HVRSD Board of Education General Meeting May 18th, 2026

001Good evening you all. You can say good evening. You were so you were so quiet so early. I figured we should have a good evening. >> Awesome. Can we have a roll call? >> Miss Carter >> present. >> Dr. Genevacy here. >> Dr. Mr. Liston >> here. >> Mr. Peters >> here. >> Let's see. Dr. Resnik, Mr. Slottman, Dr. Stilliano >> here, >> Miss Williams Galliano >> here. >> We have a quorum. The New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon. In accordance with the provision of the act, the Hope Valley Regional Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting. Okay. In

002accordance with the provision of the act, the Hopewell Valley Regional School uh Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date, time, and place thereof communicated to the Hopewell Valley News and the Times on January 7th, 2026. This meeting notice was also sent to Comcast Cable and Verizon Bios. The board meeting. The board reserves the right to enter into executive session during all meetings of the board of ed. The meeting is being recorded for the purposes of board review, future reference, preparation of the minutes, and viewing on the YouTube Bulldog TV and the school district website www.hvrsd.org. Members of the public who intend to participate in public comment, we ask you to sign in prior to the to speaking. This will assist us with recording um a recordeping.

003If you could please stand and join me in the flag salute to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, we'll figure that out over the awesome magic. All right. Um, I need a uh first and a second to approve the meeting minutes for April 27th. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Any opposed or abstaining? Seeing none, minutes are pass. All right. Well, we are going to have the amazing uh Miss Eileene Zang do a final report uh for her year with us as the student representative. So, I'll turn over the the mic to Miss Zang. As the school year begins to be wrapped up, student participation is still alive and well. AP exams

004were successfully administered in the beginning of May and ended last Friday after two weeks of hard work. With summer approaching, students are finishing the year strong and state testing is being administered this week. The class of 2027 celebrated a wonderful night for their junior prom and the class of 2026 is currently traveling in the Poconos for their senior trip. Seniors are also held a future plans day in May to celebrate all and we look forward to continuing to celebrate their achievements at upcoming awards nights and graduation. Our sports teams are thriving as seasons come to an end with boys tennis going into sectionals, boys lacrosse to the state tournament, and boys volleyball to the conference tournament following their two successful senior nights. In the arts, the HP band program had held its final spring concert

005last week in collaboration with the Timberlain Middle School band. Similarly, the HB orchestra performed a wonderful spring concert with many students going on to perform at the Central Jersey MEA Honors Orchestra as well. HP choirs then held a successful hopeful Got Talent senior recognition night and Vox in the Vines. Each event filled with amazing music. To round out our arts programs, HP Dance is having a successful choreography night today. And finally, today marks the last day of student reports to the board. On behalf of both Grace Corvaline and myself, we want to thank everyone for this incredible opportunity. We have truly appreciated being a part of these meetings and lending a student voice. While Grace will be attending the College of William and Mary and I will be heading to Skidmore College, we are leaving

006the position to Ellie Mahan who we know will do amazing. Best of luck to everyone and thank you so much again. >> Thank Thank you so much. Um any comments from the rest of the board? We do have a small token of our appreciation for you. Uh-huh. one last time. You know, you're always welcome to stay, but we understand if you need to go. So we are both going to um Dr. Patrice and myself are going to forgo our board reports. Um, and we are going to go h and move into recognizing an amazing group of people which is the HBRSD staff retiring class of 2026. Good evening, President Galliano Galliano Williams. Uh, board members, Dr. Trice, uh, guests and family and friends. It is a profound honor to present the 2026 class of retirees

007to the board of education. Collectively, these individuals represent a remarkable years of service to the Hopwell Valley Regional School District. Now, while that number is certainly impressive, it's their true legacy that lies in their character. They have been the backbone of our schools, defined by an unwavering work ethic, a deep sense of mission, and a standard of professionalism that inspired everyone around them. With integrity and genuine care, they've spent their careers uplifting our students, supporting our families, and strengthening our entire community. Each retiree will receive a commemorative certificate and a gift inscribed with the following message. In recognition of your dedicated service and commitment to excellence, we extend our heartfelt appreciation for your hard work and professionalism throughout your tenure. Your contributions have greatly contributed to the su success of our district. Congratulations on your

008retirement. Retirees, when I call your name, please come forward to receive your gifts. Samuel Adom not here, but we CAN STILL CLAP. MARK AMENTIA. Caroline Baker, Kimberly Black, Lorie Kavanagh, Go back, sir. Bob Calvita. that. Yeah. But now I need him to advance the slides. Marie Delgrand, Michelle Dunan. Jeannie Finn. Patty Jazco, >> Heidi Tommy. Tara Keiesling, Darren Leuen, Heidi Mutiner Joyce Nagel, Tom Quinn. Oh, I miss you. Bill Russell, Alicia Smith, Sharon Tis, here. Tim Wolverton Neville Williams and John Zalot. Many of our retirees did retire several months ago, so I imagine that they are in some beautiful location with a lot of sun and waves, and that's why they couldn't be here with us this evening. Um, on behalf of the administration and the board of education, thank you for your tireless dedication.

009As you step into this next chapter, we hope it brings you the same joy and fulfillment that you have provided to others for so many years. Please take pride in the lives you've changed and the lasting mark you will leave on Hopewell Valley. We wish you nothing but the very best. Congratulations. If we could take a formal photo of all the retirees out in front of the um logo, that would be great. Whatever. We have lots to talk about. Not now. What are you doing? That's it. You're done. You're going to be hanging out here enjoying all of this. >> Good to see you in short. >> That was hilarious. show off my >> Okay, thank you all for the little intermission early on. Um, just always so touching to get to acknowledge all of

010our amazing folks who are uh earning retire retirement. You know, it's just we're really really grateful to have had them with us as long as we have. So um with that we have um each year an opportunity as a board to do our own reflection on ourselves and we um complete a board evaluation and um this year it's kind of um stacked one upon each other because of the timing of our transition of our board and the and um just the number of folks that were joining a new. But we're happy to have our amazing field rep, Maryanne Freriedman, here with us this evening who's going to just walk us through the the results of our what would have been completing our 2025 board of vow. Welcome. >> Thank you so much. Good evening everybody.

011I don't know about all of you, but they all look way too young to be retiring. Way too way too young to be retiring. So, um, I understand that you received this over the weekend and hopefully you had a chance to look at it. This is a very good board self- evaluation. There's a lot of really positive comments in here and a lot of really positive scores. This is not statemandated. It used to be when CQAC first came into existence. It was mandated that each board complete a self-evaluation and in the first revision of QAC it was taken away which was very disappointing to us at New Jersey school boards because we always feel and still feel that it is best practice for a board to really do that self-reflection piece once a year and

012to identify how they feel each board member feels they've done as a board and as individuals. So this is a wonderful process to go through and I commend you for completing it even when it's not a requirement because we know you have so many requirements today. So I'm going to go through this rather quickly but what we want you to know is that we consider any score any indicator that has a ranking of 3.0 no or above because it's ranked on um one to four are the ratings is we consider to be a board that's working effectively together and that's working well together. So anything that's a 3.0 or above is considered a an actual strength for the board and anything that's under a 3.0 would be considered an opportunity for growth. And so there

013are some of both of these there are way more strengths than there are opportunities for growth. So if you look at the first page, um this had a couple of areas of of strength for you demonstrating through your vision, mission, and goals that you focus on student achievement. As you know with CUSAC, everything that a board does has to demonstrate that they are focused on student achievement and you're doing that. And then also you're ensuring that the vision, mission, and goals are clearly articulated to your district stakeholders and are understood by them. And then you review progress with them on with the stakeholder groups about your your progress moving forward. So there are a couple of things in there that you can see your opportunities for growth. And what you may want to do is

014take a look at those. And when you're developing your board goals over the summer, you develop district and board goals over the summer. When you're doing your board goals, you may want to take it though anything that's under a 3.0 and take a look at that and see if you want to incorporate it somehow into a board goal. Okay, so just a suggestion and again I hope you take time to read the comments because the comments really were very very nice and very complimentary to all of you to each other. The second area is policy and this was an area of significant strength to you all and in fact Pamela Lilliston was even mentioned in the comments and I said to myself I said to myself okay I need to find out who this is.

015So, I went to your census and I saw that it was your vice president and congratulations because all that meant was that she was doing a great I'm assuming she's your policy chair and that she is doing a great job. So, every single one of these indicators is an area of great strength for you and I commend you on that. And again, please take a look at the comments and there because the comments talk about your areas of stren things that you each felt were areas of strength and things that you felt may be opportunities for growth. Okay. Accountability for student achievement is the next area skill area and in this everything was above a 3.0. So again a great area of strength for you all. providing for essential learning tools for all of your

016students, including a rigorous curriculum and technology, approving the curriculum that's aligned with state standards, and also recognizing high levels of staff and student achievement. And that's a wonderful thing that you all do, and I know that you do that on a regular basis. So, that was all areas of strength. The governance team relations and relationships and accountability, this was very good also. Um, you establish and adhere to your board operating norms or code of conduct. You abide by the school ethics act. Many people don't realize in the audience that the board has a code of ethics that they have to abide by and you all are abiding by that. Maintaining confidentiality on matters that re remain and need to stay and remain in as confidential items. Your meetings are focused efficient and provide informed deliberations.

017you respect and support the decisions of the majority. That's something that was was ranked very high and that's something that we find not so often as ranked very high because I was on my board for nine years when dinosaurs roamed the earth quite literally 1999 to 2008 and we I was in the minority probably a handful of times and it was tough to be in the minority because I really believed that in what I believed in and it was difficult to be in the minority but yet really need to voice and say that I respect the majority opinion of the board and I respect their decision. And until you're in that minority, you don't realize how difficult that can be. And you're all doing that. So, I commend you on that because that's that's really

018big. Very, very big. You recognize that authority rests in yourselves as a board and not as individual board members. You're only a board member when you're seated at a legally advertised meeting with a quorum of the board. When you're out at Shopright or at Stop and Shop, you're not a board member. You're who you are, but you don't have that board member hat on. But everybody else thinks you have that board member hat on, no matter where you are. So recognizing that this is the place where you make decisions and where you have authority is really key. You work together in an atmosphere of trust and respect and your committee structure contributes to the effectiveness and the efficiency of your meetings. So those are all wonderful aspects. The next is resource management and oversight. You'll

019see that there are some things that are blacked out there. The things that are redacted there are because the board can only evaluate the superintendent, but that's not done in this tool. Okay? So when you're commending other people, other staff members, and these were all positive, I'm going to say they were not negative, but when you're even commending other staff members in the board self-evaluation, it could be perceived by your community that you are evaluating them. And so those are redacted. We checked with your board attorney and they agreed that that should those should be redacted. But again, these are are wonderful. This is a very strong area in terms of resource management adopting and monitoring an annual budget and I know they are going to miss you Mr. Kolivita, I will miss you as

020their BA. I was ready to ask you if you would think about doing interim work and in your retirement and I was told that no, you're doing you're going to be working with ASBO and training new business administrators. Perfect job for you. Really perfect and we all will benefit from that. So, thank you. um providing the public with information regarding your budget and your district finances. Reviewing the audit findings and responding accordingly, complying with all financial, statutory, and regulatory requirements and also ensuring the health, safety, and security of all of the students and the staff in your district. Those areas are gigantic and you've done those are areas of of great strength for you. terms of community leadership. This was also an area of overall strength. Your understanding as community leaders, you advocate for all

021children, not just for your own kids, your neighbors kids, your nieces and nephews, or your grandchildren. You welcome and respect colleagues, staff, community, and students by listening to all diverse points of view. You know, years ago when I was on the board, we didn't necessarily think of diversity as an asset. We thought of it as a liability. Now, we're all really thinking of this as an asset. Excuse me. voice gets crackly after a few minutes. Um because with that diversity, it represents your community and that's how you understand your full and total community. And we did that when we did the strategic plan and you had a number of you know people from various different opportun you know different um careers and different aspects of them in the community whether they were community members, parents,

022staff members, businessmen or business women. And then you requ conform to the requirements of the open public meetings act. So those are all wonderful individual members contributions to the board. This was extremely high. You can articulate the clearly articulate the vision, mission and goals. You value learning and enhance your effectiveness through studying, training and reflection. You make every effort to attend all board meetings prepared to make informed decisions. You operate with a governance mindset, systems thinker and strategic focus and a commitment to deep learning and respectful of public manner. You act ethically ethically and respon and professionally in personal conduct and your relationship with others. You observe the chain of command. That's also extremely large. That's very very big because you're not trying to go out and when you are people who all care deeply

023about your your parents, your community and your students. But when somebody comes to you with an issue about the district, you refer those folks to the chain of command because that's the fastest way they can see that issue resolved. So you don't get in there and try and do it yourself. And if you did, if it came to the board table because you are the court of last resort, you wouldn't be able to participate then in the resolution of that issue. Okay? and you don't speak behalf on on the board un in an official capacity unless you're deemed um to do that by the full board. So then all of the greatest strengths that you have are listed on the back. Again, these are wonderful comments that you've that you've put on here. Um respectful

024communication and collaboration, knowledge of the school district policy and school systems in general, diverse areas of expertise, that's wonderful. a desire to engage the community more fully. And then you had a couple of areas that you felt might need further focus um as an effective board team. Effective communication aboard across board committees. That's something that can be worked on. There are always things that can be worked on by the way. Always um making sure that all board members understand the chain of command according to the the actual numbers. You all do understand that. So that's great. promoting transparency from administration and using data to drive goal setting and measure progress. So you can see that this is really a very positive self-evaluation and it took a lot of self-reflection and so we appreciate that. On

025the chart that you have, you'll see this is the first year that you will have been doing this chart. If you do a self-evaluation towards the end of this year, you'll have a comparison of last year's this what's here in this year because this is actually 2025 and the 2026 areas. But this showed for the most part that the um it was in a much greater percentage over 50% felt that you were either proficient or exemplary in each of those six goal areas or six um standards. So, any questions that you might have? >> I was asked to keep it to 20 minutes and I think I did that. >> You did great. You did great. >> Amanda, did you have a question? >> I was going to say I'm not sure if you're allowed

026to say this because I know we have to process it, but I'm curious as someone who comes with a lot of experience. Do you have recommendations? Um, I know you said, right, look at the ones that are kind of below three, but just looking at it as a whole, are there recommendations of things you think we should uh explore more? >> There was a there was a lower ranking on an indistrict orientation, creating an in having an indistrict orientation, excuse me, for new board members. That's something that I can come in and talk to you about. Um, I have a lot of information that I can share with you. You have a lot of time between now and November to be able to put something together. It is the greatest gift that you can give

027to somebody who's newly elected to have that indistrict orientation. And you also have time. You know, when I got on my board, we had April elections. We were sworn in two weeks later. I sat in my superintendent's office for about five hours on a Saturday and going through all of the financial reports and all of the hierarchy and everything, policies and all of that, how boarding meetings were, agendas were created and all of those kinds of things, what my role was going to be. And I can tell you from 8:30 until about 11, I was pretty coherent. After after that, I was kind of eyes glazed over and I tried really really hard until 1:00 to be there and to be present, but a lot of it just skipped right over me. But with November

028election and with the January reorg, you can really try and have maybe a couple of twohour meetings with your new board members between the superintendent, whoever your new business administrator is, the board, the current board president and vice president to go over some of those things. You could even do it virtually and that way they'll really have both feet on the ground and be able to start knowing much more than most people do when they start because we're also finding that a lot of board members who run people who run for the board haven't necessarily been attending board meetings. So sometimes they really don't have a clue as to what they've gotten themselves into. The other thing is that we have a candidates briefing that'll be in September for each C uh for it will

029be in Somerset um in oh Branchburg I think and we have a program for anybody who submitted their petition for candidacy that they can come to that and learn more about what they're getting themselves into. And then November, the November December time frame, we have a three Rs program, roles, responsibilities, and relationships that we share with anybody who's been elected. Once somebody has been elected, they can also attend county meetings. So that helps them to feel welcome and also to to understand what's going on in the county. So those are all things that they can do and that can be part of your indistrict orientation. My huge disclaimer though is that creating an indistrict orientation does not take the place of governance one because governance one is about boardsmanship and indistrict orientation is about your

030district and how things run in your district. And new board member orientation now for people who were elected in November have to be taken within 90 days of them being sworn in. So that's very different than it has been in the past. It's it changed last year I think it was um because before that you had a year. So now you have 90 days. So it's kind of crunch time. Okay. But I think mostly what you're doing is very very effective. I I think the communication is something that all boards struggle with. Most have communication plans and a communication, you know, schedule that they keep with their community members, parents, students, and um, you know, and the board. And those are all wonderful. A lot of times they can be done a little bit better.

031So, you know, if you think that there's something that you might want to take a look at, take a look at it and see if anybody else feels the same way that maybe we could do this a little bit better and talk about that. And then at your um meeting when you have at your goal setting meeting, you can include some of those things in your board goals for the for the year. >> Okay. >> Did you have a question? >> Yeah, I do have a question. So, um thank you. This was so helpful. >> You're welcome. Um so it looks like one of the areas where we see the most variation is in the vision, mission and goals. And we had talked about one of the things we wanted to do this time around

032is um take these results and form an ad hoc committee and think about some recommendations that we could implement. And so I'm just curious what you've seen some boards do effectively to like keep their eye on the vision missions goals and sort of keep that in the forefront of goal setting and measurement and just if you have any recommendations in that area. >> Sure. So most of the most boards will ask the superintendent because you develop generally your district goals and your board goals at the same time to report out on those district goals at a public meeting. I'm not talking about a two-hour presentation, but you know about 10 15 minutes talk about the things that have occurred already and the things that are coming up. And oftentimes boards don't report out on their

033board goals during that time. And one of the things that I learned as a very new board member, we had our field service rep come in Excuse me. And um I'm okay. It won't help. Thank you though. This is from having um laryngitis a couple of years ago just before workshop. And what happens when you have laryngitis? They tell you not to talk. I was giving five presentations. There was no way. And my director would have probably killed me if I couldn't go or if I wasn't able to give those presentations. So I did. And so now, usually after about 10 minutes, I start to get really horsearo. And even a drink won't help, but I do thank you for that. Um, so when I first got on the board, we did our that was

034April and we had our goal setting session over the summer. We had our field service rep come in. We developed district and board goals. Next year, she comes in and she says, "So, how'd you do with to the superintendent, how'd you do with last year's district goals?" And we talked about those. He reported out on those. She asked if anything if the board felt that anything needed to be carried over or if the superintendent felt anything needed to be carried over. And so we worked through that. Then we got to board goals. And she said, "How'd you do with your board goals?" And we all kind of looked at one another and said, "Um, we haven't really talked about them." And she said, "Since when?" And somebody brave, it wasn't me. I wasn't that brave

035after just a year, said, "Last year when you came." and she said, "Okay, you need either need to commit to doing something with these board goals and developing action plans for them and reporting out on them three or four times a year when you ask the superintendent to report out on the district goals or what's the point in wasting your time and my time today to develop those board goals." So, I would say that that's one of the things that you can do because that keeps you all focused and it keeps your community understanding that you're focused because you're still you're reporting out on those. Developing action plans for district and board goals is not brain surgery and it's not open heart surgery. It's just coming up with some indicators, some activities that you feel

036will help you achieve that board goal. And so, I can come out and and facilitate your goal setting over the summer if you would like. If you would not like, I can provide you with some materials that you can use in developing board goals that you can then discuss at your board goal setting session. Okay? But that's one of the things I think that will help a lot because that carries over now to your community. They know that you not only got together one day in the summer for several hours to hash these things out and develop them, but that you're still focused on them. Okay. Anyone else? >> Yes. It's not a question, it's a comment. I love the idea of having a candidate orientation. U may I suggest that you do it earlier

037because if I remember end of July >> deadline to sign up and then at some point in August is the deadline to change your mind and withdraw. So >> I'm going to pause it and say and only partially facitiously. No, you're right. >> That September is a bit late to do candidate orientation. >> I want people to know what they're getting themselves into. >> Yes. >> When they can still do something about it >> and we understand that and we talked about trying to do something over the summer, but we don't get high attendance. And we'd rather get some higher attendance and not miss people because they're vacationing um you know, and things like that. July and August are almost impossible to try and get people out for. So we're trying to do, but then

038in September, you know, we have a bunch of holidays that we have to be respectful of, and we are respectful of those. So we've made sure that they're going to be on evenings that are not going to be the fall within any of the the religious holidays. And so that's why it ends up being in September. And it's more towards I think this year it's I think it's more towards the end. I'm not positive, but I can let you know when the central region will be. >> Okay. Thanks. So the other part of that um it would be good if that information was in the candidates packet. The when I picked powers off there was nothing. >> That's a great suggestion and we just posted the candidates kit. So I will make sure that they

039add the candidates nights to to the that section. Thank you so much. I don't think I realized that it wasn't in there. So thank you. >> We do have the on our new business. We have the positions posted that we're going to be doing next year and the candidate kit is posted is the form inside that link >> I believe so. Yes. >> Great suggestion. Thank you so much. >> Awesome. All right, Marian, thank you so much for coming. It's always a joy. Um and I look forward to seeing you this summer. >> Thank you. And this is on the left hand side of your packet. This is our 12-month planning calendar. It is CQAC based. If you're new or not so new, you may be wondering when certain things happen. This will give you

040an idea of that. And then we also have the sampling of our programs. Okay? And all of those um except for a superintendent search and a strategic plan fall within your due structure. So I hope to hear from you guys. Take care. Have a great rest of the summer and great rest of the summer. great summer hasn't start although it feels like it started >> and I hope to hear from you guys soon. >> Absolutely. Take care. Thank you. >> Wonderful. Um thank you all for doing that work and we'll look forward to spending some time together this summer on goals. Um, so we're going to go ahead and move on to the public our first public comment section and um the members of the public are invited to address the board on any matter

041for a maximum of 3 minutes during this portion of the meeting. You're asked to state your name, address, and municipality. In response to your comments, the board of education may respond or direct the superintendent to do so. The board may also opt to take the matter up at a future meeting as so that the matter is researched by the district administration. And for anyone who might be new to public comment, the sign-in booklet is at the podium. Um we'll also share a little um time management um indicators PM for the So as Miss Williams Galliano mentioned you'll have three minutes at um when there's 30 seconds left I will hold up the yellow sign and then when your time is up I will hold up the red sign. >> Awesome. With that public comment is

042now open. Yeah, you could just go to the podium and sign in and then share your name. >> There's no one on the list. >> It's blank. >> No, you just as you come up, as you come up, people sign up and then you can >> Oh, I see. Okay. Thanks. I'm so sorry I'm new to this board meeting process so please bear with me. >> No worries at all. Okay. So good evening. My name is Marywood Licky. I live on five Rumson Court Pennington and um I am trying to kind of open a conversation with the board, the principles, the students, the teachers, really the community because I feel like there's a lack of communication. There's a communication glitch in those terms. I feel like when speaking to other parents, they've come to board

043meetings in the beginning of the year. They come, they're waiting, they're still waiting. I messaged a friend. I'm like, "Are you going to speak?" She's like, "I'm still waiting. It's 9:30 at night. Actually, she has to go home. She can't do her public comment." So, I really kind of want to address it because it's ironic how this is like a red brick building. People feel like they're hitting a wall when they come here. And I think like we can work together to change that. It's like um very simple. I think if the public comment can be written and submitted to the board, people can kind of read along as that person's making their public comment and maybe the board can address the issue. The person feels like their issue is heard, maybe addressed, maybe there's

044a solution. And I feel like that submitted public comment should be attached to the meeting minutes and that meeting minutes should be publicized, I guess, posted on the website. I would like for it to be emailed to families, but you know, if it's posted on the website, I think that's perfect because as a person here in the township for 12 years, I don't know very much about board meetings. This is my first one attending a board meeting. But I feel like I've kind of noticed being in the school system, you know, just for the last few years that there's no communication among anyone I feel like. So I kind of want to fix that and it's an easy fix. If the public comment is submitted, it's written, people from the township can kind of see

045the issue and then maybe there's like resolving coming up with future board meetings like, okay, this issue was brought up, we have solutions. So I feel like that process can kind of change for all of us so we all feel heard and that brick building that wall is not there for all of us. And um I really would like to encourage a virtual meeting like a zoom or something because I have four kids and my husband here and luckily he's here. He's normally working and I'm home with the kids. I have so much more to say. All right. Uh, so basically save the kindergarten class. There's 24 kids, one teacher, no pair of professionals. It's a sinker swim position. I have my life preserver and like my family here who um are supporting me. And

046I feel like there's a lot of people in the community supporting, but they can't speak publicly. I can't speak publicly. I don't know how this is happening right now, but I feel like people's opinions need to be heard and not just publicly. Thank you. Any other Good evening, Dr. Trice, members of the board, and our community. Um, I haven't been here in a while. My name is Kristen. I'm a district parent, uh, a licensed mental health professional, and I stand before you tonight representing ECO PTO as co-founder and co-president. a reminder that our mission, although we're not sure, it might be the vision, we're still working that out, is youth and earth well-being. I'm here tonight uh first to um just reiterate or or remind very genuinely that I feel like you're doing a great

047job. So, none of us hear that enough. Um and I just want to make sure I don't forget to say that. So, thank you. Uh secondly, um ECOP PTO believes that we are at least a partial tangible solution to systemic wellness within the education system. So what what does that actually mean? Um now we're we're not California, but I've got my eye on California right now. They are going through a transformative movement um called the outdoor learning policy of 2026. It's assembly bill 2158. It aims to move 20 to 25% of student instruction time outdoors. This policy is built on a mountain of data proving that learning outside the classroom's four walls is vital for children to truly flourish. And I know that I don't have to tell any of you that you all you

048all know that. Um but putting it into practice is is a whole different ballgame. Um but you you and the district and we are are doing so much already. It's just a matter of how I see it is um putting these puzzle pieces together. So, for example, the climate action plan, the strategic plan, the um the rain gardens that just went into all six schools, the fair grown farm CSA membership, even um I forget your name, but saving kindergarten of of needing more volunteers, needing more um connection with each other that uh we believe again we are the partial solution to this. And I I'd like to propose a conversation about um continuing to basically a a pilot project conversation to implement something similar to California of the 20 to 25% outdoor learning. Um and

049ECOP PTO would provide a lot of the resources, the professional development. We'd direct you in um curriculum that's already written. Uh we'd work with the SEAL district um committee. Thank you. Any additional comments? Okay. Oh, okay. >> Hello Uh, let me sign in. My name is Miko Vilitzki or I go by Nick. Uh, Rumson Court Pennington. That was an awesome suggestion about the EcoPTO. Um, I know my kids treasure time outdoors, so it's very valuable. I think that's a great idea. Um, I just have a more not so much a comment, but a question, a genuine curiosity. Uh we have ongoing construction in the township. It does not appear to be complete. Uh so we're wondering how the board envisions the next 5 years going as far as studenttoteer ratios are concerned. Uh what preparations

050are being made in that regard? Um kindergarten through 12th grade. Uh what programs how the budget may change? how you envision uh cuts being necessary versus additional state subsidies coming our way versus additional taxes coming out of these developments or not coming out of these developments. I'm not sure how that's going politically. Um there seems to be a lot of corruption. I hear a lot of rumors. I don't know any of it. It's what's true, what's not. Um but it's just concerning as a citizen here. Uh personally, I came as an immigrant myself. I my parents had $200 cash in their pockets when we came here. I didn't speak a word of English. And Americans of all colors, stripes, creeds were extremely kind to me as a child. And this is a very warm and

051welcoming place. Americans are some of the kindest people on earth. So I don't think there's any issue with attitudes in the community, but I do think there's an issue with financial responsibility, stewardship, and ultimately just preparation. If you expect more children coming here and the construction isn't even complete, so you can't even really predict how many more children are joining the school system and what their needs will be. I guess you guys are the experts. Where do you see this going? What do you think we as citizens? Where can we go to lobby? What what should we be uh advocating to the township? Many people in Hopewell don't have kids. They could care less about the school system. We're obviously not in that bucket. So, where could we go? What should we be advocating for?

052So, the school system has resources to add, not cut. Uh that's my question to you guys. You guys are the experts. We are just kind of here to learn. All right. Thank you. Hey, Nick. Uh, thanks for opening the forum a little bit. My name is, uh, Steve Nether. I'm a Hopewell Township resident, uh, Orchard Avenue. Uh, he was just mentioning some budgeting issues, which that just kind of piqued my, uh, attention a little bit. So, I'd like to just thank you all for being here tonight and putting all of your hard work and time into Hope Valley school system, which I went through and I really appreciate a lot for when I paid attention at least. Um, I had a good time, but I'm still here, so thankful for that. Um, that brings up

053the whole pilot issues with the construction and how this town and our leadership. I'm not pointing any fingers here, but I would like to redirect some attention to Hope Township and their leadership specifically and the deals that they've done that are directly impacting the board of education. And a lot of people are frustrated at you guys right now, but they shouldn't be frustrated at any of you whatsoever. It's all Hopewell Township Committee that have made these decisions and these agreements and is putting a lot of pressure on you. So, I want to try to help advocate and educate everyone in this room, in this town, and let them know that the decisions weren't necessarily made by you. your hands are tied and now you're getting an influx of students. Uh some of which now uh

054existing students that are going to have to redistrict because of um all of these numbers that the previous mayor and and township had uh said you're going to hit a certain threshold of students and it's already passed that amount and the construction still isn't over. So, um, I would just like to express my frustration, but also not point it at anyone here and just let you know that I would like to try to keep working forward and figuring out how we can um advocate for our education system and our public safety and try to get the entirety of pilot funds uh over to our education and public safety because the township right now is being extremely reactive to this entire situation when they should have been very proactive. They'll praise that they're proactive, but that's

055not the truth because of the issues that are happening right now. Our infrastructure is struggling and all of that money that is that they have received 95% of the pilot funds the township has. they don't have any um any restrictions restrictions on where to put that money where my taxes um 54 to 58% I forget the exact percentage go to um our education system but none of that money is required to go to the education system. So that $16.1 million or whatever that went to Bear Tavern is a drop in the bucket for the amount that needs to go to our education or it's going to keep stressing out um our infrastructure and it's not going to be good for our students uh to grow here in this town. Thank you for your time. Any

056additional public comment? >> Okay. Um, there's >> Oh, okay. Um he is saying he will not speak but he had spoken so much when I picked him up from school today. He saw my lifeguard shirt and he's like mom are you going to get another job lifeguard. I laughed because I am a lifeguard actually I feel like in addition to being a mom a pharmacist etc. You know we moms kind of do a lot you know but you know it's it's too much maybe to take on everything right. So, um, he's like he's like leading me into my I am >> um I'm sorry, we we can't have you speaking for your son. We really just >> Thank you. I just wanted to say um basically uh I I'll just finish there. Thank you. Thanks.

057>> Any anyone else? Okay, seeing none, we'll go ahead and and move on to um addressing some of the the comments. Um I'll let um Bob and Dr. Trice speak to some of the budget uh items as well as um I just want to celebrate the ECOP PTO. just I know I know writing mission statements and vision statements um it takes time but I appreciate you doing that hard work because there's so so much that can get done and if you don't focus it obviously um you don't accomplish as much. So, thank you for taking the time to do all of that work. And I'm sure that uh you know, as your opportunities and your um ideas bubble up through the um in the district um going through Dr. Trees and the other um building

058administrators, I'm sure we'll hear more great things. So, just want to acknowledge the eco PTO and um I have a I I have an outdoor guide or two in my household, so yay for outside. Um, also just want to acknowledge that uh the the conversation about uh the pilots and the um township committee as as the board and as the administration, we have um established or are in the process of establishing a rhythm of meeting with um burrows and township um committees to talk about the latest numbers and growth. growth and what are the impacts to the schools and things like that. So I think that we are in the execution phase um between the referendum and building and continuing to plan which obviously leads to the budget um notes that I'll happily um pass

059the torch over for. But I just want the community to know that um it has been a a journey for all of us and we have established a line of communication that will I believe um continue to inform um the township and what we're struggling with as we're as we're learning um not just the ideas about redistricting but transportation challenges and um you know whatever whatever ever we learn along the way, we um are bi-weekly or by excuse me by monthly meeting with them to um pass along that information and really um see what they are willing to offer up. They've been they were quite generous in um their time with us and so I'm quite optimistic. I'm I certainly encourage you all to um have your voices be heard to the you know the

060committee meetings when you um have an opportunity. it does matter. Um the the other piece I will say is as we grow we are um you know transition in the terms of growth um caused by growth is a dynamic that is um it's ambiguous at times right you just you don't know where people are going to move you don't know who the age of the families are going to move and so we're we're opening our mind to just say we're ready to receive whoever comes and as we plan the space is based on the planning work with the demographer. Right? So there was that was the advanced planning we were able to do and it's the best information one could have. Now you're going to have the facts of the matter, right? The families move

061in. You don't know um how many kids or the ages of the kids um and all those things or or the needs of the kids. And that's where the district has been incredibly agile and I cannot say enough about the the administrative body's effort to take any child who registers for our district. So know that every child is our child. The district operates that way um in in in word and in action. And we're going to work together to keep those communication lines open about the needs that come from not knowing, right? The not knowing the who and the what the needs are. And um we hope we have partners in in adapting um as things go right instead of left and um as as they do. But we do encourage you as you learn

062about things to also take that feedback to the township committees because that is another outlet. So, um I'll with that said, I'll pass the baton over to Dr. Trees. >> Yes. And I'm going to ask Mr. Kita to help me with this, but um there was a question about the school budget and um kind of you know what we're up against in the pilot. The pilot was is a challenge. you know, the the the building was happening quicker um than we were able to react to it. And again, that's not a decision that the district can make. Um so I thank you, Mr. Neeer, for sharing that. It was a decision that the township made and then the and the um Earls are also looking at um bringing in pilots. This this uh community was

063shrinking in enrollment for many years and we were able to do a lot of things because of that. We are we weren't getting the number of students other districts were getting um and we had a robust staff. um we were able to support it financially, but for the probably the past decade, um administrators have been crying uh uh out that we were approaching this fiscal cliff that we were all approaching because the way we're funded in the state of New Jersey, the way public schools are funded and specifically districts like like this one where it's considered an affluent district, you get very little funding from the state. It comes from the taxpayer base. So, uh, when folks kind of say, well, why does Princeton have this and West Windsor have this? They get more state

064funding than we do. It all has to do with your demographics. And if you have a very low number of students that are considered dis uh um economically disadvantaged, then you don't get a lot of funding, right? That that funding doesn't come to us. It comes from you. So when we add additional programs and and things like that when we have to grow um with the tax base that we have that is then turned over to the taxpayer. So, we are left with a very difficult job. And and this board has has struggled along with us to decide what do we keep, what do we let go, and how do we maintain what we have and what this community values without taxing you out of your houses, without affecting people that don't have children in

065the district in a way that they feel that they're paying for something that they're not sure they're why they're getting the value of. So, we struggle with that. And we have all lobbied in our unions, in our in our professional um organizations to try to do something about this at the state level. It is a problem. And then there's mandates that they pass like the way we have to uh give health care. Um the the way we have to um address certain mandates like rolling out new curricula every year and then that's they expect that in September and then you have to go replace everything. Um those sorts of things make it hard for a district to react. um and then we we get very little funding from them. So, one of the things that

066um that that you can do as a as a community member is to just kind of pay attention to what's going on. Um you know, at the government level, we talked uh a lot about school budget. Um we videotape and record everything. Um we have uh budget primers because school finance is very complicated. People uh don't understand it. It took me a while to get it. Took all of us here a while to get it. Um, so you know, pay attention to those when we have those town halls, when we have the we talk, we start talking budget in August and we talk all the way up to we finally get our numbers in late winter and then we're striking a bud budget a lot of times before we even have our final state aid

067numbers. So we struck about three or four different ways budgets cutting and keeping you flat, trying to go to 2%, trying not to go over cap, and there's just no way to do it and maintain the things that we have. So, one of the the reasons I know that this this public comment happened, I'm flip about kindergarten was a discussion about kindergarten paras. And I'm going to say when I say a kindergarten parah, the these are uh extra pair of professionals that we had in our classrooms for years to help support the teacher. Um, a lot of districts didn't have those for years. They had parent volunteers. Someone mentioned that that would come in and they would help and they would be room moms or room dads or room parents to help uh in the

068classroom. We were fortunate enough to have enough staff to cover that. We no longer can afford it. For me to add kindergarten parents in every classroom and the board really discussed this for a couple years. We we we really dug into is this something that we can continue to do? And quite frankly, no one in Mercer County does it anymore because we can't afford it. If I added just a kindergarten parent just to have a roommate, that's $1.1 million for me to add to the budget, that would be passed on to the taxpayer. And then the first chance uh the first time someone comes in and needs that PAR professional for their educational program, which is what a PAR is supposed to be there for, I have to reassign that PAR to that person who

069needs it by law. And so then we had that going on. So we really haven't had pair kindergarten pairs for two years now. Um and our teachers and students are still thriving because our class size is still manageable and we do still have paras in the room. They are just working directly with students with IEPs. Um we still have lots of uh therapists and and some classrooms have two teachers because there's enough students in there that requires that. So we still are are taking care of that. I would rather, you know, this is when I can't add a kindergarten para by by state code. If a kindergarten classroom reaches 30, I need to go to the executive superintendent, ask permission, and then I can add that pair of professional fee gives give me permission. Before

070I do that, it costs me more money. I would hire another kindergarten teacher and split that section because that's too big for a kindergarten class, right? So, we think about all of that, not knowing where people are going to land. And that's how we think about our budget when we're planning because we don't know what's coming and when I'm going to have to do that, when I'm going to have to split a section. I'd rather have a teacher who's can instruct students who's qualified to do that than someone that could probably be a parent that could help with that. Um, if we can do that, if we can get enough volunteers to do that, and we have a lot of parents that want to do that. And so, we've been talking to our principles about

071ways that we can get our parents more involved in the classroom because I know many of you would love to come in and volunteer and help out. Um Bob, would you like to add anything else about this? Is it this the budget? No, I >> I I think you you did a great job in explaining where we are. I think something that we we should really talk about is that our fiscal issues that we're having right now are not only tied to >> the pilot. Um we've talked a lot at finance committee and with the board about how Dr. Trice mentioned how we deliver health care. Um Dr. And I got an email from a resident uh this morning or over the weekend that talked about why don't we go out and rebid our healthcare.

072>> Be nice. >> Okay. It's a Why didn't I think of that? You can't. >> Mhm. >> Okay. The state has implemented a system where we're not allowed to change health benefits until 2027. So, this district in cooperation with our bargaining groups um had uh greater participation in being consumers of health benefits where staff members made choices that mattered to their family. Not because it was you have to take this or you have to take that. They made a conscious decision. I want this plan. I'm willing to pay more for it. I don't need this. I'm 23 years old. I don't have any health issues. I'm going to take the basic plan over here until maybe I have a family. There was choice. People made choices and they made they made an economic decision at

073the same time and the district thrived for 40 years on that model. >> That's right. >> Until it was taken from us. >> Okay. Um so those kinds of things and with the the crazy inflation in the healthc care industry that has affected us this year. We've been able to keep cost under control with our model, our self-insured model. Um, so there's a lot of things going on. I am I am thankful that we have not been affected by the S2 law. >> The S2 law took health took state aid away from districts and gave it to underfunded districts like we were. So, we have been fortunate over the last eight years now where we've received additional state aid. >> And not like our neighbors in Robinsville who are suffering not only with reduced state

074aid, but even flat state aid is a problem. and our our districts in Mammoth County and and who lost millions of dollars to state aid. So, I consider ourselves fortunate that we are where we are. We don't like to raise taxes. We see what's coming and we're trying to manage it as best we can. We asked where do you go? You go to the people who are doing the pilots. >> Um I know we've met with them on several occasions. Um the the $16.1 million that you referenced is um extremely helpful. Um I think Dr. Trice and and Miss Galliano met with them again last Friday. >> Yeah. >> Um I'm sure information will be coming out about that. But again, a long-term sustained partnership with the with our municipalities is where we need to

075start to build and it happens in other communities. I know Woodbridge has an agreement. Um I know Euing has an agreement. Um, I think Hamilton has an agreement with pilot funds. Um, I think it's just it's continuing to work as a community to kind of try to to help us mitigate this fiscal cliff. >> Um, then there was a question about um public comment posting the minute. Um, so I wanted to say that um public comment works typically like this in in most um Oh, sorry. Sure. Sure. Absolutely. No, you're not. >> Yes. You want John? >> He's John. >> Sorry. Um, just because I know the family is new and hasn't been to the board before. Um, one I I do really really recommend going back and watching the videos, but also understanding that

076once the budget is struck, it has to go to the state, the state comes back to us. So unlike your own house budget where a new expense might come up and you're just like, "Oh, we can hire a new kindergarten teacher, a school district cannot do that." The other thing is we are capped at a certain percent every year that we cannot go over. So even if we wanted to add $10 million to the budget and our taxpayers were like yes, like we want another $10 million in taxes because we love our school system that much. We still couldn't do it because we are capped at a certain percent. Um, so this is just my plea for the community to educate yourself on how the budget works. Um, and then as it was said, also

077talk not only to our township committee, but talk to the other people in the township about what their sort of ability to absorb taxes is and what they want. Can I then also add I I I was I was getting ready to climb on a soap box on my favorite soap box and then you all went and stole my thunder. Um but uh so to add to what was said, let me start at the top line for the folks who are new to this. This is a state problem. This is a problem that's created in Trenton. And so the first people that you need to go and hit are your state legislators. And when you do them, don't go, "Hey, schools need more funding." Because at the end of the day, that's just taking your

078tax money and taking it from it instead of going into this bucket, it's going to go into that bucket, right? They're uh well, for lack of better word, idiotic things that they put in place which severely restrict us in what we're able to do. and they need to address it. That's the tough that's where the problems start. Um for specifically for the pilot because I heard somebody mention that there's talk about corruption. Um I have not heard of any even allegations or investigations into what was going on with pilot. Now that's not to say that the way pilots are set up is not screwed up. It is. But again, just whether you agree or disagree with what the township did, and I'll withhold my opinion. You all need to understand they went about it legally,

079they are completely within the bounds of how the state law set up pilot program. Right? So again, the problem starts in Trenton. Uh pilot is a major issue for right. And then the other comment that I will add to what Dr. T said that the school budgets are very complicated. they are, but they're also very simple. Um, as I found out after four years, um, we're limited in the amount of money that we can raise and most of that money we're required to spend on things that the state requires us to spend it on in the way that the state requires us to spend on. So, there's a very um, it's not super thin, but it's it's a much thinner sliver of funds that we have to play with. than people think and and that's

080and that's the simple problem of the school budgeting, right? And so those are the variables that we're trying to play with and in a situation that we're in now and we went through this um this year I say was by far the most difficult this year the budget process was more difficult than the rest of than my previous three years on the board combined because everything was a trade-off. If we don't cut this, then we have to cut that, right? And and and and not that we get to that level of detail because that's the administration problem, right? But we're very cognizant that this district will be making um some very difficult choices for the uh for a probably a number of years. And again, then you're going to come back and you say, "Well,

081why don't you guys plan for it?" Well, I wouldn't say that we didn't plan for it, but planning executing on a new plan would involve having some flexibility on what you do with your money. We we don't, right? So, so that's kind of the situation that we find ourselves with. I'll leave you with this. There was a lot written about this by me, but also by I think pretty much all the members of the board last year because of the referendum, which we thankfully passed because if we had to find $80 million over the next 5 years of capital improvement in our $100 million a year budget, then then the the classroom sizes would be in the 30s, if not higher. I actually did that projection in one of the articles. Okay. Um, but there's

082a lot of information. If you go back to Mercy, if you go back to Hope Express last year, there is a lot that's written there about it. Um, if you kind of want to get educated, I I'm not going to try and do it now because we'll be here till 4 a.m. and my fellow board members will be very upset with that's all I >> Yeah. No, I think that I think that's really important. Um, Dr. Resnik, and while it sounds like we're giving you a lot of homework, it is more just an appreciation for how challenging it is to understand the process and the budget um that the just the challenges we're dealing with. Um, and I we kind of joke um all the time about everybody comes in their first year on the

083board and they're like, I am so changing the budget process. And then you get in, you're like, uh, this is what we got. This is way harder than I thought. Um Um, so we we, you know, as everybody's taken that first year learning and so we're, all jokes aside, saying, we get it. It's complicated. It seems like it should be much easier because the numbers so big. Um, but we do have the challenges of the rules that are given to us by the state. Um and the big ticket items that are in um we're all experiencing our our personal lives which um are inflationary issues around um gas and energy and healthcare. So um we we're happy you're here in the conversation and that you care about understanding it and know we're in this conversation

084together. Um this year as Dr. Resnick mentioned it is it was the hardest because of the tradeoffs but also the we we are really clear the quality of of education that is expected from our community and we want for our children in our community. So there was not a decision that was taken lightly. Um and so thank you for being willing to come. Thank you for asking the questions and you know continue to come and ask questions so that um you can help educate yourself but also the community so that we're we're all steering in the same direction. And when we listen for what is what are the trade-offs you're willing to make as a community, we can try to hear those through a a lens of understanding that you the budget process makes a

085little bit of sense for you. So any any other things you want to >> there was a question about um people uh being able to submit their public comment in writing and and all of that. Um so I just wanted to uh just just share the budget. I mean the um the board agenda and how it works. Um the board is is conducting their their business in public. Um but it is a meeting for that. So uh the reason why we limit comments to three minutes and that's usually pretty much the practice and we do it twice and then there are certain times um according to code where we put public comment after the budget hearing after um the achievement report after the safety and security report that we're mandated to do all those things

086in addition to we have to pay our bills. That's what's on the consent agenda. The board is selling their committee work uh sharing their committee work with their colleagues and with you. Um there is a lot of work that has to be conducted in the board meeting. um so they build the agenda. So if there's something that you really need to talk specifically about that's at the school level or as curriculum or that you can always reach out directly to us. Um you can reach out to your administrators, your principles. Um you you'll get a better uh opportunity to for the back and forth for the questions for the the sitting down having a conversation than you can in a board meeting just based on the way we're structured and we're all here and available

087to do that. even the board have met with people offline when you know the board president and I have met with folks um your and your representatives are around you can talk to um but in the board meeting it's it's kind of hard to just have that back and forth and I know that's frustrating um and that's uh when we do have something that we feel like you know we need to have that time um we do have inerson meetings like I have the safety and security forum where you can have that and you can ask your questions and and we can do that but in the board meeting it's kind of tough but we do record everyone's comment we do post all the videos and all the agendas and our minutes. We're very good

088about that. Um so if you're not able to attend this meeting, I know that sometimes we bump up against one of the three municipalities meetings that are around. There's a lot of meetings happening. We we um try to we can't not try to schedule over each other. It's just going to happen. Um so you know, if you don't get a chance to come here and you want to go there, know that we post the videos and all of that for you and you can watch it on TV at home also. >> Awesome. >> Thank you. Anything else anyone wants to add? Okay, with that, thank you again. Um, public comment is now closed. Um, next on the agenda item, just want to check in on any old business items. There any old business items? Seeing

089none, um, I need a first and second to approve the consent agenda items. >> Motion A second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed or abstaining? Okay, seeing none, consent agenda items are passed. Um, we're going to go ahead and move on to our committee updates and starting off with finance and facilities. Are you in a proposition? >> Okay. Uh so first of all, thank you uh Madame President for uh subbing in to help with some of these notes. Um appreciate that greatly. Um so we met as we normally do uh usually a week or so before the meeting. I think there's three big items to share with the crew as to what's going on. We we kind of teased the first one which is uh that both Anita and Rosetta had a

090chance to meet with the township. Um this is in regards to our agreement that we are actively engaged on with them for the 16 plus million dollars uh that is a part of their commitment for Bear Tavern for the expansion. Um there is long story short some of the legal ease language. We're at a point where we have given it back to them and their attorney is now looking at it and we are hopeful that we're going to get that back as soon as we possibly can. I think the bigger piece that I I know both of them alluded to during public comment is it appears as though we're in a decent position with them right now when it comes to communication and uh establishing some sort of long-term uh strategic plan with them to

091help with financing. Um the same that we're going to have to do with Hopewell Burough and Pennington Burough, which is great. And hopefully they can help lay the foundation of what that could look like. Um so I think as a board we're hopeful that we're going to get that agreement back as soon as we can. And I'll just like to publicly say thank you again to the township committee for getting that back to us as soon as they can. Um some other items we talked about uh we had a conversation about food service sales. Uh the administration seems to be happy with the new manager there. A lot of good new creative ideas. Students being involved in those ideas and things are responding well to them. Um there are some options around the sort of

092revenue that we're bringing in which is going to help make things a little bit more efficient and effective for delivering that service which is good. Uh so more to come on that. Um we did have an update from Bill on facilities. Um talking about the sewer line at Bear Tavern, talking about some of the air valves to release pressure. Um we'll need to be able to replace them within the year. Um we talked a little bit about tollgate maintenance on a generator that was due to be replaced during the break. The replacement engine that came in was a rebuilt one, not a new one. It's going to be another 7 to 10 days before that work can be completed. Um has that been it's been 7 to 10 days? Do we know if that's been

093completed? The generator not in yet. Okay. So, we're still waiting on it. It'll take seven 7 to 10 days to complete. Um, and then we got an update uh for Yeah, that's what I had commented. Yeah, I had commented on that. They sent the refurbish, not a new one. Got to love it. Um, and then and then we Yeah. And then we spent some time talking about um some of the scheduled work that's going to begin on the roofs uh this summer. Um there was a site visit with the vendor that was chosen um to start talking about the roof at Stonybrook, at the high school, at Timberlane um which is a net positive uh I think as we're talking about what that looks like moving into the future. We talked a little bit about

094the uh Bear Tavern HVAC temperature units that are in use and the double units that are going to be added to improve comfortability. Uh Bill also held some design meetings on May 11th um on some of the new build items. Um not too granular. Uh luxury is not the goal here, but ultimately looking just to make sure we're doing the most effective work possible with this. Um and then we're also in a bid phase for the Bear Tavern playground for building this summer. So I said a lot there. Any questions from anybody on the board? >> Okay. Well, thank you very much. >> Awesome. That's the thoroughess. You didn't have any questions. All right. We're going to go ahead and move on to EDCOM and um Okay. So, we met uh last week um and

095we had three different presentations. We had uh Matt Aron who is our supervisor of math come and he reviewed um again the timeline for the fifth to sixth grade math placements. Um he had previously shared that at our January ed program committee. Um and so after analyzing the data he uh for the placements he had originally created a certain rubric um but we wanted to create more access to pre-alggebra so we revamped the rubric slightly to allow more students access to the course. Um he we also talked about um the fact that um next year we have been incorporating the NJSLA scores into this rubric for placement but because of the new assessment we're not sure how that's going to look so we might have to tweak that again moving forward. Um there was a

096lot of conversation about um placement trends across the elementary schools um and then around the perceptions around the the pre-alggebra program overall. Um, we also talked about the idea of perhaps revising um and revamping the middle school math courses offered um over the next course of the years. Um, so we're going to explore that more and and come to ed program in September with a plan. Uh, we we next had Dr. Mary Pankos, who's our ELA supervisor. Um, she went through the process of how um certain texts for courses um are selected and approved within the district. Um, we also discussed the recently passed Mimmude ruling which allows parents to opt students out of certain materials based on religious beliefs. Um, and so we explained how the district is going to be very transparent in

097what course materials uh will be offered in each course. Um, we the three books that were proposed and approved um at this last um ed program was Finding My Way, The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl, and the Serenetti Rules. Um and then finally we had uh Corey Rut who is our supervisor of counseling. Um she reviewed uh character strong is our character education program that we use K8. Um and so this year we had done a tier 2 character strong um intervention and so she discussed the two rounds of the car the tier 2 character strong pilot. Um so feedback was initially collected following the small group sessions which were conducted about 68 times throughout the the pilot. But after the first round, um, we came back as a team and identified that maybe the tier

0982 support may be better suited for a different student population than we originally anticipated. So we did a second round of implementation and 21 students were served in this pilot for the tier 2 um, across all four elementary schools. Um and so we are still in the process of data collecting and analyzing it to make a final determination if we want to further move move forward with character strong tier 2 next year. Um so that's TBD more to follow. Um and then finally um I know there was a lot of chatter um over this this New York Times article that recently came out um about the overall this the NJ uh the state assessments are are going down. Um, and there was a link where you could look up your district. Um, and so when

099you look on that link, it comes up Township. Um, I just want to be clear that if anyone did look at that, that is not our district. That is Hopeel Township in Cumberland um, county, not Hopewell Valley. For some reason, that is not searchable on the platform. Um but when I looked at the data that was used in that um platform, it was saying the same results as we had talked about over the last few months, what we had uh from the NJ.com report that overall our students are doing well on um the state assessments, but our learning rates, which is our growth um our student growth over time, um that is down and that's something that we are are working on for next year. Um so more to follow on that. Yeah, I I

100I just want to add a shout out to um and what to a positive to a positive development that I see happening. And in this case, it's to Matt and Cory. In both cases, they write something. They looked at the numbers, but they actually looked at kind of what's behind the numbers and they said, "This isn't doing what we intended it to doing." and and and and you mentioned this specifically for um uh for characters strong here too, but you kind of glossed over when Matt did the rubric and then you said, you know, you weren't see we weren't seeing what he wanted to see. He actually looked in multiple ways to identify students that really should be in pre-algebra because they clearly belong there. and he and he identified that the rubric was not

101capturing those those students properly. And then he went and he actually looked at where the discrepancies were between how the rubric was constructed and what we would want to see, right? And he went and he proposed adjustments to the rubric. So, so he actually used the numbers from the various sources that we had to to get thrown out kind of in the same way that uh Cory did. So, I was very very happy to see us doing that as a district. Um, and I know that there are issues still that we see in math placement into math 6 across the elementary school, but um I kind of see some hopeful developments there that we're using all the information that we have now. >> I had a I had a quick question. So, um related to

102the tier 2 curriculum for the character strong. Um so, I know you mentioned you're still waiting for the assessment results to come in. Um, but I'm just curious, so if we see the results we hope to hope to see, um, do we have a plan or an idea in place about how we're going to scale these up next year to sort of a larger population of students or just what all are you thinking in that regard? >> Yeah, so we we're working through that, Pam, and but we really need to see the results and we're not sure. Um that's why we really want to see the end of the year um rubrics and data before we commit to the to the program. But if it is if it if it shows in a more positive

103way than we're anticipating um then yeah we will plan to implement it uh more rigorously across the elementary schools. Um, I had a quick question about how the district is moving forward with implementing uh the Mahmud Taylor uh case and and ruling. So, I'm just curious there. What I've seen is that there really isn't a consensus across the state and really across the country on how uh we're handling this in terms of teachers developing curriculum, in terms of uh creating a process for parents and students. Um, what was the conversation like in committee? Um well, first off, we want to be more explicit in what um course materials are being offered in each course. So um on the website, we have the course overviews for our different courses. So as a summer project, we are

104going to be updating those course overviews with specifically like what books are being read, what articles, etc. Um we're asking teachers to um index their classroom libraries. Um and then we will we'll post all of that. Uh we do have I' I've talked to other districts in the county about their their process for this. Um and so we do have a um a process in place if there are um different if there is any any parents who do choose to opt out um their students. Um and so we we can talk more about that. I don't think that has been it's not really a policy. It's just more of an internal process. >> Yeah. And we've had parents um before this ruling, right? you have parents that are that have opted out of certain um

105like like sex ed and things like that because of their religion. We've had that before. Um and it's been just more of a you have to be very transparent what you're teaching. And then the parents would reach out to the principal and then we make arrangements for that child in a way that they're not singled out. Um but that has always existed. That's not anything new. Um, so just really just making sure that you communicate this is the way that you opt out of something and and this is who you need to communicate that to and then keeping very thorough check uh uh uh records with that. And it's not you're not going to have a large number of students doing this. It it will be, you know, a small few, but there are folks

106that this has been an issue with for a long time. Long as I've been in education, this is not anything new. And if I understand it correctly, but the the difference between um opting out of of sex ed historically this this ruling allows someone to opt out of any course or curriculum that goes against their family's personal religion from from what I understand that that's in the dissenting opinion. I think it was Justice Odayor wrote that, you know, even conversations at the elementary school level of like girls can do anything in some traditional faith that goes against some of the principles there and that would this this court ruling now opens up that possibility for parents to opt their student out of even pretty fundamental equity oriented conversations have in class. >> Well, you have

107as as Yeah, you have rights. You can go to court and defend, right? But the way we've written our policy specifically is we're talk we we talk specifically about that process and the policy that we adopted around it. Um, so it wouldn't be opting out of everything, right? It wouldn't be that. And I don't anticipate that it will turn into that. I really don't. Um, but there are folks that that that are, you know, like for example, you know, we had a population of students in a performance school district that were um Mormon and they just really there was a lot of things that the kids weren't exposed to and we had a process around that. So, I I know that that exists, but saying that, you know, girls can't do anything, I don't know

108that we're going to get that granular and our policy is not written in that way. Um, we we've been very specific about how we wrote the policy. >> Vicki, there was one thing that you said that I want to get a little bit more on. So, um, the um, there's one thing you said I want to get a little bit more specific on. So you mentioned you do you have the summer project where you're indexing books but then you went down to level of indexing articles. I want to Okay. Right. We're not asking high school teachers if they use two-page articles that they come up with and Okay. Good. Okay. All right. Thank you. Um Um Did you have any other Plet? Did you have any other SEAL related things you wanted to touch on?

109We had a really great seal day and um there was a lot of meditation and yoga and movement and outdoor exploration for not only the kids but in the afternoon for our staff. So it was really successful and we had um we had a great deal of really wonderful community volunteers to help make the day so special for the kids and um for the staff. >> Awesome. All right, moving on to personnel. Um, I also just want to comment I think wellness day is such a beautiful example of like who we are as a community at Hopewell and I love it and I know my kids were very excited that they learned to fly fish. Um, so they're very excited to go with grandpa now and try this. So, um, it was wonderful. Um, personnel.

110Um, we obviously we had our wonderful uh retirees here earlier. Um did just want to highlight although I know he wasn't able to be here this evening um Mr. Neville Williams um who has been a bus driver at our district since 2014. Um so we acknowledged him earlier but have not um acknowledged him from personnel. So wanted to to acknowledge him. Um we do have a few appointments coming in um already now for our next school year. Um so you'll see some of those um on the appointments list. Um, we have some kindergarten camp teachers and paraprofessionals getting ready for our new students this summer. Um, and so they'll be on this list as well. Um, and then just a continuation of our current employee assistance program, our EAP program now for the 2026 uh

1112027 school year. Um, so those are the main things to emphasize uh from personnel. >> Awesome. Any questions? Okay. Oh, definitely. >> Do we have a first and a second? >> Motion. >> Second. >> Dr. Jenny. Mr. Kapadia. >> Yes. >> Dr. Lillison. >> Yes. >> Mr. Peters. >> Yes. >> Dr. Resnik. >> Mr. Slottman. I >> Dr. Stilliano. >> Yes, >> Miss Carter. >> Yes, >> Miss Williams Galliano. >> Yes. >> Motion carries. >> Wonderful. >> Okay. I guess you get to retire after all. >> Yeah. Well, yeah. Okay. Um, second read. Yeah. Moving on to government relations and sorry, government and community relations. I can I can cover the the government side. Um so uh we we met um this past week. We met today. Wow. >> It's felt like a long >>

112It's been a long It's a long month today. >> Today was technically this week. Um but we we uh we continued uh in in the past month, we've uh continued working uh on the government relations side of of the the committee's mission. and uh we've continued pushing forward on uh two ongoing initiatives that's been in the works for for several months now. Um first at the local level um we've been exploring uh the idea of um uh endorsing a resolution that would um call upon our local municipalities to lower the voting age to 16 to 7 to 16 for schoolboard elections. Um, our first step in getting along on that process was to actually survey our students um to see if they would be interested in this initiative. Um, I'm glad and and grateful to

113uh Dr. Trice and the administration in the high school um and principal Riley for administering the survey. Um, over the course of the past month, uh, we've gotten around 300 responses um, roughly proportionate within each grade level. Um I will be spending some time in the next uh month or two going through the data um and and ideally presenting some some findings for for the board. Um just as one preliminary finding more than 75% of students across grades 9 through 12 were supportive either strongly supported or supported um this specific idea. Um so there is um a lot of agreement and sentiment um from our students uh in support of this uh initiative. The other great data point that this survey allowed us to collect was what the specific issues that students were facing and

114what they think we should be prioritizing. So regardless of how this initiative moves forward, the survey has allowed us to collect a lot of meaningful data in terms of how our students are perceiving the work that the board is doing as well as some of the issues that they think we should be prioritizing uh in in our in our next uh um coming year. Um so that's that's uh movement on that specific initiative. Um the other one is uh the state budget request we have for the FY27 New Jersey state budget. Um last year we uh for the first time in our district history requested funding from the state legislature to add a line item for an ADA accessible playground at Bear Tavern. We were able to successfully secure that funding and moving into this

115year we thought um why not try it again. So we are uh we submitted the request about a month ago now to um the 15th legislative district delegation. So, Assemblyman Verelli, Assemblywoman Reynolds Jackson, and Senator Shirley Turner requesting $75,000 to sustain and expand our mental health supports through the uh air therapy dog program that we have. Um, this comes in light of a few developments. One, the partnership we have with AIR, which is a Mercer County based nonprofit centered around mental health digitization. The funds that have allowed that partnership to exist are federal title funds that are suns setting. Uh, additionally, about a year ago, we actually had the uh, youth advisory board of hope valley come and present to us and talk to us about how they ran their own survey and found that

11666% of students in the high school face uh, mental health stress. Uh, so there's really a compounding uh, demand from our students as well as um, some fiscal constraints that we're facing. Uh, so we worked with air to get a figure uh, that's $75,000. Um, we have submitted the request. We've submitted a one-pager. Um, and we've also, um, launched an advocacy toolkit for community members or parents or students who want to email the legislators and call upon them to submit the budget resolution. Um, I will say Governor Cheryl has voiced um, cracking down on some of the line items uh, that have been historically included in the state budget. So, I'm not sure um, how likely it is that we're able to get this this funding. Um but like we said uh the worst answer

117we can get is no and the best answer we could get is in the form of last year a playground and in the form of hopefully this year some some additional funding for mental health supports. Um so we've submitted those items. Um the last thing I did just want to say and I I've thought a lot about this on how we can uh better support some of the concerns that have been brought to us by the community relating to special education funding, relating to um pilots and housing developments. Um and I think something that Dr. Trice has been incredibly proactive with has been going and testifying on different bills that that come up uh in the legislature. Uh and there are bills that address many of the issues that we often talk about that are

118languishing in committee. And one part of that is there really isn't a lot of community mobilization or organizing around some of these bills. And so something that I think we can look into as we uh move into, you know, continuing the committee's work is is seeing how we can not only as board members step in and help testify and and move some of those bills forward, but also how we can engage with the community to also uh support some of those initiatives. And I'm happy to answer any more questions about that. If anyone in public comment has any questions, I'd be happy to chat about it. Um but yeah, that's the that's those are my updates from the government relations. the um I love that you put together again the advocacy component for the therapy

119dog request. When is that? What's the timeline on that? >> So, budget resolutions from state legislators are actually being submitted. The portal opened today and I believe it closes at the end of next week. Um so, this is really like the crunch time window of when uh legislators and their staff are deciding which items they're going to submit. I will say one of the pros of the request we have is it's on the smaller side um relative to what other school districts request as well as the other just general requests that nonprofits and municipalities submit to the state legislature. Um so the more emails we're able to send out, the more individualized they are, uh the better the sta the staff in in our legislators offices do really care about um our requests and our

120our community's voices. Um, last year I can tell you when I spoke to Senator Turner's office, she was she spoke very highly of the the organization that we had where we had so many parents in the Bear Tavern community and just broadly across HBRC that were sending emails. Um, so it makes a difference. Um, and I have chatted with Assemblyman Vari staff as well as Senator Turner staff and they have received the emails, they have received the submissions and they also have to, you know, they have competing interests but they they have voiced you know support as well for for uh our submissions. So, we'll see if it ends up actually making it in. >> I can um I feel like this is one of these things flagged in my email. I have not gotten

121to it. So, I will commit to reaching out to PTOs and seeing if we can do a big push. I think we've had individual parents do it, but sometimes that gets a lot of extra. So, I can tomorrow. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate all your work. >> Yeah. Thank awesome. >> Okay. Okay. We do have to share one thing. I can go ahead and share it. So, um we are uh finalizing our QAC um uh evaluation. And that's the monitoring by the state to they they give us a rating. And what's holding us up is that we um we have been flagged for our high school for chronic absenteeism. Um 11.5%. Um we've identified you know the we have a 7.1% as a district. This is at the high school mostly 12th graders. So I

122need my seniors to come to class. Okay. Um and we've identified uh pockets of students that we need to address and come up with a corrective plan. Um so we've come up with a corrective plan. We've submitted that to the state of really trying to address uh some of our seniors who don't want to come. But a good portion of this uh is um not a good portion but a portion of this is a way we report out on some students who are out for on medical or they're out on home instruction. Uh we mark them absent home instruction. and we need to switch that and make them they're present and they're receiving home instruction. So, that was just a reporting glitch that we is easily fixable and would have not had us on this

123uh corrective plan. Um but it's something that we do need to pay attention to because we are are also noting that the other subgroups that we need to uh address and they're mostly seniors are some of our students um with disabilities that are suffering from mental health challenges or school avoidance which is is part of their their uh what they're struggling with and our black and lat Latinx students are in that subgroup that are are coming up again. So, we talked about this in community relations and and sort of how we need to work with communicating to our families and our students about the importance of coming to school, right? And how we can work on plans to get them to school in a way or put them on on plans themselves because that will

124get us, you know, if you have a student that's working towards getting back to school, having an iron arrest plan, a 504 plan, and all of those things avoids them just getting flagged for attendance when it's something you really are setting goals to try to improve. And then we have to figure out what why do these populations keep coming up? because we're seeing that in our test scores and we're seeing that other places. So, uh we're going to uh Miss Riley spoke to community relations today and and talked about some of the plans and the things that they put planned on putting in place to support bringing this number down and they've really been working hard on this for three years. So, she was disappointed, but I know we'll get back on track and then

125she's going to come talk to EDCOM and start getting some ideas from you all too about the um sort of like the vin diagram and the overlap that's happening where we see these groups keep coming up and up. Um I'm sorry. Another group that also came up was our um economically disadvantaged are also in this this pocket. So how do we get these these uh kiddos to school and what's what's barriers are there? And so uh she surveyed the parents about a year ago. She's going to put out another a survey to parents to kind of see what what can we do as a school district to support them. Um and then there's other plans about you know how we can work on this. And so I've shared all that with you all. We'll talk

126about it in um in um EDCOM and then we'll also report out to the rest of the board and the community as we work through this. Um but again, we're we still have excellent attendance, but we do need to put in a corrective plan and fix this. >> I just I just wanted to add one of the things that we mentioned is right, we will take this very seriously. It's important to us and in terms of kind of the state flag 10% is the mark and we were at 11 point what is it 11.5. So we like just tipped over. So, this is not a scenario where we're right uh getting flagged for very high numbers. It's just that we were slightly over. So, we'll we'll fix that. >> We like the A's, Dr. We

127like A's. We're very annoyed. >> Um and just a a quick measurement question. Do we know how is the state defining absenteeism for each child? >> Each time they're out. So, the number of children. Yes. So it's using like a total number per child and creating an average. Okay. Yes. Yeah. So um the the kind of data answer is one which which Dr. Trice had mentioned some of this is uh we can actually the way we're identifying it for a few individual children. We're actually not identifying it correct and getting dinged when we really don't need to be getting dinged. Um and this is primarily if a student is in a longer term let's say hospitalization program where they're receiving education. um we're we're not marking that correct. So that we can fix from a

128data perspective. Um in terms of how they calculate it at the school level, it's the they take each student if they've missed more than 10% and then we are graded on the number of students that miss more than 10% over the entire population. So yeah, that's where it's not a lot of students for us that just tipped us over the edge. Just a few additional students this year. Did that answer your question? >> So more than >> Yeah, it did. I was mostly wondering whether it's per student or whether there's a couple students who are absent a whole lot who might be dragging the average in one way direction or another. But it sounds like what you're saying is no, actually that's not the case. It's calculating it for each student and then it's saying

12910% or 11% of our student population meet this indicator of chronically absent. Okay. and and and the 10% that's the 18 days per year last night for semester that's 10%. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Can you hear me? Yeah. Um for our students that are out and hospitalized for long-term reasons, we were coding it as medical for many years. And I guess that was counted as an absence where how we need to report it is present home instruction. But we had done medical for many many years and we have students who are having long much longer stays in hospitalization programs. >> So we were doing it wrong for many years but nobody in the state noticed for it. But the good news is is with that change, we probably will drop below and we also

130learned some stuff about things we can work on. >> All right. Awesome. Thank you. I'm glad we didn't miss that topic. Um so just a quick check in. Anything on climate action? >> Okay. Awesome. I just um want everyone to know that on Thursday, May 28th from 7 to 8 o'clock in the uh community room at the high school, we're going to have a celebration of the new rain garden there that the uh team has been working on and we did mention that each of the schools um had implemented new rain garden. So, please come out and join us May 28th from 7 to 8:00. Okay. Um, moving on. That's worth that was worth waiting for climate climate action. Um, moving on to policy, Dr. Littleton. All right. So, the policy committee met on May

13115th, and we were joined by Miss Riley. Um, and we actually spent pretty much the entire meeting discussing the student discipline/code of conduct regulation, which is 56000. Um, so a little bit of background, this relates to our school's code of conduct, which establishes the standards, policies, and procedures around our student behavioral expectations. Um, we do review this regulation annually. uh the board last revised it in October of 2025. So, Miss Riley joined us to discuss two different uh recommendations that she had um specifically related to the infractions around possession of ecigarettes, vaping and smoking paraphernalia as well as um drug and alcohol policy violations. And so I think the the recommendation that she she came to discuss was whether the committee would be willing to group these together into the same category. So historically they've

132been treated as two separate infractions with different disciplinary consequences associated with them. So essentially what this would mean that students who are caught using vapes or cigarettes at school would receive the same consequences as those using other substances like alcohol or marijuana. Um so practically speaking what it would do would be to increase the number of days of inschool or out of school suspension for possession of these nicotine products and require counseling as well as a consequence for the infraction. So, I think there was a couple reasons that she brought this to us at this time. Um, so I think the school has noticed that more students appear to be addicted to nicotine than other substances and they feel that this could possibly serve as a deterrent. Additionally, they feel that, you know, nicotine is

133an illegal substance like alcohol and having a less severe consequence for nicotine could imply that the district is not as concerned with nicotine use as compared to to other substances. um and aligning with the disciplinary consequences under the other substance use infractions um also would require that education and counseling now be um a critical component of the consequence for for having a nicotine product. Um so we did have a lot of conversation around this in-depth conversation. I think the the committee um did express some concerns that aligning the consequences for these two infractions could further increase our use of um exclusionary discipline practices. So in school and out of school suspensions. Um we did see an increase uh I think about two months ago when we reviewed our last student um safety data and I

134think we were a little bit concerned about what the implications of this could be for just using those practices more more frequently and more broadly. Um, and at the same time, I think one of the other things we discussed was that the student assistance counselor may become overwhelmed with counseling if they're seeing more and more students um, who've used nicotine in school um, and are required to receive these counseling sessions. So, just some things that we discussed during the meeting here. um as next steps, Miss Riley was going to gather more information on what other school districts are doing in this space from a disciplinary perspective uh when it comes to substance use in general and nicotine use in particular. Um she also said she'd be surveying the students to get their thoughts and perspectives

135on this um and compile some of the the relevant disciplinary data. Um, I think in particular we were concerned about the use of suspension to sort of offset this behavior. Um, and wanted to see more, you know, evidence that that would, you know, indicate that that might be the case. Um, the second recommendation, uh, that she brought forth was to add, um, language around violation of the cell phone use policy as an infraction in the code of conduct. Um, so, as many of us know here, we're now rolling out a bell-to-bell cell phone use policy. Um this is mandated by the state. We're going to be rolling out in the next school year. And so the committee did discuss options related to the different disciplinary con uh disciplinary um actions related to um any infractions

136around this policy or violations of this policy. So, we are expecting that we're going to have another conversation at the next meeting um around this language and then we'll be bringing the code of conduct forward in June for first reading in the board meeting in order to be able to uh incorporate the revisions before the next school year. So, I'll stop there and ask the policy committee if I missed anything if there's anything that you want to add just around that review of the code of conduct. >> Uh that was a great summary, Dr. Lison. I think uh something that uh I've been reflecting on, I think we we've both been reflecting on um this is my third year on the policy committee. I think this is your fourth year on the policy committee, Dr.

137Wilson. Um something we're very appreciative of this entire board, I think, has been when we review the student code of conduct, we oftent times do approach a lot of the changes we're making through a more restorative justiceoriented lens. Um and that does really reflect in the amendments we've made to the policy over the last few years. I think something that I personally would want to see more of and I I'm, you know, asking the administration as we move forward through this conversation to look more into is is really to flesh out um what restorative justice really is looking like in these specific situations because it is written in the code of conduct as a response to uh some of the uh infractions we see. Um but I think we oftent times at least as a

138board and maybe even including the public don't really get an inside look into what restorative justice is functionally looking like um you know in the different infractions that we see. Um so I think you know as we're looking at uh changing how we're um uh adjudicating nicotine use in the high school and in our in our district as a whole uh I really do want to approach it more through again a restorative lens rather than a punitive one. and with that to to really talk about how that is going to play out for our students and what that functionally looks like because we can use the language of restorative justice, but until I think we hear what is actually happening for those students, I think the less transparent and the less we know about what

139restorative justice looks like, the more it allows us to then just say we can just defer to suspensions as our tool for um you know, trying to curve this behavior. But I I think you know there is there's a real depth and uh uh wealth of knowledge in the restorative justice field that I don't think we should be immediately looking to suspensions as our response to to student behavior. >> No, I think I think that's a that's a great point. You know, restorative justice is is one of those interventions that we know from the scientific literature actually does result in behavior change um if implemented with fidelity. So I think I think that's a great point to sort of better understand how are we implementing this and then whether we're seeing the intended effects that

140we hope on um our disciplinary data. So yeah, anybody else have any questions, thoughts? Amanda? >> Yeah. Um I mean first I want to say right I think we all agree that we want to decrease tobacco use and vaping use. Um that's certainly not unique to our high school but something we want to take very seriously here. And so I very much appreciate the work that's been done particularly at our high school to look at um use of technology to better identify it in the bathrooms and that we're starting to think around what can we do differently and and so I think that's a really great um place for us to be. Um I had maybe a a question and a a comment. The first which um you don't have to answer live but we

141can bring it back to the committee is I think there was a note and you had mentioned about um if the tobacco was the same consequences as other substances that that would allow for education but I believe the way our current policy is written is education is under both categories. So, as it currently stands, if there is a violation of tobacco or vape, that education is part of that. And so, I wasn't sure, >> just clarifying that. So, it would trigger a visit with the student assistance counselor with the SAC. Um, I don't know in practice, maybe Mr. Donardo can answer that, whether that is the same as education or if we actually consider those to be different interventions. It is the same as education. They're meeting with the SAC to talk about why, you

142know, why we're using what what what habits good habits can you replace. I mean, that's the educational piece because they're trained specifically in that. >> Okay. >> So, that is part of the conversation we had if we um up the antie on the consequence and leaning heavily on education, which is what we like to do, right? >> Um do we have the sack resources to support that? And so those are all the conversations that we're going to have as we go back to the committee. Um, I think the question is when you look at the current code of conduct under tobacco use, education is a required, so it doesn't sound like it would need to be changed in order for that to occur, if that makes sense. Okay. Okay. Um, and then I think there

143for a second. Um I think ultimately right what we know from literature and research um is that what supports children in terms of reducing substance use is having them in school, having them engaged in academics, having them engaged in afterchool curriculars. Um and suspension in particular, right, is the opposite of that, right? It's taking a child who's already struggling with substances, keeping them out of the community, very likely keeping them home alone where their access and like likelihood of use is higher. Um, and so I I understand the desire to have consequences and I think we need to take a bit of a step back and think about what do we know about what works, what prevention is needed, what interventions are needed. And so I'm very open to that as a conversation and resources.

144Um I know it's going to be looked at further, but I would not support an increase in out of school suspension for this. Um again, because I just don't think it works and I think it goes against what we want here in Hopewell, which is having our children in schools. Um so I know again I know the committee is going to talk about that further, but I just wanted to to kind of put that out in terms of uh my vote. >> Thank you. Any other comments or Oh, Jackie. Yeah. Um I I also just want to I guess caution us a little that >> um the stereotypes around who is and isn't using in Hopewell doesn't hold true in hope well. So these are your student athletes. These are your straight A students. These

145aren't your hoodie up, you know, goth like you know your stereotype kids. use within Hopewell is across the board. And so I think that is important to remember. >> Yeah. And I think I think um Dr. Stalleiano's point is more about we know what the protective factors are and we ought to be really careful before we eliminate access to those protective factors or be very thoughtful around it. >> Yeah. I was just going to say as an old comp stereotyping you I even I didn't hold those stereotypes and very well aware who uses I did not hold those the stereotypes about who uses and who doesn't. Yeah they you're right they all Yeah. >> Okay. Anybody else have any questions or comments? >> Okay. So the the next steps as I as I shared is

146is that's coming back to committee for conversation, more data, more information. Um and then we we hope to be able to bring any revisions for for first read at the next meeting. Okay. And then the second read's actually really quick here. So can I have a motion in a second to bring policy and regulation 1642.01 sick leave and 3125.01 01 employment of non-represented employees for second reading. >> Motion mot second. >> Um so uh Miss Carter actually covered this at the last board meeting in depth. So thank you so much hope for doing that. Um and we received no suggested changes to to these um to these policies. Does anybody have any questions or or comments before we move this for a roll call vote? Okay, Bob. >> Mr. Kapadia. >> Yes. >> Dr. Lillison.

147>> Yes. >> Mr. Peters. >> Yes. >> Dr. Resnik. >> Mr. Slottman. >> Hi. >> Dr. Siliano. >> Yes. >> Miss Carter. >> Yes. >> Dr. Genevacy. >> Yes. >> Miss William Scalliano. >> Yes. >> Motion carries. >> Wonderful. Thank you. Um with that we are ready to move on to um looking at calendars. Wow. Okay. First and second to um approve May and June calendars. >> Okay. We always start with the simple one. personnel June 15th 6 o'clock ed program seal >> um can we look at the week of June 8th um I guess 8 8 a.m. I like you know we like our 8 a.m.'s Um, do you want to say Wednesday the 10th? Okay. Um, we could do t Tuesday the 9th. No, the 10. Um, okay. Well, we're back to the

14810th. Okay. Thank you. the 9th. I guess we're having our um person from our literacy review coming and I know that's the only day that week she can't do I could Monday the 9th. Sure. Oh, Monday the eth. Yes. Good. Okay. Thanks. Can we do finance on the 10th? >> Yes. No. >> Good. 10th. we might do that one in person. >> Okay. a policy. John and Drew Yeah. Govern can me All in favor? Any opposed or abstaining? This one part always makes me laugh cuz why abstain? Robert Rule said do that thing. So we do. >> Okay. Um >> I imagine that there are some boards where people can't agree on calendar. >> Oh that's true. We'll we'll thank our lucky stars. Okay. Moving on to new business. Anything? >> Yep. What you got?

149>> So we are announcing that we will have uh nominating positions will be accepted by the county. Their deadline is 4:00 p.m. on July 27th, 2026. There is a typo on the agenda. It should be three three uh yeah, three three-year terms from Hope Township. I put the mark was going to have to run again this year. It's not it. There are three three-year terms from Hope Township. Um, nominating petitions uh will be able to be picked up in my office or online or at the county office. They cannot be returned to my office. They've got to be handd delivered to the county. Um, online, as was mentioned earlier, if you go into board docs and you click at the bottom, there's a candidates kit that has a wealth of information about uh what it

150is to run for the board, the requirements to run for the board, all that good stuff. So, if you're interested in running, check out the link on uh board on our and board docs. Uh and again, petitions are due July 27th by 4:00. Um the only other item just for everybody, you should all have received an email. Dr. Trice has been amazingly um kind in getting all of her information in for her evaluation. So you all should receive an email from the system saying you know how to log in etc. So I'll send you an email with a due date but I just wanted to bring that to your attention collectively. Um we should have a couple of weeks at least to get our part done. Just just on that same note, just recall that

151the board meeting in June is early. It's the 15th. So, >> gotcha. >> We should I mean, >> we're we're good. We're in good shape to do that. >> That's Yeah, that's just >> Yeah, Cisco might be eating your stuff, but it but you should have an email from um NJSBA. Okay. All right. Well, we are ready to move on. Um, anything else? New business. All right. All right. Seeing none, we'll go ahead and move on to our second and final public comment for the evening. Members of the public are invited to address the board on any matter for a maximum of 3 minutes during this portion of the meeting. You're asked to state your name, address, and municipality. In response to to your comments, the board of education may respond or direct the superintendent

152to do so. The board may also opt to take the matter up at a future meeting so that the matter is researched by the district administration. Members of the public who intend to participate in comment, we ask that you sign in prior to speaking. This will assist us with our recordeping. And again, um 3 minutes at 2 minutes and 30 seconds, you'll get the yellow and and red at 3 minutes. Public comment is now open. I'm going to come up one more time. Steve Neer, the whole township. Um, first I'm going to sign in because I didn't the last time. I'm new to this as well. So, um, Mr. Resnik, is it? Yeah. I know you were, uh, just before I know you were speaking in regards to, uh, got to get them from the

153top with the with the state of New Jersey. I'm totally in agreeance with a lot of things you're saying, but I just want the board to to realize this if they don't already. Um, our neighbors over West Windsor uh had similar mandates for affordable housing and they agreed for the most part one for one with affordable housing. Um, our town at times 4:1, maybe a little bit more, maybe a little bit less, um, has done a lot of stress on our infrastructure. So, all I'm saying is that our leadership needs to be held accountable for that. And all I just want to do is stress to say is that they need to pay. They need to empty their pockets and and pay for our education for our kids. And that's all I have to say.

154Thank you all for your time tonight. Hi, Sylvia Kosis, 7 Widell Drive in Pennington, New Jersey. Um, Mr. Kita, you mentioned you were going to be able to meet with Governor Cheryl, I think, at our last meeting um as a school treasurer. And I just wondered if you had any update for us as to if that meeting happened and were there any uh good things you could tell us about it. And Mr. Capat, you mentioned about that we need ideas and plans to mobilize the community to bring concerns about pilots uh these tax abatement uh developments to our representatives. And I just wondered if you had any plans or ideas because this came up in the last meeting and we said we need to mobilize. We said we need to gather because this is a

155common ground issue. So I didn't know if you had anything in in any plans for any of that. Um Shirley Turner, um Verina Reynolds Jackson, uh Anthony Varelli, and the township committee members. One of the things maybe we could do is have some type of a community meeting, a gathering, coffee, come to Starbucks. What's your concerns? Anything like that. We could get conversations going. Um, I just wanted to read again because I've done it before, but this is from that uh municipal tax abatement that was written in 2010 and it stands today 16 years later. Based on research and findings in this report, there are shortcomings in the way that development related tax abatements are currently handled in New Jersey. And then he gives some ideas about what to do. We recommend that the state

156legislature and the governor amend the current law to adopt these recommendations. One, restructure pilot agreements. And he goes on to say that the current structure we know allows municipalities to keep almost the entire pilot monies. And that's a perverse incentive. Those are his words in this report. The law could be changed to provide that pilots, the collected monies are split along the same distribution lines as the normal taxes. And we've talked about that. So that's number one. Number two, and we've talked about this tonight, he says including include other affected stakeholders more directly in the earlier process. So, school districts, taxpaying public should be interested parties in these abatement processes. And that's the second issue that he brings up and I think both of those are really good. Thank you. Any other public comments? Seeing

157none, um, comments from the ward or >> I'll I'll Mr. I I I I appreciate your comment. Since I'm not a resident of the township, I tend to be sensitive about being told that I'm sticking my nose into my neighbor's business. So, I tried that. But I appreciate your comments. >> My meeting was postponed. >> You got bumped. We we were both >> Cheryl bumped you. >> U Miss Kosis. Yeah, I I think it's a it's a good point. Um I know we we talked about this. I I wasn't at the last meeting, but I think even in the meeting prior about like how we can actually be organizing. I think um the the immediate idea that that I mentioned uh is really testifying on bills uh when they come up in committee and in

158the process before that uh having in the same way that we were able to create an advocacy toolkit which was essentially a pre-drafted email as well as just general information about some of the specifics regarding the budget resolutions. We could very easily do that through the government relations committees for specific bills that we identify would be helpful. Um right now I think it's S1807 in the state senate uh specifically uh addresses um pilot financing so that municipalities would have to aortion a certain amount of those dollars that they gain from a pilot agreement to the school district. Um I mean that bill has been in reintroduced and languishing in the legislature for over a decade but it did go through a committee uh recently about I think two months ago or three months ago. And

159so what we can do uh as constituents, because at the end of the day, I mean, us as board members, it's all that's going to change is our signature at the end of the email that the legislators get, but they're seeing all the emails in the same vein. um is that we can ask not only our legislators to co-sponsor the bill um but we can also ask our assembly members to introduce the assembly version as well as reaching out to the senate chairs uh and the assembly chairs of the relevant committees to introduce the bill um and get them to actually post it for a committee vote. So those are really the two avenues that I think in the short term we can really mobilize folks on. It's sending emails, making phone calls uh to

160get bills posted and advancing through the legislative process. Um but then also um the the Yeah, exactly. So I hope that answers your question. >> So on that subject, can you actually come up with an advocacy toolkit for that? >> I I can Yeah, absolutely. I think like for us as a board, >> he has them in his back. >> I mean you I mean you as a committee, not you personally. Although I'll take it for you personally, too, right? >> Someone will have to create it. I like that you think that the committee doesn't mean that it's Drew doing it. So that's very Yeah, it's definitely coming from Drew. >> I think it's important for us as a board to identify the bills first um that we do want to mobilize behind and then

161and then see how we can we can move forward. But I it's not it's not a tall task. And like I said, like if you get having worked in a legislative office, when we get a coordinated campaign of 20 to 40 emails, you you notice it. And so I think uh Miss Kosis, to your point, I think there is really a sentiment here across the three municipalities that something needs to be done about the pilot financing and this is something that is already working its way through the legislative process and we can be a voice that that pushes it to get posted in advance. >> So So two quick favors. Can you actually put into an email personally what that Senate B bill is that I missed? And then the other thing you said which

162now I'm going to learn about our state legislative process. You said people can come and testify during the committee process. So any member of the public can request vote and you can you >> kind of like public comment. >> Yeah. And we we I know like there's there's a lot of >> learn something. >> There's a lot of ethics guidelines for us as board members, but board members are allowed to testify in their capacity as a >> as a board member. It it happens very frequently. >> But even beyond that, I'm I'm I'm allowed to come and testify as a private citizen who >> Yes. >> pays way too much in taxes. Okay. >> Yes. You'll be sitting in that committee for a few hours, but you'll or you're allowed to. >> Okay. So, it's

163like a board meeting. I got >> Exactly. Awesome. Um, anything else? All right. Seeing nothing, um, we're going to close out our public comment and, um, I need a first and second to move us to executive session. >> First, >> second. >> All in favor? Um there are no actions to be taken. Oh, is that correct? >> Oh, action may be taken. My apologies. Um we'll be talking about uh HIPS uh a student matter and also the superintendent's contract. Okay. Thank you all for being an active participating uh body out in the audience this evening. Appreciate you.