that we would like to share with you to address the academic and social emotional needs of our children. We are requesting one instructional aid assigned to each of the three classrooms. We ask the district to hire two part-time additional or two additional aids. We understand that full-time pair professionals may not be feasible due to budget limitations, but perhaps the district can hire part-time pair professionals or long-term substitutes in if implemented. We believe this will have
040the most significant impact on our children. And we hope that you will strongly consider this request. And so, um, there's more to that email. You all have that email if you'd like to reread it. Um, we have additional suggestions in there. Um, but my question is, will the district consider hiring additional aids for our for these classrooms? Um, I believe that it's needed. As mentioned, there is only one full-time aid right now um going between 86 children. The other two aids are IEP aids. Um also you've all um let us know that the situation is being monitored. And so my second question is how is the situation being monitored? What is being done to monitor the situation? We as parents are trying to gauge how it's going as the school year has started. Um, I
041ask my nine-year-old son how it's going, and he tells me, "It's really crowded, Mom, and it's really hard to focus and get my work done in class, but I don't think that we should rely on what a 9-year-old is telling us to gauge how things are going." I'm also, we also are speaking to other parents. Um, and parents are like, "Yeah, my kid didn't really understand what the math homework was today. I don't know if she understood it during class time." Um, and so I had to teach it to her. So again, these are just conversations, but I think I would like there to be actual monitoring of how it's going. Are the kids getting the um the attention that they need in the crowded classrooms that they're in? So, it's a twofold question. You
042know, how is the situation being monitored? Is this working? And um will the district consider hiring additional aids? Thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone else from the public is wishing to speak. >> Seeing no one move to close. >> Mr. Favor, Mr. Paul. Any old business? New business. Board member comments. No, Mr. S. Do you know any comments? >> Um I I know that my myself and working with Dr. Kazmark, she's in constant communication with the leadership in the building. Um part of the monitoring that we do is our our benchmark assessments. They were just uh pre they were done and again we looked there to see how the students are performing as compared to past performances by the same students. not an assessment of how students are doing compared to students um outside that
043group just the students how they're performing against themselves from previous year. We look at that as well as the information we do get from this the school leadership um as you know hiring part-time full-time anyone um has to be a budgeted item. There are not budgeted items at this time. If it was um the will of the board to direct such funds, it would have to come from somewhere else and then you'd probably be sitting here with parents who are upset that we had to reduce a program or do something else somewhere else to get funds. Um, and I think I think it's something that the public probably, you know, doesn't fully um, navigate through is that, you know, when at home, if we need more funds to do something, we might work more hours.
044We might work um an additional job. We might do something. It's called revenue. It's how you can bring it in. in a district uh school districts our revenue is a capped amount you can't and any revenue that you do have you have to budget it for and you have to present that budget to the county and has to be approved by the state so you can't at any time say listen I just want to you know add positions uh throughout the middle of the year um you you can add them but then again you have to take away from somewhere else because that capped amount is all you're allotted for the school year so in a in a world where we would like to do more and to have more resources across the district um
045as we see uh more students coming in and more students with needs. It comes down to how much do we have and how much can we spend and where are we taking it from. Um so again these are the tough decisions that you've all had to make. uh we have to uh work within the confines of that budget that is pro that is developed by us but approved by the board and we're going to continue to do so and get that information. But if it gets to the point that we need additional supports in in that area, we will come to you and we'll come to you with a plan on where we would get the money those funds from as well. >> Thank you. I'll take a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion Paul, Mr.
046Paul, Mr. Faker. Thank you everyone.