001good evening adequate notice of this pws and executive meeting setting for time date and location has been approved in accordance with the requirements of the open public meetings act on january 10 2022 by prominently posting a property on the bulletin board in the lobby of the offices of the board of education which is a public place reserve for such announcements transmitting a copy of this notice to the record to wait today tap into wayne.net the municipal park and post it on the district website thank you we'll call mr moffat uh motion to reconvene mr pavla mrs kumar cornrow mr patel here okay the executive session of the land board of education regular meeting of march 3rd 2022 was convenient convened in the conference room of the wayne board of education 50 nellis drive in new
002jersey the statement of compliance setting forth time date and location was read in accordance with the requirements of the open public meetings act and the roll poll was taken the meeting was recessed and has now been reconvened we are now going to have the flag salute in a moment of silence please we're going to dedicate it to the ukraine 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 so during this public work session we're going to discuss some very important topics and share quite a bit of information with the board and with the community so we have two presentations the first is the first public input on the budget presented by our business administrator mr moffitt the
003second presentation will be completed by our content john carton we'll be sharing possible projects the board might consider as part of a bond referendum with some other news from around the district i feel as though we're taking a turn for the better we're moving away from responding to the pandemic and now spending for more time and effort with the pandemic recovery first and foremost the positive change is due to the relative absence of covid in our schools as it stands we have only eight students right now who have recently tested positive for covid and no staff members yesterday i distributed a letter to all members of our school community regarding an important milestone in our pandemic recovery but the most notable change being that our students and staff will have the option of wearing a
004mask or not wearing a mask at school and on school buses starting on monday march 7th due to the dramatic reduction in coving cases and the reduced need for testing we're reducing the hours and days when this testing will be available here in districts students and staff will continue to be able to test all day on mondays staff will be able to test on site on tuesdays wednesday afternoon hours have been eliminated since very few tests were being administered on that day so this is good news because again the community is using much less of these services because of the absence of clothing after hearing concerns from the community and reviewing their requests to re-establish the honor roll we're happy to report that we're going to be moving ahead and later tonight when we do
005the committee reports you're going to have a little bit more hear a little bit more about the honor roll and what we'll be doing about that the district is undergoing the new jersey department of education process for monitoring and accountability known as cusack yesterday our facilities were inspected the state monitoring team visited lean valley anthony wayne middle school pines lake elementary tuna state elementary and it appears that we did well in this first stage of in district monitoring the next of the in-district monitoring starts on march 14th with the document review at central office one of my goals for this evening was to share information with the board about where we are with our district goals so i'm required to provide a mid-year update on our goals and then a more formal presentation about our
006goal of teaming that'll be delivered at the end of the school year in june the 2022-2023 school year is just around the corner so it is important to start discussing possible goals for the new school year and i will share some possible goals we may wish to pursue the future this year the win schools had three district goals which included some serious undertakings the first of these goals was probably the most challenging and far-reaching of the goals it was a goal written to support the pandemic recovery recovery which unfortunately started that way returned back to a pandemic response with the surging cases we experienced around the holidays so board members do have a goal packet and so you're able to go through the goals and follow along you can um just a general overview but
007within that goal packet you have specific details and more information so one goal one um we felt that one of our biggest accomplishments for this year was to remain open for in-person instruction even when the pandemic was at its historic worst in january the effort required a lot of effort by the community and a tremendous commitment from the staff in the end with the shortages of subs and the number of coving cases one employees deciding to stay home on some days was the difference between having the school open or closed so we were so close to closing on so many days in januaries on january but we found a way and i wanted to thank the staff for the overall commitment to the schools and to our students because we all understand that the best
008way to help our students feel a sense of normalcy is by remaining open the goal also involved a number of other actions including the data identification of learning gaps against the new jersey student learning standards the tiered system of response mental health counseling adverse childhood experiences training and other activities that likely will develop into return to school plans and updating those plans as guidance changes the second goal is the diversity equity and inclusion we recognize this goal is not without controversy one of the ways we adjusted as an administration based on the concerns of the community was to host a parent forum in august of while the form was contentious parents were able to learn more about this goal along with some other related issues the forum was interactive and participants were able to ask
009questions many of you as board members attended that forum the prior d eagle dei goal included a review of our human resources department practices last year the district participated in a number of job fairs to attract a diverse candidate pool this year the district continued this work and partnered with montclair state university to meet two needs first need to continue to attract top talent from our local universities the second need is to take action to address the severe teacher shortages we are in the process of developing a teacher academy for our high school students to attract them to the profession and give them a head start with their college education the program once established will allow students to earn a significant number of college credits while students are still in high school during the fall
010of 2021 the district developed a checklist which is currently available and then used by district employees to ensure that resources available in our schools meet the requirements of board policies the final goal for this year has to do with planning for the future the architect's presentation tonight is one important part of planning for the future the district retreat held in december was another important part of this goal hearing from our demographer about the impact the proposed affording affordable housing projects will have on wayne schools is another important part of this goal so at this point i have to deliver a required report it's called the student safety data system and it's from september 1st 2021 through december 30th 31st 2021 so basically this is the semi-annual report of incidents of violence vandalism weapons and substance
011abuse offenses harassment intimidation and bullying which took place in our schools during reporting period one from september 1st through december 31st pursuant to statute i'm required to report to the board of education two times per year the public meeting all acts of violence vandalism harassment intimidation and bullying which occurred during the previous recording period tonight i'm reporting the following incidents that took place during recording period one as reported to the new jersey department of education with the student date safety data system the ssds is what it's known as and it's replacing the former electronic violence and vandalism system once known as the ebv rs it also requires each school district to report more and different data than in the past for example all hiv investigations both alleged and confirmed must now be reported in addition
012all removals like suspensions for disappointed reasons must be reported for both general education and special education students so the numbers being reported may appear higher in some instances than the totals reported in prior years for the reason it's tough to draw conclusions on any of these increases our schools continue to maintain an excellent record of investigation documenting reporting and handling incidents in a timely and efficient manner for reported period one throughout the district there were incidents um 12 incidents of violence this includes assaults fights and threats two incidents of vandalism zero weapons offenses six incidents of substance abuse that is substance possession suspected refused exam used confirmed and or sale or distribution cases there were 62 general code of conduct incidents which led to educational removal and 18 confirmed incidents of hiv at a total
013of 59 investigated alleged hiv cases for this reporting period 18 confirmed hiv cases involved categories of race four ancestry ethnicity and national origin one religion zero gender eight sexual orientation three power and balance zero or other distinguishing characteristics too cases were investigated by the school level anti-bullying specialist with guidance and support by principals and district anti-bullying coordinator consequences and remediation efforts for offending students included individual counseling student and or parent conferences and discipline in accordance with the district code of conduct remedial measures for targeted students including counseling support services parent conferences schedule changes stay away agreements teacher aid monitors during the school day adult student pairings and other monitoring measures in addition each school has instituted programming including the district-wide no place for hate intended to reduce bullying and improve school climate the other thing
014related to safety that i wanted to mention is that tonight at this public works session the board has the opportunity to vote on new security cameras so that is item 07 is basically a complete renovation of our of our school security system for the camera part and so these cameras will be installed in all of our schools and um i can't get into the details they're quite an enhancement over the current system that we have so that is a major improvement for the district it will make all of our students and staff members safer and they're also they're outstanding cameras because they also allow the police and law enforcement to have access and view all parts of our buildings very quickly and easily including from smartphones so the last thing i have to record is
015the hiv report reporting the following data related to harassment intimidation and bullying in wayne township public schools there were three incidents of hiv investigated since my last report and one of those cases was deemed to be an actual case of hiv okay thank you very much um the one thing i did want to i forgot to mention um sorry about that with my meteor goal report i did want to go towards the end of the major goal report and i wanted to provide the board with some things to think about okay so like i said i provided all of you with a summary of where we are with each of these goals but the end what they have here is some proposed goals so now is a good time to start thinking about having our
016goals for the upcoming school year start talking about them because ideally the district would establish goals for next year in june so the summer and all of our effort during the summer and go toward meeting those goals so you can see here the first of all for again more discussion this is at the very early stages the details are not really um included like i normally would for a goal because it's just a it's a topic and so it's a starting point for a goal is not the finished product okay so basically this is about expanding refining elementary special education so the goal would be to conduct a comprehensive needs assessment that would align our student needs with programs and also establish new programs or re-envision some of our existing programs the general idea behind
017that is that we would do an internal and external review of all of our programs and produce a report with recommendations for the board to consider during the following budget cycle and for planning purposes for the following year the second goal has to do um we haven't called we've called it at this point positioning students for success with college admissions and so the general idea with this goal is that we understand the college admissions is extremely stressful it's very difficult and colleges continue to be more and more selective as the number of people going to college and who use on the increase and the number of applications that each college student is increasing so there was a time when people would submit applications to maybe like three or four colleges now it's not uncommon for
018people to submit applications for 15 to 20 colleges so that creates a much more competitive environment the goal is to analyze our system of weighting so known as the weight of each class and how that's calculated towards the gpa so that's the general idea behind the goal that's one part of it but there's more to it because college admissions involves a lot more than gpa and involves a lot more than you know the general application so we also would like as part of the goal to consider additional staffing we believe that the guidance departments require some additional staffing and so that would be part of that goal so it's an important step forward for the district the other part i'm sorry for goal three that goal if the board chooses to go ahead with a
019referendum obviously this is a significant significant goal planning for a referendum planning projects planning public relations work all that is very important and you heard from one of the consultants that came to speak to you about just how important that is the success of any project like this is contingent on getting the community involved putting together the right projects looking at the cost of those projects the need for those projects so more of that will happen tonight but if the board wants to move ahead with that then referendum planning certainly is a worthwhile goal um goal number four is pandemic recovery so while we acknowledge that things have improved and that we are moving ahead um the fact is there are still effects from the pandemic that are being felt by both students and staff
020and we need to continue to recognize those issues and we need to continue to provide services intervention and support the last of the goals at this point is the concept of developing our own academies here in districts okay so the the and so these these academies are based on something that we have going on already we have dual credit high school programs and so we know that those classes are extremely popular we know what they feel very quickly and we know the benefits that people recognize with those dual credit programs so that students walk out of high school with a significant number of college credits also on a transcript it's something they can use to transfer easily anywhere in state and then in a lot of places obviously they choose to go out of state
021um so parents realize that's a that's a huge opportunity for students and students recognize that as well so the dual credit programs are very popular um based on the popularity of that model and based on the the next wave of expansion of the stakeholder technical institute so their goal is to build another high performing academy i think it's time the district needs to respond by establishing our own academies and so the idea is that we would meet recognize industry needs recruit students obviously from first and foremost from our district but then after that we would be able to possibly accept students from outside our district on a tuition basis and that would be a very helpful thing so we would attract students we keep students in the district that might consider going to say tech
022and we'd also attract students from other districts who would otherwise consider going to pacific tech so we have we have the staff we have some of the facilities we have some work to do and we'll talk about that a little bit more later but i think we're in better position to develop high performing academies and we believe that we're better equipped to meet the needs of our students who are seeking that kind of academic challenge so that's another possible goal for the district to pursue um the other thing i would just like to mention is that certainly this is the beginning of the discussion about goals there are some of the most important things that we do every year as a board and administration every one of the goals that we've established have been achieved
023and so each one of them has led to certain improvements in the school district and so if you go back over the years you can see so much of what we enjoy today in the school district whether it's new math and science programs or a child switch center full day kindergarten the list goes on and on but all of those things that happen that are improvements on the district in the district are the result of these district goals but it's important for the bull the board to get involved if there's different things that you would like to see if there's different um types of goals or maybe there's additions to these goals where you're saying to yourself you know what what about this what about that so if you like these goals that's great if
024you have more goals in mind that's fine too we're happy to accept suggestions if you want to send me your suggestions or you want to talk about these goals please call please write and i'll be happy to talk to you about it but it's an important thing to do and like i said it really it's kind of an exciting time there's a lot happening and a lot that's possible mrs kazan with regard to goal number two reminded me of a question i've had about this competitive application process for colleges and helping parents navigate that process it's always been kind of a thing that we've requested over the years we've done seminars things here and there but i really don't know that we're still doing enough um so if we could somehow incorporate the parent aspect
025of this into the goal i think it would be welcome from the parents and um beneficial around and like you said guidance counselors you don't have enough of them i i just remember this from trying to navigate the process with my son and the parents who end up spending thousands of dollars on outside consultants because they just are so overwhelmed with the process so if we could help them that way that'd be great and goal number five love love love um what i don't think people know is that pcti is an unusual career training education facility other counties do it completely differently they don't poach students from schools to the degree that it happens in passaic county and that's always been a problem for me because they're taking our best and brightest and even if
026we wanted to start a career technical in-house academy we would still be competing with them but i get the value of it because not everybody gets accepted into pcti so then you have a child who's student not necessarily college-bound learner who's now with nothing they're not at pcti they're here they get a diploma and then what so yeah i definitely think we could um do more for those students who fall through the cracks in that aspect and do a cost analysis of what we're paying intuition versus what it would cost us to keep them in house and uh i'm excited about that i could point out my own nephew who went to school in essex county but they had a dual system he took his gen ed classes at the high school and then bust
027up to the career training and he's now a licensed plumber who makes more than his college graduate brother so there's something to be said for the trades and if we could get more of that for our students i think it would be a very big deal so thank you for that mrs come on i actually did have a comment as well about goal number five um obviously the cost to rhonda decides that what specific programs are we looking at overall um it's kind of general here so that's my other question so we have the teacher academy so that would be one of the program but besides that we would be very interested in running an information technology academy so we think we have the staff here to be able to run an exceptional information technology
028academy we also know that the configuration of wayne valley and the way the cafeteria exits into an open area with the plumbing and with the electric there it would be very easily converted that space can be converted to a culinary classroom so we would be able to use that space it's there it's flat it's pouring the slab there's concrete i'm sorry there's some there's electric there's plumbing there's there's drainage everything that thing that's needed and the beauty of it is that at least to an extent we will be able to use some of the profits that we make from our own food service operation to support the construction at least for the equipment itself right we have a lot of space if you know where the kitchen is there's like a courtyard that can be
029utilized uh closed in and reconfigured to maybe even improve the over operation of that that school at that site and take advantage of the fact that the kitchen's so close materials supplies will be there and like the superintendent said you know have all the major uh electric and plumbing in that area and the other thing about a program like that is the commercial commission kitchen can be a very valuable thing for the community so based on the laws of new jersey there are a lot of food service businesses or food related businesses that require commercial kitchen so you cannot produce any products that you sell from your home you cannot you have to have a publicly available space that inspector can come in at any time and inspect what you're doing so if there are
030startup food businesses in the community during the weekend certainly the commercial kitchen is a very valuable thing because that is your opportunity to produce a product especially if you're just getting started so it's kind of like a food industry incubator for for the community and so you could rent it it could be used for lots of other purposes but a commercial kitchen would probably gain a lot of traction in the business community particularly for people who are looking to develop product lines where they would have to cook no one else i just had one other question um could you present us with an analysis of what types of programs our students are leaving us for in numbers so if we were going to focus on something in particular maybe it would be beneficial to know
031what pcti is offering that we're not in the highest number of students we can do that anyone else thank you doctor my next portion of our presentations yes as you heard earlier the superintendent had indicated this is the first public input on a district budget please be reminded that this public works session related resolution is listed again on the district budget in section 0 number six which is approval of the 2022-2023 tentative budget and maximum travel expenditures if you'd like to speak on this item you made during the first comment section on the gender items only unfortunately we're a little behind schedule the subject tenant budget has not has not been finalized as we wait for our state aid figures to be released by the governor and the state of new jersey due to the
032governor's uh moving the budget message from february 24th to march 8th which is next week state aid numbers have been delayed over those two week period and we expect them to be delivered about 48 hours after that budget message has been delivered to the state senate and assembly due this delay in state aid notices and related uploads and software and edit checks the district has moved forward in planning the budget with a two percent increase in the general fund tax levy and flat aid state aid assumptions generally non-salary school and department budgets assumptions were relatively flat with notable increases in the following areas existing contracted and at will salaries new teaching positions education tuition and related services special education transportation health benefits and energy we are also monitoring various other accounts to make sure the
033assumptions have are correct and will be updated by the time we get the preload and the state aid notices the the next steps included uh completing the tenant of budget after the state notice have been released uh would be uh completed and targeted for the march 16th regular board meeting which is the second input session the march 16 board meeting is also the time where the board will take action and consider adopting the tenant of budget after it's been approved it will be sent to the passaic county office new jersey department of education for review and approval their review and approval is due to the district by april 20th after the passaic county office approved of the submitted budget the board of education will advertise the budget information prior to the scheduled main five public
034hearing and final budget adoption so please be just anticipate that the tenant of budget will change the next time you see it at the regular meeting as presented on a march 16th meeting and again those changes will be due to the fact that we're receiving our state aid notices with that there's no questions at this point will our auditor receive a draft or or final budget during this period from now until no normally the procedure you don't share that normally with your auditors after approval uh final adoption we do share it and that is part of their audit review and that ends up in our annual audit at the end of the year so the june 30 audit which is usually delivered december january the prior that'll be where it would be reviewed and made
035for accuracy against our financial records thank you any other questions now we're going to have a presentation from our architecture record this is good evening everybody um this is really a presentation that's a very high level overview of many of the different uh projects that we've been talking about since two years ago and then there's some updated projects uh we're going to talk about well just go back and let's just go through the long range facility plan talk a little bit about that the high and low priority uh capital and lrfp projects um some increased enrollment due to new developments how to respond to that with possible additions to schools some new developing district needs and then we can go through the past referendum projects that we talked about in december the long-range facility plan
036it is a basically it's a compilation of information uh for policies and statistics throughout all of your buildings in the district which includes uh some capital improvement projects at each of your facilities this is one one page of one example of one school of you know many of the different capital projects they could be as small as uh patching your your floor removing replacing a light fixture to renovating a science lab for example and in this example you can see with lauren and the facilities team my team went through each uh school and you can see we highlighted some items that have been taken care of your uh lrfp was passed in 2019 so since in 2019 it was a total of about 77.5 million dollars for all of the schools and you've executed over
037the last two years about six years worth of projects that then comes off of that list and what we did with lauren and my team and bill we went to each of the facilities recently and interviewed principals stakeholders got some additional information on new projects so with those taking so many long-range facility projects out and including in these capital projects you're down to about 67.3 million if i can just jump in so we took an opportunity since our our retreat to take some time with two new facility directors they were out about as they say right so lauren and peter have been in and out of our district looking at various projects to see what other that their eyes pick up so lauren would go with steve on his his team and they went through
038each school met with each principal and was able to basically update this process now this is this low range facility plan is requirement state of new jersey which every five years generally they want it to be updated but we actually update it every time we do a new project so what what uh john is saying is we took this as an opportunity to go through everything make sure we're adding items we're subtracting items and then prioritizing at the same time so that that's that's a herculean job and it's just starting it's by no way over matter of fact it's probably the really the beginning of a total top to bottom review which we're going to continue after this meeting so with that i'll skip to the next one so what we were looking at as
039bill had mentioned we have the long-range facility projects and capital projects and then we prior prioritize them as high and low priorities the high priorities were really focusing on building envelope and life life safety so as you can see the priorities include but not limited to replacing and upgrading existing hvac equipment building management controls which are the controls that work your hvac equipment uh roof and window replacements new and or replacing generators site grading site drainage and paving and this really high level or you know uh order of magnitude budget for those high priorities is 27 to 33 million dollars and so additional if the board would like you know there would be additional due diligence to dive down deeper into the projects and refine some budgets yeah in the review it seemed like there
040was three major areas it seemed like roofing was big windows were big and uh the management control system that seems to be the reoccurring theme but each site as we were updating correct you can go to the low priorities so low priorities those projects include but not limited to replacing and upgrading doors and door hardware minor ceiling repairs minor electrical upgrades floor finishes new and updated signage paving kitchen hoods you know regrading some drainage and that budget rough order is 2.6 to 4.4 million right and if you're looking at the numbers there's a little bit of a difference when you start adding up right so you see 67 million so we just went back we did high priorities right low priorities and then what's not here is more of our wants things that are nice
041down the line to maybe consider right as a project so that that's the difference between another that's it right that's it i keep and to respond to the increased future increased enrollment we took a look at uh three of the schools through the elementary schools in the you know location where these developments are being proposed in in town so we're going to be looking at you and i'll show you some very high level schematic designs after this slide at ryerson jfk and pines lake some classroom additions again there's just an idea of how many classrooms you could add on to these schools and at apt and dunas day they have a unique design to their building where that they have classrooms that encircle the gymnasium so the solution for that is to because of the
042noise level and things like that maybe putting a new gymnasium addition on those two schools so you go to the next right so if i can add a little bit as a continuation of our conversation to retreat right we knew that there may be a demographic bubble coming our way but we don't know where it's materializing so we're going to keep an eye on enrollment and depending on where it pops up we may have to identify one of these schools and have an option to maybe add an addition to absorb that that trend so that's why we wanted to at least give you a sense of what the type you know the dollars associated with each school so here's the first so at ryerson it's again it's a seven classroom edition with some restrooms um
043again it's not this is just a first go-around really high high level diagrammatic schematic option and again we don't even know what grade levels you know this particular design has 850 square feet per classroom and that's for grades one to three and that's called part of the fps standard facility efficiency standard by the department of education that's the requirement different grade levels have different requirements for square footage of classrooms uh jfk this one you know we were able to design something it's an existing blacktop right there you and even this particular building has a two-story so even if you wanted to build a two-story edition it's possible now or design this one story and design it for a future second floor we've been doing that recently in a lot of schools and that one includes
044a gymnasium expansion pines lake um has a six classroom edition with restrooms very you know conceptually similar to the others just an add-on to the existing facility and these are uh apt in funistay has very similar additions for the gymnasium so it's really connecting it to the existing building and now it frees up in the space between the classrooms of the existing gym the existing gym is to the right of the blue with the classroom surrounding yes so question back up one oh that one um so what would you do with the gym space that's left behind when you open the new one would that become classrooms you could convert them that's something that we would not be like an auditorium well there's an auditorium on the lower i'm sorry there's an auditorium on the
045lower on the classroom wing on the bottom left oh okay so they don't need an auditorium yeah so what would that open space be from the previous gym that would be an educational decision on how what what would you like to have happen in that space so you're trying to figure out why build a new gym if you're going to keep the old gym well it wouldn't be i would assume it's not going to be kept as a gym i would assume it's going to convert to some other educational uh okay ott i don't see anything in here for randall carter it's coming up okay um in addition to the increased enrollment at uh um those those particular schools we also back in december at the retreat we're looking at uh if the class if
046we added a classroom edition at preakness for about 180 to 200 students that addition would be about twelve and a half to fifteen and a half million dollars but that would not include a new gym or cafeteria and the renovations which i neglected to say earlier on a part of the capital and long-range facility high priority projects include projects from preakness from the renovations that we talked about in december such as the new elevator brickery pointing and a new lobby and a pa system so those are those are included in that budget this budget is the remaining pieces of that which are renovating the classrooms and abatement and windows here's for the developing of the district needs this is more of a new educational programs being explored in the district um and uh i i
047believe it was one of the goals by the superintendent just five minutes ago about i.t rooms information technology and culinary and at this moment in time you really don't have a scope to to do any design work so the budgets are really something that we've done in other districts of similar similar size so it was about 600 to 800 for the it rooms that that's a renovated room and at wayne valley the culinary as we've discussed this would be a small addition uh for that space 1.62 or you know or if there's space found interior we'd have to do some analysis maybe it would be a cheaper renovation back that down to randall carter for their elementary school their new gymnasium you'll see a design after this was about 4.3 to 4.7 million and um
048that those numbers are coming from a similar project we did in 2018 and it's a and it was a smaller edition and those average bids were 3.2 million and these these numbers include all the permit costs doe review costs you know the all the other soft costs so that's why that's the numbers are there then there was a discussion about a new bus depot i have no idea how big what it's going to be so we'd have to once the board decides to move forward we could help with that preliminary design and budget yeah that's a continued need because of the current bus depot is an area that's prone to flooding so we've been talking about it internally for the past i guess year but before i'm with that just me about it yeah like
049where are we going to put it but it's always been funny for years right but the thing for the board to understand with that is that um right now our bus depot is kind of a far corner of the community so excuse me i'm sorry to interrupt you but the talking in the audience please is interruptive thank you so just going to say that um a centrally located bus depot especially when you consider fuel costs today makes a lot of sense because in the end centrally located bus depot will at some point pay for itself because you're not driving from one end of the town all the way to the other end even if it was split up over two locations those kind of savings add up over time when you talk about fuel every
050day it's a lot of fuel right and i know the board has been interested in exploring electric buses and other vehicles and i know it's something that we're going to continue exploring in the near future so randall carter the gym edition again this is just one quick concept schematic idea for a gym edition and again these gym editions that you saw meet the fbs standards for elementary school gym sizes they are by no means a gym that you can have a high school basketball game in there's no bleachers and a high school like this is about 40 42 100 square feet a high school gym is 10 000 just to give you an idea uh and then this is just a review an overview review of the projects we talked about um back in uh
051in december but even before that probably two years prior to that these were these budgets were developed so uh part of this referendum were for the arts so at wayne hills high school um the auditorium and music room renovations at 5.25 to 5.75 million at wayne valley the same auditorium and music room renovations 5.75 to 6.25 and here's just some samples of some uh renovations and you guys saw these uh in december um just some renovation project that we worked on other districts another school district so just as a possibility this is a new music room and you can see that music rooms they uh are all about volume and the one on the left is orchestral and coral on the right and you have a lot of acoustical characteristics that you need to include
052in your designs and athletics so for those potential referendums um there are some of the projects that like i said this was developed about two years ago so the board has executed on a few of these projects since then so if we're going to move forward we'd have to you know look at these projects again the scope and refine the budgets but uh at wayne hills high school locker room renovations 7.75 to 8.25 million at the hills for the grass field and backstop improvements the field lights replacing the stadium and the press box the bleachers and resurfacing of the track six and a half to seven million at uh wayne valley again locker room renovations five to five and a half million at valley for the grass field the football uh sports lights and replacing
053the stadium in the press box uh six to six and a half million continuing on with athletics they are for a new athletic space which would include uh maintenance and storage multi-purpose room lockers and restrooms and concession stand both at the at the hills and valley 14.25 to 14.75 million a piece and these are just some again some samples of a project that we just executed on that's just finished up and being occupied now locker rooms on the left brand new building and bathrooms on the right and that's the new building it's in randolph and then this is a smaller concession stand just with concession and restrooms that was done in 2012 and then we have grass field with backstop that we did a few years back for two softball fields in glenrock and new
054turf and stadium upgrades in sparta this is just a from a college but it was uh it showed a larger stadium bleachers and a press box similar to what your schools have right we were talking about the design elements of the stadium piece which has space underneath for storage and uses for the teams teen rooms those type of things and then that would be something similar to what we desire we're talking about correct only um other potential referendum projects uh revolving at security and site at wayne hills additional parking access road some lighting security vestibule interior and external doors panic and fire alarm upgrades relocating the main office and doing some cafeteria enhancements with access controls uh 3.75 to 4.25 million wayne wayne valleys similar thing three and a quarter to 3.75 and again like
055we said we're we're addressing some of the vestibules throughout the district we have received the grant alyssa's grant for about 440 000 we're currently uh building those out in the next couple months uh so that obviously would be removed that goes down i think some of those are in the elementary schools right yes so at the middle schools similar security upgrades uh was 675 to 725 thousand and in the elementary schools uh four to four and a half million and again we would have to look into those what's already been executed and update and revamp these budgets and this is just an example that you you already have some samples of your own but this is a example of a security vestibule in particular the the photo on the right is a a transaction counter
056that has bullet resistant glazing and you know once somebody comes into the vestibule they would get checked in you give your id they do background check if you're good you can proceed if you're not you have to go back out so you're kind of locked in that space until you're allowed to go through so the potential referendum projects that we were just talking about you add all those up and it ranged from 76.4 to 82.4 million yeah this area i'll just touch on real quick because it's a very important point at the board has developed reserves over the past few years and we continue to utilize them uh this year we have a new maintenance reserve that was established so we're utilizing the funds that were deposited uh this year so maintenance reserve we're currently
057looking at doing a roof project at uh td uh and a roof project to apt and the capital reserve we're looking on tonight you see an action related and as discussed by the superintendent earlier we have a security camera upgrade project again that's two million dollars as we currently budget we expect that to be like a phase one we'd like to come back because there are other areas outside of our our buildings that need to be covered uh including our bus depot and our athletic fields and we're also utilizing and continuing our science lab upgrades district wide which is probably we're in phase four or five at this point and the next round is going to hills which is about a million five so i just want to point that out is that there are
058things that we haven't talked about that are being addressed by funds that the district has set aside to address it and it's not a burden on the operating budget and this slide is just an overall summary of all the different projects that were talked about uh kind of all itemized out the bottom left one really only took one of the three elementary school classroom editions so you know i just selected jfk had to be the largest and so we just added that you add all those up and there's your estimated project cost 142.75 to 160.35 million that was the menu we wanted to come up with at the end we started gofundme mr carton can you talk about the impact that state aid would have on whatever number is determined at some point the board
059chooses to go ahead state aid will have a significant impact absolutely on the total cost to the community yes state aid is a uh up to uh 40 of renovated projects uh you you would get uh uh back dirt like as a a payback grant services that service day thank you and and then for new construction it's uh about 145 dollars a square foot that you would for eligible costs and so eligible costs are defined by the department of education so you have to you know go through that whole process uh i was about to ask about the school uh construction authority if there was money in there now because i know for a while they weren't giving any out um it was a time period but so you're saying that the different the projects
060you mentioned with the add-on of gyms would those be considered renovations versus new construction new construction additions would be new concerns construction in the athletic fields and the bleachers is that renault or new construction some of them would be eligible and some would not it depends on what they are and how uh educationally they're used so for new construction it's 145 dollars per square foot right well that's what they're basing it on or 148 something for that effect so we'll get in more of a quest analysis oh absolutely one day as you go i didn't know if we were going to get anything that's why i'm asked but what you do is as you do the you know you do the projects you would do the applications the department of education whatever the projects are
061so when they do the review you'll get back from them it's called the pec preliminary eligible cost list and at that point they'll tell you how much they're they're going to fund the offer yes so you'll know right then and there yeah and then you can say it's a go or no go okay all right so at this point we're really it's it's tough to estimate yeah you not until that time you're correct okay we'll get something that's the same thing okay that was my question thank you so much mr prasad i just want to clarify so that way the public knows the total estimated project costs that we we showed on the summary page contain need to have and nice to have items absolutely correct um you know and then we're definitely going to
062have the community involved in the decision making right that's why i started with this as a high level overview when you submit the paperwork to the department of education what percent drawing has to be submitted to that like is it it's it it's just or is it it's preliminary yeah that's they don't want the districts to spend a lot of money to get you know construction documents no it does it's not even close to that okay so mr peppa um i'd like the administration to come up with a more focused list of certain things we have to do like we know the bleachers at both high schools are over 50 years old they've lived their life we're on borrowed time so to me that's a project along with the other upgrades at the high schools
063for go just beyond sports stamps they go for the band and every sports team it's not going to be a dedicated my understanding anybody incorrectly from rural vendors it's not going to be a dedicated locker room for one sport or another sport it's going to encompass everybody the band's not going to have to stand up in the school when they'll have a room that they can warm up in before the game for a football game the soccer team will have a room to warm up for at the schools and it's going to enhance our programs and going to enhance our facilities which are really in some of them in dire need of repair you know we it's a long road we have been really taking on anything this big since the building of anthony and
064so i i would ask madam president if maybe we can get a you know more focus maybe we need another retreat to really hash this out thank you thank you anyone else dr kilby so just a reminder for the board that at our next meeting in april our intent was to have the bond council and our financial advisor come to talk a little bit more about state aid and the total cost of the project depending you know we'll get some kind of range to do some scenarios and um but ultimately you'll get to learn more about the actual financial impact of these projects which is also an important step so so like we can work on all these things absolutely thank you so very much excellent presentation thank you thank you excuse me um i'd
065like to remind the members of the audience that until march 7th we are still wearing masks up here at the board of ed offices please you're not in trouble we'll be happy to supply you with the mass sir yes you're giving me one i'm sorry okay thank you so much you're welcome mr moffat revisions to the agenda items please yes we have a few tonight um emergent section r administrative items one to three were adding t3 approval of his determination that the board of education affirmed the superintendent's decision on him case number seven three slash 2021-2022 following an appeal as required by njsa 18a colon 37-15 uh parentheses lower b six and e uh under um t we're adding fight of 1-15 t5 approval of appointment of district staff number five we're rescinding the appointment
066of baccalauge and i'll spell last name g-a-n-d-h-i van driver transportation at 26.91 cents per hour five hours a day step two in the van driver's salary guide and on number t6 um approval of transfers number two revised position from paraprofessional to scpa and vote columns that concludes the revisions for tonight agenda yes uh and that one is has was not uh withdrawn as discussed in exec section correct thank you okay all right we have come to the open to public on agenda items only section do i have a motion this portion of the meeting is open to citizens for comment on agenda items only residents are to state their names addresses and subject matter please comments may be limited to three minutes per person members of the public are discouraged from speaking negatively about an
067employee or a 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 this evening or at subsequent meetings under old business thank you anyone here to speak on an agenda item yes i would thank you my name is robin duhan 36 road i didn't plan on speaking tonight but after i heard the proposal to spend millions of dollars on new gymnasiums and new turf etc i would like to know if there's any money to replace the most likely original rip tattered shades window shades that no longer go up or down and possibly eight elementary schools with no air conditioning or if the budget would include replacing the paper towel dispensers that were used when
068i was in school back in the 60s a student used these unsanitary systems all throughout copen requiring them to use three fingers to wind down the roll towel and yet in class weren't able to share a book not a presidency no one else for eyes um do i have committee reports from this evening mr prasakis yes i'd like to report on the technology and safety committee mr borchardt and myself uh attended we discussed the phone project update the phone project was installed at schuyler colfax over president's day weekend the system replaced the outdated phones and replaced the emergency communication system also known as the pa system the next school to have their phone system updated is randall carter we also discussed the budget the director reviewed district level subscriptions to ensure the district is getting
069a positive return on its investment during covid we had a few subscriptions that we subscribed to but there hasn't been that much activity so those will go away we won't renew those we also discuss the camera project the district is working with a vendor to assist with the install of this project and possibly have it installed during the summer this camera project will have coverage inside and outside of the schools we also discuss the google chrome extensions so the technology department is working on a plan to remove google chrome extensions that are not educational students will have access to a newly created wayne township public school google chrome store where they can download and install extensions that are verified by the department thank you very much this is kumar the education committee met tonight um
070miss reichman miss put up and i were in attendance along with mr magnio so we reviewed the february 10th agenda and we went over a new volunteer club at wayne hills we also discussed and reviewed the policy on honoring people achievement we've reviewed the regulations and we are moving forward with updated regulations students will be recognized in the fourth marking period for this honor roll as the plan and we went over high school gpa calculations and weighting of those gpas that discussion will be continuing as dr toga had mentioned as part of his goals um it's just a larger discussion that needs to be really looked at that concludes my report thank you very much we have a special report by mrs kazan this evening can i actually have two committee reports i can do
071report under new business if you want or even old businesses all right thank you mrs okay i'll start with finance we met this evening myself mr padlock mr fatale administrators bill moffett and cheryl lydig we went over the agenda items for this evening the basic the regular financial reports we discussed the tuition rates for the extended day program in preschool which will not be changing no increase we discussed the tentative budget which was presented this evening by the business administrator we discussed the capital withdrawal and the standard uh student service contracts as well as the sale of property which is on the agenda this evening to begin the process we moved on to request for proposals for services and those include things like the architect the attorneys the auditor the deadline to have that discussion
072is june and we will be bringing a couple of those items to discuss with the full board at a future meeting uh special services annual solicitation that standard will go out for services for the special needs department health benefits were discussed we're waiting for our final number we've had some concerning estimates that may be a little alarming but again they're just initial estimates i won't even say the number we'll have car in every uh food service management just to give you a general idea between july and january uh 684 699 meals were served uh we're doing quite a bit of work there and uh good job by our food service management during this pandemic they have really stepped up with the foods to go home for those who need it and it was expended to
073everyone with federal dollars our surplus projection is on target we are concerned that there was a large increase in natural gas costs this year more than anticipated so that may have an effect on our final number for the year to go into our maintenance and capital but it's too soon to calculate for sure and we discussed the budget which again was taken care of with a presentation this evening to our business administrator and we're doing a payroll verification process which is done every three years where basically every employee has to come in and let us know they're still alive and well and working in the district and prove it so that's just a checks and balance required by law the second committee was on march first tuesday policy committee was myself mr fatale mrs wentzik
074our board president mrs put up was a visitor the administrators at the meeting were paula clark our director of human resources and dr toback we discussed the public petition participation and board meetings policy which we thought was going to be on tonight's agenda but for legal reasons we've had to postpone it because the agenda was released to the public before we had our meeting so that'll have to be moved to the april pws same booster club guidelines and manual we've done quite a bit of progress on that as far as whittling it down to only a few pages and that'll be coming to the board when it's completed after our discussion and we also discussed dress and grooming as another policy but that's still under discussion so there's nothing new to report there and those
075are both my reports thank you thank you discussion please paul mrs kazan yes mrs kumar yes mr pavlov yes mr saccos yes mr fatale yes and mrs potter yes motion carry thank you um we have come to open to the public general comments this portion of the meeting is open to citizens for comment on any topic recipients are to state their names addresses 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 a 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 this evening or at subsequent meetings under old business do i have a mover do you have
076any member of the public who would like to come up and speak please hi i mean the letter that went out the other day for the optional masks i just wanted to make a comment because in here it states where if you're vaccinated and you don't have to quarantine if you're exposed to a case so vaccinated do you mean vaccinated and with a booster like what is that terminology and why are we still making different rules for vaccinated versus unvaccinated when everybody gets it and spreads it and will there be an option to test this day cindy simon uh just a friendly suggestion in terms of when you guys are doing like the powerpoint presentations and stuff like that i can never see anything from back here but i apparently neither could anyone else because
077the print is really small there's a way to post that stuff up because i actually went on the the town you know the school board website to see if it was up there with the agenda it isn't but if you guys could post when you're doing powerpoint presentations so it's easier for members the audience to either just can't see that far like me or just because we're so far back or behind walls or whatever so that they can follow along on their own devices that would be appreciated my name is christian c 16 claremont terrace wayne new jersey i heard you mentioned the booster club guidelines a couple months back there was a draft that was put out and we started discussing it as part of the wayne hills football booster club and we had
078a number of concerns with some of the things that were in there to just i think it's worth talking through it would be great to get a copy of a draft if you have it before it came to the board so we could review it i think last time there was a short time and maybe that's why i had gotten um got moved or maybe there was more work that had to be done on it but it would be fantastic to be able to review that i understand it affects a lot of people there's a lot of policies um at least in the old draft that were just you know old standing policies there was some new things in there but it'd be it'd be great to have an opportunity to review that before the
079board does vote on that thank you all right um thank you old business madam president would you want me to comment at this time yes please thank you i'd just like to provide some information in response to recent public uh comment at one of our meetings a recent article posted and tap into wayne included misleading claims by a parent that the district was allegedly engaging in discrimination against special education students by failing to provide them with access to academic support programs available to general education students this claim is both legally and factually incorrect the parent has been informed that the summer program she was initially concerned about will be offered this summer she was also advised that all academic support programs offered to general education students are offered to special education students and there's no
080discrimination the district provides all required services to its special education students and ensures their individual needs are met through the provision of programs and services offered in their ieps not only are special education students provided with individualized programs to meet their unique needs but contrary to claims set forth in the article they are allowed to participate in all additional academic support programs offered to general education students specifically the district is currently offering several additional academic support programs which are all open to general education and special education students additionally the legal standard for discrimination claim is whether district policies are arbitrary capricious and unreasonable here because the district is in compliance with all legal requirements and obligations with respect to its special education students and the basis for any student's exclusion from academic support programs is
081determined as a result of their academic success and not classification is eligible for special education the district's actions are reasonable and any claim of discrimination is without merit thank you so just um very quickly for comments from mrs duhain i would just like to respond that while yes the district presentation that a possible bond referendum did include millions of dollars for athletic facilities to correct the statement the vast majority of projects presented included classroom construction and renovation of existing classroom spaces another point you made was about basically the issue of window shades so if there is a teacher or a paraprofessional or any other employee of the district that sees that a window shade is not working or it's in poor condition they should see their principle and complete a work order so we replace
082window shades all the time so the only situation where we have a window shade that isn't poor repair not working is if there's no workload that was put in so the other the other point you made about air conditioning um that was not included in the referendum discussion at this point although it could be because ultimately this was just a first discussion the estimated cost is approximately 50 million or more however a good part of that cost is associated with electrical upgrades and so the work discussed tonight includes a substantial amount of electrical upgrades so what we're talking about tonight takes us one step closer to the ability to have air conditioning throughout the district but like i said that cost is substantial the other point to be made is regarding our bathrooms so our
083bathrooms have functional paper towel dispensers yes it's true they're older but like every other school they are they're perfectly functional and they work fine so just throwing them out for the sake of throwing them out is um it's kind of a waste of taxpayer dollars and the other point to be made is again if there is a paper towel dispenser that's not working certainly work order would probably um go a long way to getting that repaired so the other question about hand dryers i'm assuming that um the fact that there are paper towel dispensers in question means that if you have hand dryers right hand dryers um in the early stages of the pandemic they were they were strongly we were strongly advised against allowing electric hand dryers to function um because it will convey
084the risk of spreading you know the virus so that was um you know basically the response for your statement um the letter about optional masks again we're not making different rules for people who have vaccines or don't have vaccines that we have no capacity to do that the state does and so the issue is probably um really more so with the state and regarding the booster club guidelines um so as far as those so the board is still working on and discussing some aspects of the booster club guidelines and really the the goal was to make the guidelines a little less onerous with booster clubs we're not quite ready to share them before they would be approved i will personally meet with the booster clubs and we'll go over all the guidelines and you'll be
085able to see a draft of what we have and make suggestions and we'll see what we could do so the process is not over and um you know we do have more to discuss but that will all go to the booster clubs in advance of the board's approval mrs suzanne and teleport presentations are usually posted after the presentation oh yeah yeah for anybody who wants to see we we present these things to the board first and then afterwards due to the next day any presentation that we have is available to the public okay new business i just wanted to propose a tour of the schools given all the possible changes uh if uh you know i'm a new member uh mr fatale's a new member mrs one thing but open it up to the entire
086board to be able to do towards you know from now until till june i guess at various times to be able to tour the schools so we can open that for discussion i have another item some of the parents have concern about the functionality of the current book challenge form and maybe someone can can review if that's you know in the proper proper standard or proper form thank you normally when uh there's a member of the community who has a concern they should be directed to me and i would be happy to help them with the concern they have so we can go over the specifics and what the actual issue is mrs well i just wanted to give the board a quick update um they know maybe the public doesn't i represent the 40th
087district for the new jersey school board associations and every three months i attend a state legislative committee meeting and they update us on what's going on in trenton and one of the main discussions on saturday which is when the meetings are 9 00 a.m in trenton um sort of throw that out there was the lame duck enacted laws so those were the laws that were enacted between the election and the swearing-in of the new newly elected members of the assembly and senate so the first one is about hiring retired teachers to help us with our staffing shortage that's something that typically wasn't done is now allowed but it's only going to apply through the 2022-2023 school year at which point it will be assessed it's effective immediately and will determine then whether they plan to
088move forward the cte teacher shortage that's career and technical education there's a shortage of those as well so they've decided to make it a little easier by eliminating the praxis requirement because these are professionals that are going to be teaching basically through the private sector and um in order to attract them we want to make it somewhat easier that is already effective immediately all the ones i'm about to mention are they had another bill about school security drills and this has to do with ensuring students well-being making them less fearful to give you an example clear messaging at the conclusion of the drill that the event is a drill and no current danger exists not exposing students to content or imaging that is not developed mentally or age appropriate paired with trauma-informed approaches to address
089any student inquiries or concerns no use of sounds or visuals that may induce panic or traumatic response such as fake blood real or prop firearms or simulations of gunshots or explosions etc etc that's also effective immediately district website accessibility this has to do with people with disabilities requires internet websites and web services of school districts charter schools and renaissance schools to be accessible to persons with disabilities again that needs to be fleshed out at the department of education so that districts understand exactly what that means it's currently also an unfunded mandate for some schools that would require a lot of work from their i.t and that's being discussed as an add-on to the budget for this year so that's still on the fence as to how some districts are going to pay for that change
090board of ed student representatives we already comply with that they don't vote but they are recommending that every school have every high school or a district with one has a student representative and this will begin next year 22 23. they're adding on school districts to provide instruction on history and contribution of asian american specific islanders and they will be starting a commission on asian heritage which will help school districts understand how to comply with this law and it also begins 22 23. school district regionalization i won't get into doesn't apply to us we're already big enough we don't need to regionalize or join any other school district and this is a group of mental health bills all of which have passed first one is a higher ed partnership it's creating a grant program to encourage
091school districts to partner with institutions of higher education to train school-based mental health service providers youth services program grants requires the new jersey department of children families to give priority to certain school districts when awarding contracts under the schooling services program wellness grant program a lot of grant money is going to be available for these so that's something for us to be on the lookout for locally is that extra money now this one is important for parents to hear anti-bullying law revisions informally known as mallory's law revises provisions required in school districts anti-bullying policy provides for civil liability of a parent of minor adjudicated delinquent for cyber harassment or harassment and increases certain fines against parents so i'm not quite sure how that's going to be doled out but increases civil liability of a parent
092of a minor uh adjudicated delinquent for cyber harassment districts anti-bullying policy must include specific consequences for a student who commits h by ib currently that's not delineated requires a principal to report to the superintendent if a preliminary determination is made under the school district's policy that an allegation is outside the scope of hiv hiv report on a numbered form parental guidance on anti-bullying requirements posted to district websites if you're going to be held civilly liable you're certainly going to want to know what the parameters are and create a school climate coordinator no they're they're going to create a school climate state coordinator at the njdoe and that's effective july 1st 2022 and if any of you parents want to look it up it's s-1790 which is the senate version of the bill and a-1662 the
093assembly portion of the bill oh excuse me it's it says it's effective july 1st 2022 but in parentheses it says accept the penalty provisions which are effective immediately well they gave you a lot of time and finally on the lane duck student journalists rights this is about concerns over speech rights of student journalists public schools and public institutions of higher education the boe must adopt a written policy i guess we have more work cut out for us paula concerning student freedom of expression reasonable provisions for the time place and manner of student expression does not protect language that may be libelous or slanderous constitutes an unwanted invasion of privacy is profane or obscene violates federal or state law so incites is to create a clear and present danger of the commission of an unlawful act
094the violation of policies of the school district or institution or substantial disruption of the orderly operation of the school or institution that's affected effective 22-23 something on the horizon uh which will be coming to the assembly floor shortly is the due process filing law they've extended that period for filing claims related to coven 19 school closures so that's for your special ed parents and finally we met the new chair of the state education committee teresa ruiz has moved up in the ranks and now we have senator vin gopal um i wasn't sure if i was going to like him but he won me over you know a lot of good things to say about how he plans to share that committee and one of the most important ones was the communication that he plans to
095provide to us on things that are in the pipeline well in advance of them hitting the assembly floor so if any of my colleagues would like the rest of this report i can send it to you along with senator gopal's what's the word i want information well of contact information that he shared with us so that you can be added to his newsletter list and the bills on the move i didn't report on but i they're part of the powerpoint and i'll be happy to send them to anyone who's interested that's my report till three months thank you very much thank you okay any board member comments this evening mr prasakis i just want to acknowledge that this is uh read across america week yes and our elementary schools don't get as much air time
096i guess as the high schools do so i just wanted to thank mrs vandarino and mrs meyers from jfk elementary school for inviting me to be a guest reader last night on their 25th annual sleepy time and i also wanted to mention that mr duffy mrs wenthink and myself were invited by mrs mazza mr sasnov of randall carter to attend their student council squaring against ceremony on february 15th thank you anyone else okay um do i have a move to close the meeting please mr pavlab and the meeting is adjourned thank you