HVRSD Board of Education General Meeting March 23rd, 2026

001Calling this evening's board meeting to order. Can I get a roll call? Here. Dr. Genovese. Mr. Kapadia. Here. He's here. Dr. Lilliston. Here. Mr. Peters. Here. Dr. Resnick. >> Here. Mr. Slotman. >> Here. Dr. Stilianou. Here. Ms. Williams Galiano. Here. We have a quorum. Great. The New Jersey Open Public Meeting 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 provisions of the act, the Hopewell Valley Regional 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 and March 20th, 2026. This meeting notice

002was also sent to Comcast Cable and Verizon Fios. The board reserves the right to enter into executive session during all meetings of the Board of Education. The meeting is being recorded for the purposes of board review, future reference, preparation of the minutes, and viewing on YouTube Bulldog TV, and the school district website www.hvrsd.org. Members of the public who intend to participate in public comment, we ask that you sign in prior to speaking. This will assist us with our record keeping. With that, please join me in the flag salute. Can I have a first and second to approve the board meeting minutes from February 4th? Second. All in favor? I. Any abstaining or nays? Seeing none, minutes are passed. I'd love to invite our student representative to give us a report this evening. So, as we

003enter spring with warmer temperatures, many students have begun spring sports. These sports are all in full swing with the start of seasons for baseball, softball, boys and girls lacrosse, boys tennis, unified spring track, boys and girls track, boys volleyball, and golf. The all-night volleyball event as a fundraiser for the class of 2027 was also a success with both the encouragement of competition and teamwork. Academically, many students in the HVCHS Model UN delegation were recognized and awarded for their fantastic performances as delegates at the Phil Munn conference. Furthermore, students enrolled in AP and honors US history classes had the opportunity to attend the annual Washington DC trip. In the same week, Hopewell's FBLA chapter attended the state leadership conference where we had eight groups make top 10 finalists and four of which qualified for nationals. Congrats

004to all of those individuals. NJGPA testing was then administered seamlessly for all students in the class of 2027 last week thanks to the students' hard work and teachers' flexibility. We're grateful for the HV Municipal Alliance as well for hosting an educational wellness fair for all to de-stress in between testing. Looking ahead, student council has been preparing for the annual spring pep rally this week. We look forward to seeing committed uh continued enthusiasm and involvement from our student body. Thank you, Eileen. Any questions from the board? Okay, seeing none, we'll move on. Um again, we just invite you all to stay whenever you have a chance, so please do. I am going to forego um any comments from my side, but we I will turn to the superintendent. I'm going to hold my report until after

005we have some very special guests here today. So, if I can invite Ms. Rudd up to the um podium to introduce our special guests. Good evening. My name is Corrine Rudd, and I am the supervisor of counseling. I'm pleased to represent our digital wellness committee this evening. The committee is a collaboration among parents and community members, Dr. Treece, other school district staff, and the Hopewell Valley Municipal Alliance. Our work reflects our shared commitment to fostering a community of health aligned with our strategic goal of increasing awareness and wellness through digital literacy, social media health, and strong offline communication skills. We recently organized a digital wellness essay contest open to students at Hopewell Valley Central High School and Timberlane Middle School. The initiative was designed to promote student awareness, reflection, and engagement around the concept of

006digital wellness, encouraging healthy, intentional, and safe use of technology. We're grateful for the support of our PTOs and the building and district administrators whose partnership made this opportunity possible. We received many thoughtful and impressive submissions, making it a challenge to select just a few students to recognize. This evening, we're proud to celebrate the impressive work of the following students. Students, as I call your name, please come up to the podium to receive a certificate and your gift card. From Timberlane Middle School, Arini Tripathi. Congratulations. Arini is being recognized for the most impactful at TMS. Parker Berube authored the best researched essay. Parker, here. And last from TMS, Nithya Tewari is honorable mention. All right, and from the high school, we recognize MJ Del Marco for the most impactful essay. Sarah Zhao for the best researched

007essay. And last but not least, Amaris Linnea Andrew Sugan for honorable mention. All right, and I I wish I was more experienced of this. I would have had you stay, but all the students, if you could please come up for a group picture, we'd appreciate it. Thank you. And congratulations. Where would you like us to be? In here or I think we might need to collapse. Thank you for recognizing these brilliant students and your parents. Congratulations on having such bright and and beautiful students. Also, any other members of the digital wellness committee, if you're here, would you please raise your hand? Give us a wave. I see a couple, so So, a little history on the digital wellness committee. It is an outgrowth of our municipal alliance, which is very large, over 60 plus members

008strong. And the focus of the municipal alliance is really around keeping students away from at-risk behaviors. Started out under Heidi Kaminski before we um she just went off into retirement, but her initial goal was to to work with the Township before we absorbed the position and helping students understand the risk of of drugs and alcohol. In that time, we've added digital wellness to to the initiative because it just came kept coming up that students were having a lot of mental health problems as a result of devices. So, we've looked into that and we've also unfortunately had to add recently gambling. Students online gambling has become something that's increasing and we're noticing challenges with. So, as we evolve as we continue to evolve, we appreciate our community partners who work with us. So, thank you and

009thank you Ms. Buck for working through reading all those essays. I missed out on that. I was so excited. I know I'm such a former English teacher. I wanted to read it. But, I I threatened to take out my pen, so they told me I couldn't come. So, that's items about transportation. And also, there are students that have special needs that need to be stay in the in the space that they're in. So, we're working through all of that right now. In addition to that, for any of you who have fifth graders, and this is their last year their last year in the school will be next year like rising fifth graders. They're currently in fourth grade. We're trying to work through the numbers so that you can your students can stay there as long

010as you're willing to drive. Transportation can't be zipping all over the district, but if you're willing to drop off and pick up, we're trying to accommodate all the rising fifth graders so that they can finish in the school that they started at. So, that those are the things that we're finalizing. We'll reach out to those parents that are and caregivers whose families are affected first and then the rest of the community will will also be made aware. So, that will come out right after spring break when we get back. Also, a reminder that Monday because of the weather that we've had and the two emergency closings we've had, Um, students will return the day after Easter Sunday at the end of the week. If you have made your travel plans, parents, you don't cancel your

011travel plans. You're going to go. We understand people make their arrangements early, and our teachers understand that. Folks leave early and come back later than spring break is scheduled because you're trying to get the best flight rates. We understand this. So, know that your child will be caught up, and we don't want you to have angst or change your travel plans because we had to um add a day back to the school calendar. So, happy uh Easter and happy Passover to those of you who are recognizing those holidays. Observing those holidays. And then I have a final comment uh uh to our military families. Um as the war in Iran continues, uh we pause to acknowledge the profound loss of American servicemen and women um and all who are affected by this conflict. Our thoughts

012are with the brave men and women serving in harm's way and their loved ones at home that worry about them. Um within our own community, we have staff members. Um we have families with relatives currently deployed and serving. We recognize the quiet strength, the uncertainty, and and the sacrifice carried by each military family, and we thank all of you for your service to our nation. We also hold in our hearts the Gold Star families who are grieving the loss of their loved ones. Their sacrifice is immeasurable, and their courage humbles all of us. Um so, may we keep those who serve in in our thoughts um and those who love them also in our thoughts during this very difficult time. I know um our board president is one of those families, and so am I.

013So, I want to thank you for your your your service as well. And your sacrifice. So, thank you. So, um I just want to take an opportunity to underscore Dr. Trace's um a points of acknowledgement and also recognize that we know that there are many people who have international families that are also affected. So, um her point was made, but I just want to acknowledge that it's not just our uh military what else all is going on in the world. Thank you for that, Anita, because this is our war is hurts people all across the world, right? And we need to observe that. Even if you don't have family members serving here, you very well may have them serving abroad. So, when I say everyone affected by that, I mean that. So, thank you. Okay.

014Um any other comments? I just want to take a moment from anybody else on the board. Okay. Seeing no other comments, we'll go ahead and move on to the public hearing um and special opportunity for public comment on the 2025 uh violence, vandalism, and substance abuse report. All right. Good evening. Uh so, this is the presentation on the findings from the first period of this school year, the 25-26 school year. You may remember Corey and I presented in November on last year's total data. Um so, these are the reporting forms that um the state requires a jump in OSS due to a combination of factors. And those include the increase in drug and alcohol violations, including repeat offenders on their second violation. Situations that involve multiple offenses or multiple students, which were given something like

015a 10-day out-of-school suspension per the code of conduct. So, for example, there could be um an argument or a fight between two students, and multiple things could be included in that. Profanity, threats, uh endangering the safety of others, open defiance, things like that. So, that would be multiple offenses in one situation. This year we actually had an inclusion of smart pass to they are easily more easily able to identify who is going where at what times. So this is giving our administration better information to act on. So as a result the rise in reported incidents reflects more consistent enforcement of the code of conduct and really effectively using the resources that they have at their disposal not necessarily an increase in the behaviors. In addition the increased access to THC and cannabis through online dispensaries

016has contributed to the problem as well. These are the categories that each incident is sorted into depending on the situation. You'll see violence, vandalism, the substance abuse and weapons offense and the different types of incidents that would fall under each category. Other incidents of removal include inappropriate conduct or behavior, profanity, smoking or vaping or open defiance, things like that. This is a breakdown of the SSDS incident type by building. Please note that the last two columns are not included in the incident totals. However, they are reported to the state. Based on Miss Lilliston's feedback over the weekend, we have renamed the last column from HIB alleged to HIB unfounded to clarify in case there was any confusion. As I've said in the past, we take incidents of violence very seriously, um but what we count

017here at Hopewell would be things that are barely reported if at all in other districts. So the incidents listed here were altercations between students. The weapon was a small switchblade. We try to keep our weapons to zero, but there was a small switchblade involved similar to a Swiss Army knife for that instance. In reviewing the data, we are seeing a number of second offenses as I mentioned previously, particularly involving substance abuse at the high school. This pattern indicates that perhaps initial disciplinary measures may not sufficiently deter some students from repeating these types of behaviors. In addition, due to the discreet nature of vape pens, we have found that students feel more confident in their ability to hide their use leading to more confiscations. Efforts to address this include increasing the the required sessions with the

018student assistance counselor with more comprehensive substance abuse awareness programming that would be completed during their suspension. In addition, they are connecting with local prevention and addiction organizations to provide educational opportunities for our students. They are partner partnering with our elementary schools for prevention education through our Panda program. And they are reviewing our health curriculum to ensure that the most up-to-date information is provided to our students. Ms. Rut will share more about our programming when she speaks in just a moment. And this slide is not included in state reporting, but the board has asked for these tallies as we go through. These are the behavioral municipal alliance. We also partner with our local police department and others including Detective Marlon Webb who provides restorative circle training to students and staff. We also have a partnership with

019Rutgers University Behavioral Health through which our in-house clinician provides helpful and timely information about ways we can support good mental health among children and our students. data actively on this program including the fidelity of our implementation as well as student outcomes. And we will use this data near the end of the school year to determine this program's use moving forward. In grades K through 12, counselors deliver deliver lessons on problem-solving, conflict resolution, among others. And Hope Squad is an evidence-based tier two suicide prevention approach that we currently employ in grades 6 through 12. Students have access to mental health support in a number of ways. We have a number of school counselors, school psychologists, and social workers in our buildings who students have regular access to. We have air therapy dogs regularly on site in

020our buildings, and they provide comfort and um smiles and a lot of excitement to many of our students. Our BAT team is a partnership with comprehensive mental health services here in the community, through which with students with specific needs can get therapy in school. Additionally, I'll mention again our Rutgers University University Behavioral Health clinician on site full-time, who also provides therapeutic services to certain students in need. And lastly on this slide, in terms of prevention and intervention, we engage in several practices, too. For several years, through our partnership with the Hopewell Valley Municipal Alliance, youth mental health first aid training has been brought to interested staff, parents, and community members. This is a pretty unique program, so I wanted to just highlight it for us this evening. Since the 2023-2024 school year, approximately 145 people

021have registered for this training. The training is for any adult who interacts with youth ages 12 to 18. It teaches them how to identify, understand, and respond to signs of mental health and or substance use uh with among our children and adolescents. During this school year alone, 12 staff members and 29 parents and community members have been trained in this program. There's another training coming up in April. Additionally, special education staff staff is trained in an approach um called Safety Care. It's an evidence-based program designed to prevent, manage, and de-escalate behavioral crises. And lastly, I should mention that our student assistance counselors at TMS and and the high school here provide prevention, intervention, and support students support services to students struggling with substance use and high-risk behaviors. Additionally, their role includes providing substance abuse education

022to students during wellness classes, as well as providing counseling to those who have been caught using a substance. They assess student needs, develop action plans, deliver counseling intended to prevent continued substance use, and refer families to external treatment resources as needed. On to the next slide. Additionally, here you can see some some more of the measures we that obvious from its name. Uh it's run by Dr. Valderman, our SAC at the high school, and it consists of high school students who conduct prevention lessons at the middle school related to drug and alcohol use, and who serve as mentors for some of our elementary school students. In conclusion, I'd like to add that we're taking in response to the recent uptick in substance-related incidents. We've recently begun considering placing a permanent, locked, freestanding vape take-back box

023in an inconspicuous inconspicuous location at the high school as yet another approach to encouraging students to give up their vape pens. Soon, we plan to engage with Pure Blossom for the second time in recent years to place stickers on merchandise bags to discourage the purchase of cannabis for underage children. And we're looking into the Smart Talk curriculum, a five-lesson evidence-based curriculum created by the Stanford Reach Lab to enhance coping skills and prevent or reduce cannabis use among our youth. That concludes our presentation. Thank you for your time. Any questions? Thank you both. Um so it's very good. Um Tana, I had a clarification, I guess. Did I understand you correctly or or not when you said that you attributed the increase in out-of-school suspensions, at least in part, to the fact that we're detecting vaping

024better. In in the high school for substance abuse, yes. So does that mean that vaping in school is an automatic out-of-school No. >> No. Okay. No. So can you just expand on that a little bit? >> Sure. Vaping itself is not necessarily drugs and alcohol. That's nicotine. Um and that does not have the same weight or consequence that a drug and alcohol. So if there's reason because of that vape in the situation and they search, they might have to send that out and then that becomes something or that might lead to the fact that on their person or in their bag, there is THC or cannabis. I got it. So what you're saying is when we're finding kids who vape, we usually or we I shouldn't say usually. We find other things sufficiently often that

025it Correct. Not all the time, not 100% of the time, but often, yes. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to thank you for your hard work. It's It's a lot to bring students these skills and talents, especially on top of their academics and their sports schedules and everything else. So, to have students who have the power to help each other is a really meaningful thing. Thank you. Okay. I had a I had a a couple questions. So, first of all, I just want to thank you so much for this presentation and for being so transparent and sharing this data frequently with the board. I think it's really helpful for us to just understand where we are in terms of disciplinary actions and in terms of talking through all of the interventions that we're doing and

026we're doing so much in the prevention space. And I think we've spent a lot of time as a board looking at our code of conduct and really spending time revising that code of conduct thoughtfully and in alignment with the evidence to choose fewer uh exclusionary discipline practices and to really emphasize restorative justice and other practices that we know work. So, given all that, I was just so surprised to see these numbers. It really wasn't what I expected. And so, I guess my question for you all, and if there's not an answer, that's fine, is what's missing? Like, what what do we need to be doing differently? Um and then maybe for the board, maybe we ought to think about taking this into committee and just thinking about this data or taking a deeper dive and

027seeing if there's anything else we should be doing from either a policy perspective or from a resource allocation perspective. So, happy to hear your thoughts. You know, I think a deeper dive probably isn't a bad idea, but I will say, you know, based on the average will be more consistent with previous years. Um it might have just been the situation and, you know, students getting caught up in different things, but a deeper dive is probably worthwhile. I I think that the takes band on that a little bit. I think that some of the discussion is that in the end of last year, there even compared to now, there seems to be a shift to the more positive. Um and so I maybe that deeper dive will will definitely help, but I think coming back again

028to the board once we see that change just to update everybody is important. Um if we think that kids in transition are settling in and you know, finding their uh sea legs in a new district, if that's any part of it, of course, we'll see a natural drop as well. So, I just I I definitely think back to committee, but also probably a an update somewhere mid mid-year will where we ended the year, maybe would be helpful. So, you know, Corey and I will be giving the the year end next in November, so then we'll be sharing, you know, the the results of this entirety of the year. So, we can certainly discuss then. Um I think also another piece of data that's important. Um because you talked about how some of these are repeat

029offenders, some of them are multiple same incident. So, like we've got an increase, but do we have an increase in number of students as opposed to number of incidences? So, it might not be an escalation in problem. It might just You know what I'm saying? So, it'd be really good to have like the data teased out a little to know whether or not we're seeing an increase in students doing this or that we've got some students with some great needs. Which are two different problems. And Jackie, that's a great point. That's not something that we can talk about in this setting, but definitely in a committee where we can, you know, kind of go to the granular level on the cases. Anything else? Okay, seeing none. Thank you. Thank you. Great seeing you. Okay, we

030are going to have our first public comment specifically on the um report just presented. So, members of the public are invited to address the board um on the report uh for 3 minutes during this portion of the meeting. You're asked to state your name, address, and municipality in response to your um I'm sorry. In response to your comments, the Board of Ed may respond or direct the superintendent to 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. I'll look for um any specific directions on timekeeping. Yes. So, as Ms. Williams-Galliano has said Sorry. So, as Ms. Williams-Galliano said, you'll have 3 minutes. At 2 and 1/2 minutes, I'm going to lift up the yellow sign, and at 3

031minutes, I will turn it red to let you know that your time has ended. Seeing with that, we will open public comment. Okay. Seeing none, we will close public comment and move on uh to any old business items. Um Seeing none, we will move to the presentation on the board budget. All right, thank you to our guests that came today to hear about our tentative budget adoption. Um at during this time, we'll talk through our process, um what we've what our final proposal is to the board, and we will open the floor for questions. And of course, this is an opportunity for the public to comment as well on this presentation. If you want to go ahead, uh Mr. Calavita. Uh I have the mission statement here. This is the foundation for all that we

032do here in the district. I I we always start with this um when we're doing our pledge budget planning, and anything that we decide for our students starts with this. Uh I remind you that this is a mission statement that we all crafted together coming out of COVID as a community, and so I just like to start with that reminder. Here is a layout of our budget um calendar for the year. We've been presenting this since September um when we began with presentations from each one of our department heads um that lead uh the areas where most of our spending takes place outside of our art art pri- you know, our primary um spends in the district, which we'll talk about as we go through this report. So we started with a presentation from Dr.

033Plitzus with CNI. Mr. Nardo, our director of pupil services presented. We talked through extensively some of our budget and building needs for our budget with our budget manager and general discussions that we've that led us to this point where we are now talking about hopefully adopting a tentative budget budget this evening. The board has also participated in two retreats that we advertised and and we held to discuss through the options and our proposal as administrators and we've worked through that along the way. What is not on this calendar is many meetings that I've had with my leadership team. This this is how we participate with our budget talks every year. So we'll talk a little bit about that as we move forward. So tonight hopefully we will strike a tentative budget that we can send

034to the executive superintendent and then we do need to strike an official budget later in April. So that's the calendar and we'll keep reminding folks of that as we move forward. Mr. Colavita, do you want to talk about this briefly? I'd like to share this slide just because it shows a little trend the upward trend that we're seeing right now in enrollment due to the the pilot housing that's that's coming on board. So we are seeing an uptick and we should continue to see that uptick for the next several years. Thank you. So when we're doing our budget planning, these are the things that we that we focus on and they're best practices are not my best practices. Most superintendents that are doing things well follow these guidelines. We always start with our students first.

035Our priority as superintendents that you've charged us with this position is to make sure that we're maintaining the quality programs that have that align with our mission and that are also aligned to the outcomes that we have for our students. Many of the programs that are put in place, these high quality programs, have been ones that the district has has committed to financially and with resources for years. And these are things that usually the community asked for or require of us. So, our job is to best we can make sure that we're maintaining those for our community and our students. Those those high quality programs are what make us highly ranked districts and that are the reasons why people want to move to Hopewell. So, it's my job and my team's job to make sure

036that we do this as best we can in the most fiscally responsible way that we can do that. Um and as we do that, we also need to make sure that we're maintaining integrity of programs, right? So, when you chip away and take away from a program at the bottom or at the top, then the integrity of that program is also affected. So, we're very careful of that. So, as we discuss cuts, we're very careful to discuss with each other and then ultimately with the board, what will be the impact of us taking making this cut? Sometimes you don't have an option, right? You just have to cut, that's the way it is. We are going to have to cut this year. Um but how can we pick those programs that are going to be

037least damaging to our families and our students and and what we've come to expect for our students moving forward. Balancing that with the stewardship of the of the of the monies that the taxpayer is entrusting us with. And then finally, we need to prepare for the unknown, um which is uh the rising costs of many things, factors, energy, health care, and transportation costs with gas specifically right now. Um but also with just purchasing a piece of transportation and maintaining it. Um so, we'll talk about that as we move forward um in our presentation. So, again, I just quickly, these are our budget priorities. I just quickly went through those. The things that I did not cover is also making sure that we meet the needs of of the the student learning standards as put forth

038by the state. So, we are required to provide certain things like world language from elementary all the way up through grade 12. There needs to be opportunities for that, and those are part of our graduation requirements. We have to teach math, social studies, and language arts, and we have to align to those standards. Uh so, there's certain things that we do not have the luxury of of sort of eliminating or doing away with or doing in a different way because those things are regulated by the New Jersey Department of Ed. Um and as they roll out new standards, it we're required to um review and write new curricula, which is also an investment that the district needs to make. We need to make the meet the contractual needs of our staff and the benefit obligations

039thereof. And then we have to do program evaluations and make sure that we are meeting the needs of our students as they come in that reflect the student enrollment, meaning those that are moving into the new housing. If they need special programming that we're legally required to give them, those are not options for the district. We have to provide the that proper education for that student. And then also we need to again reinforce that we are preparing for a future that's kind of uncertain in some areas. And unfortunately, the areas that are uncertain are some of the areas where the district really spends a lot. It's it's some of our top uh ticket items in our regular operating budget. Okay, just some of the things as we've talked through the last uh 6 months, um

040things that are driving our expenditure budget. We've talked about it a lot, inflation, supplies, and services, and energy all seeing increases in in in regular costs. Our health benefits, we Dr. Trees mentioned that, um rising at unprecedented rates uh during my 24 years in the district. Um So, we still must maintain our curriculum instruction, textbooks, supplies, revisions of curriculum. Transportation continues to grow with the new housing, but also as Dr. Trees just said, the uh cost of buying buses now is has gone up probably 30 to 40% over the last several years. Property and casualty insurance we must provide as well. That has not uh risen as much as we thought it would. That's kind of stabled out. We're very lucky in the consortium we're in. Um hopefully our facility and maintenance costs will start

041to drop once we start building uh and fixing the things that were in the in the referendum from November, but before we can start we're not going to be uh doing much um until next summer. We do have some roof projects we'll talk about later today that will alleviate some of that those problems, but the vast majority of the HVAC work and roofing will be done next summer. Special education uh the tuitions that were charged by outside organizations continue to rise. Staffing um again, staffing we are uh struggling to fill positions uh and when we do fill positions sometimes they are at a higher step than than we thought they might be um in the past. Technology is in everything that we do um pretty much there's a techno- technological uh aspect to it. Um

042our infrastructure needs some work and that's that's also in our budget. And again, anticipated growth. We know it's coming, it's com- it's it's continuing to come, um and we'll need to address that. So, how do we pay for it? It's the revenues. Um we do have a 2% cap. Uh this budget does include two waivers, a health benefit waiver of almost $2.1 million representative of the increase expected. And an enrollment waiver, again, it's reflective of the increase that we're seeing. Um our enrollment has increased generating a $1.2 million uh enrollment waiver. Um it was uh in the paper published. We did get a 5.75 increase to our um state aid this year. Unfortunately, that only leads three uh yields $391,000. It's the 5.75% seems um when you You it that way it seems more significant

043than the actual dollars that we got. Um compared to a district like Hamilton that got over $5 million in additional state aid. Federal aid is still up in the air. We were told this year to budget no more than 75% of the money we got this year. Uh and again, trying to generate local revenue where we can. We do charge seats for tuition for certain programs. Um we charge our buildings, we rent our buildings out to local organizations to use. Uh we have implemented the athletic and co-curricular fees from last year. Um happy to say that it did raise revenue and we didn't see a significant drop off. In fact, we saw an increase in participation um this year. Uh and again, no student was was not able to participate because of financial reasons. Um

044transportation fees, we do um take uh jobs from other school districts. We we bus uh we we take kids from other districts on our buses to go to the same school where we ship our students on other districts' buses to go to specific schools. Saves money there, also brings in revenue, and we also charge for courtesy bussing there as well. Something else we need to consider during this year's budget was the use of surplus and we'll talk more about that as we get further into the presentation. So the some of the cuts that we discussed with the board is again looking at our class sizes. When I first came to this district and for years we've enjoyed class sizes of 15, 16, 17. That is no longer sustainable. Um how we cap class size is

045is varied per classroom based on whether or not there's students with 504s, IEPs, plans in there. Those classrooms are going to be a certain size. When you get to the high school, when you have classes that are leveled and students are selected into them, they may be set at a certain size. So this is not something we can blankly do all across the district. And part of our efforts to redistrict in a small way is to make sure we equalize that across schools to maintain those class sizes as best we can. But, those days of 15, 16, 17, and 20 in a class is really something where we're going to have to move away from as a district. It's not sustainable and something we can afford. So, we discussed that. We talked about some of

046the wrap-around services that we offer students here and our families. And those included some of the things that Miss Roth talked about this evening. A lot of what we do in mental health, training parents and staff members, partnering with comprehensive mental health, having a records clinician here on staff that is trained specifically at the clinical level to provide support for students and carry a caseload is something that is is a nice to have for a district. It's I don't feel like it's a nice to have, nor does the board, but it is something that really does not need to be the responsibility of the district. We have counselors here and we do have child study teams and we offer that level of support, but we offer a much deeper level than that. We talked about

047athletic programming, trips, supplies, clubs, the teaming at the middle school, while very age appropriate and I would fight tooth and nail for it, it's expensive and a lot of school districts have done away with it and gone back to the traditional junior high school model. AP offerings we talked about, which are very difficult to cut. You have to cut, you know, because a teacher doesn't necessarily teach AP all day. You may get away a rate from a section or two if you eliminate a program, but that staff member is still there. So, we talked about curriculum writing and development, which we did not did very little of last year and we'll do very little of this year, um, probably as well. Program offerings in each discipline we examined what was under subscribed and and not

048as as fully, um, enrolled with by the students. We looked at staff reductions including admin. And then we also looked at the performing arts programs and the ways to save money there. So, the board's priority as we had those discussions were that they wanted to provide and continue those wrap-around services that we had for students, specifically mental health. That that athletic uh maintaining athletics and having something for kids to do after school was a priority for us. Um that we um we would not continue to run these under-subscribed programs. So, they need to be If kids aren't involved in it and we only have a handful of kids, we can't carry on with those things if if they're costing the district a lot of money. Teaming at the middle school was something that we wanted

049to maintain. Um maintaining the culture of the schools as much as possible, which teaming is one of those things. And also trying to maintain the integrity of programming as much as possible. How can we uh prevent taking large chunks of programming away from students um and and the things that make Hopewell Hopewell. So, the agreed-upon reductions and it's to the tune of about $900,000 that we're going to be making cuts is to eliminate eliminating or phasing out programs that are under-subscribed. So, that means if there's students involved in something that they need and they're working towards graduation, that is not something we want to eliminate. Or if they've already started down a track that they're they're going to finish that track and we want to make sure that we provide them that opportunity and we'll

050phase it out along the way. Um eliminating um further reducing field trips. We have reduced greatly the number of trips that the district is paying for and we're going to continue to do that next year. Uh controlling uh costs through class sizes. I already discussed that earlier, making sure um that we're trying uh to not add staff um every time that we see, you know, us get to that 22 like we did in the past. We can no longer do that. Um so, we're going to be doing some of that through class sizing. Um reduction in workforce, mostly through attrition, through retirements, um through folks that are going to be non-renewed, or people that are resigning. Um so, hopefully that we can hold on to that talent we have hired. Uh we have many uh

051staff members that are younger now. We have a lot of people that are that are um you know, my age or a little older that are retiring, and it's their time to retire. And then, we have a lot of younger staff that we've come in that we've nurtured and we've invested in. And uh Mr. Calavita talked about the lack of teacher pipeline that we have. We don't want to riff and lay off people that that are young, um knowing that maybe in 2 years, as we continue to grow, we need those teachers back, and they're going to be hard to get. Um and then finally, let's that breakage. What that means is when you have a teacher that's at the end or the top of the salary guide, and he or she retires, and you

052hire that younger person right out of college, there should be a substantial savings there, because they're coming in at the lower end of the guide. Unfortunately, they're not. We're getting people that are at the top of the guide. Um but, we we just went to a job fair this week this past week. We had a lot of great candidates right out of college. We're going to grab them up. Um so, that's helpful when you can get those ones that are just coming right out of college. Some further reductions that we're going to take this year uh in that 900-plus uh thousand-dollar cuts that we're recommending is uh reducing uh the uh Dr. Phillips's budget and CNI, reducing school-level budgets, um reducing departmental budgets, reduction of guest speakers and assembly offerings, and reduction of supplies and

053subscriptions of the district invests in. These are all things that we can stay away from touching your children. That is my priority as much as possible. Okay. So, as we get into the the nuts and bolts of the budget, um just some things that are in um as we prepared a budget, we tried to prepare um for as many unknowns as we could. Um but, these four areas uh in particular were very hard to gauge, um and are subject to a lot of volatility, um, from now until we actually implement the budget in July and and throughout the year. Health benefit spending, um, you've been seeing it. I've been talking about it now for, um, many months. We had a consultant come out a few months ago to talk to us about the marketplace. Um,

054it continues to, um, be quite vexing to me why it's continuing to to go that high, but we are we have a a decent amount budgeted in our budget. Um, I I, you know, I'm hoping it's going to be okay. I'm going to have There's another slide on health benefits in a in a few minutes. We'll get to that. Special education, um, this budget does not not include any funding or provisions for additional students entering. Um, Ms. Donardo has, um, we have gone over her budget. There are a few, um, students that we know are coming into the pipeline. They've been budgeted for, but anybody moving in, um, has not been accounted for. Um, energy, again, we are seeing extreme volatility here, um, especially with the crisis that's going on right now. We are protected

055somewhat in that we are in a consortium with 360 other school districts, uh, where we bid out our gas and electric. So, we there is some level of, um, protection from extreme, uh, increases for the next year or so, um, but that's the commodity, that delivery portion is something that we don't have much control over. Um, so, we're keeping an eye on that. Staffing, again, we've talked about staffing several times now. It's the same same thing happens. Um, another note on breakage, um, we what we don't like to do is is budget breakage in positions where we know we may have a difficult time getting a staff member. When we can assume breakage, we do, um, but there are just certain positions out there that we know when a teacher is leaving in a certain,

056um, discipline, we can't get It's very difficult to get someone that right out of college. So, back to state aid. I touched upon it a little bit. Last year we got 6% state aid. That was an increase about 395,000. This year the trend is going downward, which is eye-opening for me. I I thought because we were growing the way we were that we would get the max. The max state aid increase this year was 6%. We only got 5.75, so I'm concerned for the future. Are we Are we trending downward or is it an off year? So, we'll we'll see. But again, the amount of additional state aid we're getting um is is modest. The additional delta is is modest. So, how do we fund everything? 2% cap. Our 2% cap is about $1.8 million.

057Our state aid increase 391,000. That's about 2.1 and 1/2 million dollars. Just rolling over our salaries from this year to next year is $1.6 million. You can see the difficulty we would have that the majority of our cap is taken just rolling over our staffing from one year to the next. Given to that, a health benefit increase estimated somewhere in the area of 20 to 25% and the rising cost of energy, just to name two volatile areas, you can see easily how our $2.2 million increase in cap and state aid was eaten up very quickly. Okay, back to health care costs. This year we budgeted $17.3 million for health benefits. We used a waiver of about $1.8 million. We are currently running $1.5 million over that budget due to the the health benefit marketplace that

058we're involved in. Now, to kind of put a positive spin on this, if we were to shift to the state health benefits program, our premium rates would go up 50%. 5 0 50%. Okay, so while we are running over budget right now, um we do have a reserve fund if I if we can't close that by June, um we are doing much better than if we were in the state marketplace. Next year, we're looking at a 20.4 million-dollar spend. Um healthcare waiver increased this year by two uh to 2.1 million. Um the thing that I've gotten a lot in the public, people have mentioned, why don't we just do different health benefits? We can't. Um Chapter 44, which was implemented uh a few years back um by Governor uh Murphy, uh sunsets in at the

059end of 2027, so another year and a half or so before we can um negotiate with our our bargaining units on um helping us handle health benefits. Um just a a note, prior to Chapter 44 and before that Chapter 78, the district actually had its own cost-sharing um with the unions that lasted for 30-plus years, and we actually were doing better um and had more ability to control cost than we do now. Um this was a this these laws were not positive for Hopewell Valley. We were doing better on our own, um and when we argued back in Chapter 78 that we were doing better on our own, um they said everybody had to go, and it was just the way it was. So, we'll have to wait for the end of 2027 before we

060can start to to try to do something on our own again to control costs. And and so, this is not something that just Hopewell Valley struggling with. This is something that all districts all over the state of New Jersey are struggling with. The state is aware of that, and that's why they provide waivers. But for districts like Hopewell, right? The waiver means that that allows us to go to you, the taxpayer, to make up the difference. They're aware that we have a shortfall, and we don't have enough funds to to to fund these things, and that's the mechanism they've given us, the only mechanism they've given us to accommodate something we know we have to do, which is provide our folks with benefits who are full-time. Um and we were 1 and 1/2 million over

061budget when we wrote this slide deck. I'm sure it's it's we're way over that by now, cuz I signed a bunch of them today. So, it's just people are using their healthcare they need to. But, you know, I'm sure that I'm preaching to the saved out there who are watching or here present with us, the healthcare costs in this country are out of control. It's particularly bad with the with the way our hands are tied with our inability to negotiate. Okay, just um a a bird's-eye view of our appropriations, um to regular instruction and special education, um you could see the the increase is what's driving our budget this year is benefits and transportation are are two of the huge drivers there. Um the cuts we've made, you can see that the the the spending

062towards regular instruction has gone um to nearly flat. That's That's where the majority of this the cuts have come from um to balance this budget. You will see at the bottom the debt service, the increase of 60% due to the new referendum. We will show you on the next slide why it's not impacting you at this time. It's not going to fully impact the taxpayer in this coming year. This is just the graphical view of that slide before. Um you can see from the blue at 12:00 and and going moving clockwise around to the gold, um majority of the money that we use here in the district goes to salaries and benefits of our staff members for the most part. Okay. Revenues. Um tax levy increase right now is looking at at 5.2%. Um that

063does and people say why I thought we had a 2% cap. The box at the bottom, we do have enrollment waivers and health benefit waivers um that help us uh go over cap and and manage our spending. Uh state aid um we have a 4.2% increase total increase. That's largely due to um we did get a a 5.75 but combined with the other state aids we have in debt service that nets out to 4.2% total. Um this miscellaneous line, this is where um this is how the the uh debt service is going to be offset by miscellaneous income which is essentially uh the interest earned on our bonds. Um we bonded back in January the entire $84 million. Um we are we have invested that in um again just for the public, it's invested in

064all safe uh guaranteed investments. Um but we will earn a significant amount of interest because we are not doing a lot of the spending of that referendum until next summer. So that money will sit um for uh nearly a year earning interest. We will earn enough interest to pay the entire debt service balance of the new debt um for next year. So that is a uh way to push off the impact of the new referendum for at least a year. Um we will probably receive a break next year as well because we will be getting double debt service next year. We didn't we aren't getting debt service from the state on the new money. We'll get double debt service next year on that money in addition to additional interest that will be earned on the

065on the uh invested bond money as it spends down. So, we'll have a break in the full impact of the referendum next year as well. And again, you could see um federal aid federal aid is not a huge portion of our budget. Um we do the majority of that is goes to fund our IDEA program which covers special education tuition. So, while federal money is not a huge part of our budget, it is much needed um to help us balance. Bob, just I didn't want want to interrupt, but it's important in the slide it should say 26-27 proposed. >> Yes, it should. Good catch on that. I missed something. >> the middle column for those of you who are watching is 26-27 proposed. Tanner should have caught that earlier. Anyway, good catch. Um how do

066our budgets strike down? We are we are a school district that is heavily uh re- reliable on local funding. We rely on our property taxes, 85% of the total budget, uh miscellaneous revenues such as tuitions and facility use fees, 4% of our budget, and use of surplus um this year at 3% of our budget. Again, usually it's a little lower than that, about 2% of our budget for surplus, but we're again we're throwing in a lot of uh interest revenue from our debt money into the budget this year, increasing that. State and federal funding um stays uh stagnant this year at 7% and 1%. And this is what um our levy looks like. So, we have a general fund tax levy increase of 5.8% and it is offset by a decrease in the debt service

067um the debt service rate of minus 11% for a total uh tax levy increase of 5.2 percent. Which yields the following tax rates. You'll Borough will see a 6 cent increase in the tax rate. Hopewell Township will see an 11 cent increase and Pennington Borough will see an 8 cent increase on the tax rate. Each of those tax increases 270 for the Borough, 531 for the Township, and 370 for the Pennington Borough is based on the average home of the about $500,000 a home. If your home is assessed at less, your your impact will be less. If it's more, obviously it will be more than that. I think that brings us to the end. Open up to questions from the board and then the public. Any additional questions from the board? Can you just um

068at this proposal initially when we had had conversations we talked about right kind of that 6.6% I think is what gives us a balanced budget. And so how much with this proposal are we taking out of the budget in terms of dollars? Uh that's about 950,000 somewhere in that area. Mhm. And just for the public um we had on the 16th we had a retreat discussing this deeply. So just because you don't see questions coming out we we've had pretty in-depth conversations, but anything new for anyone? Okay. And if I can just add for the public, Bob if you can go back to that pie chart real quick. So when we discussed cuts and I showed you the cuts that were up there and I I think it's important for us to keep looking at

069those cuts that we really don't want to make because they they do devastate a school district and we see school districts around us that have devastated. They've lost all their sports, they've lost clubs, They've lost programming. They've um let go of a lot of staff. Most of that pie graph is our staff in the benefits. So, those are our faculty. That's your class size. Those are your programs that make Hopewell Hopewell in a high-performing, highly-ranked school district that make us a desirable magnet for other folks to come to. Districts around us are collapsing because the board over the years have not gone over that 2% which you see the numbers. That's not sustainable at all. And then you have to get into cutting major programming to make the difference because the smaller cuts that I

070mentioned don't do it because we're talking about millions of dollars of cuts. So, when we had the discussion in with our in those retreats, we started very low. We looked at 3% because and it was like almost 500 million dollars in cuts. That's getting all into your programs and the things that we offer your students. Sports was on the table. Teaming was on the table. Cutting out whole programs at the middle and high school were on the table. Getting rid of those wrap-around services that we provided in in mental health care were on the table and we still weren't balancing. So, then we looked at four and five and we got to the point where we settled on on 5.8, but 6.6 would have had us making very minimal cuts. But we all felt strongly

071that the district needed to show that we that we're making those cuts and we're doing that. But making deep, massive cuts like that now when you probably will have to look at this again next year and again in the year after that, what's what is how you get to become a Robbinsville. And if you're looking in the news, they have lost everything. And the superintendent went to a question that just asked for the 8 million dollars to keep clubs and sports in place and there was a no. So, they will literally have no sports and they've already been paying uh for sports to pay you know, fee for that and now they're going to lose all of that. I don't I don't want us to become that because I imagine that these houses over here

072going to fill up pretty quickly with folks leaving that school district. Yeah, thank you, Dr. Teresa. I'll just maybe say one or two things. My apologies, I'm not feeling 100%, so I'm a little congested, but I think for my fellow board members, as we're looking at the budget, as we talked about last week, um I personally see this as being as flat as it can get, just given the things that are outside of our control. I think Dr. Resnick has done a good job explaining that, and I would encourage him to maybe share his analogy on that in public once more at some point tonight. Um I think for all of us, just as we're talking about this, and for the public listening, and for those in the room, there's really three major things at

073this point that we can do to impact a budget going up year over year. All right. In my opinion, there's three choices. The first choice that we make is we have to just systemically tear apart what Hopewell Valley Regional School District is, which means go after programming. And I don't think there's any board member or anybody in the public that wants us to do that. But that's how that would be one option that we have. The second option to address this issue would be us having some sort of impact with going after the state laws that are forcing us to be in this position, because as Bob alluded to and as Rosetta has talked to, if you look at that pie chart, a lot of these costs that are driving up year over year at

074these extreme rates are happening because of things outside of our control that the state has given the ability to to be done, to have have happened, right? And we have to then deal with the consequences. And then I think the third part of this is us thinking about this idea of what's to come, and and trying to start thinking more long-term about it. And I think this was the first year of us starting to think about that really, really, I think front and center around the large developments coming in, right? And this isn't just a Hopewell Township issue, this is a Pennington Borough issue, this is a Hopewell Borough issue now, right? Everybody's got these pilot programs and the impact that those additional students are going to have. And in that third option, the really

075the only thing that we can do is hopefully work with our fellow elected officials in all of these towns to see what sort of financial contributions they can make above and beyond what some of them have already made. Absent of those three things, this is kind of what our outlook is for the foreseeable future for budgeting, right? As bleak as that sounds. And by the way, I hope at some point I can talk about something happy, because I feel like for the past 9 months I've just sounded like doomsday. Uh so, my apologies on that. But, I think that I'm really proud of us. And I'm not just saying that so we all pat each other on the back, because we did a lot of work in this. And the the the idea of trying

076to do this work in the public was something that the board members wanted done and the administration was happy to do. So, I'm appreciative of the work we've done, but for the public I encourage you guys to get active, right? We're doing the best we can to hold things together without having to fundamentally change the way we're delivering education, but a lot of this stuff is outside of our control and we need your help to get active. Thanks, Mark. Thanks, Mark. So, I'm not sure which one of my analogies you were referring to, so I'll Well, I I I think that's a deeper question, but uh I'll say this, this is my fourth budget, I think that I'm involved in. I think we spent so because I'm on the finance and facilities committee with Mark

077and and and and with Dr. Williston, I think we spent I feel like I spend more on the budget this year. More time and more effort and I know the administration has than I probably spent for the previous 3 years combined and that's because the um stuff hit the fan um with the way um school budgeting is structurally set up in the state of New Jersey. Um I'm not going to say that this budget makes me happy because um the reason we all spend so much time on this budget um in committee then in the workshops at these board meetings is because I don't think there were options on the table that would really make people happy. I do think that as any good compromise to me should do this is an acceptable budget. Um

078and then the only other thing that I will add to what um Mark has said if you're concerned about your property taxes, if you're concerned about direction of of the of that the state of education is going in in the state of New Jersey. Contact your state legislators. Let them know the unfunded mandates that the the the the the key enormous amount of unfunded mandates, well-intentioned as they are they're unfunded and I announced thought through in terms of what the consequences of unfunded mandates are. The restrictions as Bob mentioned on the districts to control costs because for example, we can't negotiate health care plans, right? All of those things um are at a point now where that they are destroying the public education that the state of New Jersey you used to be rightly proud

079of. So, if you're pissed about that and the and if you're pissed about your property tax bills, find out who your local legislator is, find out who your state senator is, and let them know. Okay. Anything from anyone else? All right. Moving um on then, we will have a um public comment section just on the budget. So, members of the public are invited to address the board um for approximately 3 minutes during the port this portion of the meeting. You're asked to state your name, address, and municipality. In response to your comments, the Board of Ed may respond or direct the superintendent to 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. You have your yellow and red

080um panel over there for time. Public comment is now open. Yes, uh good afternoon or good evening. My name's Jim Bird. I'm from Hopewell Township. Uh six generations of Birds have been here. Uh we have one that's over in Timberlane. And when I was a freshman here at Hopewell Valley, that's when Timberlane opened. But, that's when your office was my father's high school and my junior school. When you look at the issue that we talk about with property tax, you'll also see that 57% of your property tax is going to the school board. And I think that's an important factor that you have to keep in mind. I think the other thing that you have to keep in mind is what Governor Chris Christie put together when he was in office, and that was that

081there would be a 2% increase annually maximum. You're now talking 5.7, 5.8% increase. Well, you know what? It looks like it has to be reevaluated a little bit more because when you keep hitting it and hitting it and hitting it, everything that I saw over here did not say 2% anywhere. I saw 4%, I saw 5%, I saw 5.8%. Now, I understand that you're doing this because I used to be mayor here. And I understand where you're coming from, but at the same time, there has to be something more significant to reevaluate this, to bring it down lower because I'm a retired individual. I have kids. One out of five kids are going here. So, we're paying for four other students going to private schools. If they decided to come here, all of a sudden,

082you're going to get hit harder again, and I don't know what will happen with that. But, what I'm saying is look at this more closely because, yes, it's significant what you're talking about, but at the same time, look at us as the taxpayers, the people who are putting the money out for the students that are getting an education. So, once again, I agree that everybody here, and your members of the of the school board, I suggest everybody else in Hopewell Township and all the other municipalities run for office. Learn a little bit about the difference between government and politics, and you'll learn a lot more. So, once again, I hope to see you lower the price or lower the percentage. Thank you. Um Alex and Mark, thank you for addressing the issue that's the uh

083unknown in the room, including transportation, health care, and those others, and that's PILOTs. It has been, and it will continue to be. The Hopewell Valley Regional School District represents a partnership built on shared responsibility among the township and the two boroughs. Traditionally, the three municipalities shared regional school costs proportionally based on each municipality's assessed valuation of properties within their communities. The Hopewell Township Committee elected officials violated that fairness principle when And entered into tax abatement agreements called PILOTs. All this PILOT money is unrestricted revenue the Hopewell Township Committee can spend however it chooses. Not $1 of our schools are required from the 1,756 new housing units that are under construction in these PILOT developments. Not $1 of that is required to come to the school for 1,756 units. The Hopewell The current Hopewell Township Committee

084has made these PILOT decisions unilaterally without concern on how they will impact the tax burden on the regional partners and the fiscal integrity of our school district. This is a grave threat to our community and its collaborative foundations. Public concern over PILOTs is not about opposing affordable housing. It's about intentional cost shifting and a loss of revenue to our schools. And there is bipartisan concern about how PILOTs are funds are distributed. What can we do? The current laws, as you said, and the system allows municipalities to enrich themselves with unrestricted PILOT revenue while shifting the cost to neighbors. This is not fair and it should not continue. We need legislative reform. But until that happens, we can pressure the Township Committee to face their moral responsibility and voluntarily negotiate a different way to apportion school

085costs across our regional partners. I encourage the board to do what you did to get the referendum passed. You sought uh some public relations campaign to let the public know that this is a legislative issue and we need you to do this. We need people in the in the community to take this up. Yard signs, everything you did for the referendum, please do that for this. Any other comments? I would love Seth Seditsky, Hopel Township. Um could we if we could go back and possibly explain again the 5.7 to 5.2% and where all that money's going from? I think that's all kind of new information that we went through pretty quick. Campbell at all. Can you just recreate your question for them in the mic? Yes. I don't think they heard you. I know Mr.

086Colavita did, but just for the good of the order. >> Colavita that needed to hear. Oh, look at that. I'm on the mic. Um I just think it was a little it we went through it pretty fast, the difference between um the 5.7% to 5.2%, which I believe is going to be the actual tax proposed increase will be 5.2%, but understanding the difference of where that is, which I think is all in our pilot money that is in the bank and earning interest, but obviously I may not be correct on that. So, just understanding what the difference is. So, what he's asking um Mr. Colavita is Mr. Byrd. Usually wait till the end, right? >> Yes. Yes, all if you have them all. >> Usually one. Okay, any other public comment? If not, we will

087go back and acknowledge some of the questions and I think he's going to come up. Mr. Byrd, um were you just coming up to write your name or did you have something else you wanted to add? No, I just wanted to put my name down here. >> you. All right, Mr. Byrd, um Mr. Calavita, could you go back over the the percentage points that we talked about? We started with um uh talking about uh Governor Christie placing a 2% cap on school districts and saying that, you know, you can't kind of go over this 2% cap. >> Statewide. Statewide, but it was specifically for public schools in budgeting saying that you can't go over this 2% cap. I would like to argue that uh the cost of living increase has been 3% for quite some

088time, so that was already a problem, and that's the reason why these waivers exist. And so, uh Mr. Calavita will talk about that in a moment. Do you mind Do you mind if I jump in before? Is that okay? I just did this to keep it down, but So, I was going to say, first off, Mr. Byrd, I really appreciate you coming and and speaking, and I think, right, all of us can agree, right, none of these decisions are fun. None of us are happy when we have to increase taxes, and so I think we want to really encourage a lot of these open um conversations in community and to have these hard conversations, and so I I want to acknowledge and and thank you for that. Um I do think, right, part of when

089we look at the the big picture as a board, the the 2% and and I think this echoes a little bit what you're saying, right, is is great on two conditions, right? One, that the cost of living also goes up 2% um and two that the size of your student population stays the same. And I think what we're seeing and what we're struggling with here as a board is is neither of those have been true for us. That we have a huge cost of uh not cost of living, but huge increases in expenses driven primarily as we've talked about from health insurance costs along with some other costs. Um and two that we do have this growing student population, which now puts us as a board in a position where we either have to increase

090above that 2% or we have to start making pretty drastic cuts to the quality of education, right? And and none of us in the community want to be in that position, right? This is not a fun position for us to be in. Um as a board and and we can, you know, share more about this, right? One of the things we were very conscious of is is the impact that this has on our community. Um that's that's very important. Um and one of the things the board kind of came to the table, I think, pretty early on is said, "Okay, we have uh state permission to go up to this What was it? 6. What did we have permission to go up to?" I mean, we we could go as high as 6.6. >> 6.6.

091Okay. Um and as a board, one of the things we said is, you know, we don't want to be approaching this budget and just saying, "Okay, let's take our budget. Let's do 6.6 and let's put that onto the community," right? We we want to have a level of scrutiny of where is anywhere that we can cut from this budget before we we pass that onto the community. And so, one of the things that we did um and I'm sure this was not fun for the administrators, right? But the administrators cut just under a million dollars out of the budget. That that was really important that we were not going to just take all of that and put it on the community. However, then we're in a place where now we don't have anything else to

092cut unless you cut uh major programming areas. Um, when you look at the numbers, right, there's kind of what we're increasing as a percentage, and again, I know we'll talk a little bit more about that to make that a little clearer. Um, but then there's also what is that impact have on each of the communities? And we can see, right, that there's a very different dollar amount tied in each of those communities. Um, and I think that's part of kind of the comments you made of, right, as a community now at Hopewell Township, we really need to start thinking about how do we want to use that pilot money? Right? We have this pilot money. We have these students in our school. Right? Do we want as a community to start using some of that

093pilot money to support the ongoing costs of educating those students? Or is the plan as a community to use that money towards other things, in which case then the taxpayers will have to pay the the components for the education? And so, I want to to encourage us to keep having these very hard conversations as a community, and to start to start thinking about where we want as a community those those dollars to go, and where we want to invest them. Thank you. Can I piggyback on a couple of things that Amanda said? Uh, just to add a few things, right? I think Amanda, one thing you mentioned is when you have an increase enrollment of kids in schools, you would expect your budget to go up. Um, in a How should I say it? In

094a normal world, um, that would not necessarily translate into a tax levy increase. Because in a normal world, when your enrollment in a district like this increases, that means that your tax base is also increased. Thanks to the state of New Jersey, and I will put this on the state, um because when laws create opportunities for people to take advantage of them, right? The fault is with the people who didn't think really hard about what they were writing. And the people looking to fix the law. So, in the environment that the state of New Jersey has created, we're now in a situation where our enrollment is increasing, but the tax base is not. And that's one of the challenges that we're facing. A second challenge, Bob, can you put up a slide where you showed

095what the increase in the health care cost benefits is? Okay. If you look at that, uh well, it says health care waiver, but if you look at the difference at our in our actual budget, that's right around $3 million. Right? Right? Our budget is right around $100 million. That's 3% right there. And we were talking about a 2% cap. >> and right. And in a normal world, we would turn to the teachers union and go, "Look, we're in trouble here. We need to look at this and negotiate this, and it's one of the levers that we had." In its infinite wisdom, the state of New Jersey said, "No, no, no. You can't do anything about it. We'll give you a waiver, which is not money, it's just the ability to tax above that." If you

096look at the history of our tax increases, they haven't been at 2% for a while. And I bet if you look across the state of New Jersey, that's also going to be true. That 2% was a great political publicity stunt that was pulled a while back and it kind of healthy appearance of being reasonable while inflation was really low. But the state's actions are consistently proving that the 2% legal cap, right, is a fiction. I mean, it's a legal cap. We wouldn't be able to go up to percent if it was not a fiction. But instead of just calling on it, they keep giving districts all all these waivers. Right? So, they could So, they keep putting band-aids on a problem that is a fundamental structural problem with the way things are funded. While keeping

097our hands tied and not allowing us to do anything locally, either. Now, as far as the burden of tax increases on the taxpayers, I am very, very cognizant of it. On the flip side of things, I'm also very cognizant of the fact that there is a significant number of residents of Hopewell Valley who invested in living here in the school district because of what the schools are and how the schools are. So, if we were to go in and make cuts that fundamentally change what the school district is and how we educate our children, then we are betraying the trust that those people made when they invested in the district in the last 10-20 years. So, where is that unpleasant compromise between the two? I I and I bet everybody's answer is going to be

098different. Right? But, we're or at least I can't speak for my fellow board members. I'm not insensitive to the pain of the tax increases, especially for people who are on fixed income. But, at the same time, um you know, I do want to maintain this district kind of the way that it's been, the kind of district that it's been for the last 20 20 30 years. Um I don't want to gut it to a point where all it does is provide the minimum education that it is legally required to provide. And even that probably wouldn't get us to 2% this year, right? Cuz we're starting out at three just with health care benefits. So, it it it it's a it's a And that's why I said there was nothing about the process this year that

099made me happy. I We wound up at a place where it's acceptable to me, but that's all that we have. And know that my leadership team and I and many superintendents across this state have been having these battles and conversations with the legislature for years. We've seen this coming. Some of them Some of the districts around us are looking at 7 8% increases, and they've already cut to the bare bones. And so, you imagine that kind of a tax increase, and you have none of the the things that a premium district offers that you're paying high taxes for. So, it's not just they'll be disappointed. Folks will leave the community and go to a district that does have those things if we keep cutting to the bone. Now, at some point, I'm not going to

100be able to do anything but cut. And we're still probably going to be looking at high percentages. And I'm going to take all those things that on the slides that the board said, "Please hold on to those things for at least another year and and let's and let's hope." Because know that we are fighting as as leadership that with the with our elected officials about this and these mandates that come down on high that the waivers are not a relief, they just cause us to have to go back to the taxpayer, which is not fair. We have talked about these pilots, which I know legislation is coming, unfortunately too late for the Hopewell Township uh pilot and some of these other two that are online. But know that we are in constant communications and we

101have not given up our conversations with them. And I believe that there is an opening with Hopewell Township to have more conversation beyond what they've promised for Bear Tavern. We are continuing to have those conversations. However, the conversations and and um what Ms. Costa shared here, I implore you all to share with the folks that that were in the municipalities where you live and you also have the those conversations with them. And they I know they're all open to that um to to talk to them directly as the people that live in those municipalities and are paying taxes in those municipalities. Because we can certainly and we will continue to to fight for you, but it also is powerful if you yourselves go into those meetings and make yourself heard. It's very important. It's very

102important. But we are still in negotiations with them. Um Mr. Colucci Sure. Um so first uh on the 2% cap, it while it is true there is a two then this goes back to when Governor Christie um implemented it was 2% on the tax levy and available waivers. So the available waivers have always been there. Um and the available waivers are in um uh health care and enrollment. For years we did not get an enrollment waiver, we were declining in enrollment. And the health benefit waiver was contingent upon the increase to the state plan. So there were years when the state actually gave up a premium reduction and we had a health benefit increase. There was no waiver. The waivers have been available to us for probably the last two years. We didn't get a

103waiver before that. Um, and we haven't had a we haven't had an enrollment waiver since last year. So the Governor Christie's law um, did provide for these waivers and as Alex said, it's it's not really a waiver cuz they're giving you extra state aid. They're allowing you to tax to to to keep whole. Um, the other part was the 5. 2% increase. Can you just clarify the difference between the 5.7 and the 5.2? >> yeah. I'm trying to find the sheet. Okay. So the general fund increase, which is on our operating budget is a 5.8% increase. That's where the 2% cap comes in plus the two waivers increases the levy to 5.8%. Our debt service, which was the previous two referenda um, the money that is in the debt service column there, the 2.7 million

104dollars is the debt service related to the 2016 referendum. We are not uh, doing any debt service this year towards the 2024 25 referendum because we will be earning enough interest on the money that was borrowed, the 84 million dollars has been invested. It will earn enough interest to cover the entire amount of the new debt. Okay, plus a little bit extra, Which we'll appropriate next year. That's really how it's going from 5.8 to 5.2 because there's an 11% decrease in how much we are levying for debt service. When you net the two numbers out, it comes out to 5.2%. Can I Can I ask a Sorry. Tanner, bring your Tanner, can you bring your I'm afraid to touch mine. Go ahead, Drew. Awesome. Um some of it's been been cutting in and out, but

105I've been trying my best to to keep up and and listen to some of the folks who are taking the time out of their evening to to talk to us and to make their voices heard. Uh I I think Bob, you touched on this, but I just wanted to reiterate it that the health care and enrollment waivers have existed since the Christie administration and if I'm not incorrect on this, the tiers and thresholds for those waivers have actually gone unchanged in the Murphy administration as well as the current Cheryl administration. And I think on that note, we've seen trend not outside of just health care, which is based on what was on the screen earlier, I think it was what, 17% increase in the last from last academic year to this year. But we're also

106seeing and I touched on this in our workshop, you know, last week about our transportation costs are also going up at a rate far greater than 2% or 3% or 5.7% given that now we have new development that we have to pay for additional buses to to pick up additional students in. Um and so I I very much agree with a lot of the sentiment from folks that have come to speak, but also some of our our fellow board members who are talking about uh this is a state issue. Um it is not unique to New Jersey. There are other states across the country that are facing the same exact issue with districts with districts having operating budgets and expenses that are far exceeding a state given tax cap. And I think, you know, we

107have to look at our legislators. I very much agree. Ms. Koses talked about how there needs to be more effort in engaging with with some local and state politicians. There is a bill right now that we have talked about on this board. S1807 introduced by Senator Singleton in South Jersey, which would allocate which would specifically earmark dollars in pilots for school districts so that municipalities have a legal obligation to put dollars to school districts. The very issue that Ms. Koses talked about. So, I I also want to be clear that, you know, there is legislation out there. There are ideas and bills, but there are also very coordinated lobbying efforts against those bills. So, you know, we we obviously have to take a a step up and and speak to our legislators. I think that's

108something that the government relations committee has talked about and is planning to engage in. You know, we've talked about this with Mr. Peters about reaching out to our legislators, engaging with them. For us in the 15th, Assemblywoman Reynolds Jackson is the chair of the education committee. So, any bill related to education funding has to go through the committee that she chairs. We have this unique position of having her as a legislator, but also being one of the most influential districts not only in the county, but also in the state. And so, I just want to I just want to say first I appreciate the folks who came to to comment, but I also wanted to just provide some of that additional context from bills that are actively moving through the legislature right now. And, you

109know, unless the state redoes its completely redoes its funding formula, which is currently being stuck up by a lot of smaller districts on the shore that have not consolidated and need to consolidate, you know, we're a regional district and we're a model for a lot of other municipalities in terms of how schools should be running. You know, there's there's external pressures we're facing and as frustrating as it is for us to come to you as the public and taxpayers with this much of a tax increase, you know, I I'm I'm cognizant of that given that my parents immigrated to this country and came to Hopewell in 2003 and have seen their property tax bills go up year after year after year. But if we are going to maintain the educational services that we do provide

110to all of our students, um I I think that this it's we are in a tough position and I I applaud the budget uh the finance and facilities folks. I applaud uh uh Mr. Colavita for being very transparent and and explaining this to all of us. Um but we are confined by state mandates and a state that has been unwilling to act on many of these issues and I don't really know what's going to happen in the coming years if none of these are addressed. So, it's going to take all of us as a community to come together to advocate for the bills we want to see, to advocate to our local government to get pilot dollars into our district, and to continue working together on this front. Thank you. I'm sorry, go ahead. Yeah,

111sorry. Uh I will not be as eloquent as any of my colleagues on any of these topics, but did want to thank Mr. Byrd for coming out and our other speakers of course because I'm totally empathetic to to the conversation and appreciate, you know, like my colleagues mentioned, you know, certainly not an easy discussion to arrive at those numbers. But at the end of the day, I think you know, I think Alex references right? We're People move here. We moved here, a lot of people did for the educational experience and I think that's, you know, our job here is to make sure that that continues moving forward. I guess my question and Mr. Colavita might know this off top my head, but if we did stick to that 2% cap as we know that is

112not realistic. We're looking at a my quick back of the envelope something like $5 last or something like that to to spend. Even more than that, right? So, I guess my point would be I I appreciate all the perspective. However, you know, that's it's just not reasonable to try to hold to that and also continue providing the experience that I know that our parents are looking for here in this school district. But, I just wanted to say thanks for for the comments. Well, if I can just say, there are districts that have held to that and they're in the news. The Toms Rivers and these folks that have have basically you know, not been able to pay their bills. And they've and they've not been able to strike a budget because they they have not

113just realized the obvious and the and the board said, "No, we're going to stay flat." And they've gotten to where they can't pay their bills. And the and the state's answer to that is, "You had a mechanism to deal with that and you didn't." Right? And so, what they do is you go to 2% and you can't pay your bills and they come in and impose it on you anyway. That's what happens. So, it it's the that that's is the only mechanism. It's it's horrible um and it it just causes instability in the district and it takes away from our students, which is why folks are moving here and why, you know, it's such a beautiful community that it is. Um so, we you just have to be as responsible as we can knowing that

114this cannot continue, right? So, we have to all figure out together and that's talking um what um Mr. Capotelli was sharing is that the board members have a government relations committee where we were doing just that. We are reaching out to our representatives. But, the more voices that they hear, right? The better it is. My union is also doing that. My My association, I should say, is doing that. The superintendents, all the associations are doing that. So, we're all pushing to try to get this change to come about because it's not just the pilots. There's lots of ways and things that they can do to consolidate costs in education that are just need to happen. And we've been talking about them for years, and these are things that need to need to happen sooner than

115later because we can't continue with this. We just can't. Yeah, and I I would like to just add one thing. Um I I think myself and Ms. Williams-Galiano are in a unique situation in that all of our children have already been through the district. And I sit on this board speaking on behalf of other people's children. And I also sit on this board speaking on behalf of almost a senior citizen who's looking towards retirement and would like to stay in Hopewell. Um and so I see both sides of this and all of the different sides. Um and I also know that if I let our school district fail, when I do go to retire and my children hopefully will inherit my estate, um it won't be worth anything if I've let our school district fail

116because no one will want to live in our beautiful Hopewell anymore. And so it is, I think, our duty not only to be protecting our current students, but the future students to Hopewell. Um and so looking not only to today, but as Dr. Therese has stated, you know, what does next year look like and the year after and how do we ensure that we're not cut cut cut until there isn't a district anymore and we are not serving our students. Yeah, thank thank you everyone for your comments and um again from the public participation. I I think that the last thing we'll say before we wrap up public comment is that the the conversations that we're having um um today are in the context of two and three years out. It's not you know we've

117had the rip the band-aid off conversations um which could look like no sports, no theater, um and fewer clubs and things that are really significant to how our our children move through their day. Um and so trying to signal to the community that change is coming over the next two or three years is certainly the message, but while change um to maybe programming or other things might come, they might look a little different. Right? We're used to um and I'm not hitting on the sports because that's the obvious thing, but I'm hitting on the sports because it's something that a lot of districts have um chosen to make changes in. You know, we can look at different ways of running our programs that don't require transportation as much transportation and things like that. Those are

118the types of adjustments we want to be making as opposed to taking something completely out. And so it has been um a very active conversation and asking of the administration to keep looking and keep looking. So no one is quote-unquote happy or comfortable, but we will continue to be a collective advocate for both our retire retirees in their community as well as parents and families and our most importantly our um kids. Um so we will communicate with you as we're having conversations with the boroughs and the townships. Um we're actively um working on setting up ongoing meetings with um each of our colleagues in the committees um to to continue to update on how growth is happening in the in the district and what are we noticing um you know, as it happens, what are

119the things we are unexpectedly experiencing like the strange tight parking lot situation that calls for another bus run, right? So, as we're planning new um locations with more houses, how can we think more broadly about buses moving through the space and etc. So, the dialogue is going to continue. Most importantly, we want you all to advocate alongside us with our elected officials at the state house. Um and and we we are committed to um not taking easy route. Um and just um saying you know, let's increase the budget or um stay flat. So, um with that, I'm going to move us on, but again, just appreciate immensely the the discussion. Budget vote. Motion in a second. So, we have our our mics are flaring. Um so, with that, I would need a first and second

120to move the budget. Motion. Second. Roll call. Dr. Genovese. Yes. Mr. Kapadia. Yes. Dr. Lilliston. Yes. Mr. Peters. Yes. Dr. Resnick. Yes. Mr. Slotman. Aye. Dr. Stigliano. Yes. Ms. Cotter. Yes. And Ms. Williams-Galliano. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you, Dr. Teresa and um the administration in total for your work. Um I know that was a lot we asked of you and we'll continue to do that. Okay. Um moving on, I need a first and second to uh approve the consent agenda items. Motion. Second. All in favor. Aye. Any opposed or abstaining? Seeing none, all consent agenda items are passed. We're going to move into committee uh updates and reports. Um Anything anything new to add from finance and facilities? Yeah, I think we've spent a considerable amount of time over the past two public meetings talking

121about everything that we're talking about the finance level. I do We'll just turn everybody's attention to I think three contract awards um bid awards and contract awards on the agenda for tonight. Um one is regarding a upgrade of our phone systems. Is that correct? I believe. Yes, our phone systems. Um and then the other two bid awards uh have to do with part of our referendum discussions. Um I don't know if any of my fellow board members had any questions on any of those items. I I just like to point out that we did award the first two bids, one for a partial roof replacement at Timberly Middle School and the other one for partial roof replacements at here at the high school and at Stonybrook. And those bids all came in with good contractors

122and under budget right now. So we will be maintaining a tally of of budget bids and which ones are over, which ones are under. As we said, anything that isn't spent does go back to the taxpayer as tax relief. But in a referendum of this size, you're you're going to probably get some that are over and some that are under and hopefully they net out. But right now, positive, going out early is key. Great. And we're in a good spot right now as we start this process and we'll be keeping everybody through the finance facility committee and then through our website updates on everything we're doing, construction progress, all that kind of stuff as we move into the summer. The other award just to point out, our phone system is ending support. There will be

123no more support on the current phone system. Our director of technology has recommended a cloud-based solution. That will save money in the long term. We're also going forward will be renegotiating our provider for regular phone calls and that should further because of this be able to further reduce costs with that. So this is a positive. We will be discussing at the next finance facility meeting what Mr. Resnick referred to as disaster control. Because we are a major, our phone service is internet based, if we were to lose internet, we would lose, um, Yeah, so communications. So, we'll talk about that. So, let me just quickly explain to folks, when you go to a cloud-based system like that, your internet connection becomes a single point of failure. Cuz if the internet connection goes, your, your, your

124phone system goes, um, etc. The the advantage of, um, systems like this is they are, because they're in the cloud, when a failure like that happens, you can configure them to reroute, uh, calls at least certain calls to people's um, mobile phones to alternate phone numbers, etc. What you need to do to do that is put together a disaster recovery plan, and then go and execute this, essentially translate, so the plan would say, "Hey, if the internet goes, these calls will go to this person, these calls will go to that person." Then you, and then you execute that as policies into the system. Um, so, um, I asked that we start a discussion on that. I don't know if district has one or doesn't have one, but we will need to either update it or

125put one together, um, as we go forward with this. Very well. Okay, seeing those three items, um, called out separately, we need a first and a second and a roll call vote. Motion. Second. Roll call, please. Mr. Kapadia. Yes. Dr. Lilliston. Yes. >> Mr. Peters. Yep. Dr. Resnick. Yes. Mr. Slotman. >> I. Dr. Stilianou. Yes. Ms. Cotter. Yes. Dr. Genovese. Yes. Ms. Williams Galliano. Yes. Motion carries. Very well. Moving on to personnel. Thank you. We have um kind of the details here in our agenda. Um but we're certainly that time of year where we start to hear from many of our excellent long-time staff of some upcoming retirement plans. And so I do have a few I want to um mention here. You'll see we have uh Regina Finn from Tollgate who's been with us

126since 2000. We have John Zalot who's at our high school who's also been with us since 2000. We have Alicia Smith from Tollgate uh who's with us from 2001. Uh Deborah Nutt who's over at Stonybrook who's been with the district since 2002. Michelle Dungan from Timberlane who's been with the district since 2004. Uh Carolyn Baker who's over at Stonybrook also has been with us since 2004. And then we have Lori Cavanaugh over at Central High School um who's uh been with the district since 2005. So I wanted to give them a a special thank you for their time and service. Um you'll also see we have some additional appointments and adjustments. Um we have a fair amount of teachers out uh not just teachers, staff as well um out on leave of absence um many

127um for pregnancy leaves. And so that's both wonderful and means we need to have coverage for them. Um so you'll see we have some appointments here both for a few long-term substitute teachers so that we have some consistency in that coverage. Um and you'll also see we have uh what's called an adjustment to salary for leave of absence coverage. And that's when we have uh a current uh staff or teacher that takes on one additional class to provide that coverage during a leave of absence. So you'll see those listed. Um in addition we have uh some approvals for new substitute teachers at the district. Um, and so if there are any questions, we can answer them and otherwise I believe we need a roll call. Need a motion? >> We need motions to move to

128the >> Motion. Second. Okay. Dr. Lilliston. Yeah, roll call. Yes. Okay. Mr. Peters. Yes. Dr. Resnick. Yes. Mr. Slotman. Yes. Dr. Stilliana. Yes. Ms. Cotter. Yes. Dr. Genovese. Yes. Mr. Kapadia. Yes. Ms. Williams Galiano. Yes. >> carries. Wonderful. Moving on to Ed Comm. Okay. Okay, so we met on March 16th and we had um, Katie Bogner come from Montclair University to discuss a middle school's our middle school participating in a survey that relates to substance abuse, bullying, mental health, and social media. Um, this survey is administered once every 3 years beginning in 1999 and it's supported by the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services which is endorsed by the NJDOE. Out of um, there was a lot of conversation in the committee. Um, so we left it that Dr. Tries was going to reach

129out to um, other neighboring districts because after if we do participate, we would receive a report to see um, where the trends were with our district in comparison to districts without the state. Um, so Dr. Tries did reach out to the other superintendents in Mercer County um, and nobody else is participating. Um, given that and also that um, we had a conversation about how this survey seems to be very similar to the survey that we send out every 3 years for the with the in collaboration with the Hopewell Valley Municipal Alliance, we decided not to participate in the survey. Um then as noted last month in regard to the nj.com ranking report, it was identified that there would be a focus on TMS's and JSLA in regard to ELA growth, math growth, and math proficiency,

130as well as Toll Gate's ELA growth. Um Matt O'Rourke, the supervisor of STEM, presented at the February Ed Program about this. Um so continuing this conversation, we had Dr. Mary Pancoast, our supervisor of secondary ELA and social studies, review the NJSLA scores for uh spring 2024 and 2025. Um she identified trends by grade level. Um so for example, the current eighth graders had a 25% um meeting expectations in grade six, but then in grade seven, they rose to 38%. Um she by grade level, she also reviewed the areas of foundation, strength growth, writing priority, and integration skills. Um Dr. Pancoast shared the results of our common lit benchmarks from the fall and winter um test administration. She noted that some areas of growth included analysis of of non-fiction. Her hope is to support non-ELA teachers

131with interdisciplinary reading strategies, and moreover, she wants to continue to work on writing skills. Um the writing strategy think SRSD which we um implementing in grade six currently is going to roll up to grade seven next year. Um and there she will be providing um additional um support through through a Quill that we recently purchased, as well as professional development. Um in addition, Mr. Wilfing and Ms. Lori discussed the NJSLA at Toll Gate. Mr. Wilfing reviewed the evidence statements in terms of standards, and explained SGPs by grade level. And then Ms. Lori discussed what Toll Gate was doing to help support teachers and students. So some of the things she highlighted was that teachers review the NJSLA scores, the universal screening data, curriculum and assessments, and develop targeted instruction to support individual students both in

132terms of their what I win or their what I need groups and resources. She also discussed how reading informational text and writing expression has been identified as area of growth and she's working with teachers on providing consistent feedback using rubrics to pull small groups and encouraging PD by the teacher leaders. I know that was a lot in a short time. But, I'm going to at our next board meeting kind of take all of the data that or all of the supports that were discussed in the February Ed Program and the supports that were discussed in the March Ed Program and just put it into one presentation that I will present at the board. Any questions? Thank you, Dr. Blitz. I have a quick question. So, at the beginning of this year, we integrated the SEL

133Committee into the Ed Program Committee. And so, I'm no longer on Ed Program. So, I was wondering if you could share or maybe Mr. Narducci could share or Alex, I think you're the chair, about how you're integrating those conversations, particularly as they relate to data and some of the things we saw earlier in today's meeting into the Ed Program Committee. So, anyone can feel free to jump in. But, I have to say that as we're talking through a lot of these, Dr. Genevieve is very cognizant of that and she continues continuously brings up like how is this going to affect the students both socially and emotionally. I know right now it's been really heavy in the academic component, but throughout the year we will be having like next next month Corey will be presenting about

134like the tier two character strong. So, it's it's kind of being as infused as the the months go on. So, some might be more academic, some might be social emotional, some might be a mixture. I had I was not able to attend the meeting. The educational meeting, so I wasn't there. Last week, but I'll be at future ones. No, that that's great to hear. I just wanted to make sure we didn't lose sight of them as we as we integrated those committees together. So, Yeah, I I I don't think we lost sight. I think we had given the administration, Vicky in particular, but the administration more broadly the task of digging into those numbers. And I think we've been we've spent the last couple of meeting cycles kind of getting readouts on those, and I

135think we're done with that part now, or at least I feel like I have a good understanding of what the causes of those numbers are, and it's probably worthwhile to kind of get We didn't want to do it Well, I say we I wasn't there, but I watched the videos, but I agree with the decision to not bring it to this meeting just because we're dealing with the budget and a few other things. Uh but there is a plan to do a readout of what the causes of some of that stuff that appeared on nj.com in the next meeting. And and then we'll be able to kind of move on to other things. Thank you. Great question, though. Just one shout-out. I know I got my what is this LinkedIn parent portal account last week

136and signed in. Um and so, for those of you who aren't familiar at the elementary school now, um there's an account available for parents so that they can go in and see all of the assessments that their children is completing and how they're doing. Um and so, that level of being transparent and sharing data um with families is just wonderful, and wanted to to thank you and acknowledge that. Awesome. Yeah. Okay, we are going to go ahead and move on to government and community relations. So, Mr. Kapadia and Mr. Slotman. I I believe I believe Mr. Kapadia is going to start us off and we'll go from there. If you can hear us. I could I couldn't hear you I couldn't hear Mr. Slotman there. I I Did you Are you giving the community relations

137side or should I I am just I am deferring to you, my friend. So. He has deferred to you. Okay. Okay, great. Um well, the the government relations committee uh met a few weeks ago. I have a couple quick updates to share regarding our outreach at the local, county, and state level. Uh firstly, I think this was discussed in last month's meeting, but I'll just share the update again. Um for county level outreach, we had been working with Mercer County Executive Dan Danson, uh as well as some neighboring school districts in Mercer County to host a uh joint um event uh for for programming for our elementary school students. Uh we were looking to do it at the end of this year, but due to scheduling conflicts and venue uh a lack of venue availability,

138uh we're pushing it to next academic year. So, wanted to share and confirm that update. Um for municipal and local outreach, we have continued moving forward on uh administering the survey for our high school students to investigate uh not only their uh civic engagement, but also just their general interest in the initiative of potentially lowering the voting age for school board elections to 16. Uh we developed and finalized the survey. I had shared it after last board meeting I had shared it with all board members. I got a good amount of feedback. It's been finalized. It's been sent to Dr. Treese and Principal Riley who are hoping, I believe, to administer it after spring break. Um and lastly for our state uh level advocacy, uh we have been uh we're nearing the the finalization of

139our state budget proposal uh for fiscal year 2027. Uh we are currently asking the state for $75,000 for additional funding for mental health support, specifically to continue uh Hopewell's engagement and partnership with the Attitudes in Reverse uh uh mental health nonprofit, to continue funding our the Air Dogs program that has been uh very successful and has really proven to be a statewide model in uh in mental health services for our students and our staff as well. Um so we're we're looking to put that request in uh this week. Um the only thing I need is just one, you know, from whoever in the administration would be best to send this over, just a uh an invoice or, you know, receipt-style itemized breakdown of the projected spending. Once I have that, we can we can move

140forward with with submitting all those materials to the to the 15th legislative district uh delegation and and see where it goes from there. My only uh I I caution, as I did last year, um the expectations for receiving this money, as uh Governor Sheryl uh a few weeks ago in her uh first budget address talked about, you know, clamping down on some some legislative add-ons. I think there will inevitably be some uh some elements of legislative add-ons this year. Um I just don't know how uh how far, you know, our our proposal will go. Uh happy to answer any questions on on any of those fronts. Doc- Dr. Treese will provide you the um cost information you're looking for. Anything else? Yeah, no, I would just say I mean we talked about a couple other

141items. We had a hasty meeting, I feel like, right after the not the not last week's session, but the previous month's session. So, we were still meeting back in February. We talked over a couple different other items. I just wanted to say on a personal note that we are very fortunate as a community to have Mr. Kapadia as a leader on these issues. The work that he has put into, not just last year, but this year, these projects has been unbelievable and, you know, just in in general. We're very lucky to have him and and very thankful for all of his work on on those issues. Yeah, I just wanted to jump in and say ditto because I think when we did this last year, and hopefully Mr. Kapadia can hear me, one of the

142things I said to him is, like, please think about how you can create templates and processes so that if you ever leave us, and we hope you don't, we have all those things that we need in place to be able to put these state budgets asks in, which may not seem like a lot of money, but they they do go a little bit of way in alleviating some of the the budget pressures that we're facing. So, he did that. He circulated it. It looks amazing. So, huge, huge thanks, Mr. Kapadia. Really appreciate it. I think you've created something that's sustainable for us and is going to be helpful into the future. Awesome. I'm I'm hearing bits and pieces of very kind things. So, thanks you so much. I do appreciate it. I've I've been very

143grateful to have Bog and and Dr. Trees, as well as President Williams Galiano, to to be so supportive behind all these initiatives. And I I hope the templates that can live on past my time on the board will be will be helpful. And it's it's been I I appreciate all the support. And as I as we continue to work through this and refine it more and more year after year, I think this can hopefully be something that, you know, provides the district some additional funding and some additional services. I think it's especially pertinent when we have these conversations that we've had tonight. You know, $125,000 last year, that's a that's a significant portion given that we're moving into, you know, for the for the ADA accessible playground that we received. That's when we're looking at

144our budget shortfall this year and and looking at cuts. Like, these are these are important dollars that can flow in and and can hopefully help our district and, you know, other districts benefit from it because they've got advocates and because they've got their own, you know, connections to legislators or or or the state. And you know, I think it's it's high time that our district, you know, uses those same connections and uses those same processes. And you know, I also want to give my thanks to the 15th legislative district delegation for being so supportive and actually going through with with supporting Hopewell's asks last year and and hopefully this year as well. Awesome. Okay, moving on. Um Dr. Genovese, do you have any climate change? Climate action. Gotcha. Okay. Um moving on, Dr. Lilsten, policy?

145Okay. So, the policy committee met on March 6th, and we discussed three policies and three regulations that are up for first reading tonight, as well as one policy and one regulation that are up for first reading abolishment. Um so, can I have a motion and a second to bring policy and regulation 2535 library material, policy and regulation public complaints, policy and regulation resource materials for first reading, and policy and regulation 3432 sick leave for first reading abolishment. So moved. Second. Okay, great. Um so, hopefully everyone had a chance to look at the policies and regulations that are up for first reading today. All of them concern our district's implementation of the Freedom to Read Act. So, the Freedom to Read Act is a state law that became effective in December 2025, and it requires districts

146to adopt a policy as well as procedures related to the curation of library material, to establish criteria for the removal of existing school library material, and to provide protections against attempts to censor school library material. So, in August 2025, the New Jersey Department of Education actually published guidance, which assists districts like ours in implementing the provisions of this act. So, there's just a few things that I want to note about this act. So, per the law, requests to remove material from school district libraries can only come from people who they call individuals with vested interest. So, these are defined as either students, parents and caregivers, or district teaching staff. So, what that means is that a community member or somebody from outside of the community who has no um specific or direct connection to the

147school can't make such a request. Um, requests to limit or remove library material must be made through a formal process that includes filling out a form and then filing it with the school principal. The The request then has to be evaluated by a multi-disciplinary committee that includes different school staff, a parent of a current student, a board member, and when appropriate a student. That committee is then charged with reviewing the complaint and making a recommendation to the Board of Education as to whether we should keep the material as is, remove it, or limit access to it. The Board of Education is then going to make a final decision and post it publicly on the board's webpage. So, policy and regulation 2535 library material, that's a new policy and regulation. Um these have been developed directly

148in response to the provisions of the Freedom to Read Act and the corresponding DOE guidance. So, this includes that process that I described for reviewing and removing current library material as well as some other general provisions of the act and the guidance as well. So, the next four policies and regulations that you see here are ones that we are recommending revisions to. So, they're existing policies and regulations, but we're recommending revisions in order to more smoothly integrate this new law into our district policy. So, public complaints 9130 addresses the process by which the district and the board hears and settles complaints from the public broadly. This policy was last revised in March 2020 and the regulation was revised in October 2013. So, what we've done here is that we've revised to remove any reference to

149library material as defined in the Freedom to Read Act because those specific materials are now covered under 2535. Um we've also revised it a little bit to just better align with 2535 where appropriate. Um so, there's a section E you might have seen which specifically addresses complaints regarding textbooks about instructional supplies and resource materials, and we edited some of the language there for alignment. And then we also have policy and regulation 2530, which provide guidance for the selection and maintenance of resource materials. So, these include things like reference materials, books, map, and audio content. Um so, prior to the passage of this act, this also included library materials, but basically we've taken that out of that policy and regulation, so that it now sits in the new one. And this policy and regulation were last

150revised in 2009. So, I'm going to stop there and see if um my policy committee colleagues, uh Mr. Kapadia, if he's still there, or Ms. Cotter, have anything to add. Okay. Anybody have any questions or comments? Ms. Dr. Genovese. Yeah. Um yeah, so a couple of different things. Um on the regulation 9130 public complaints, there are parts of it that have um time limits on it. Um so, I I like that. Um but at the top level, there isn't one for the teachers to respond. So, I'd like to see us put in one for that. Okay. Um and then on the fourth level, um for one, it says that if um the complaint's not resolved, they have within three working days of the receipt to request. I don't think that's enough for a working parent.

151Okay. So, I I'd like to see that increased. Um if it was me, I could could miss that email and miss the window. Um so, that was sort of minor housekeeping for that one. Okay. Um on the resource materials one, I noticed that the end we have words around um like when materials get old or um you know, other sort of appropriate things. Um and I think for us this is a great so it's under I guess C. There's like a list of things, quality, durability. I'd like to see within this that we are changing out all of the PDFs that are pictures that a lot of our teachers are using that are inaccessible to our children who need readers. So, when you have a picture of a PDF and not an actual PDF, your

152computer cannot read it to you. It's not accessible and it is very frustrating for students to then have to go beg the teacher for additional copies or find it on their own. And I think this is a great policy that we might be able to address that. That our additional resources are accessible to everyone. Thank you. Anybody else have any comments or questions about these policies or regulations? I had a question. It's not about the policies. Uh it would it be possible in like 2 minutes or less to explain what this law is that's driving the Yeah. Do you want to go or do you want me to? So, quickly this was passed to keep folks from sort of you know, challenging books and taking taking them out of libraries without a process. So, it's

153not just something that public schools are adopting, but I sit on the boards of the Pennington and the Hopewell Borough libraries. They also are adopting it. State libraries are adopting it. It's just to make sure that if someone challenges a book or decides that they they want us to consider taking it out of our curriculum or out of our book stacks, um, there's a process to go through that. And timeline. And a timeline. Okay, thank you. Okay. Any other questions or comments about that one? Okay. I was just going to I was just going to add a little bit of context for for for Alex for Dr. Resnick um as to what this bill specifically addresses. I I actually worked for Senator Booker and this was his bill. So, I I I kind of weird

154to be on the other end of it now implementing it at a school board level. So, it's cool experience, but really the big driver behind it was not only in New Jersey, but in a lot of states across the country there were book ban requests that were coming into districts that were targeting librarians and they were coming from out of state or out of district. So, there were groups from let's say Pennsylvania or Texas that were coming to New Jersey districts and saying we don't want your district teaching X, Y, and Z. And what a lot of school boards and a lot of school districts did not have in place with infrastructure and a process on how to actually adjudicate that book ban request. Um and so, what the bill does is it really creates

155a very lengthy and and uh detailed process with a lot of folks involved to make sure that the the process is transparent as well as, you know, responding to the community needs. And the other portion that it adds that is a a major component of the law and as well as our policy and regulation is that the folks that are requesting uh curriculum to be removed uh or challenging a specific uh learning resource, uh they have to come from the community. Um which is which was really a big provision to to include. Just wanted to give that additional background. Okay. Thanks, Joe. That was actually very helpful. Thank you. Great. Okay. Um and then up for first reading abolishment, we have policy and regulation 3432 sick leave. So, this is really just a housekeeping abolishment.

156So, um in 2023 there was a new law that addressed requirements for sick leave for school district employees. Um and we actually integrated um those into our policy, but that at that time we did not abolish 3432 sick leave. So asking you to to do so at this time. Okay. So all in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed or abstaining? Okay. Thank you Dr. Lilliston. Yep. Okay, just a few things but let's go ahead and do first and second for the um calendars for March and April. First and second for calendars. >> First and second. Second. Put him down for first. We do have a long long gap between the this meeting and our next meeting which is the 27th of April. So we have a wide open calendar for um committees. We've got

157personnel. We'll do that one it's always easy. April 27th, 6:00 p.m. Um finance I was thinking around you guys tell me but I was thinking maybe around the 13th. You guys have you check your schedules. That's for me. 8:00? Yep, 13th. My only problem with 8:00 meetings is the time line that I'm on the west coast. Yeah, that's super early. Probably just be getting in that time. >> would you want? I mean, do you want to check your calendar? We can get circle back. Okay. Can I actually reschedule back because I just looked and I have a doctor's appointment on the 13th. Can we go to the next week? Does anytime later that week, the 15th, 16th, 20th Well, you already took the 20th, 21st, 22nd. 15th, perfect. Yep. 15th. Good. Vicky is the 20th.

1588:00 Policy? Time is that? 8:00 8:00 Drew, can you hear us? Policy April 10th 8:00 April 10th at 8:00 Yes, that works. And then Drew, while you're there, government and community relations, John. I'll let John take lead on that and I I can just say yes or no. I need a I need a microphone for this, probably. Yes. Dr. Treese How's a How's the day 9:00 a.m. for you? 9:00 a.m. something like that? I mean I don't have any travel currently scheduled, so I could be pretty flexible, I think. The 8th, Drew. Wednesday the 8th at 8:00 a.m. Yeah, that works. I think that's it. All in favor? Any opposed or abstaining? Going to request a first and a second to accept the earlier special Sorry, the violence and vandalism report. >> Accepted it. The

159violence and >> that we did earlier that we didn't >> it. We never accepted it. >> Community first and second. It's second to the order. I second. I second. I said I second. >> We're making you Aw. Somebody help her out. All in favor? Any Anyone abstaining abstaining or It's okay. But we've lost them. It it it does matter. >> getting them. Um a few new business items to go over. Um We just This is mostly for for the board at large. We will be having in May's meeting a presentation from Mary Ann Freeman who's our field rep from NJBSA. She's going to do an update on our self-eval. Um Pam and I have already reviewed it and had some discussions about um what our hopes are in terms of moving the board forward, but

160we'll have that at our next meeting. Um our proposal coming out of that is um to have an ad hoc committee um to implement some of the recommendations in but overall largely positive and um Pam and I were noting, you know, we've had a season of change with um folks leaving and coming on the board. So, it is you know in a perfect time to think newly about some of the things that we um do and set actual goals um which we haven't done in quite a season. So, that will come after our May meeting. Um and then um I think that's it. I'll ask um Dr. Lilliston, anything you want to add? Not as it relates to that. Okay. All righty. Any other new business items? I have one more new business item. Um

161so, Ms. Cotter and Dr. Stile-Ryan and I had the opportunity to attend the Hopewell Township Youth Advisory Board meeting in February. Um and it was fantastic to meet with that advisory board full of really talented students, one of whom is here with us tonight. So, thank you Emil for coming. Um and they shared with us results from a survey that they had done looking at um mental health and wellness within the high school. Um they sent a survey out to students. They asked them questions about their mental wellness. Um they asked them questions about sort of sources of stressors. And they also asked questions specifically related to homework and the amount of homework that students are doing. Um so, coming out of this survey, um they wanted to propose an intervention within the high school

162and potentially within the district, which would be implementing more Hopewell Nights Out. So, for those who are unfamiliar with these, um they are nights without homework where students can engage in wellness activities or maybe community service activities or um something else that allows them to sort of relax and de-stress. Um and so, we saw this presentation. Um Ms. Riley was in the room with us, which was fantastic because that's not really within the jurisdiction of the board specifically because really we're um our jurisdiction is passing policy and and budget. Um the next steps there were for them to coordinate with Ms. Riley to bring this in front of other principals and administrators and to discuss sort of the logistics of of what this would look like. Um once that's resolved and they have some clear

163next steps there, we've invited them to to come to the Board of Education meeting and to give us an update. So, very excited for um you all to see that. I don't know um Hope or Amanda if you have anything to add. It's always exciting when we get to visit our kiddos in in action. All right, moving on. I'm going to move into our last public comment this evening. And just a reminder, members of the public are invited to address the Board of Education 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 a In response to your comment comments, excuse me, the Board of Ed may respond or direct the superintendent to do so. The Board may also opt

164to take the matter up at a future meeting so that the matter is researched by the district administration. With that, public comments are now open. Sylvia Kosciusko, Pennington Borough. Um I just have uh one question on the Freedom to Read Act if you could clarify because I think I heard two different things. Um one person said that only a parent or a caregiver, a student or a teacher could bring a complaint, but Mr. Kapadia said it could come from the community. So, I I think I need a little clarification on that. I understand you don't want people coming from Pennsylvania or Texas, but a taxpayer living in the Hopewell School District who may not have children here currently, maybe they've graduated or they're not in school yet. Um it seems restrictive to not allow them

165to to bring that. Um my second uh is what we were talking about with PILOTs. Uh uh It's an empty room. Obviously, we're not making very much headway in getting people to understand this issue or they're just thinking they're not going to be heard. And to be honest, tonight was probably the first time I think I heard board members speak honestly about PILOTs. And I thank you for that. So, I have a suggestion. Um yes, it's a legislative issue. Can the board encourage the Hopewell Township committee members to come to a public meeting where we will not be constrained by the 3-minute rule and the inability to have any feedback. I have talked in front of the public uh comment time at the Hopewell Township. Um there's no rebuttal. It's 3 minutes and you have

166two opportunities, the same as here. it doesn't work. Can you have Verlina Reynolds and all our other representatives come for some type of a community open round table? We need to get this out in the open. Um Seth, you're here. Mercer Me can help. PTOs can help. Everybody can help. We all have to make this a community initiative and I just am asking you to please do that. Thank you. So, thank you for all we're still Um, I just have one quick thing to say. First of all, thank you to the three members of the board Can you provide your name and municipality? >> I'm Emil Backus, Hopo Borough. So, I just wanted to thank the people who the three board members who did show up to our meeting in in late February. I think

167that that was a great first step for us in learning what we need to do next and having you guys as well as Miss Riley there to kind of hear what we've been doing throughout the years was really solid. I had one question just for clarification about the library materials as well. So, I totally agree with with with trying to limit people from outside of the community making suggestions and complaints to to how we handle our library materials. My question related to that was there was a similar similar there was an there was an issue earlier in the school year involving what I believe is the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at Vo Valley Central High School and I from what I'm aware that complaint was made by somebody outside of the community and so what's

168the difference between a complaint like that and a complaint like library materials. Thank you. Any other public comment? Okay, seeing none. So, I can respond to the question from Miss Cosas. Thank you for bringing that up about the um individuals of vested interest. So, that's actually defined in state law. Um, it is not community members. I think that was a little bit of a I think that was a little bit of a misspeak there. Um, but it's defined as teaching staff who are employed by the school district, any parent or guardian of a student enrolled in the school district currently. Um, and then any student enrolled in the district. And it's written into state law. So, that's where that definition comes from. Um, I'll respond to the other one. Um, so in terms of the

169Fellowship of Christian Athletes, I received a lawsuit a threat of a lawsuit from uh the Freedom from Religious Religion Organization who has deep lawyer pockets and they were challenging uh the way we were instituting the the club here, which says that we cannot have outside people run a religious club of any sort. They can exist within a school a public school. However, they need to be run by the students and the adult staff member who's there is just there to ensure that everyone's safe and they leave and they get home to their parents. Um, I'm not sure who complained, but it probably was somebody internally who did that. Somebody who does go to school here or is part of our community. But, the bottom line is I got the lawsuit. I went to our the

170board's attorney actually, who said, "No, you are not following regulations. You cannot have someone from the outside come and supervise a club." So, what's happening now is we're work work working through the lawyers of everyone to try to come up with something that works for all of the all of us. The organization, making sure we're within the rules of of the way religious clubs have to run in public schools. Um, but also making sure that we don't get ourselves involved in a lawsuit that we will lose cuz we're not supposed to be doing that. So, we're still working through that and hopefully we can come to a resolution, but that's not something that Hopewell came up with. It's It's really something that we were doing that wasn't wasn't lawful. So, thanks for asking. That's a

171good question. Can I just quickly comment on one thing? Is that okay? >> sure. I would Yeah, I just I was going to just comment on um Ms. Costa's suggestion about a public forum. That would be lovely. We We always invite. Um but I also hear extending that invitation beyond our region regional um communities. So, um we we can probably take that to committee um the government relations committee and talk about that. Yeah, I'll just go one step further and I'll just say as an elected official here that I would encourage getting every other mayor from all the towns and all the public officials into an open forum and having a discussion about it even if it is at a local level and I would hope that Seth you put that in the in Mercer

172Me if you'd like to that I'm publicly encouraging us to do it because I think it's necessary and needed, but I'll get off my soapbox now. Can we do it at your house? Put that in Mercer Me. Okay. With that, we're going to close public comment number two and move on. I need a first and second to move us into executive session. Motion. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Um there will be no action taken, but we will be discussing um HIB and also superintendent contracts, yeah. All right.