001hello and welcome to the monday april 25th 2022 hillsborough township board of education meeting in accordance with the state sunshine law of new jersey adequate notice of this meeting of the hillsborough township board of education was provided on april 21st 2022 to the hillsborough beacon and career news mr record role mr gillette miss jackson here mr kidd here miss lanny beater miss nurse here mr oliver here miss trujillo here and mr mourinho here you have a quorum we have a quorum all right we are having a plan to move into executive session whereas the open public meetings act chapter 231 of the laws in 1975 provides that a public body may exclude the public from that portion of the meeting of which the public body discusses certain matters for which confidentiality is required as permitted
002in section 7b of the act resolved by the board of education the township of pillsbury on the county of somerset in the state of new jersey as follows the matters to be discussed is a personnel legal matter the matter discussed an executive session shall be disclosed to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists can i get a motion in a second she'll move second uh any questions or comments all in favor aye all right we are now in executive session thank you good evening and welcome back to the monday april 25th 2022 hillsboro township board of education meeting we will stand for the pledge of allegiance um can we please take roll mr gillette miss jackson here mr kidd here mr landing beater miss nurse here mr oliver here mr heyo here
003and mr marini here we have a quorum okay we have a walk-on resolution that we are going to read be resolved by the hillsborough township board of education herein referred to as the board as followed as follows number one the board hereby approves the request for a leave of absence with pay through 11 59 pm on may 1st 2022 by an employee whose name is on file in the acting superintendent's office two the board hereby approves the resignation of said employee effective 11 59 pm on may 1st 2022 three the terms stipulation and conditions of the confidential separation agreement and general release annex to this resolution are hereby adopted and approved by the board of education the board president and business administrator board secretary are hereby authorized and directed to execute the attached confidential separation
004agreement and general release and any other documents necessary to effectuate the same can i get a motion in a second so move second all right any comments all right seeing none we will move to uh roll miss jackson yes mr kidd yes miss nurse yes mr oliver yes miss trujillo yes and mr marini yes motion passes right we will move on and and acknowledge the correspondences as listed and with that we will move on to the most exciting part of the evening the budget review i know that's what you're all here for all right so we're gonna open with item 6.1 public hearing on the school budget uh there will be a presentation uh provided and we will then have the opportunity for any of the members of the public to comment specifically on the
005budget three-minute limit same as any other public comment session and then we'll move on to approving that thank you mr marine so i'll begin tonight's presentation of the hillsborough township public schools 2022-2023 budget with a brief review of the budget process typically starts in october by estimating the maximum revenue including the tax levy the state and federal aid and other sources of miscellaneous revenue such as interest building rental fees activity fees and tuition to name a few the next steps in our process is for the individual budget managers to submit their budget requests and for the business office and hr office to project salaries and benefits for the next fiscal year basically estimating all the appropriations for the next year once the revenue and appropriation estimates are done administration works with all budget matters to
006to balance the budget based on whatever reductions may be needed if it is indeed a deficit that we need to close which unfortunately this year was definitely a definite deficit that we needed to close now we'll get into a little bit of the details of some of the revenues that are in that make up this year's budget this thought this this slide highlights the general fund revenue as you see here this budget includes a significant increase in budget to fund balance which is also known as our surplus the increase in fund balance is 1.2 million dollars other areas of this portion of our revenue include the general fund is the tax levy which is increasing by the maximum allowable two percent which totals just over two million dollars this year the general fund revenue also
007includes state aid which has been cut by 1.4 million dollars this year and it also includes areas for the use of capital means reserve funds which as you see on the slide here are reduced to 3.3 million than what we have used in the current 2021-22 budget overall the general fund revenue is decreasing by approximately approximately 1.9 million which is about a 1.43 decrease the next portion of the revenue that you see is the special revenue fund and the revenue here also this slide also includes our debt service revenue the special revenue fund is made up of state and federal grants which are basically flat compared to the 21 22 school year the debt service revenue is reduced by about 630 000 or 22.5 and the main reason for this decrease is that the bonds
008from a 2001 referendum have been fully paid off so there are no payments for that in this proposed 22 2223 budget as you'll see later in the presentation this reduction contributes significantly to the decreased tax rate that we'll share with a shared later in the presentation overall total revenue for the 2022-23 school year is down just over 2.5 million from the previous year this next slide shares some of our anticipated appropriations and kind of highlights the the most significant areas of our budget and how they compare to the 2122 budget salaries are increasing by 1.1 million benefits are increasing by 357 thousand tuition is increasing by 112 000 supplies and textbooks are decreasing by 643 000 purchase services are down 183 thousand transportation is increasing by about 376 000 maintenance and operations are increasing by
009193 000 capital is decreasing by 3.3 million as there are no capital projects in this budget as we focus on wrapping up the referendum projects state and federal grants are down by 832 000 which is mainly due to the ester funds that were received over the past year or so and also debt service is down by again six hundred thirty thousand dollars from the prior year in the final budget that we're presenting tonight there are several changes that are occurring from the tentative budget so i'm just going to run through those here uh pretty quickly the first line that you see on the chart here is for improvement of instruction and as a supply account so that i'm sorry um we were preparing let me start over again this i'm sorry about that as we
010were preparing the tentative budget we received our state aid figures on thursday march 10th and had to adopt the tenant budget on monday march 14th we had to use placeholders as we called them in our long-term sub-accounts for some of the additional 704 thousand dollars that was cut from our state aid we now have time to determine how we will manage the additional state aid cuts and the first account in this chart that you see here is student basically is based on student chromebooks which are charged to this eleven triple zero two two one six hundred account and our director of technology joel handler was able to work with our providers for the equipment and identified a chromebook that is basically identical to the ones that we were intending to get the only difference is
011the model that we're getting now will not fully flip over and to become a tablet so it'll act just as the um as a laptop and according to the discussions mr handler has had there are not a whole lot of students that have been using the tablet feature of our chromebooks so this is 109 000 reduction that will not really sacrifice any performance the next two accounts are middle school and high school teachers accounts and these again were so where some of our placeholders were done to the long-term subaccounts so in these accounts we are increasing them basically just to restore those placeholders the next set of accounts is the elementary school teacher line and this has the most the most adjustments that result in a reduction of 40 438 the items that were changed
012here started with restoring the long term sub placeholders budgeting for the breakage from a recently announced teacher at the top of the guide to the projected step one salary or the teacher who will who will be hired to fill the vacancy and a redesign of the elementary reach program that mr dr felter will explain in a few moments in effect the redesign will allow for the reduction of three ftes at the elementary level that we expect to happen through attrition the last account listed here is for employee benefits this account has also had several adjustments that net out to an increase of twenty thousand fifty two dollars in the tentative budget we had budgeted a reduction to this line of a hundred thousand which was the anticipated cost of the five positions that were reduced
013in the previously mentioned placeholders in the final budget this amount was reduced to actual anticipated benefits for the three fdes that i mentioned earlier the last component of the change to this account was a reduction to the district's dental benefit costs the renewal for the dental insurance has now been finalized and came in slightly lower than what was projected and was the final piece of the changes to this account as you can see these changes have are a net zero so there's no change to the buzzer the budget resolution that the board will be considering tonight at this time i'd like to ask dr feltry to provide the details behind the elementary school reach program redesign okay thank you mr eckert first i would like to say that with the continual budget cuts over the
014last several years we have reached the critical point where we are forced to find creative ways to continue providing services instruction and resources for our students additionally when meeting with the administrators and board committees none of the options to balance the budget were enthusiastically endorsed because they all directly impact our students in some way the final outcome is being reluctantly accepted as the only plausible option to sufficiently balance the budget with the gap we had to bridge while we do a fantastic job of providing reach services to our students and our teachers are amazing at meeting the individualized needs of students in the reach program we are always striving to do better for our students during the discussion with the current reach teachers we articulated that reach is less of a program and more providing
015additional service instructional services for our gifted and talented students now faced with the severe budgetary constraints we are redesigning how we provide our elementary school reach services by repurposing human and financial resources as we are redesigning our asi programs to be in line with a response to intervention model otherwise known as a tiered system of services reach services are at one end of the response to intervention model while intervention services are at the other end of the model as an intermediary step during this transition period reach services will be provided in conjunction with and in addition to media services library curriculum we will be capitalizing on the overlap between the media services library and the reach curricula to provide increased enhancement opportunities for all students while providing additional services to our identified gifted and talented
016students providing reach services in the elementary schools under the auspices of a certified teacher at each building as opposed to a shared service between schools will provide the added benefit of the teacher being able to establish stronger relationships with other staff members with whom they work closely to provide the individualized attention and instruction for our identified gifted and talented students while we have met with the teachers and have a plan for supporting staff during this transition there are elements of the redesign that need to be finalized we plan on holding a parent meeting in the near future to answer any questions and assure parents that there will be a continuation of reach services for our students as i stated in the beginning repeated state aid cuts have forced us into a budgetary situation that requires
017us to think creatively to continue to meet the many needs of our students while we ought to test the situation we are approaching this situation as an opportunity to rethink how we provide reach services to our students i'll turn it back over to you in the start group thank you so when we adopted the tenant budget we did not have all of the tax levy information available to include in that presentation so tonight i'll go into the detail for the tax levy and tax impact for both hillsborough and for milestone starting with hillsboro this slide shows the calculation to determine the 2022 school tax rate per 100 of assessed value to determine the 2022 tax rate you combine half of the 21 22 school year tax levy and half of the 22 school 22 23
018school year tax levy to get the 2022 tax levy for the township of hillsborough for the next several years there will also be an adjustment to the hillsborough levy to correct an error that was made over several school years where the percent share for hillsboro and the percent share from millstone was not correct these percentage are provided by the state and need to be inputted into our software the correct percent is being used now but we need to correct the previous levies to make sure that both hillsboro and millstone have been charged the appropriate totals over the years this year's adjustment adds 81 000 to the hillsborough portion of the tax levy the 2022 hillsborough tax rate is now based on the revised levy of 104 million three hundred thousand three hundred and fifty dollars
019and fifty six cents the calculation to determine this rate is the 2022 tax levy revised divided by the 2022 assessed valuation with this rule the result being multiplied by one hundred this year they recalculate the calculation results in a 2022 school tech school tax rate per 100 of assessed value of 1.460 this rate is 0.1 lower than the 2021 tax rate the factors that cause this reduction are an increase to the assessed valuation and a decrease in the district debt service payments this next chart shows 2022 tax rate per 100 of assessed value and the resulting annual and monthly tax amounts for the home values listed and compares these numbers to the same numbers for 2021 which shows that the 2022 average home assessed thousand at 465 eleven dollars we'll have an annual tax decrease
020of 463 dollars and a monthly decrease of 39. and this table simply shows the hillsborough school tax rate history for the past 10 years with the 2022 proposed rate being a decrease of 0.1 which is a 6.38 decrease from 2021. and i know some of these charts are hard to read but we'll post the presentation on our website tomorrow now on to millstone the calculation to determine the 22 school read per 100 again for of assessed value again to determine the 22 tax rate in millstone you combine half of the 21 22 school year tax levy and half of the 22 23 school year tax levy to get the 22 2022 tax levy for millstone and again for the next several years there will the adjustment that i mentioned earlier will happen again on the
021millstone side and the correct percentage is being used now again so that this once we get through the next few years and correct this it'll be just right going going forward without having to make any adjustments the adjustment again on the millstone side is a reduction of 81 000. the 2022 millstone tax rate is now based on the revised levy of 631 479.93 the calculation to determine this rate is the 2022 tax levy revised divided by the 22 assessed valuation with the result being multiplied by 100. this year the calculation results in a 2022 school tax rate per 100 of assessed value of 1.072 this rate is 0.157 lower than the 2021 tax rate and again the factors that cause this reduction are an increase to the assessed valuation and here's the same table we
022showed for hillsborough earlier for 2022 tax rate per 100 of assessed value and the resulting annual monthly tax amounts for the home's values listed and compares these numbers to the same numbers 421 in millstone which shows that the 22 average home assessed at 349 thousand nine dollars will have an annual tax decrease of 547. and a monthly decrease of 46 dollars and again this is just a table that simply shows millstone school tax history for the past 10 years the proposed 2022 rate being a decrease of 0.157 which is a 12.75 decrease from 2021. and that concludes our presentation of the budget tonight so we can take in questions all right uh the public hearing on the 2023 budget provides the opportunity for the public to comment on the proposed budget before you see your
023comment you'll be asked to state your name and address as always there's a three-minute timeline on public comments so if there are any individuals in the audience that would like to comment on the budget please step forward henry goodhue hillsborough education association i have my fellow officers with me um i would like to start by saying first and foremost uh i echo the sentiments of dr feltry that this is not a choice that any of us are enthusiastically supporting um it's one that we've been forced to after years and years of finally reaching the bone when we've cut and we're at a place now where 56 teachers you know wasn't enough in the past and now we're looking at other ways that students are really being hurt but the fact of the matter is is
024that none of the people sitting up here made that choice and our staff didn't make that choice so we're left dealing with a situation that is beyond our control in some ways and not of our making in others because even s2's calculations go back to boards from 15 years ago at this point and with that in mind what i would urge the board to do and in fact urge the community to do is seek to collaboratively address this because we are at a breaking point within the district where we can no longer look to balancing in these ways and to be clear i i do applaud the work that was done to find a way to do this in the least awful way but as dr feltrey said this still hurts students this still hurts
025staff it hurts the quality within our schools and we have to get out of the mindset of making the best worst decision when it comes to budgets and there's no way we can maintain the rankings and recruit the people we need to for those rankings if that's where we are continuously forced to be and i recognize again that much of that is beyond the control of everyone in this room with that and you know with that being said though there's solutions that we can seek collaboratively we can seek stabilization we can seek to engage stakeholders across all spectrums and in all areas to have conversations meaningful ones about what can we do to support these schools that are the absolute cornerstone of our community to make sure that we continue building them and stop seeking
026ways to balance them that we're saying this is just we don't want to do this but we have to because it's the least worst decision because at the end of the day that trickles down to our students it impacts our staff members and i think every single person in this room collectively agrees that that's no longer acceptable so i urge the board i urge every stakeholder here and listening to collaboratively come together and work towards finding some solutions on this so that we can break this cycle and make sure that we're protecting the best possible students the best possible is the best possible staff in new jersey thank you thank you for your comment [Applause] if there is no additional comments we will close public comment for this we will still have our two regularly
027scheduled public comment sessions later all right we will bring a handful of motions to the floor um 6.2 motion to approve the 2022 2023 school budget 6.3 motion to approve the resolution for travel reimbursement expenses and maximum travel for the 2022 2022-2023 school year 6.4 motion to approve professional services maximum expenditures for the 2022-2023 school year 6.5 motion to approve maintenance reserve withdrawal for the 2022-2023 budget and 6.6 motion to approve corrective action plan for semi can i get a motion in a second so moved second thank you any discussion by the board seeing none we'll move to roll miss jackson yes mr kidd yes miss nurse yes mr oliver yes miss trujillo yes and mr marine yes motion passes all right we will now move on to committee reports and we'll start with mr
028kidd uh so i'm reporting the education committee report um one of the we had multiple we had two presentations we got the budget presentation from our uh we got the budget presentation at that meeting and uh we had a very good summary about that and we also had the school performance report which we which will be uh shown to the public at the next board meeting uh we also um discussed uh two approvals which are on the agenda today for uh for 12.3 for new course and then also for the motion to improve the lower of this course and curriculum for art intermediate school and those generally seen procedural and all worked out and then some of the last things we discussed were uh we discussed the uh the high school summer reading choice books
029uh and uh three of which are on approval for grants meeting and then one because the time restraints uh requires further discussion requires requires for the discussion at the uh next uh at the next committee meeting lastly uh lastly other than that we were not able to get to school start times at this committee being due to time constraints but um we are definitely talking about that next meeting so uh stay ready for updates all right thank you very much mr kid uh mr oliver may ask your question sure mr good mr can you just give like a brief summary of what's going to be within the new course uh generally that was uh that's that's in regard to special ed um so that's it sorry for the my kid that's in regard to special
030ed um i don't have full details up top my head if you let me go back and look at things very quickly but um i would generally ask dr beltry that question the curriculum itself hasn't been written because it's based on the iep needs of the students so thank you all right thank you miss nurse thank you mr kidd mr oliver so the hr committee met on wednesday april 20th we actually went over our a lot of time it hasn't been been a while i usually keep a pretty tight budget um we discussed some personnel matters with an update on the agreement substitute bus drivers and sick time payout we got to sit through the budget presentation um i think it was the third time for us so that was exhilarating we got to see
031it again tonight i'm sure everybody here as paul said was anxious to hear that we did talk about the school start times um you know it's likely going to be a reality um so we're trying to get ahead of it we're trying to spitball some ideas of of how we could modify it and work with it before we're mandated to do it we also talked about some ideas to proactively look to start raising some fees getting some extra income into the district we made some recommendations to go back to the operations committee so we are very proactively looking at ways to stop the reductions because we really have been hit hard from the state and we went well after seven o'clock so i'm going to add on to that because i was part of that
032discussion and we do get emails from time to time regarding uh fees for sports and some families that have multiple kids and multiple seasons and and where that money those fees go to um they do go to the general fund but just so everybody understands that the fees for sports and this is looking at 2019 metrics that's what we had available and they're higher now than they were then it's over a million dollar spend in sports and we only collect approximately 15 of that through fees so when people say where does our money go from the sports fees it goes back into the general fund which is in effect paying for the sports so i know the gas gets asked a lot it doesn't go specifically to the sport because it's coming back to the
033same fund that funds the uh the sports i mean good okay all right so i will cover both operations and governance um because mr gillette is out tonight so operations finance we covered a handful of items around uh damage that was repaired mostly due to ida the hms cabinetry damage hms unit ventilators and the h the high school pole barn floor replacement we also discussed the sunny mead of water lines for the unit ventilators to be replaced with the idea being we don't want to damage brand new uh components with bad water lines um the high school gym floor is nearing completion do we have a has it been finalized we're still waiting as of today it's complete okay so we can happily announce that the high school gym floor is complete it was not
034at the time of the meeting uh we also discussed the eagle scout project at arris we discussed some out of district placements um we did uh between operation governance discuss school start time so we were able to cover that in those meetings and uh we discussed some options some potential planning uh but as i as i'll note in the governance report uh the earliest that that could possibly happen i think is the 2023-2024 school year even if we take full action now there would not be a time uh enough time to do that before before next school year and last but not least we did interviews for uh board attorney for the upcoming year and of course budget presentation uh in governance we also reviewed bylaw zero one four three uh the reason for that
035update is some of the wording in there um due to recent legal opinion has been deemed as not uh allowed so we had to make that change functionally to address that concern we also added some additional language to ensure that the public is more fully aware of the process for appointing a new board member and that's what zero one four three is regarding um and then of course like always a budget presentation all right i think that's it we'll now move on to the board president's report all right just a quick note on uh roo our recently appointed board member his paperwork was submitted but have not received uh has not been received by the district so he was not able to be sworn in today we will plan to have him sworn in during
036the regularly scheduled may 9th meeting which is our our next meeting i did promise a couple weeks ago some comments on the uh financial audit corrective action plan um as noted in the publicly facing cap document from the standard annual audit there were multiple incidents of concern which were identified all of these were also noted in our forensic report which cannot be discussed further at this time as you can know from the report there were a number of actions taken over the previous year that were either in conflict with defined practices especially as it relates to overtime and bid thresholds uh to due to a lack of defined process control with the issuance and timing of disbursements uh or things that did not happen as would be customary for the accountable individual roles for the
037other items as part of the continued investigation by the board special counsel the board will receive formal recommendations to take appropriate actions on this matter and any other matters as presented to this end i will be appointing an ad hoc committee to address these issues and to make recommendations to the governance committee for policy adoption this committee will address these listed items any other items not yet not yet disclosed from the forensic support report any items or recommendations from our special counsel all right next item as noted in the earlier resolution that was right at the beginning of this meeting the hillsborough township board of education accepted the resignation of its longtime employee superintendent effective may 1st 2022 the superintendent has indicated that the resignation is for personal reasons and to pursue other professional opportunities
038let's discuss how that role has been staffed up to this point and what this looks like in the short medium and long term first to discuss terminology you may have heard the terms interim and acting as it relates to the superintendent role these specifically defined terms these are specifically defined terms as it relates to this and will matter moving forward an acting superintendent is one who is covering for an unvacated superintendent position an interim superintendent is someone who is covering for a vacated position or better said an open position that is not currently filled to this end dr feltry has been the acting superintendent and not the interim it could not have been named as the interim given that the board has now accepted dr antoine's resignation effective may 1st 2022 the board may and
039will immediately begin its search for a full-time replacement for the open position the board would be able to officially hire someone after that may 1st date the date of the formal resignation as you can imagine given that small window until that date the board does not expect any conflict there the current plan assuming no immediate permanent superintendent is named is for dr feltry to continue to function as acting superintendent at least through graduation the board will continually review progress on new hire and decide on the need for an interim superintendent for any period of time between graduation and the onboarding of a new superintendent i would like to thank dr feltrey on behalf of the board and the community for all of her efforts during these past months as acting superintendent and last but not
040least i would like to thank debbie basol for her service to the district this is most likely her last meeting and we have appreciated her support thank you uh so i will that concludes the board presence report and i will pass it over to dr paltry for the acting superintendent report okay thank you mr marini um yes over there good evening if you looked at the agenda on friday compared to today you will notice a change so due to unforeseen circumstances ms bentley is not able to do the school safety data system report for period one she'll be doing that at the may 9th meeting so we have other things to celebrate though so first up i would like to invite um ms danetta johnson and mr chris ireland to come up for a donation
041so good evening dr felder in the hillsborough board of education my name is donna johnson i'm with my son jordan johnson we are honored to be here this evening um we're here to represent the jonah johnson youth scholarship fund this fund is dedicated to youth mental health and suicide prevention in addition the allegra school of music and art has been in the community for over 22 years and we are proud to support the children of pillsburl in terms of their musical education we believe that music education is mental health and so on behalf of the children of hillsboro specifically in the music department we would like to present a check to mr ireland [Applause] thank you so much and good night um the check is for 30 um 3 734 for music instrument support and
042equipment thank you [Applause] thank you very much for your support of our music program and our students so next up we would like to recognize and celebrate um a group of wonderful teachers and educational services professionals we have a presentation and i invite when your slide comes up to come up your principal will come up and join you mr marini has a token of our of the board's appreciation for all of the ways you make a difference and we will honor you so on behalf of the board of education administration thank you all for joining us sitting through the budget presentation which i know is exactly why you came this year a total of 18 staff members were recognized as teachers of the year and educational services professionals of the year by parents students and
043colleagues so over the past several months principals have accepted nominations and formed a diverse panel to select this year's recipients it is an honor to introduce each and every one of these dedicated individuals who truly make a difference to our students schools and community they come to school every day with enthusiasm and encouragement to motivate and nurture students from all backgrounds and abilities thank you for all that you do so teachers of the year we'll start with them anjana iyer unfortunately cannot be here tonight but we do you know we we celebrate her uh just the same and this presentation if you were not aware was attached to the agenda so that this could be an ongoing celebration uh ian evans from the middle school please come up with your principal [Applause] and we invite
044you to stay up here for the photo op you know with everybody so jessica vannis from mountain road intermediate school [Applause] nicole de leon from amsterdam elementary school [Applause] erin chung from hillsborough elementary school [Applause] michelle cerek from sunny mean elementary school [Applause] grace verano from triangle elementary school [Applause] heather bartholomew from woodford elementary school [Applause] and lori honegman from woods road elementary school let's all look at mr callahan for the full opportunity please and another round of applause [Applause] and moving on to the educational services professionals of the year it's a choice we can all stay here and we can bring them up and we cannot be one big happy family since you all work together is that good because i know standing up there awkwardly is something that everybody loves to do but
045paul johnson from hillsboro high school [Applause] tristan garretson from hillsborough middle school unfortunately could not be here tonight but we would still celebrate her [Applause] joan murphy auton road intermediate school teresa palmisano from amsterdam elementary school deanna barbaro from hillsborough elementary school [Applause] christina bruno sunny mead elementary school [Applause] barbara golden triangle elementary school [Applause] wood fern elementary school unfortunately she couldn't be here tonight mira desai woods road elementary school [Applause] right now's the time for the uh photo op can you yeah we're gonna have to smush everybody together [Music] [Applause] thank you for all that you do [Applause] oh yeah can we should we take five minutes all right we're gonna take a five minute recess just to allow the folks to speak and congratulate we'll come back in five minutes all in favor
046we will restart the meeting in two minutes two minutes thank you this is why we're in school all right all right thank you very much um this is this is the reason why we are in schools for these types of celebrations so um i really want to extend on behalf of the board and and all of us you know thank you again and celebration of all of that a couple of items in the acting superintendents report i'd like to take a moment to speak to the community about activities in our school as we continue to navigate the covent pandemic we are striving for as much normalcy as possible during a time where we are seeing an uptick in kobe cases and surrounded and surrounding towns are reporting spreader events in their communities as such school
047decisions are being made depending on the activity potential for maintaining physical distancing the number of people in attendance and overall safety for all in attendance we are still in the position of having to balance normalcy with safety for all as such while we strive to maintain consistency across the district this is an instance where we may see justifiable differences based on transmission in this community and or the ability to safely accommodate the activity um on another note celebratory note and mr chris ireland supervisor of fine arts recently shared with me that for the second year in a row our district has been selected as one of the best communities for music education in america to qualify for this designation mr ireland answered detailed questions about funding graduation requirements music class participation instruction time instructional time
048facilities support for the music program and community music making programs responses were verified with school officials and reviewed by the music research institute at the university of kansas 44 out of 686 school districts in new jersey and 738 out of the nation's 800 school districts received this designation this places hillsborough among the recognized six percent of districts in new jersey and four percent of districts nationwide so congratulations to our music program we're very very proud of them and um on the last note for my acting superintendent's report um dr mullady principal at amsterdam elementary school shared with me that mrs robin becker speech teacher at amsterdam elementary received the dean's recognition award for teaching at the adjunct level at montclair state university congratulations and thank you for your dedication to the teaching profession and your
049work with our students every day [Applause] and that concludes my acting superintendent's report all right i would like to now move through approving the minutes we have uh three items here 101 motion to approve executive session minutes from march 14th 2022 10.2 motion to approve public meeting minutes from march 14 2022 and 10.3 motion to approve public meeting minutes from march 28 2022. can i get a motion in a second so moved second uh all in favor all right now we will move to the first uh public comment session we very much welcome input from the public during board meetings there will be two 30-minute periods of time the meeting will be open for public comment where members of the public are invited to comment which they may do if they are attending in person
050during the first public comment period members of the public may comment about any items that are listed on tonight's agenda before the board votes during the second public comment period members of the public may comment on any school or school district issue that a member of the public feels may be of concern to the residents of the school district as for bilo 0167 before you state your comment you'll be asked to provide your name and address there's a three minute limit on public comment please understand that our public forums are not structured as question and answer sessions but rather are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board in instances where the board believes that there is a misunderstanding or an accuracy the board president or superintendent will address the comment there may
051be times when a member of the public makes a comment or asking questions about personnel are hiring decisions kindly note that the open public meetings act in the primary privacy rights a public employees encompass therein do not permit the board to discuss personnel issues in public session if you would like to come up please identify the agenda item that you would like to speak to going once going twice seeing there is no individuals that like to speak we will close this public comment session we will now move to the acting superintendent's action agenda okay and we're gonna have to do this without the prompting of the because it kicked me off so um the acting superintendent recommends that the board of education approve the education agenda as follows 12.1 through 12.5 motion to approve professional
052travel related expenses motion to approve low ropes course and curriculum for ottoman road intermediate school motion to approve new course motion to approve field trip destination and motion to approve overnight trip can i get a motion in a second so move second any comment any discussion seeing none let's take roll miss jackson yes mr kidd yes miss nurse yes mr oliver yes miss trujillo yes mr mourinho yes motion passes all right the acting superintendent recommends the board of education approve the human resources agenda as follows 13.1 through 13.12 motion to approve retirements and resignations and we thank those who are retiring for their years of service with us 13.2 uh motion to approve revised mentor motion to approve revised leads of absence motion to approve contract change motion to approve leaves of absence motion to
053approve appointments motion to approve a mentor motion to approve ap proctors motion to approve sixth and seventh period coverage motion to pre-approve extra coverage motion to approve extra coverage and motion to approve student teachers for the 2022-2023 school year can i get a motion in a second second any discussion by the board seeing none we can move to roll miss jackson yes mr kidd yes miss nurse yes mr oliver yes mr hayo yes and mr mourinho yes maureen the acting superintendent recommends that the board of education approve the operations agenda as follows 14.1 through sorry 14.18 motion to approve monthly bills motion to approve monthly financials motion to approve line item transfers motion to approve financial status motion to approve resolution for four-year lease purchase motion to approve resolution for a five-year lease purchase motion
054to approve proposal from ei architects for design work motion to approve proposal from ei for referendum contract extension motion to approve change orders with amco enterprises motion to approve change orders with h s construction and mechanical to approve hms cabinetry replacement due to ida motion to approve hhs pole barn floor replacement due to ida motion to approve out of district placement twice and motion to approve tuition contracts motion to approve joint transportation agreement motion to approve bylaw for first reading and motion to accept donation can i get a motion in a second so move do we have to we'll go to that so we've got a motion i need a second second thank you uh any comments discussion by the board miss nurse i i know with mr gillette night here it might be hard
055to answer but 14.7 the motion token proposal for ei architects for design work is that from referendum or did that happen after it was a newer project does anybody know so it's coming from the referendum but it's part of in sunny the the water lines that feed the unit ventilators that are in the system are in this lab and there are deteriorating and as part of what mr mourinho mentioned earlier during the operations committee report and this design work is to basically get the water to the unit ventilators in a different method it's going to they're going to design a way to bring it through the ceilings in the hallway and then branch off to each classroom as needed so it's it is referendum work but it is not work that was in the original
056scope so it's outside the original scope of the work of the design work okay can we separate 14.7 out sure okay any other comments all right so we will now take a roll on 14 1 through 14 6 and 14 8 through 14 18. miss jackson yes mr kidd yes miss nurse yes mr oliver yes miss trujillo yes and mr mourinho yes motion passes now we'll take roll on 14-7 miss jackson yes mr kidd yes miss nurse no mr oliver yes miss trujillo yes and mr mourinho yes motion passes all right we will move to our second public comment session uh repeat the following we very much welcome the public during board meetings there will be two 30-minute periods of time that the meeting will be open for public comment where members of the public
057are invited to comment which they may do if they're attending a person during the second public comment period members of the public may comment on any school or school district issue that a member of the public fields may be of concern to the residents of the school district as per bylaw zero one six seven before you state your comment you'll be asked to provide your name and address there is a three minute timeline on public comment please understand that our public forums are not structured as question and answer sessions but rather are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board and instances where the board believes that there is a misunderstanding or an accuracy the board president or superintendent will address the comment there may be times when a member of the public
058makes a comment or asked a question about personnel or hiring decisions kindly note that the open public meetings act and the privacy rights of public employees encompassed therein do not permit the board to discuss personnel issues in public session i welcome you to provide your uh name and address in three minutes susan anderson case drive thank you my question here tonight is can anyone tell me who is responsible for answering questions on specific issues on curriculum in this district my questions have centered around critical race theory and social emotional learning who is held accountable when the system breaks down and the taxpayers told by the acting superintendent that she will no longer engage in discussions on these matters after doing research on a high school elective race in the united states i met with dr
059feltrey to point out the glaring imbalance in the resources used in the bibliography the list reads like a who's who of the progressive left her follow-up to me after that meeting acknowledged the bibliography could be more balanced and the curriculum writers will look to modify the content going forward let's hold them accountable to do just that suspecting that this lack of balance in the classroom went far beyond this particular elective i then took a deeper look into social emotional learning or sel and terms like inherent bias systemic racism white supremacy so forth and so on the board of ed had a training on this in november on the inherent bias while your children are being taught to examine their inherent bias it seems as though those teaching that are creating curriculum are above examining their
060own that doesn't seem very equitable to me i wrote to the administration on november 12th with issues very specific to sel and my concern about the glaring imbalance in the resources again leading far left with very little counterpoint i received a reply from dr feltray on november 15 stating that she had pressing curricular matters to complete but then would attend to responding to my concerns six weeks later no response so i wrote again on december 28th she finally responded to my email and also at that time told me she will no longer engage in discussion with me on these issues so what changed between november and december is she just tired of hearing from me this is completely unacceptable so i wrote a complaint letter to the board on january 6 asking if we as
061taxpayers should have an expectation of responsiveness accountability and professionalism from those whose salaries we pay no response a second email sent on february 12th and i did get a brief reply from the board president but he dodged the main issue of my letter which was the administration cutting off while dialogue with me i wrote back on february 16th expressing disappointment that he cherry-picked with issues he wanted to answer no reply i wrote again on march 21st two and a half months since my initial email it's now april 25th and i'm still here and i'm still waiting no reply this cannot possibly be the standard anybody in this district is willing to accept parents get involved these are your children let no one you serve your role as parent today it's my questions that are arrogantly
062being ignored and dismissed tomorrow they could be yours let them hear from you and i'm still waiting for my answers good evening we're cyan brahman from hillsborough high school's robotics team team 75 and tonight we would like to talk about the great strides our team has made recently to begin our competitive season started off a district competition we attended in march we emerged from bridgewater victorious as we maintained a solid winning streak on sunday and earned a place as a district winner this was the first time we had one district winner award in five years and we were incredibly proud of our team and how far we had come especially after not having a season in two years we then attended another district competition in montgomery where we walked away once again victorious this time
063with the engineering inspiration award which celebrates outstanding success and advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within the team school organization and community we then went on to the regional championships at lehigh university where our team made several memories and learned many lessons for next year's another season we didn't qualify for world championships however one of our very own team members made a dean's list finalists just last week she was able to go to the frc world championships in houston to meet [Music] other than our technical accomplishments this past season has been very successful in the community outreach and business sides of our team our shark tank program has allowed members of our team to quickly become more involved by creating their own initiatives to express their unique ways of giving back to the community and
064through this method we've created 11 new initiatives we're practicing that they all attack our community and schools for the better we can't wait to continue growing to finish we'd like to send a big thank you to you all the board of education for supporting us throughout our competitive season thank you and good night [Applause] james stats 101 devin shower court um first i want to applaud you for coming up with uh creative solutions to the budget um at this time last year uh the budget was unanimously passed um included uh maintaining staff and even uh adding four teaching positions however that did not happen so i am worried that that won't happen again this year that hopefully the budget will be followed um and i also like to applaud the uh staff that was honored
065tonight and uh two of the teachers of the year were former students of mine ms chung and miss bartholomew but i'm mostly here to speak as a member of the municipal alliance which is dedicated to providing education and awareness about substance abuse to that end this week there will be two screenings of the documentary the first day which ms trujillo spoke about at the last board meeting this is not your typical anti-drug abuse documentary in the first day chris herron speaks at various student assemblies you may have heard of chris herron he played basketball in college in the nba or you may know him from his visits to schools when he spoke about his own drug addiction addiction and how awful it was or you may have seen the espn 30 for 30 documentary about
066chris herron but the first day is different it doesn't focus on the worst days of addiction it focuses on how it starts hence the title the first day no one starts out saying hey i really want to be a heroin addict no one says i can't wait to be an alcoholic drug and alcohol abuse starts out so innocuously often at the vulnerable age of our students and no one is immune including the most wonderful kid from a great family with caring parents so i'm inviting everyone here to one of the viewings of the first day there will be a viewing tomorrow tuesday april 26th at 12 30 p.m at the municipal building there will also be a viewing this wednesday evening april 27th at 7 p.m on a personal note i have lost former students
067and family members to addiction sometimes addiction kills relationships and quality of life sometimes addiction kills the person sometimes it does both in this very moving documentary chris herron speaks with great empathy for everyone when he is speaking about drug and alcohol use among young students he makes this beautiful statement related to drinking and using drugs quote to the kids who don't have to i applaud you to the kids who do i understand there's nothing weird about the both of you help one another high school is hard end quote and it's hard being a parent of a teenager so again i invite all of you all of you to attend the viewing of the first day of the municipal building either tomorrow tuesday april 26 at 12 30 p.m or this wednesday evening april 27th at
0687 p.m thank you [Applause] stacy at 1229 millstone river road i'm here today to address the health curriculum standards which the state has put forth for us which incidentally i believe that our school system has already been uh teaching to and satisfied i know there are members of the community that believe gender and sex education do not belong in schools because they're not academic they don't actually believe this because the school instruction exists that is not academic looking at physical education sports the dangers of drugs and drunk driving yet everyone accepts them as appropriate and important for school we recognize their boundaries introducing children at a young age to the basic spectrum of gender in different types of families is essential putting aside the fact that every child knows someone on the lgbtq spectrum even
069if they don't realize it yet children are not born intolerant they learn it from somewhere they are taught to be homophobic and transphobic they're taught to be racist ableist xenophobic etc children must be exposed to families that are not like them because that is the world they live in they need to have the words to express what they are feeling and who they are if schools are silenced and not able to demonstrate respect for people who are not like them it sets the stage for bullying and that is alarming if you don't want you don't see the proof of this just look at how we have to legislate basic decency by passing laws that prevent discrimination my wife our child and myself have been deeply affected by this intolerance both by adults and children my
070wife stephania lopowicz is as passionate and vocal as she is because she's a target just for existing and more importantly because she understands the suffering of children who don't understand what they are feeling and wants to do everything she can to help those children not suffer like she did i believe the board understands the importance of the state health curriculum standards i hope it's in the message that our community supports and values all of our children and their families thank you any additional public comment seeing none i will open it up to the board for any comment i have some reports yes um so the municipal alliance i just want to report on the municipal lines that had met on friday april 8th and just two highlights we heard from guest speaker jeffrey phillips who
071is from freedom trail freedom trail is a community wellness center in somerville new jersey its model is a collaborative support program that promotes the wellness and recovery of people with the lived experience of behavioral health conditions it is a free drop-in center for adults and offers two support meetings a day both in-person and virtual their calendar is available on the cspnj website that's collaborative support program new jersey website if you search under services then community wellness center and then freedom trail and then um so this is like a calendar of their of their events then ms stats thank you spoke about the first day so i won't review that there was um the other thing that we talked about in the municipal alliance is the hundred and central regional high school coding club created a
072help app so it's this app that's available on google play and also on the app store that's basically a quick reference application with phone numbers and resources um and basically it's you know you are not alone letting people know that there are resources that are available for them on the help app for example second floor the 24 7 confidential anonymous help line for new jersey's youth and young adults and the trevor project for lgbtq youth so that's just an easy way to access um that information if you um know someone who's in need and then i just want to remind the community that hope for tomorrow will be may 6th friday at the municipal building and that's a free event there's also a fundraiser for borough safe on friday may 20th which is puppy yoga
073it will be a fundraiser to support borrow safe and then mr mourinho i wasn't sure if you were going to talk about the arrest wizards no okay so um there is at the otton road intermediate school the harlem wizards are playing the arris teachers which is going to be a pretty great fundraising event it will be on saturday may 21st at 6 p.m at the high school and i have a scan thing if you want to come up and scan that but also tickets are available online you can just probably google it on facebook all right thank you that concludes my report i'll be there thank you for the report mr hill any other board members that want to make any comments um yes uh unfortunately this afternoon we've received uh news regarding the untimely
074passing of one of our high school teachers mr marquessy as a school community we express our condolences to the family friends and students of mr whissy thank you i will take a motion to close the meeting so move second all in favor thank you