001Okay. I call to order the April 29th, 2025 meeting of the High Point Regional High School Board of Education. Please stand for the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. [Music] Open Public Meetings Act statement. The New Jersey Open Public Meetings Law is 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 Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date, time, and place thereof posted at the Augusta, Branchville, and Sussex Post offices and notice sent
002to the New Jersey Herald. the Sunday Herald and the clerk of the burrows of Branchville and Sussex and townships of Frankfurt, Lafayette, and Wantage. Mission statement: High Point Regional High School in partnership with staff, family, and community is dedicated to the quest for individual excellence. By fostering high standards of achievement, we prepare students to become responsible and productive members of a diverse society. [Music] We'll wait a second for roll call this Mr. Dunn present. M pres longberg present. Miss Orstein is not here. Miss Palis here. Miss Schuman here. Mr. Van Stone here. Miss Wise here. Dr. Ripper here. And we have uh a motion will now be made that High Point Regional High School uh Board of Education enter executive session to provide an update on legal personnel and negotiation items which are exempt from
003public participation pursuant to New Jersey Public Law 1975, Chapter 231, Oakland Public Meetings Act. Any discussions held by the board which need not remain confidential will be made public when appropriate. minutes of the executive session will not be disclosed until the need for confidentiality no longer exists. The board will reconvene in public session in person and virtually at the conclusion of the executive session. It is not anticipated that any action will be taken. Uh I'll make that motion. Second. Second. All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. May I have a motion to return to public session? In a second. All in favor? I may see none. We are back in public session. Moving on to our agenda items. Approval of minutes from the regular meeting minutes of March 17, 2025 and executive session minutes of March
00417, 2025. I will make the motion to accept those. Can I have a second? Second. Any discussion, comments, corrections? Miss Longberg? Yes. Miss Wise? Yes. Mr. Van, yes. Miss Gaul, yes. Miss Schuman, yes. Mr. Diaz, yes. Yes, Mr. Palette. Yes, Mr. Dunn. Yes. That brings us to our first public comments on agenda items only. In accordance with the open public meetings act, we'll open the public comments for agenda items only. At this time, each speaker should state his or her name and address. You will have three minutes to address the board, which will be timed by myself. We will limit this section to no longer than 45 minutes. Please be respectful and mindful that your comments are being recorded. And as usual, we have two means to address the board. one in person and the
005other to our posted email address on our virtual platform. Anything there? Nope. Nothing virtual. No comments from anyone in the room. I have a motion to close public comments. Motion in a second. Second. All in favor? I oppose. Okay, great. That brings us to presentations. First up, Dr. Good evening, gentlemen. How are you? Thanks for being here. Good evening everyone. The uh presentation of a budget is not always the most cintillating experience. Try to make it right, but sometimes we're good, sometimes we're see how it goes this evening. But um as you are aware, the state of New Jersey uh several years ago, about eight years ago, changed the manner in which they fund education. And certain regions of the state have suffered uh state aid cuts. Ours approximately $2.75 million over that period of
006time. And it has caused some hardships to many districts in the county in particular, except for one. One has experienced about over I think 11 million increase. Quite shocking. The one thing with education is that if you're going to utilize more money each year, you have to have a long-term plan. If you load up the brakes truck and just dump money into a school at the beginning of the year, there's no plan for that school. You might as well just burn it for fuel because you can only turf so many fields. You can only buy so many Chromebooks. Unless you have a systematic plan to utilize that money so that the trickle down effect impacts student outcomes, it really is an inefficient system. Nevertheless, that's the system in which we've been working for the last
007eight years and it has harmed our local community. Thankfully, we've had a plan the board and and we have implemented a plan over the last eight years that has effectively given us a nice parachute with that $2.8 $88 million in reductions. And there's been a number of reasons that's that we've been able to do that. We do know that some of our neighbors have had a more difficult time accepting and dealing with those state aid cuts. And uh we were one of two districts in the county that once again suffered state aid cuts this particular year. The other uh school was I believe still water. Everyone else got more money. And the reason that for that is all speculation because the state will not re release their what's referred to as S2 the funding formula
008in spite of the fact it's been operated by many districts around the state they have not released it and if they did I'm not quite sure that anyone would understand it anyway I'm sure somebody nevertheless so we find ourselves I lost my train of thought oh so let's start talking about the budget that we are presenting here this evening works All right, this is this is typical what needs to be said the budget what the budget is funding right effectively what we want to do is provide our kids with a worldclass life education social emotional athletic experience we want to as I say this to people all the time anytime I get to speak publicly our job is to uh inspire kids to love learning and inspire kids to love themselves and if we can
009provide them with the resources to do that and in the environment to do so and the climate to do so or the culture in which to do so we've done our jobs but we must fund that to the greatest extent that our community is able to bear and I think that that's something that we have demonstrated over the last 15 years at 12 I don't I I can't speak for before because I really didn't understand it before when I was sitting here as director of curriculum I presumed much and do little so I'm hopeful that I it's the opposite now anyway so you can read that and see what it supports typically Now, here is a breakdown of the expenses. Every year, when you look, we're basically about 70% fixed cost of salaries and benefits.
010You'll see that this chart has 50 or 69% in. Is there a pointer on this? This green thing. They don't do that anymore, do they? No screen. Now, I know do this with the dog at home. My kids. So we got we got uh what is that 69% last year I think was 70%. We're typically anywhere from 68 to 72% generally 69 or 70. But the reason I bring this up is this pie chart leaves very little discretionary income by which to cut $2.7 million. You don't have $2.7 million worth of clay. You don't have $2.7 million worth of wood. You don't have $2.7 million worth of Bunson burners. So, these are discretionary spending. And what I want to point out is things like transportation, special education tuition, vocational uh school tuition are non-discretionary that
011are going up exponentially. The transportation costs at High Point are not low. We have the largest sending district, the largest um geographic region in the state. Katini once presumed to have that. they've been subsequently corrected. So we have the largest area in the state that we drive kids around which requires we have buses that can handle that requires that we spend for purchase services to multiple uh transportation companies to be able to manage this significant expenditure and the transportation costs are skyrocketing year overyear. Now this is non-discretionary. There was once a year when they were trying to cut the budget and people talked about getting rid of courtesy busing. You know what courtesy busing is? The law says that anyone who lives within 2 miles can walk. Could you imagine if we told everybody who
012lived within two miles, sorry, your kid has to walk. We're not providing a bus anymore. Forget it. They would storm the brereech and it would be tar and feather because the roads around here are not equipped to provide for the safety of children to walk on them particularly in the winter. It's absurd. And yet there was people who were discussing let's get rid of courtesy busing. We won't discuss that here at least not while I'm here. But nevertheless, these are costs that we don't necessarily think about that like uh special ed tuition. There was a there's there's a law that stipulates that an outofd district tuition private school has the ability to backtrack two years and charge the district in September of the subsequent year from two years ago and say you know what we
013got audited and we only charged you 112,000 it cost us 172,000 to educate your kid you owe us 60,000 we don't get two years to pay that 60 grand, we get maybe two monthsish. And so this happens every year. And if it's a significant amount of money, which it was this year over $373,000, it presents a hardship. I'm just giving you context of what happens with the school budget and vocational school uh tuition. I love tech. Always thought it was a great opportunity for our kids. In no way is this a castigation upon what they provide. But we pay some $2,750 for every student who chooses to go to Sussex Tech. Now, it's in our best interest to provide the best opportunity for those kids so that they see High Point as their stepping stone
014to being successful in life. So, it's up to us provide a product that draws them in such that the number of students who choose Tech are reduced year-over-year. We've seen that. We were at a high of about 222 students several years ago. We're down to 150 students last year or this year choosing to go to tech. Now again, that's not anything against tech, but it is um it is a a cost that puts a hardship on our community. All right. So, really what we're talking about is how you cut $2.8 million, Scott? Well, we're cutting supplies, materials, and texts. And we're cutting purchase services. What is that? Well, when you need to plow the driveways, that's a purchase service. All right. When you need to provide OTPT with for for various kids, that's a purchase
015service. We need to send kids out evaluations. Those are purchase services. So, really, where's the meat of what the cuts are? We've had to be strategic in salaries and benefits. But this number here is going up as well. And everybody's aware that the benefits cost a little more now. Health benefits. Yikes. All right. All right. Budgeted appropriations, general fund uh 11 and 12. This is the proposal based upon what it was last year. So, our overall budget is increasing by 1.57%. $385,000. Now, you can say, well, that's that's a considerable chunk. I I understand, but we have to I'll get the tax levy in a minute, but uh our healthc care benefits increased by $289,750 this year. Uh 80% of the tax levy would be of which is 2% would be taken up by health
016benefits just to give you context. All right. So when the health, as a matter of fact, the state average, ours went up 11% this year, which think that's high. And this higher that we've had in recent years, 11% is higher than we've seen recently, couple years ago, and it was 4%. Wow, that was pretty good. We joined something called the SHIP, the school health insurance fund, several years ago that what it does is it puts us in a group. Um, who's be I'm easily confused. Sorry. I don't think I can teach today because in the middle of teaching kids I wasn't I didn't look at it. So, um Oh, yeah. We're in the health uh the school health insurance fund which what it does is it lowers the the peaks and valleys. So instead of
017going to 23% down to 2% we stay anywhere between 4 to 11% 11% this year being the highest we've ever seen. But many school districts who are in the state fund exceeded 20%. And so the states address that this year. All right. Anyway, um and you can see that uh federal funding dropped. By the way, this is another interesting thing that no one talks about in New Jersey. There is a lot going on between the NJ DOE and the US DOE. The NJ DOE is a part of a consortium of of states that assuming the US DOE or the US government to state that uh they can't take away grant funding whether and that's listed here special revenue grants ID USSA esser is no longer applicable per because there's some concern that the federal government
018is going to reduce funding and so New Jersey has has has told the school districts not to sign a document that the US DOE has sent me and said you will sign this. The N and NJ DOE says you won't sign that. So somebody from the US DOE says well where is that? Look here's the deal. I work for the NJ not the US DOE and I know some people say well how can you do that? Aren't you patriotic? It's not about politics. I do what I'm under the authority of the NJ. So it was not signed and submitted. We'll jump off that bridge when we get there. All right. So our total increase of our overall budget of 24.9 million is 383,000 or 1.53%. Okay, here's the revenues. This is where we're getting the
019money from. Tax levy general fund, as you can see, is going up 3.23%. So we could say, I thought there was a 2% cap. What are you doing? You try to slip one f slip one past us. We are not using something called bank cap. This year the state of New Jersey because their insurance costs have exceeded 20% there is special dispensation for a one-time only maximum adjustment for health care costs this year of $219,000 which we are utilizing. So it's not bank cap. Now, for those of you who say yes, but that's 3.23%. You're really not being fair to us. You should have cut. I endeavor I it is my belief that 3.23% is exceedingly um frugal and there are likely most of the districts in the county going to far exceed 3.2. I
020don't know that definitively. I didn't know where Shader Sanders was going to get drafted the other night and I don't know where they're going to come in on in 3.23%. But I do believe it will be it will exceed 3.23%. Because the county has suffered for so long and they need to recoup some of the money that they had to pay back particularly places like a Paccom which I don't know how they haven't even boarded up the windows yet which they may be doing as we speak. I'm not quite sure. All right. Um here's here's something that we don't talk about enough that has helped us immeasurably. Tuition of Monu. Now this may have taken 15 years off of my life. I'm not quite sure yet. Nevertheless, the very fact that we still have these
021kids coming here has enabled us to bring in revenue that we otherwise would not have realized. And that $1.3 million anticipated and budgeted for fiscal 26 is a lifaver. And we can see the number of students that we're getting from Monu is increasing year-over-year. So, that's a very that's a big positive. All right. Budgeted fund balance. What does that mean? I've talked about this in the past. One of the reasons why we've been able to manage these cuts is we are exceedingly frugal during the school year so as to end the year with something called a surplus. So when when we want to buy more wood or we I don't want to use wood all the time. When we want to do certain expenditures and I say no to the administrators and they store my
022office with pitch works and torches, I have to end up with something called budget and fund balance so that I can fund the next budget so that we're not going to bank the cap. All right, school choice increased a little bit. Um, we're seeing reductions in multiple areas. You're going to say, "But Scott, why is state aid dropping 108,000?" It's very complicated because it's when we I thought it was only dropping 44,000. What are you talking about? There are multiple areas in which it's dropping. This area of 108,000 is inclusive of all the areas in which state aid is dropping. Equalization 8, I think, is the one that's dropping with uh the 40, you know, is dropping the most. As a matter of fact, the 44,000, which is the overall inclusive of all those numbers.
023All right. So, what am I saying here? Um the overall budget going up 1.353 the tax levy going up 3.23%. All right here's uh a list. This is what I try to give context every year what we have done in the past uh so that everyone understands that state 8 we've dropped by almost $2.8 $8 million over the last 12 years. A reduction of 53% an average each year loss of state aid of 231,000. And I know I'm reading it. Cardinal sin of all powerpoints the mercen reads. Anyway, so the average per change is 443%. The average increase for us in spite of that 4.43% each year reduced in state aid. The tax levy that we've averaged over 12 years is 1.35% demonstrating I believe some semblance of fiscal responsibility by the high point board
024of ed and the total general fund which means what we spend each year has increased each year 85%. Obviously, you can see that. So, what did I include on the bottom here? Not included in this chart is the tuition fees that have that of tote, which have amounted to $3.3 million over the last 12 years. Inclusive of the state aid cuts of $2.78 million. Highpoint has had to find when they otherwise would not have had to in the houseion days of years gone by. $6.1 million we've had to find. And yet the general fund has only increased 1.9. So effectively what we've done, $4.2 million we've had to find, $4.2 million in cuts we've had to find to be able to maintain the excellence that we endeavor to provide to our students and our community
025at High Point. All during that time, we have renovated both gyms. We have put in new boilers. We have put in new lockers. We have put in storage space. We've put in seating for senior lunches. We have put in HVAC, brand new, massive HVAC units on the roof. We've put in HVAC units in the upstairs uh the second floor. There are other things that escape me. John, what am I missing? That's the big one. All right. So, we have maintained the facility as good stewards of the facility in spite of having to find $4.2 million along the way. And when we went out to repent for that 4.2 We've never gone out to referendum for that $4.2 million. We used it as budgeted fund balance so as to put it in uh and it um
026responsibly funding capital and maintenance reserve all along so that we can use state grants, federal grants to be able to maintain the facilities. The only thing that I feel badly about is we have not turfed the fields and we're not going to go to go to Len. Where is that coming from? Are you kidding me? It's all turfed. It's gorgeous. I don't know where it happened. I don't know what happened. Or go to Mount Olive, even better. They got like a dome there. Yikes. All right. Here's the tax levy history over that same period of time as about which I spoke. demonstrating again the earlier years when we were dropping student enrollment. We are demonstrating fiscal responsibility, trying to demonstrate to the community. We're trying to drop and then what happens? State aid cuts. Yikes.
027But still, we've done our bests. Again, this is the average per year, which if you advertise that out is significant savings than if you had just gotten 2% each year. I know I'm rambling on it. You're losing interest as I speak. All right. Now, you're thinking, well, what does that have to do with my taxes? Municipalities estimated valuations. You see that branch apparently did not have any evaluation this year. And so, the corporate uh township uh valuations of property are listed there. Wantage got uh went up 5 million. You can see this. You can see there. Why do I put this up there? Because it has to do with how much money you are paying if you own a house in one of these townships. What does the funding factor? What goes into how much
028taxes you pay? It has to do the total valuation of the community in which you live. It has to do the number of students that come from your particular community. And it has to do with the tax levy drawn from the school. If there's any other variables, I don't know them and no one's telling. All right. And this is how it will increase that $576,000 which I said is the tax increase. Um this is the difference for each municipality. And that's just gibberish. What does it mean if you own a $200,000 house? You live in Branchville. Your valuation didn't go up. I just showed you the valuation of Branchville didn't go up. State stat. So why then would they have to be paying more than anyone? You want to tell me? More students. Very good.
029More kids coming from Branchville. So, they got to pay a bigger portion. As you can see, Sussex obviously their their uh number of students dropped. Okay. Why is Monu on there? Because they are ascending district. They are not a municipality in the original charter. Therefore, they do not pay taxes to us. They pay tuition fees to us. the clicker will not work anymore. So that's it. Any questions? Um you see that the state funding has been cut 53%. What has been the percentage drop population over those 12 years? That's an excellent question. Um we were at approximately 1,250 at the time. We're approximately 800ish. So I would suggest we what's that for? What's it 33%. So that state cut has not has exceeded our drop student population. Anything else? And also not only the state
030a cer equalization or whatever the transportation and special ed have stayed flat even though the expenses for those have increased. years. It's uh look, it's it's sometimes a shell game. You're trying to manage uh diminishing resources and provide uh a worldass life experience to kids, but you're also trying to manage that within the context of what the community can can bear. And that's a challenge. You you you have to balance that. what can the community uh provide to be able to provide that worldclass education and that really is the balancing act that we take very very seriously and I think the numbers demonstrate that. Listen, I greatly appreciate your uh your patience and your listening to me. You seem to be somewhat engaged and I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Again, numbers are not
031always for at least for people like me who are humanities based the most similated thing behind those numbers. A story. There's a story. Hopefully that I blow up that story out to some degree. Thank you. Thank you. Um Mr. Levansky, you arrived just in time. We're going to uh turn to you as speaker of the house to give us an update on activities in student council. Thank you. I'm going to have to do this on my phone today. Understood. Just give me one second. Sure. [Music] So to begin, obviously, good evening. Uh I'm sorry for my late arrival at the track meet. Um, we won. Um, now get on to the actual thing here. Uh, for our larger student council, our big council, we did a rock painting activity, uh, on April 16th, Wednesday, and
032we also did a spirit week before the spring break. So, we had pajama day on the Monday, the end of the week, and then we had a throwback Tuesday. Uh, so you were The idea was to wear clothes that was from the past. Um for Wednesday it was a wear pink day. Um it was a reference to the movie murals. Uh for Thursday we had Hawaiian day which we provided a large sum of Hawaiian lays to the body. Uh it was 600 lays that were passed out into the front of the school. Um students are coming up. And we also had on Tuesday a Easter egg hunt in the courtyard, back courtyard. Um there were over 200 eggs uh hidden on the courtyard grounds and there were prizes for certain special eggs like a golden
033egg or a football egg. There was a yeah, like I said, a golden egg which contained a $10 gift card to Wawa. Uh there was um a prize for the largest number of eggs gathered. Uh there were a each student that found a special egg received a chocolate Easter bunny and there were 11 eggs with an X on the bottom that were hidden which um provided a large box of candy as a prize. We also had a class of 2025 swag table set up there too with some um candy and little senior class of 2025 memorabilia. We have like little cups or keychains. Uh we also have teacher apprecion uh teacher appreciation week um treats coming up on the 7th of May. And for our formal events, we have for the class of 2025, we
034have the senior deer cruise on May 23rd and we have pavement for senior uh yard signs due on the second and for the class of July 26. We have the junior prom on May 22. That's all I have for tonight. Thank you. Don't feel Don't feel obligated to stay. Thank you. Um, next we have the principal report. John, tell me everybody. Great job. Boys and girls, both. All right. Um, thank you everybody. Good evening again. We just like to give some updates on some of the events that we have going on next week coming up. Kyle covered a lot of them. don the class of 2025 um is sponsoring student council sponsors a celebration of class of 2025 each day on the 25th obviously the 25th is during spring break so before spring break the
035activity we was talking about was for seniors only in our senior courtyard it's amazing what um Easter egg hunts will do um we had about 100 seniors out there lined up ready to go to go the rules about no pushing no shoving no tackling um but it was that's what he's talking about so each month we're trying to celebrate class 125 in a different way and that was the activity lead by the sponsor by student council. Tomorrow evening we have our honor society induction ceremony which is a combined ceremony that we've been working forward towards for many years. Um and the reason we've done that with all of our honor societies and I'll read through some of the lists here is um parents have a lot of nights out um kids have a lot of
036nights out by what Kyle is talking about. So we used to have about six to eight different award ceremonies for honor societies. Um and we've slowly tried to the course of time get them to be into one night. So parents come for one evening. Um it takes some time to streamline everything. But um it does make it a little nicer for our parents and students to be able to attend that. Otherwise, April, May, it's you know six or so activities because many of them are in multiple honor societies. Um so tomorrow night we'll have about 100 students that will be recognized through our honor societies. the NHS, the National Honor Society is the global umbrella honor society, right? Um, and then there's multiple ones underneath them. So, Mr. Miner is Mr. Miner is our NHS
037um adviser. Mrs. Emma and Mrs. Aloo is our business NHS adviser. Mrs. Carol Matthews is our foreign language NHS adviser. Mr. Baker is our science NHS adviser. Like I said, there's multiple ones. Um, Mr. Slain is our music um NHS adviser. Miss Yakarino, Miss Mrs. Regar our math NHS advisors, um, Miss Loyal, Mr. Darlo, our social studies NHS advisors, and Mice um is our art and Dr. Zerba is psychology. So over the course of time, those organizations have um worked with volunteer adviserss to develop their chapters um and honor students for areas that they are um you know, really really passionate about. Many, like I said, are in multiple areas um and not just one. So we're going to honor them tomorrow night um at 7 o'clock in the auditorium. Um, additionally, um, we have
038the master schedule is continuing to run and continue to work as we're getting ready for next year's schedule. Hard to believe that we come back to spring break and we're in May and I take the exams, a lot of things that happen, uh, very quickly. Um, I say to those that are not in education, September and October and May and June are the book ends, right? The chapters get read in the beginning and the middle. Um, but really those two book ends are really important for the opening and the closing of the school year and the turning of of those chapters. We also have our eighth grade picnic which is another transition program coming up. Um that's set for June 3rd. I'm actually meeting with the send district principles tomorrow to confirm that date because
039we work with all their calendars. So we set a date but things come up um as we look at those regions and those districts that are coming in and we will try to work what's best for that. That is really a nice transitional step. We have our eighth grade tours in the fall. We have eighth grade open house. We spoken about it in January. This is really more of a an open icebreaker activity. Get to know students, get to know mentors here. High Point, familiar faces, see the clubs and activities. Um, and that way when they come in um in September for the uh 9th grade orientation nth graders now, that's kind of like the final step of their journey of transition. And then multiple steps obviously nth grade year. Um, our senior scholarship dinner
040is the 21st. Like I said, May is busy at 6:00. Um, that's always a fantastic night. It's at the Red Tail Lodge. We have probably over 300 guests there um or so. And it is a a really fantastic night. I don't have the final numbers yet of what the amount of um scholarships that will be given by our community members, but it's um every year pushing more and more um donations from them. So, we're very grateful and appreciative of that. Um as Kyle was speaking about, we saw Virginia Prom the next night on May 22nd. That's in Bill Valenza, which is a place that last year as well. That's in go Middletown um across the way. It's become very very difficult to find junior prom areas. Um, one of the challenges that we have is
041anytime you're over a certain number, 150 is about the number. Um, it's very difficult to find that. Most places now, especially postco, do not want to do proms. Um, except for a Tuesday or Wednesday night. That's difficult. Thursday's hard enough as it is. Um, because they do weddings, right? So, weddings obviously are more advantageous for them. So, more and more difficult. Um, next year it's going to be down at Mountain Lakes at a new establishment that um, we found down there. So, um, our dinner cruise is the next evening looking for anything that's busy week. Um, and we're going cruising around. finally hawking and enjoying that. Again, one of the best activities for our seniors. Looking forward to that. We have a large number of seniors signed up for that. With that, wrapping up for
042signups pretty soon. A couple key um student accomplishments I'd like to speak about uh briefly is we able to announce our validictorian. Ashton Ritson is our valadictorian. We like to um have them come in once that's finalized at the end of the last marking period um and have them call their parents and it's a pretty cool thing with their counselor and surprise them. Um the parents said, "Why are you calling me?" Because they want a speaker phone. Um then they get the good excited news. And auditorian is Gabe Rinstein. Um so we're very proud of them and all their accomplishments. And it's not always about um the recognition, but when you work so hard for something like that, I think it really is important that they are recognized and elevated. In addition, um we had
043another student that um I think this is the first time ever um in a eight day span he received his Eagle Scout um in a court of honor that I went to over in Stannison which was really really nice. Um and then the following Friday Dr. I got to sit with him and his family for the superintendent round table award. Um so Alex Wowski um received both of those things and I believe in my time um and I've been to a lot of Eagle Scouts that's the only time that has ever happened for a student. So I said Alex what we doing next week? What's going on? because we're so busy. Um humble um student he has decided on a doctor I know he's in to Virginia Tech as his final choice um for some
044highlevel engineering like NASA related stuff that nobody really understands. Um he tried to explain to me I said I have no idea what you're talking about. Just being honest right. So that is a cool thing. We also have some students that were um recognized just as of today for um all state choir. So, All State Mix Choir, Brley Paluso, Grace Mackoy, and Charles were recognized for all state mix choir. All state treble choir, Gabrielle D and Leah Climus. Um, also additionally, Charles, who is in the all state mix, um, received the eighth ranking in the entire state in base one. So, that is a pretty prestigious that's more like you look at athletics for all state, right? Um, that's higher level than that, right? So, be in the top eight aspects of it. and Briley,
045Grace, and Charles are going to perform in Atlantic City at NJPAC um in November. And also Leah Guy will perform at Atlantic City at NJ back in February. So um there's really cool things for them to come. Those are all underassman looking forward to next year. And then last but certainly not least, our bring change to mind, which is a again a volunteer club that was started by two of our counselors, Mrs. Podon, and Mr. Picario with students about mental health, raising awareness for mental health. Um they're sponsoring activities May 12th through 16th. Very fitting time. It's during the the tail end of AP exams, a lot of extra stress happens for our students. Um, for us as adults as well, we talk about AP, we talk about college, we talk about career, all those
046things that start to really come to fruition. Um, so they're going to be sponsoring wellness and mental health awareness activities during your lunch during that time period. Um, if it's okay, Mr. I'll switch over to athletics. Um, some of these things I did think maybe I spoke about want to make sure that if I did that, I do that again. Uh Dylan Masters was selected as the National Football Foundation scholar athlete. We honored him back in March. Um which is a really cool thing to to see that was down on Morristown. Um High Point is going to host the following um charity events in the spring. Spring season is only a month from completing already. It's crazy, but it is. U baseball softball is going to do the second annual Docs Classic on May 18th.
047Looking for a fun time. That's here right at the school on the field and they do a lot of great job with that. and girls lacrosse will be having to play paint game on Mar excuse May 12th at 6:30 and that's against Irvine I think. So again a nice way to bring awareness not about the dollar signs that they collect but it's about bringing awareness to individuals or for um group efforts. In addition was selected as their NJSIA. There's two different ones right athlete and Danny's going to be recognized at the Pine Barons Pine Fanner down um on May 19th. So we're looking at forward to that. You had the NJSA scholar athlete, right? And you had the CIS county pass along scholar athlete. They're two different things. Um, and they're two different um recognitions
048for us. Ashley Vincson, who we spoke about before, as a valor, was our scholar athlete. We recognized her in March as well at Lake Mohawk. Um, and last but certainly not least, we had additional we think wrestling's over. Wrestling is never over, especially at High Point. There's a little bit of a tradition here wrestling. I don't know if you know that. Um, but we've spoken a lot about a couple different female particular wrestlers that have had tremendous career ready. Um, Ella Palo is um a sophomore here at I Point. Ella Shen Greece. Ellen Grease is is a freshman. Both of them were state champs um this year for girls. Um Ella, this is her second time and she's going for four, she told me. So, I'm holding to it. I don't think she's going to
049had a hard time getting there. But they also had a chance to um compete recently in the world the team. Uh so, it's U7 U7 team. um they're out west and they competed in that. Um Ella was a champion um and El received the third place final on aspect of it. So uh that's no joke when we talk about that level of competition. We we don't talk about athletes um at that level competition very often um here at High Point, but it's just in general. We don't have the opportunity to talk about two individuals um that have succeeded that much. So they're going to have opportunity to go on to Athens, Greece and compete at the next level of worlds which is a brutal phenomenal experience for a freshman and sophomore. So just again want
050to recognize them and all that they do. I think that's all the information that I have for this evening. Any questions? Thank you very much. And uh next is our curriculum instruction by Mr. Jameson. Good evening folks. We had a fantastic day at high today. Uh the New Jersey Department of Ed was here on a CQAC visit and most people don't express joy uh when they get audited for QAC, but to be honest with you, it was just a fantastic opportunity for our leadership team and some of our staff to um present uh the fantastic things that we're doing. We're so proud of um our efforts to um increase and sustain student excellence and that was really demonstrated today. I think the uh county office of the DOE was uh overwhelmed by the um some
051of the the measures we've taken to try and improve. Now, we were put on an improvement plan as I think every uh district in the county was and our improvement plan required us to focus on four things. ELA test scores, math test scores, graduation rate, and chronic absenteeism. In all four areas, we have already uh proven significant improvement. So, to have a midyear review, and the numbers are already in that we're making uh very considerable progress in those areas was very affirming to to our efforts. Um, we will have to extend our improvement plan and that will be on next month's agenda. We'll talk more about that then. But it was um not a chance to um it was really just a chance to talk about best practices and have a um a half a
052day collaboration with with them and for our team to show what we're doing. So um it was an outstanding day. Um much of the data used to prove that we've grown comes from our annual performance report. And as of last week, the annual academic performance report for every school in every district in New Jersey is publicly accessible. Now, uh we will present ours in detail at next month's meeting. Um and we can show you where much of that growth that I just referenced um is can be documented. So, we look forward to that. Um a lot of it is testing. A lot of it is is uh data from assessments. And as Mr. child may mention May is a time for assessments. Um a week from actually this coming Monday and the following week, we
053will administer AP exams to um for 21 subjects. We will administer more than 350 assessments. Um and it's a very rigorous and important two-eek period. Then at the end of the month, we will administer the NJSLA in math, English, and science to freshman, sophomores, and juniors. So, um, we've got a lot of assessments, we've got a lot of data, and we've got a lot of indicators of, um, improvement and sustained excellence. Um, and we will talk, um, considerably more next month, um, about some of those data points. Um, any questions on any of that? Right. Just one other quick thing. Um all shook up was two weeks ago. Um and it was unbelievable. So uh we are very proud of our uh our programs and performing arts. Um is right at the top of the
054list of of great things that we do here um at High Point. So um see many of you shaking your heads. You have a chance to see it. Really great experience. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Okay, turn to our agenda. We have no other business. So, let's move to action items, curriculum, instruction, and technology. Okay, items 1 through three are faculty attendance for March, student attendance for March, and the suspension report for March with attachments. I'm going to move items 4 through 12 together. Item four is the harassment, intimidation, and bullying report for March 18 through April 29, 2025. Number five are the field trips. Uh, number six, professional development activities. Number seven, uh, the graduation date for the class of 2025, which will be Wednesday, June 18th at 6:00 p.m. Uh, number eight
055is the revised 2425 school calendar uh, reflecting a half-day schedule um, as listed on this um, agenda. Uh, number nine is the approval for the 202627 school calendar. Uh, number 10, our volunteers to attend the whale watch trip to Cape Cod. Um necessary background checks have been completed for most. There's ones pending. Uh number 11, it um is the approval and the uh the updated local education agency guidance for virtual remote instruction plan. Um and it there's an attachment for that. And number 12 is the voter registration law annual statement of assurance with an attachment. So making a motion seek to a second. Second. And any discussion? Miss G. Yes. Mr. Van Stone. Yes. Miss Lombberg, yes. Miss Wise, yes. Miss Palz, yes. Miss Diaz, yes. Miss Schuman, yes. Mr. Dunn, yes. Okay. Personnel. Um,
056Miss Orsy is not with us tonight, so I'll move items uh under personnel. I'll move item one separate. The one is a recommendation by the superintendent to accept with regret retirement notification uh from Steve Stefan McGrath, supervisor of buildings and grounds effective July 1st, 2025. I'll make that motion. I have a second. Second. Any discussion or comments? We just wish Mr. McGrath well. We appreciate his time here and uh just say Congratulations, Mr. Correct. Uh, Miss Palis, yes. Miss Diaz, yes. Miss Schuman, yes. Miss Gall, yes. Mr. Van Stone, yes. Miss Longberg, yes. Miss Wise, yes. Mr. Dunn, yes. And uh, item two, I'll move along. Is a recommendation by superintendent that the board accepts with regret the retirement notification from Carla Manuso, special education teacher, also effective July 1st, 2025. I'll make that motion.
057May I have a second? Second. Any comments? Congratulations uh from uh from the district and the board of ed and we wish you nothing but the best in your future endeavors. I echo that. Mrs. Yes. Mr. Van Stone. Yes. Miss Wise. Yes. Miss Longberg. Yes. Miss Diaz. Yes. Miss Pal. Yes. Miss Schuman. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Uh I will move remaining items seven through eight together. Three is a recommendation to approve the following individuals as substitutes for the remainder of the 2024 2025 school year pending required paperwork as listed. And four is a recommendation to approve the certificated and non-certificated staff members for the 2025 2026 year as listed in the attachments uh as shown. Item five is a recommendation to approve Denise Nicholas as a full-time pair professional aid for the remainder of the
0582024 2025 school year as listed. Uh item six is a recommendation to approve John Kenichi substitute teacher to supervise after school detention as listed. Item seven is a recommendation to approve an NJMLA FLA maternity child care leave of absence for employee 1277 as listed. And item eight is a recommendation to approve Nancy White as a home instructor for the remainder of the 2024 2025 school year. Uh I will make that motion. May I have a second? Second. Any questions or comments on any of those? Miss Schuman. Yes. Mia. Yes. Mr. Van Stone. Yes. Miss Palis. Yes. Miss Gall. Yes. Miss Wise. Yes. Miss Longer. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Uh, I guess I usually do extracurricular. So, I'll move items one through three together. Uh, one is a recommendation to accept a resignation resignation notification uh
059from Aaron Baker as volleyball coach effective immediately. Item two is a resation uh recommendation to accept a resignation notification from Kelly Reynolds as field head field hockey coach effected immediately. And item three is a recommendation to accept the resignation notification from James Elanian as the head marching band advisor effective June 30th, 2025. So I'll make that motion. May I have a second? Second. Uh any discussion or comments? Miss Wise, yes. Mr. Van Stone, yes. Miss Shiman, yes. Miss Palis, yes. Miss Diaz, yes. Miss Gaul, yes. Mr. Longberg. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. I'll move the remaining three items 4 through six. It is a recommendation to approve the boys soccer team to attend the Gettysburg team camp at Gettysburg College as listed. Uh there will be no cost to the board as they were responsible for
060their own transportation. Item five is a recommendation to approve uh July 3rd and August 7th of 2025 as a dates for physicals to be performed by the school doctor for the 2025 2026 sports season. Uh item six is a recommendation to approve an overnight trip for the competing members of the boys and girls track team to attend the NJSIA route to finals be held uh May 30th and 31st at Del High School. Uh if individuals qualify and make it to the finals, the cost of the hotel rooms will be at the following rates as listed. So I'll make that motion. May I have a second? Second. Any comments? Miss Palis? Yes. Miss Schuman? Yes. Mr. Van Stone? Yes. Miss Wise? Yes. Miss Longberg? Yes. Miss Diaz? Yes. Mr. Dunn? Yes. Uh moving along. No policy
061items, no negotiations items, action items, and no buildings and ground action items. So, finance, I would like to move items one through five uh in a block. Uh one is a recommendation to accept the report of the board secretary, business administrator for March 2025. Item two is a recommendation accept the report of the treasurer for March 2025. Item three is a recommendation to approve report transfers and minimum expense transfer report for March 2025. Item four is a recommendation to approve the payment of attached scheduled audited bills dated April 29th, 2025. Item five is a recommendation to accept the adult education agency account, athletic account, cafeteria account, construction account, schools petty uh principal penny cash account, scholarship account, school store, and student activities reconciliations for March 2025. So I make that motion. Can I have a
062second? Second. Any comments? Discussion. Mr. Van Stone. Yes. Miss Ball. Yes. Miss Longberg? Yes. Miss Wise? Yes. Miss Palis? Yes. Miss Schuman? Yes. M Diaz? Yes. Mr. Dunn? Yes. Okay. Item six. It relates to our proposed budget um resolution. It resolved that the board approves the adoption of the proposed school budget for the 2025 2020 school year as follows. And that entire section on that page is related to travel and related expense reimbursement. Um, I will skip that and read the resolution portion be resolved that the budget for the approved approved for the be approved for the 2025 2026 school year using the 2025 2026 state aid figures and the secretary to the High Point Regional High School Board of Education be authorized to submit the following budget to the Executive County Superintendent of Schools.
063And that table is exactly as was presented earlier by Dr. Ripley. Um so I won't read that. Uh be it resolved that the High Point Regional High School Board of Education approves the levy of general fund taxes for the 2025 2026 school budget to be $18,427,865. This budget addresses health and safety issues related to facility capital spending, student centered items, and program integrity and to advertise set budget uh tenative budget in the New Jersey Herald in accordance with the form suggested by the state department of education and according to law. I will make that motion. Second. Any comments? Are you making that fine there? We also posted post. Yeah, it will be posted post on our website as well. Um, we can leave the motion. It's fine. We'll take a call. Oh, okay. Uh, Mrs.
064Diaz, yes. Miss Palisad, yes. Miss Schuman, yes. Miss Gall, yes. Mr. Van Stone, yes. Miss Wise, yes. Longberg. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. Um, and I will remove I'll move the remaining. Well, let's move seven and eight together. Seven is a recommendation grant permission to the High Point Oops Camp to host a non-affiliated co-ed camp grade 3 through nine, which will run July 7th through July 10th. Uh and item eight is recommendation to grant permission to the high HP tennis camp and unaffiliated co-ed camp 9 which will run July 14th through July 16th as listed. Um I'll make that motion and have a second. Any comments or discussion on that? See none. Uh Mr. Diaz, yes. Miss Vall, yes. Miss Longberg, yes. Miss Wise, yes. Mr. Van Stone, yes. Miss Schuman, yes. Miss Palazette, yes. Mr.
065Dun, yes. Item nine is a very extensive resolution that Dr. Ripley does not want me to read for is a recommendation the board approves the following resolution. This relates to the leasing of a uh bus for the High Point Regional High School District. And the principal amount to be expected to be financed is $152,69940. Um basically we are it's a lease to purchase agreement. Okay. And um it is as as explained here. So I will make that motion. Second. Any discussion on our new bus lease? This is exactly as we have done in the past. We've done both. We've purchased a mound right also purchased and we were in need of a a new bus. We are consistently in need of new buses given as I had stated earlier the size of our 70 district
066that we have to have a constant eye on rotation of our bus fleet so as to be sure that we're constantly replacing those that exceed 150 to 200,000 miles that they put on in only a few years. Plus, it takes 18 months uh lead time to vote on this resolution and then to ultimately take possession of the vehicle. Wow. So, we'll see this 27. Okay. Have a roll call, please. Miss Schum. Yes. Miss Palis, yes. Mr. Van Stones, yes. Miss Diaz, yes. Miss Wise, yes. Miss Longberg, yes. Miss Gall, yes. Mr. Dunn, yes. And final item in finance. Uh, another resolution be resolved at High Point Regional. Upon the recommendation to superintendent, consultation with the interim school business administrator, approve the FSMC renewal with Mashio's Food Service Management Company for the 2025 2026 school year
067for a flat fee of $26,650. Uh, and further as listed there um, under that item. So, I will make that motion. I have a second. Second. Any discussion on that? I believe we were in the black this year. Yes. Not significantly, but much more so than we were previously. Over the last several years, we've been dipping closer and closer to break even and get into the red. Although we have acknowledged over the years that our purpose is not to make money on the backs of kids buying milk, euphemistically speaking. Uh it is however uh we have a responsibility not to dip into the red. So we made some adjustments that the uh the black is is more pronounced than in the past. But please don't misunderstand that it's not a significant amount of money. One
068of the things which we deal is and it's difficult because we have uh many students in a rears of lunch money but we cannot deny students the opportunity and the ability and the privilege of eating. So we manage that as a cost of doing business. Very good. Um no other comments. Miss Wise, yes. Miss Ball, yes. Miss Longberg, yes. Mr. Van, yes. Miss Diaz, yes. Miss Schuman. Yes. Miss Palac. Yes. Mr. Dunn. Yes. U. May I turn it over to Mr. Van Don for transportation? Sure. I'll be moving all nine together. Items one and two are joint transportation agreements. Uh three, four, and five are quoted contracts. Item six is the yearly bus evacuation drills as listed all these things up here as listed. Seven is um another joint transportation coordinated transportation agreement as is
069eight and nine. Uh I'll make a motion move all nine. Could I have a second? Second. Does anybody have any comments? All right. Miss, yes. Miss DX, yes. Miss Gall, yes. Miss Longberg, I have to recuse myself with number five. All of them. Oh, no. No, you number five. Okay. Uh, Miss Wise, yes. Mr. Van Stone, yes. Miss, yes. Mr. Dun, yes. Okay. Um, we have no correspondence under miscellaneous. I have a couple items I just wanted to mention. Uh, next Tuesday is the um next Sussex County School Board's meeting. If anybody is interested in attending it, there are both virtual and in-person options. Uh, we'll be honoring the uh Sussex County Teacher of the Year from Kney High School. And there are a number of awards and presentations and other things that happen. Mr.
070Dunn will also be recognized as will Norsy. So just in case you're inclined, we be receiving recognition uh that evening particularly due to Mr. Doug for his long service. That's not why I brought that up. Ah yes. Okay. Um second other one uh item I had was uh I'm not sure the date. The New Jersey school board's delegate assembly. The 10th. The 10th. Uh I think Mrs. Calc is going to be attending that. Yes. For us. Thank you. Excited. Fantastic. It is an excitement uh exciting event. It's very it's very intense. Yeah. It's very very formal. Yes. Um and the final item Dr. just reminded me if you have received an email that you need to complete your financial disclosure, you have less than 24 hours to do that. Uh well, just about 24 hours
071to do that before we uh we hear about it. Um I was one of those. I'll admit it was tardy and completed it in the last few days. Um but please please do so. Um and then standing item there, school board mandated training. If you happen to know you need that, I believe most people have already taken care of that. Um needed to. And with that, I'll open it for public comments. Oh, unless anybody else has any items. Okay. Open for public comment. Same uh same rules apply as the previous section, although it's not limited to agenda items at this time. Anybody in the room? Anybody online? May I have a motion to close public comments? So move second. Second. All in favor? I opposed. Okay. Um, if there are no non-committee board member reports
072or comments, I'll ask for a motion to adjurnn. Motion post, please. Second. Second. All in favor? I oppose.