001It looks like we're live. >> Yep. >> Okay. All right. It is 601. Uh call to order. Uh please stand for the flag salute. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. In accordance with section five of the Open Public Meetings Act, chapter 231, 1975, this public body, the board of education hereby announces that the New Jersey Herald and the Daily Record have been notified by email that this board of education regular meeting will take place at 7 p.m. following the executive session in room 21, which starts at 6:00 p.m. on November 24th, 2025 at the Hopacorn Board of Education board meeting room in the administration building. Um, may
002you please do roll call? >> Sure. Absolutely. Uh, Dr. Capella, >> present. >> Mr. Davio, >> present. >> Mrs. Shrimp, >> present. >> Mr. Chaffy, >> present. >> Mr. Dphano is absent. Mrs. Palcino >> here. >> Mr. Citri >> here. >> Miss Gulan is absent. And Miss Falcone Schubert >> here. >> All right. Um, do I hear a motion to go into executive session? >> I'll make it. >> I'll second. >> Okay. On the motion by Mr. Chaffy, seconded by Mr. Davia. >> Dr. Capella. >> Yes. >> M. Mr. Davia, >> yes. >> Miss ShraMM, >> yes. >> Mr. Chaffy, >> yes. >> Mr. Jphano is absent. >> Miss Palena, >> yes. >> Mr. Citri, >> yes. >> Miss Gulan is absent. and Miss Aloney Schubert. >> Yes. >> Okay. All right. We're now going
003to head into executive session and we'll return at 7 p.m. Okay, we are back live. >> All right, >> 7 p.m. >> Can I hear a motion to reconvene? >> Okay, motion by Miss ShraMM, second by Mr. Chaffy, Dr. Capella. >> Yes. Mr. Davia, >> yes. Mr. >> Trim, >> yes. >> Mr. Chaffy, >> yes. >> Mr. Dphano is not here. Miss Palachina, >> yes. >> Mr. Citri, >> yes. >> Mrs. Gulan, >> yes. >> And Mrs. Falcone Schubert, >> yes. >> Thank you. >> All right. Uh, number six, approval of the minutes. Can I have a motion to approve the minutes from the October 27th regular meeting and executive meeting? I'll make it. Second. >> Okay. So, motion by Dr. Capello, second by Miss ShraMM. >> Dr. Capella. >> Yes. >> Mr. Davia. >>
004Yes. >> Miss Shan. >> Yes. >> Mr. Chaffy. >> Yes. >> Mr. Stephano is absent. M. Palena. >> Yes. >> Mr. Citri. >> Pardon. >> Mr. Citri. >> I abstain. >> Miss Gul. >> I abain. and Miss Falcone Schubert. >> Yes. Okay. >> All right. Number seven, superintendent's report and the hip report. Take it away, Matt. >> All right. So, I'm subbing in for Mr. Halenback today. Um, hopefully I'm doing an okay job so far. Um, so the first thing I'm going to do is open it up to our student representatives. We have Natalyia Donna Roman, Rean Grava, and the Leanne Zinsley. Take it away, ladies. >> I'll go first. Um, so on November 12th, we had eight students perform at the Sussex County Honors Band. It was a great concert. Um, it's my third
005year doing it and I I think it was um, Miss Nikki told me it was the best one she's been to out of all three of the best. >> The best. Um, today Mrs. Marco Betti, our new high school band director and middle school band director started. She is amazing. It was our first time during this school year playing with an actual director. Unless you're a kid that did the honors band or that um does any other group that we worked over this summer marching band for our eighth graders and our freshman or even any upper classmen, it was I think it was a lot of kids first time playing with the director since June, right? >> Yes. >> Yeah, June. I think it's >> for you. Yeah. Um that's a long time to go
006without playing an actual director. I mean it was um Dominic Amela, Ashley Leven and Maline Leel ran it over the past three months but and they did a great job but it was really amazing to have a director um the holiday ensemble which we will be doing will possibly be um doing three events as of right now. The plan is to perform for WSUS again, which as perform and they love having us. >> Um December 3rd for the high school tree lighting and December 6th uh for the town tree lighting. And on the same day as the town tree lighting, we have a handful of students that will audition for the North Jersey area band. So I believe um New Jersey is split into it's like the top third of New Jersey. uh smaller than
007that, like maybe twothirds of the top third of New Jersey. Um we have kids audition and usually we have a great turnout and the kids are really excited. And then lastly, um NHS and NJHS held our annual Thanksgiving food drive. It was amazing. We were able to provide a ton of food, a box about this big, and also a bag of food for 13 families. And I'd like to thank Mrs. ShraMM, who with the amount of donations she gave me, it was probably enough to feed the entire family. So, thank you. >> Um, um, winter sports have all officially started today. So, basketball, um, wrestling, ice hockey, bowling, competition cheer started. Um, the tree lighting ceremony, like Natalia said, is on December 3rd at 5 to 7 p.m. in the high school cafeteria. There's going
008to be hot chocolate, probably some cookies, desserts. Um the basketball wreck showcase is December 12th at 5:30. It'll be the high school students swim basketball and the wreck department gets together and they do a little showcase. It's really fun. There's competitions, um merchandise we can you can purchase and 50/50 raffles. Um the esports are four times state champs in Super Smash Bros. they can competed on Saturday and won. So that's really great for school spirit and really just cool that we won four times in a row if they believe. And then the holiday fundraiser for class of 2028 has started. Like to thank all the businesses who have already donated for um us. And then the cornhole tournament was on November 14th for class of 2020. We also like to thank anyone who donated a
009gift card for the cornhole tournament for anyone who won. >> All right. And I'll go last. Um, so this past weekend we had our high school play, Arsenic and Old Lace. Um, I was a part of it. It was a pretty fun experience. All four shows went very well from what I've heard and from what I saw from backstage. Um, everything ran pretty smoothly and we got a very decent uh, turnout with um, the audience. Um, speaking of the drama club, our musical will be Mama Mia. It'll be in the spring, I believe, April 16th through the 19th. Um, and we will be holding auditions for it, I believe, the first week of December. Um, also in December, we will have the pep rally. Uh, the winter pep the winter pep rally will be December
01016th. Um, the schoolwide student council is currently working on it. We're going to figure out which events we're going to do. Um, and we're going to recognize all of the winter sports there. Um, also that same day will be the rock paper scissors tournament, which we did last year for the first time. and all of the students seemed to really love it. I know. I had a great time. Um, so we are planning on doing that again this year and it'll be on the same day of the pep rally. So, the winner will be announced at the end of the day at the pep rally. Um, the schoolwide student council will also be selling pizza this Wednesday after school. Um, it'll be like a half day, so it'll be just around lunchtime. So, we'll be
011selling um pizza for $3 a slice as a fundraiser so that we can do more fun events for the school and for the students. Um lastly, our competition cheer team, which I'm a part of, um has qualified at regionals for nationals. We're going to Florida. Um and we came in first out of seven in our division. So, we're very proud of that. >> That's great. Excellent. And it's great to hear about all the awesome achievements at the high school. I also want to recognize um the high school drama club again uh for the porn this weekend. I want to recognize our high school students of the marking period, our HMS students of the month. And also listed this evening for recognition are our AP scholars and our students who passed the state cosmetology um exam
012last year. So, we'll be honoring them this evening as well. Um that being said, I also want to um she works for the Sussex County Co-op, but she's been a big part of everyone's lives here in Hopcon for a very long time. Uh Joan Marshall will be retiring this evening after serving the district for 26 years of dedicated service. So I just wanted to make sure that I recognized her um when she retires um very soon. That being said, now we have a presentation from Nisaceia. It's our audit presentation for the year. I'm going to hand it over to Mr. Ray Sarinelli who is going to present the audit findings for this year. >> So good evening everybody. I'm Ray Sarinelli. Some of you familiar, some of you I'm not familiar with. So, uh I'm
013the auditor for the district. Um so, tonight I put a hand up out for all of you. Um we'll go through uh the financial statements. So, what we have right now is a draft of the financial statements. So, what you have in front of you uh will not change, but um and we're working on finishing. I thought we were going to be able to issue the audit today. What's happening right now is um a little bit complicated, but the you you have a what's called a federal single audit. So, you get more than $750,000 in federal grants, which means um you get a special audit. The federal government has not issued the compliance supplement for um those grants. They've issued a draft but not the final. So, the federal government is saying we cannot issue
014the audits. The state is saying we don't care. we want you to issue the audits. So, we finally uh at the in the middle of last week, there was a broadcast uh that the state was said, "Yes, we want you to issue the audits with the federal part removed." So, awesome for us. We get to do a lot of extra work for all of our clients and uh remove that stuff, issue the audits, and then when that is done, we'll uh issue a separate federal single. Um, so while the information in front of you and the audit is still in a draft format, the information that you're looking at uh will not change. So the financial statements um on a budgetary basis, which is what we look at, which is what you know, your decisions
015reflect and and the budget that you produce um and the actual things that happened to that budget are all finalized, done, and I'm able to present them to you. Most likely, the audit will be issued tomorrow. So, um, draft tonight, issue tomorrow, but that's kind of where we're at. So, let's talk about the schedule in front of you. What you have in front of you is an income statement. So, revenues, uh, on the first page, about 10 pages of expenses behind that, and then on the final page, the fund balance. The fund balance is very similar to what retained earnings would be in your business. It's what's left over at the end of the day once um, you pay out all of your expenses. So kind of like a very good indicator of your financial
016health uh as a district. So um and this is on the budgetary basis. I present this to you because there are schedules on a gap basis. There are schedules on a district-wide basis. They all have a lot of complicated uh information in them that I love to look at. But for somebody who's just trying to make decisions on the everyday needs of the district, this is the best thing to look at. So on the first page, we'll go over the revenues a little bit. So the way it's presented is with the budget in the uh original budget and final budget kind of compared there on the in the first three columns, the actual so that's what actually happened and then the variance to actual in the fi in the far right hand column. So, um,
017on the revenue side, when you have higher collections than what you budgeted, that helps your fund balance, um, increase, which is a good thing. On the expense side, same thing. If you spend less than you budgeted, that's also good for the fund balance. So, we see here for the most part in the right hand column, you'll see positives, which means um, you know, you're budgeting appropriately for um, what revenues you anticipate. Um, I know my conversations um with Jeff and the business office, you know, I'm sure you're all aware your state aid was cut dramatically over the last six years. And so, as he continues to try and balance the budget, he is very aggressive on his revenues to try and help balance the budget and meet the needs of the budget. So, I know
018we've talked about rents and royalties, what we're budgeting there, what he projects for that, and he does uh really push the limit on that. So, we are he did have a shortfall this year. Um in the grand scheme of things, you know, a lot of the other revenues picked up for that shortfall, which is a good thing. So, the business office, um you know, is continuing to look for new revenues and different ways to bring revenue into the district. Um and, you know, is aggressive in budgeting for them to try and you know, continue to have a balanced budget. Um, so that's your local revenues. Obviously, your largest revenue is your tax levy. Um, you know, obviously a pretty big change there. We had a referendum last year to approve uh an increase in the
019in the tax levy above the 2% that's normal. A lot of that is going to go towards paying back the bond um that was issued this year. So, we'll talk a little bit more about that as we get towards the fund balance and talk um about how that's all going to work. It's a little bit complicated, definitely a little bit. Um, so those are your local revenues. Your state revenues are dictated by a funding formula, which as we just talked about was, you know, really pretty severely decreased over a number of years. Um, at this point there are no further decreases. I know we see that the extraordinary aid um was uh slightly overbudgeted. I'll call it so the revenue wasn't what was budgeted for. And that is because the state did not fully fund
020that program. So what was budgeted for kind of was in line with what um you know was received in the past. However, all districts didn't receive what what was their full funding for the year. So a little bit of a reduction there. Um not unique to OPAC on that. There was a shortfall in that revenue. Um on the following page, there's also a federal um which uh has a a slight shortfall as well. Um that program was also not fully funded by the federal government. I don't think there was a single district that I've looked at this year that had a positive outcome in that in that federal revenue. So, you know, overall when I look at the revenues, you know, I I think, you know, there's a lot of things that are good. We're
021we're pursuing new revenues, continuing to try and get revenue in. Um, in most cases, not really overly relying on that revenue, but definitely being aggressive in the budget to try and continue to balance the budget as um, you know, expenses continue to increase. Any questions on the revenues? TPAF never >> always a fun one to explain. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So, uh that did not those funds do not actually come through the district. What that is is at the uh the teachers pension fund is fully funded by the state of New Jersey and so they make a contributions uh a contribution in the billions of dollars range and um you know according to the technical accounting standards because they're making that contribution on behalf of the employees who are employed here not just here but
022in every district. uh they say that an actuary has to calculate what your portion of that billion dollar contribution is. And because it's on your behalf, it has to show up in your financial statements. >> So in this case, it shows up as a revenue. That revenue, it's not like they cut you a check for $4 million >> and then you paid it back to the pension fund. They cut the check directly to the pension fund and somebody super smart comes along and says, "Of that money, this was back." And there's a a huge long report that details every single district and shows those amounts. So you'll see them as a revenue here. When we get down towards the bottom of the expenses, you'll also see them as an unbudgeted expense. >> So um I
023I I would say I get that question at every single presentation that I do. Uh I always tell people it's just there to confuse you. >> Get looked at for a minute. >> Yeah. Um, I've been yelled at before because we're getting all this money and what are we even doing with it? Well, you didn't get it. So, um, uh, yeah. So, you know, it's it's really there um, for technical accounting purposes. It's not your money and you didn't spend it. So, um, to confuse everybody. Any other questions on the revenues? So I I don't spend normally spend a lot of time going over I mean there's a 10 pages of expenses which uh are highly detailed for all the different uh places and ways that um a district can spend money. You have your
024regular education, special education, extracurricular activities, nursing. You know what I do when I look at those pages? I look at you know what what are your budget goals and do you have a balanced budget? So, um, you know, financially, um, you don't want to budget to zero. So, you don't want to see zeros in those far right columns. Well, yes, from a taxpayer standpoint, we only want to budget what we're going to spend. We know that, you know, bad things happen, different things happen, and expenses, unanticipated expenses come up. So when uh you know the district is building their budget, are we planning for financial future or are we just trying to you know keep things to a minimum? And so as we've gone through these state aid cuts, you know, those numbers on the
025right hand side have gotten, you know, smaller and smaller. It's harder and harder to create a balanced budget as expenses rise. So, I mean, I I do think uh things are starting to level out um as we come out of, you know, the S2 funding formula and the reductions, but definitely when I look through, there's not as much funds left at the end of the day as, you know, I would like to see. But, as we continue to to come out of this, you know, I'm hopeful that we can get to a more balanced budget. Um, I was going to save this for the end as we talked about fund balance, but I think it's more appropriate now. You know, that's the biggest hardship that every district is facing right now. Um, you know, health
026benefit the state health benefit plan has come out and said they're going to have a 38% increase in their uh in in their benefits. Um, and even the lowest that I've seen from private providers is as low as 20%. So when you start to look at for most districts that that that's their single largest line item is health benefits and at those increased rates for most people their 2% tax increase is pretty much the same number. So your entire tax increase is eaten up by one line item which means the rest of your budget needs to remain flat. But there's very rarely new sources of revenue. And I'll I'll give your district credit. As I said, they continue to pursue different ways of getting revenue in. But um you know as I look to towards
027the future for all districts but especially yours that's in a in a very fragile financial place there is going to be a lot of difficulty trying to continue to move towards balanced budgets as you get you know four 5% increases uh 5% inflationary increases and then you're hit with ridiculous increases in your health benefits. So, right, I mean, there's there's a formula, right? Your your revenues can really only go up by 2% a year, and if your expenses are going up 5%. There needs to be cuts on the uh on the expense side of the budget. So, as we move forward, you know, while there was, I'll say, some very positive results, and we'll see that in the fund balance, which is good, you know, the we're not out of the woods. So, um, you
028know, I've I've been coming and presenting this audit report for a number of years now. I pretty much always give you bad news. And while this year is uh has somewhat good news, I I wish I could continue to remain positive, but it's it we're not out of the woods. There's going to be a lot of difficult decisions um that that come to the future. Uh the good news is is that you know through this year um you know the financials are fairly stable. The bal the budget was that was created was balanced. There's not an over reliance on revenue. There's not an over reliance on fund balance. So you know those things weren't there in the past five years which they were in this year. I just don't want to give you false hope
029that like we made it. through and we have a really positive future looking forward. I mean there's still a lot of difficulty ahead trying to produce uh balanced budgets and that's not just a hope thing that is you know across all districts everybody's experiencing you know higher than normal inflation and you know only being able to increase your taxes 2% means the equation does not balance. So, um, we just want to put that out there. Are there any questions on that? So, we'll talk um if we look at page start on page 10 of 11 um um of the C1 because it it shows your um fun balance. As we flip forward to page 10 of 11, you'll see that um if we go to the actual column at the bottom of the page, the
030fund balance at the beginning of the year was 4,218,000 and there was an increase of 324,000 to 4,542,000. So that's what I'm talking about with the positivity of this year, a good balanced budget. um you know probably some good positive things on the expense side where um not really a ton of unexpected expenses. I know there was some issues uh >> with the facilities but that um you know insurance was um covered some of that and we were able to to get recoup some of the uh the unexpected costs. So some unexpected costs but none that were not um public finances. So you know some good positive things that you know we ended the financials uh year June 30th 25 in a positive way and so the fund balance That was crazy. >> Sorry about
031that. Hold on a second. >> Um Thanks. >> So, one other thing I can talk about before we get to the fund balance. Um, so I did talk about, so you you do have um bonds that were issued during the year. Um, so successful bond sale. So there is $9.8 million of bonds that will be repaid. Somewhere close to 40% of that will be covered by state aid and the rest of it is covered by the district. Um, so that's just a little something new that um in the financial statement. So I just wanted to talk about that a little bit. There's also a financial statement that you know the where those proceeds of that bond are going to and those projects. So, there's about $600,000 of expenses that happened in 25 related to that.
032So, um you know, that project is ongoing >> and um we'll talk a little bit more about it when we look at the fund balance. Um but just one thing I wanted to touch on because I know that was a pretty big undertaking to try and get that project off the ground and also um you know, pretty important to the facilities of the district going forward to try and um you know, spruce things up a little bit. I'll also on the very last page um talk about the the uh recommendation. So there was one recommendation was related to the uh fixed assets. So the recommendation is related to fixed assets. Um you know it was funny when I I told uh Jeff it's really That's the problem. Uh and when I say us, I mean
033our uh my the industry and the way the uh fixed assets are presented are on a historical cost basis and the fixed fixed assets company um you know they they provide uh information to you you know for insurance proceed purposes which is very important. So the way the industry handles it is the the uh fixed assets are reported at historical cost and the fixed assets companies don't always pay attention to uh the historical values. So they don't always provide updates on historical values. So uh Jeff and I were talking and he's you know going to continue to pursue the fixed asset company to make sure that we're getting correct information. um it's important to the presentation of the the financial statements. It's important to the standards maybe not all the most important things to the
034general public. So um you know I write the report based on the standard which unfortunately says things have to be reported at historical and updated at historical cost. So um we're working through that issue as we move forward. So going back to the fund balance now that now that you have it in front of you, there are different statutory categories that the state allows you to put your fund balance in. So um from top to bottom you'll see excess surplus, capital reserve, maintenance reserve, unemployment compensation, encumbrances, and unassigned fund balance. Unassigned fund balance is based on 2% of your operations. Um, basically what that's there for is to allow you to have um a a cash flow, right? You have funds on hand to make sure you can pay your expenses. Um, the state allows
0352% uh 2% um based on our research that's pretty much the lowest in the country. Other states allow you 5% and uh some states even allow all the way up to 15%. So pretty low percentage. Um, you know, it's important that we keep the fund balance high to keep that 2% um to make sure we can pay the bills. Um, right above that is year-end incumbrances. What incumbrances are are very similar to accounts payable. They're expenses that have been incurred during the year, but they haven't been received yet and paid for. So, that means they haven't been paid for. They're still in our fund balance, but we know we're going to spend them. So, we want to separate them out from the fund balance. that $341,000 is probably gone by this point in time. It's
036already been paid for. So, um you know, we like to pull that out, set it aside because it's it's going to be gone uh fairly soon. Um the next thing I'll talk about because it is the biggest number on there is the capital reserve. So, in most cases, the capital reserve can only be used for capital type expenditures. So, we have additional funds at the end of the year in our fund balance. It's great to move that especially in a district where um you know the facilities need an upgrade. Um and that's not unique to Hopakhong. Our portion of the state of New Jersey you know was developed that a lot of the schools were developed from anywhere from the 20s to the 50s. This point in time those facilities are starting to fail and
037we're seeing a lot of places where the facilities need upgrade. So very important to have a capital reserve because those funds can be used for future capital projects. What's unique about those funds as well is they can be used to pay for your debt related to capital projects as well. So what happened was when the referendum occurred and we increased what our tax levy was, a lot of those monies that are now being um put into the operating budget, as they fall out of the operating budget as unspent funds, they're being moved into the capital reserve and the capital reserve is paying for the debt service on those funds. So that is a little bit unique. A lot of times when a town has a referendum, they move that into what's called a debt service
038fund. So you have your regular tax and this operating fund and then a separate debt service tax. The way that that uh Jeff had designed this referendum was that this operating tax increase was going to run through the operation and then move over to pay the debt service. So um albeit a tax increase as it was, it's not a separate tax that is now, you know, you're getting increases on your operating tax and increases on your debt service tax. There's one tax levy that's being used for both the operation and then being transferred into this capital reserve to be used for debt service. That is a little bit unique. Um, but so that's why that uh that fund balance is so high is because as you'll see on those debt service schedules, there's going to
039be some payments coming up. I think the next payment to be made is about $1.3 million. So even though that 3.2 million looks pretty high, we're going to try and keep it high so that as we move through this uh amortization of this bond, we can continue to pay that off. Then we have what's called excess surplus. And I think that's uh one of the good things as we're moving forward. Um you know, some of the fund balance as we move through the funding cuts, the fund balance was being used in the form of excess surplus to try and help balance the budget. Um at this point in time, you'll see that there's excess surplus reserved for 2526, but there's none reserved for 2627. So essentially, we've moved off of utilizing our own fund balance
040to continue to balance the budget. So there should be no further holes in future budgets for relying on our own fund balance, right? So basically, you have a revenue. If we don't have enough fund balance to move into excess surplus, then that money is gone in the next budget. So uh that's a nice positive as we move into next year. um we're not going to see a huge revenue hole. The problem that we're we're seeing in as we move into the next budget year is that the expenses are just increasing so dramatically that our revenues can't keep up. So, I think, you know, as I said, a lot of positives out of this year, which is nice for me to report, and I wish I could just leave it at that, but I wouldn't be
041doing my job if I didn't uh try and give you some type of outlook on um you know, the difficulties of future budgets. That's my whole presentation. I apologize that that the one page got missed, but I did that for you. Is there any questions related to >> Well, thank you very much. >> Thank you. So also slated for approval tonight is the adoption of the 25 to 26 budget calendar. That um development is already beginning but you know essentially we work toward getting certain things done every month so we can present a budget in preliminary budget in March with a final vote in April. And um we also are going to approve the second reading and final approval of the um the head report. With that >> uh motion to approve 7 A through
0427C, please >> I'll make it. >> I'll second. >> Okay. Motion motion by Mr. Chaffy, seconded by Dr. Capello. >> Yes, >> Mr. Mr. Davio. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Shrimp. >> Yes. >> Mr. Chavy. >> Yes. >> Mr. Jphano was absent. Mrs. Palina. >> Yes. >> Mr. Citri. >> Uh, yes. To 7. Abstain from 7C. >> Mrs. Gulan. >> Yes. >> And Mrs. Falcone Schubert. >> Yes. >> Okay. Very good. >> All right. Move along. Number eight. Acknowledgements and correspondence. was the best part of the night. Um, congratulations to the following students who were chosen as Hopakon High School students of the month market period for their outstanding performance in market period 1225. Grade eight, Sophia Rodriguez. Honorable mention to Natalie Gered, Charlotte Kerry, and Olivia Eggenburgger. Grade nine is Dade Derek. Grade 10 is
043Ella Monopole. Honorable mention, Lacy Gerrera, Joseph Sack, Sophia Lavo. Grade 11, Quinn Holy. Honorable mention to Ian Flores and Liam Murphy. Grade 12 is Braden Gellzer. Honorable mention is Mason Lator and Amanda Gonzalez. Uh, congratulations to the following students who were chosen as Hopquin Middle School students of the month for the rat standing performance in October of 2025. Grade five is Jack Dowling and Elelliana Martinez. Grade six is Lauren Chavez. Grade seven is Bradley Bosshaw. Congratulations to the following Hopakon High School students for their outstanding performance in advanced placement examinations. AP Scholar Dominic Amela, Katie Golden, Juan Duk Martinez, Amanda Gonzalez, Kian Simpson, Holy Khloe, Ashley Mower. AP scholar with honor is Natalie Labauove. AP scholar with distinction Mason Latory Giovani Cespades >> Cespitus. >> Sespitus. Patrick Commerford and Megan Hisinski. Congratulations to the following
044Hilpacan High School students who successfully passed the New Jersey Board of Cosmetology and Hair Styling Exam and will be officially receiving their licenses. Caitlyn Beach, Riley Edwards, Danielle Morat, Elizabeth Pavo, Shayla Picardo, Adriana Pisano, Giannis Sperudo, and Mia Diglotti. >> Can we just um mention I wrote them down the AP Scholars? It's like a really big deal. >> Yes, it certainly is. >> So, the AP Scholar is three or higher on at least three three AP exams. Mhm. >> Um, AP Scholar with Honor is three or higher on at least four AP exams with an average of 3.25 or higher across all the exams. And then AP Scholar with distinction is three or higher on at least five AP exams with a three and a half or higher average on all the exams. >> And
045a five is the highest you can get. So >> yes, absolutely. >> So that's like a really I mean to take five AP exams, they should just get an award for that. Yeah. So, >> and our our enrollment in AP exams is up by 30 this year. I believe we have about over a 100red um AP exams being taken >> for such a small population. A very large >> by I believe um >> great job >> 50 or 70 unique students which is excellent. So, um we're really working toward ramping that up. Um our our new principal of academic affairs, Mr. Jensen is really um taking a look at um you know where's the lowhanging fruit in terms of AP um we're taking a look at AP cyber security as a potential um to offer
046because it not only um you know is a great AP course it also offers some interest recognized credentials as you earn it. We're also looking at integrating AP seminar as an option um utilizing that curriculum for our 10 our 10th grade uh English curriculum for honor students. So leveraging that um to be able to you know generate some more APS and I think we'll be in a good place with that. So thank you Dr. Capella for that um clarification there. >> All right. Um, let's see. Number one, number nine, parent teacher organization representatives. Anybody here? Anything. I left. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. >> Um, so the marching event is pretty quiet already this time of year. I'm hoping we're able to have pep band this year. We were unable to last year, just the schedule
047didn't really work. Um and then as um our student reps mentioned, Mamav Mia is the next musical in the spring and auditions start next Tuesday. Next Tuesday. Wednesday. So it's really soon and it's earlier this year. So I hope everyone is able to attend. I know it's a really great musical. >> Excellent. Um I can speak on behalf of Project Graduation. The Wizard to come into town. They're coming on January 20th. Tickets go on sale on December 8th. Uh we are collecting uh donations of sodas, snacks, um waters, uh any uh and baskets for the um March trick or tray. So please reach out to any representative. You can email me at the school email address and I'd be happy to drive around and collect up items. Also on December, correct me if I'm wrong,
048Veronica, December 5th is the 12th. >> Oh, 12th. I'm sorry I had the wrong one. The December 12th is the free movie night um that is being run by the Alliance. >> Yep. >> And I think we're featuring The Elf. >> Yeah, we're watching Elf >> and um December 12th. >> December 12th. >> Yeah. >> And be uh Project Graduation is piggybacking on that and we're going to be selling some concession and we are going to be having characters for picture taking. I know we're going to have um a reindeer, we're gonna have a snowman, we are going to have uh Joe the gingerbread man. Uh and we have the Grinch. Um so it should be a fun night. Um anybody else? Um um okay. Public comment. Is there anybody on the list? Oh, okay.
049Anybody want to talk who did not? Jen. >> Um, the town Christmas lighting is December 6th. It's a Saturday. It's about 4:00 over at the municipal building. They're going to start they're going to do the Christmas light about lighting about 4:45 right at by the gazebo um facing Hop Patcham. And then from 5 to 7, they're doing uh cookies and hot chocolate and then photos with Santa. Um thanks to the fire department and the recreation commission. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I'll see you there. Um let's see. Moving on to number 11, finance. Any questions? Okay. Okay, here a motion to approve 11 A through 11G. >> I'll make the motion. >> I'll second it. >> Okay. On the motion by Mr. Chaffy, seconded by Miss Gul. >> Dr. Capella, >> yes.
050>> Mr. Davia, >> yes. >> Miss Frame, >> yes. >> Mr. Chaffy, >> yes. >> Mr. Dphano is not present. >> Mrs. Palena, >> yes. >> Mr. Citric, >> yes. >> Gulan, >> yes. >> And Mrs. Falcone Schubert, >> yes. Okay. >> All right. Number 12, approval of A through L. Do I hear a motion? >> I'll make it. >> Second. >> Okay. On the motion by Dr. Mr. Kell seconded by Miss Shra Dr. Cello >> yes >> Zavia >> yes >> Miss ShraMM >> yes >> Chaffy >> yes >> Mrs. Palina >> yes >> Mr. Citrix. >> Yes. >> This is Falcone Schubert. >> Yes. I just abstain on H. >> Okay. >> All right. Number 13, policy and regulations. Motion to approve 13A through B. >> I'll second. >> And on the motion
051by Mr. Chaffy, seconded by Dr. Capello. Dr. Capella. >> Yes. >> Mr. Dav. >> Yes. Mr. >> Sh. >> Yes. >> Mr. Chaffy. Yes, >> Mrs. Palena. >> Yes, >> Mr. Citri. >> Uh, yes to A. Stay on B. >> Mrs. Gulan. >> Yes. >> And Mrs. Falcone Schubert. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> All right. Moving on. 14. Student and services. Uh, motion to move 14A through 14D. >> I'll move it. Second. >> Any questions? Okay. On the motion by Miss ShraMM, seconded by Mr. Davio. Dr. Fellow, >> yes. >> Mr. Davia, >> yes. >> Mrs. ShraMM, >> yes. >> Mr. Chaffy, >> yes. >> Mrs. Falcana, >> yes. >> Mr. Citri, >> yes. >> Falcone Schubert. >> Yes. >> Right. 15 resolutions. Uh I hear a motion to move uh 15A through 15D. >>
052I'll make it. >> Second. >> And on the motion by Mr. Chaffy, seconded by Mr. Davia, Dr. Capello, >> yes. >> Mr. Davia, >> yes. >> Mrs. Shramm, >> yes. >> Mr. Chaffy, >> yes. >> Mrs. Powchain, >> yes. >> Mr. Citri, >> yes. >> Mrs. Gulan, >> yes. >> And Miss Falcone Schubert, >> yes. >> All right. 16 C Sussex County Regional Cooperative. I hear a motion 16 A >> F. >> Do I have a second? >> On the motion by Mr. Davio, seconded by Mr. Chaffy, Dr. Capello, >> yes. >> Mr. Davio, >> yes. >> Mrs. ShraMM, >> yes. >> Mr. Chaffy. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Palachina. >> Yes. >> Mr. Citri. >> Yes. >> Gulan. >> Yes. >> And Mrs. Falcone Schubert. >> Yes. >> Great. >> And number 17. Um, board
053comments. >> Um, I just wanted to second the best of luck to uh Joan Marshall. My kiddos were on her bus for quite a few years and she was really such a sweet bus driver to have and we're really going to be sad that she's gone and we won't be waving at her all the time. She really is an incredible human. So, I'm happy she's retiring and I hope she has a safe and happy retirement, but we will miss her. >> Thank you. >> Uh, congrats to the AP students. That's quite an accomplishment and I hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving everyone. >> Um, just a quick comment. Uh, we went over the budget tonight. >> I'm glad to see we balanced our books uh from a quantitative aspect, but we I think
054we should take some time to reflect how we got to that number, how it affected our district, how it affected our personnel. Um, because there's a quantitative aspect of what we do here. Unfortunately, we always focus on the numbers, but it took a lot of cuts, personnel cuts, uh maybe put another three or four kids in the classroom that got us to this number. So, as uh the auditor has said, you know what, there's this is good this year, but I don't know how much more we can cut. So, just put a little bit of thought into that. Um certainly during Thanksgiving when we're uh a time to be thankful um and show some gratitude uh I certainly will be thinking about uh our future here in the district u our personnel our students and
055uh th those type of things but yeah it's a great thing but we we have to realize how we got there. >> We have more tough choices >> on whose backs. Our revenue is going to be going is not going to be going up much for the coming budget and unfortunately our expenses are projected to be skyrocketing. >> Insurance never goes down >> especially the health and >> sorry but sorry to be the Debbie Downer. >> I have one comment. Um the town's manora lighting is on 1214 at 6. >> Okay. Very good. Thank you. >> Um >> where is the town manora located? >> It did >> same place as the >> I forgot and I'm sitting here like oh my god >> I wasn't judging you. students. I forgot. >> All right. Very
056good. >> Um just want to wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving and thank you for coming. And on that um for an adjournment. Um motion to adjourn. >> I'll make it. >> Second. >> Okay. On a motion by Mr. Davio, seconded by um >> Oh, was it was it already seconded? >> Sure. Whatever. >> I forgot. Yeah. All right. All in favor >> the first >> wrap it up at 7:48. >> I think I I threw up the whole vibe of the meeting. >> You know, you look at the numbers like, "Oh, this is wonderful. Wonderful." Well, it's like Kevin was looking like I got to everybody that I knew.