001[Music] Heat. [Music] Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat. Yeah. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. It's weird just like half things from the bus. It's weird just hearing like half like half hearing things from the bus. Just the occasional noble going. What? This B meeting for us might be cancelled. Who knows? This is going to not happen. Yeah. Heat. Do you have to eat everything? Yeah. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Oh, wait. No, no, I don't. Yeah, we did not present ours. I think yesterday we were actually talking about our topic and I was really lazy. I did like 10 minutes of research and then just like articles just like stole some information, put it in
002white text on a black and like a minute and a half long. It was great. It's awesome. You getting that? You are I think see right up there. Oh yeah. How about that? Yeah. Heat. Check check check one two check check one two Yeah. Heat. Okay. party [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Yes. Heat. [Music] St. [Music] Oh god. right [Music] now. Yeah. [Music] Okay. Oh, I love you. Be careful. Are you supposed to My Okay. [Music] still Yeah. [Music] Yes. My knees don't want it. [Music] She doesn't like Museum. [Music] I think [Music] Yes. Yeah. [Music] Okay. I feel [Music] Yeah. [Music] pressure. [Music] slightly green back then. Beautiful. How many [Music] suggestions. She's [Music] like Heat. Heat. [Music] Yes. [Music] Oh
003yeah. [Music] Okay. [Music] Yes, Joe. [Music] So four years. It's been sisters. Okay. What did you do? [Music] Okay. [Music] Amen. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Yes. Call me for salute class. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation one indivisible with liberty and justice for all. This meeting is in compliance with the open public meeting law and has been duly advertised in the newspaper as an official meeting. Roll call. Dr. Osman. Mr. Walsh. here. Mr. McCarron, present. Mrs. Rivera, present. Mrs. Baroas, present. Mrs. Gardella, present. Mrs. Cass, present. I need a motion for the approval of the agenda with addendums. Motion. Second. Discussion. Roll call. Dr. Osman. Mr. Walsh. Yes. Uh, Mr. McCann. Yes. Mrs. Rivera. Yes,
004Mrs. Barus. Yes, Mrs. Yes, Mrs. G. Yes. I turn the meeting over to Mrs. Perily for her superintendent report and budget presentation. Thank you, Miss Kas. Good evening, everyone. I hope that everyone had a nice spring break. Um, we are back and with, you know, not too many more weeks before the end of the school year, it will go quickly. So, um, it's a beautiful evening out here. I hope that you all have been enjoying the weather as well. Um, a little bit lengthy report tonight. We have a few presentations, so I'm just going to get right right to it. Um, but as always, I think one of the best parts of our meeting is our um, high school board reps. Uh, this evening, we will start with Colin with an update from Memorial. Good
005evening, Mrs. Perily, members of the central administration staff, and board of education members. It's always a pleasure to be here and share the latest from Jackson Memorial High School. After a refreshing and much needed spring break, our students returned recharged, and ready to finish the year strong. Uh this time provided a great opportunity to step back, relax, and reset from day-to-day challenges of school. First up, we are gearing for our best event this year, the JMA formal. The theme is masquerade, and it's shaping up to be a night of celebration. With a huge turnout expected, we know it's going to be an unforgettable evening for everyone attending. We're also approaching the end of the market period, and I want to take a moment to congratulate all of our students on their hard work and perseverance.
006Your efforts are truly paying off, and we are proud of what you've accomplished so far. AB tests kicking off this week uh next week and we wish our students the best of luck as they tackle their exams. We know they'll be prepping and are ready to show what they know. It's hard to believe that the end of the school year is coming up quickly. Time is flying and there's so much to look forward to as heading to the final stretch. Spring sports are in full swing and going strong. Our athletes are showing incredible dedication, teamwork, and school pride across the board. Whether it's on the track, field, court, or diamond, their energy and commitment are shining through. And finally, Save the Day, Thursday, April 10th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. is the College and Career
007Expo at Tom River High School. With over 120 colleges, universities, tech schools, and military branches attending, it's a fant fantastic opportunity for students and families to explore postsecary options. See your school counselor if you have any questions. Thank you again, Mrs. Perily and Board of Education, for your continued support of our students and school community. JHS is thriving and as the school year races to a close, we're excited for all that's still to come. I look forward to sharing more updates next month. Have a wonderful year. Thank you, Colin. Next, uh from Liberty, we have Katie. [Music] Good evening, Superintendent Permillion, members of the board of educ education, and distinguished guests. It's a privilege to be here once again to share some of the exciting news happening at Liberty League. Our spring sports season is
008off to a strong start. The boys volleyball team has racked up nine impressive wins. Just yesterday, our golf team beat Manchester by five shirts in a close win. The JHS girls track team had the honor of competing in the prestigious pen race in the 4x100 meter relay. A special congratulations goes out to Kylie Schuber who won the B South championship in the triple jump. The boys tennis team celebrated their senior night with a win over Lakewood and our baseball team pulled off a thriving thrilling 11 to 10 victory against North. Meanwhile, the softball team is sitting at eight wins and is undefeated in their division. Beyond athletics, our adviserss have been working hard to make this year memorable. A great example is Mrs. Spargo's rock, paper, scissors tournament in electrical. It's a creative event that
009was a huge hit with the students. Mrs. Kavanaaugh has also been very busy with the junior class, working hard to finalize preparations for the greatly anticipated junior formal that will be held on May 15th at Jun. The leadership academy has also been working on the capstone projects and are very excited to fulfill them. Many of them are geared towards making a day more enjoyable and inclusive for all students. Our PTSN has outdone themselves together. They held an incredibly successful bingo night/g auction this past month. Not only were they able to raise substantial funds, but they also provided a fun night for all dentists. They didn't stop there. They also held a clothing drive for our community. They're planning on using some of their profits to do something special for the staff at Liberty for future
010appreciation week. Our performing arts programs continue to thrive. On May 2nd, the Liberty Choir will host its annual dessert theater in the JHS beastro at 6 p.m. It'll feature performers from the Jackson Arts Academy, and they'll showcase pieces they've worked on all year. We're also looking forward to the 18th annual Ferrron, a salute to the parents. It's complete with a red carpet making at 6 p.m. and the show kicks off at 6:30 on May 8th. You can get your tickets at fon.com. Tomorrow, May 1st, marks National College Decision Day. I'd like to congratulate all Jackson seniors who have finalized their postgraduation plans. Whether that means college, trade school, or another exciting path forward, it's great to see so many accomplished people moving on to great things. While the entire community has contributed to the success
011of this year, some individuals deserve a special recognition. Congrats to Ava Biro and Julia Canoe who have been named our student of the month and to Miss Wardro, our special education English teacher who has been named Lion of the Month. Another noteworthy achievement is earning acceptance into one of the many honor societies offered at Liberty. Tomorrow night, our schools holding an introduction ceremony for all new members. It'll be a wonderful evening celebrating the varied disciplines where students excel. Come join us for a night of well-deserved recognition. As we close out the second mark of fifth period of the second semester, Liberty is hitting a stride. AP classes are ready for their exams or next weeks next week and planning committees are looking forward to the new opportunities next year will bring. Although the days on
012the calendar are limited, there are still many more events to come. Liberty is determined to make the best of this year. I look forward to returning here again next month to fill you in all we've accomplished. It's an honor to represent Liberty. Thank you for your time and have a wonderful evening. Thank you, Katie. And it is an exciting time for students uh particularly seniors. Lots of exciting events coming up and lots of announcements as they select their next steps in their uh education or career. So, it's definitely exciting time. Um, and I look forward to hearing of uh some of the wonderful things that are happening. So, thank you both for the updates. Uh, I also wanted to mention this evening that the New Jersey school performance reports have been released for the 23
01324 school year across the state of New Jersey. Uh, you can find a link on our website to those reports. There's a quick link right at the bottom if you scroll all the way down. Um, it's a very comprehensive report for the district and for each individual school. Uh it lists such things as our graduation rate, our academic achievements, our growth, uh academically, college and career ready courses that we have, graduation rates, and our demographics. So, I encourage people to go in, take a look at that. We um continue to use that information and that data to inform some of our discussions, professional development, and our planning for improvements um in many areas, some of which are academics, attendance, and some of the offerings that we have. So I wanted to make mention that that's
014available for our community to take a look at. So this evening we have two presentations. I will be doing the first, Mr. Winky will be doing the second. Um I would like to provide the community and the board with an update on restructuring and where we're at. We've made lots of movement forward and as we have said from the onset, we will keep our community informed. So there are some slides. So if the board would like to turn around to see those. So obviously our goal is to to move together to move forward together as one Jackson and we are definitely on the path to do that. Uh so some of the things this evening I wanted to point out moving forward an update on how uh additional opportunities that we have available for our
015students next year due to the restructuring plan. Uh, also tonight's agenda um has approve appointments for fall and winter coaches for next school year. And we'll also discuss this evening a recommendation to alter the busing tier for elms so as not to impact uh a traffic and and create a traffic issue on uh between gets and elms. And also tonight on the agenda and also to share publicly is the results of our survey and the recommendation to the board on the high school rebranding name and mascot and also the recommendation for the middle school and upper elementary school name. So starting with some of the um opportunities and these are just a sampling of some of them. As we continually uh work through this process through the rest of the school year, the summer and
016the fall, there may be other wonderful um additional opportunities that we can offer to students. Um but to say um just on the onset some of these wonderful things at our high school level um AP classes that we've never been able to run because enrollment was too low will now be run because we have higher enrollment coming together as one. um AP courses with multiple sections now instead of one small section. So there's more opportunity for growth for our students. Um we're able to offer, you know, a new elective uh history and cultural impacts and comic books that's really appealing for our students. Um a new Spanish native speaking course will be offered and something near and dear to my heart, Tomorrow's Teachers, is a new course that will also be able to be offered.
017Some of these things we've been wanting to do for a while and by restructuring and coming together as one, we'll be able to offer those things. Um, and very exciting 21 courses that high school students will have access to uh that could not run um in both locations because of enrollment. Now coming together allows us to run those. And you know, the last bullet there I think speaks volumes again about the benefit of coming together and not having to have students travel from one high school to another for a course or program. um we are increasing to 130 students for ROC from 103 students. Um so yeah, it's very exciting and again I think you know these are the positive things that can come out of of coming together as one. Co-curricular wise uh we'll
018be adding some additional assistant coaches to help um because we are anticipating higher enrollments of students in athletics. Freshman sports uh will be able to run in certain certain um sports because of a high interest and we are providing some dual advisors for some key areas through this transition like student council, national honors society um you know our class adviserss and our yearbook staff. Uh that should help us with the transition and we are looking and watching very carefully and hope to do this and this was something that came from our student body at one of the student council meetings that that I was at. uh they would love to see flag football offered here. So fingers crossed. We hope that we can we can bring that to our students as well. So at the
019middle school level, some electives are exciting here for our students. We will be able to offer wood shop as a new elective. They've never been able to have that as an option before. Um we've had to scale back foods at the middle school. It was only available for half a year. Um so this uh upcoming year it will be available all year. So more students will benefit from being able to select that foods course. Digital media has never been offered at the middle school. Uh what a wonderful opportunity for our students. We have incredible uh incredible asset here of our staff who are able to work with these students and we have the equipment that already exists. So a wonderful opportunity to build um and excite our students about the digital media pathway. uh additional
020music electives will be offered, additional art electives like graphic arts and fine arts, and excitingly with you'll see on the agenda tonight, also a grant for esports. So, we're able to um add esports and integrate that into our technology courses. Very exciting. Um and very interesting. The students are very interested in that. Um, again to the co-curricular side, you see the esports club, additional assistant coaches, use of fields and the fieldhouse here at Memorial is a huge benefit to our middle school athletic program. And again, one of the things that we're hopeful, and this again was driven from our students and some staff requests because they see the interest is a volleyball program at the middle school, which would be fantastic and feed into the high school. So fingers crossed, we're hopeful that we can
021do that as well. Um and then we are definitely doing an advisory period that will be built into the schedule to help our middle school students. Some opportunities at our 56 school. Um and we had said this from the onset. We were hopeful to do two major things at that level. One was inter mural sports program and also offer instruments earlier and an opportunity to expand the instrumental program and we are doing both of those. Um we'll also expand our chorus concerts. We'll also integrate esports here and have an opportunity during the day. Uh when is for what I need a period during the day that will be very much differentiated for students um from extra support to enrichment um in the arts and uh other areas. Uh during our in our middle schools currently
022uh our students only receive one semester of social studies and science. In the five six school we'll be able to offer full year for both of those content areas. uh more equitable class sizes by consolidating everybody together. And one of the huge benefits of having all of our staff and students in the same buildings is the um better alignment of our curriculum, better professional um learning opportunities for our our staff and for professional growth. Uh because they'll be able to talk and and be able to really articulate together what the needs are of the students. Um, and then finally, at our elementary level, and we've talked about this before, through the restructuring, uh, we needed to be able to remove the fifth grade to allow for more space in our elementary schools. And this will
023allow for our, um, our special areas who have been basically on a cart and pushing into classrooms for for several years now. Uh, be able to have their own space. Students will be able to now get up out of their classrooms. We had a few parents come forward um in the last few years saying that their their students are in that classroom all day long, not with no opportunity to move. This will allow students to get up, go to those special areas, and most importantly, we'll be able to remove those small group instruction areas off the stage, out of the hallway, and be able to now have more space in our buildings. And we are opening our first bilingual program at Crawford Rodriguez, which is um a good step forward for this district and that
024what students need. Fourth graders will now have chorus and fourth grade will now also be able to be safety patrols as they will be the oldest students in their elementary school. So those are some um just some of the benefits that we are seeing already out of the restructuring plan. I'm sure there will be more that we'll be able to articulate over the next few months. moving forward with staffing decisions and updates. I want to commend my team um an amazing team here who has been working endless hours on um reviewing the staff surveys about what positions people would like to be at um you know interviewing coaches, interviewing co-curricular applicants and making um decisions to move forward. So uh as I mentioned tonight we have the fall and winter coaches appointments on the agenda.
025There was a process that was used. It was comprehensive. Uh there was an application process interview with the committee. The same questions were asked to every candidate and there was a rubric for scoring those interview questions and the selection. We have completed um our certified staff uh transfers. they will be on the May agenda, but we have notified our staff, our principles have notified the staff of where they're transferring to and also um our non-renewals for budget reasons have been notified. All of that will be on the May agenda. We felt it was important our staff wanting to know early um and we wanted to respect that for our staff. These are big changes. So, uh, again, my team, kudos to them for working so hard to be able to get our staff this information
026well before deadlines that it's required. Um, we anticipate decisions on other positions, non-certified positions, uh, to be, uh, solidified by our May 20th board meeting. So, through this restructuring, um, and you'll see in the budget presentation tonight from Mr. Binsky. Um, we knew that we would be looking at consolidating and losing and eliminating positions. You're going to have that happen naturally when you are consolidating schools and programs. So, we do have an elimination um of 99 positions through this restructuring, certified, non-certified, and administration. Um, and then we also do have some non-renewals due to budget reasons. Uh most of those 99 positions are through retirements or resignations. Um sadly, we never like to see anybody be non-renewed, but we do have some non-renewals as you see there up on the screen. Um and so I
027thought it was important for everyone to hear about all of those decisions being made now so that it gives people the opportunity who are non-renewed to go find um another position well ahead of where we think other people might be applying for those positions. We wanted to give the courtesy of our staff to be able to do that quickly. So, shifting gears a little bit, I did mention earlier um that we do need to make a shift in the school times for um Elms Elementary School. As you recall, um when the strategic planning committee made the recommendation for closing a school, um that was um revised and instead of closing Gats, we we were closing McAuliffe. So, what that does now is put Gats and Elms on the same tier. And if you're familiar with
028where those two schools are located, they're essentially across the street from each other with one throw away. Um and so we have heard um multiple concerns from community members, some who've come here, some who have emailed us, some who have um in other meetings expressed concern about it. Now we know on the tiers busing wise we can do it, but the concern is the other traffic besides just the buses. So, we are making the recommendation to move ELMS up to tier 2, which would be an 8:10 start time and dismissal of 220. It's an hour earlier. Um, they would be up now with the uh two other elementary schools that are sitting at that tier as well. Um, and the reason we are choosing ELMS instead of gets is the number of students. If we
029put Gats on the second tier, we would overburden that second tier. And I see a lot of drivers in the audience tonight who um absolutely understand that. Um so we wanted to make sure that we balanced it a little bit better so that we didn't have overcrowding or overburing of a certain tier. And so the recommendation tonight is to move that time. Um we did uh Mr. Bergos Elm's principal did uh notify staff today that that recommendation was going to be um on the agenda tonight for approval. We are communicating it now. We'd rather communicate it now so that people have time to plan um for accommodations. If they have child care issues or things like that, you have four months to plan versus waiting until the fall and seeing that it didn't work and
030then pivoting. So, we wanted to be um more proactive with that, especially with the amount of concerns that we were hearing about it. So, now moving on to the high school uh branding recommendation. again with the goal of creating one Jackson and uniting our students and staff. Um just like the restructuring decision of school selections, this is a emotional decision, it is a difficult decision and we recognize that uh for some people they may be pleased with the the decision and for some people they may not be pleased. Unfortunately, that's the nature of what we are living in right now with the restructuring plan. But I do want the community and the board to to to know and to recognize that there is great thought put into this great discussion and really uh collecting a
031lot of input from from several areas. Um we try to make the best informed decision that we possibly can. So we did listen. We listened to many opinions, ideas that were shared throughout the months of redistricting. Many of which people came to the public uh meetings and expressed what they felt the school name should be and why. We received many emails. Um every meeting public meeting I would share that we received, you know, many, many emails. We received over a hundred uh emails with people giving input for a variety of different reasons, including what the the name of the school, the high school should be. Um, and we also worked with a student committee to hear their insights and their input. We gathered all of that information. You see there, uh, the students, they had
032an assembly, uh, where they discussed a little bit there. We had an open-ended survey we put out, uh, that was really just tell us your thoughts. Uh, we also had meetings with student reps from both of the high schools. Um, and we began to narrow down from hearing from all of those areas. um and decided uh to make the recommendation tonight for what the name and mascot and colors will be. So with the first survey, as I mentioned, it was more of a collection of people's thoughts. Um and we used that information along with the emails we received and the public information that has come to us through the board meetings. We worked with our um incredible student committee. They were so mature and so thoughtful. Um and I do want to thank the students
033who provided their input and thoughts. Um very impressive. And with that we narrowed down the choices. There were some things that we explained um to our students and to other people as well that there's no perfect solution here as I just mentioned. Um and we had some some things we needed to take into consideration such as financial um reasons. We needed to think about time of being able to change things um and history um you know and we needed to think about um community, we needed to think about colors, what has existed and we needed to think about what we can change, what we can't change in facilities. So all there were lots of factors that go into the decision. So when we narrowed it down, uh most recently there was the LA a last
034survey that was sent out to our students and staff that narrowed down what um selections of the school name could be. It narrowed it down to Jackson Township High School, Jackson High School, and Jackson Liberty High School. And what you'll see behind me now is the results of that final narrow down survey. So you will see out of both high schools uh we surveyed students and staff uh you know 1,253 responses um 60% of Memorial and 39% of Liberty responded. Um and then you see the ratio there of students to staff majority of students responding versus staff. Um and then what's important to note there um because we do have more students and staff at Memorial than Liberty it's important to understand the percentage. And so 38% almost 39% of Liberty students participated and 44%
035of Memorial students participated. You know, pretty close together the number of students that did participate from each [Music] school. So what you see next is the decision um that people selected. Did they want a which was either Jackson Township or Jackson uh High School or would they like uh the other option which is Jackson Liberty High School? And you see the breakdown there of 70% to 30%. And when you dig in a little bit deeper in the schools, you see that at Liberty, um we had 67% of this the population that answered um that would like to see Liberty High School um be the the name of the school. Um and you had 32% of the Liberty participants uh say that they would like Jackson Township or Jackson High School to be the name. Um
036at Memorial you'll see 94% um would like it to be Jackson Township High School or Jackson High School and five almost 6% um thought Liberty High School would be the name. So in the event when you look at um distinguishing between Jackson Township High School or Jackson High School, you'll see that for 62% the majority of those who selected that would like it to be Jackson Township High School. So when you look at this data uh you can see clearly that the percentage of uh participants were in favor of Jackson Township High School being the name of the school. Um, we also in that survey left a comment box for people to explain why. Um, I'm not going to read all of these to you. Um, but they're on the slides. We always post our
037slides if anybody would like to see. We got many more responses than three, but I what I do want to do is read just one from each different perspective so that our community can understand this was a difficult decision and there were just as we needed to do with understanding people's perceptions and um their perspective on a decision. It's important to understand it here as well what people were feeling who were deciding on whether it should be Jackson Township or Jackson Liberty. So, I'd like to just uh verbally read one of the from each slide. So, this the middle one here, using the name Jackson High School allows the town to fully come together and allows the rest of the state to understand our new name. Other students and citizens of other towns may not
038know the situation that we are in. Keeping the name as Jackson Liberty High School could cause confusion throughout the state and other towns. With a full new name, schools will now know us as a set school. So that was one perspective shared. Another perspective, though Liberty has a smaller history than Memorial, I think we should preserve the name because though I agree that it will be a harder transition for Memorial students, that doesn't mean that Liberty students won't feel the change and be affected. The Memorial name is being preserved at the same building. The only change is the age of students attending. I feel that the Liberty name should be preserved somewhat too instead of completely erased. Plus, the mascot is being changed to Memorial, so it would would kind of be the best of
039both worlds. So, I thought those two comments really um represent what perspectives we were hearing from uh those who responded to the survey. Um so, it is a again emotional decision. Um moving forward, tonight's recommendation is Jackson Township High School, JTHs, with the colors of red, black, and gray. knowing that red is the common color between both of the high schools. Now, um black represents some of the the color at Memorial and gray represents a color from Liberty. The Jackson Jaguars have been selected as the uh mascot. We don't have a picture of the mascot there yet because we know that it needs to be revised. Um, we're looking to make it look a little bit different so that it does represent a new name and a new school and that it incorporates the gray
040color as well into the mascot. So, that's yet to come. So, following suit with the names, the high school really led the decision for how we would be naming the two other schools that are forming. Um here at Memorial, the middle school uh will be named Jackson Township Middle School and then the name of the 56 school will be Jackson Township 56 School. Um what we felt was also important here is that all current names of schools will remain on the school buildings. That is similar to what we currently have this here at Memorial. Um at the Clayton side, Clayton still exists on the building. Um it represents the history of the building. um and it memorializes the history of the building even though the name on the marquee or what we call it may
041be different um so that it preserves that history and that's what we're looking to do moving forward. So the last thing I'd like to just mention tonight uh we've talked about this several times the importance of providing opportunity for students to transition be able to hear about their new schools and and be able to see their new schools. So again, I want to say kudos to the team, our principles, our central office administration working swiftly to put some things in place um that will allow our high school students coming from Memorial to have an orientation and a tour on May 13th. And all this information will come out as well to the community and to those students. At our middle school, there will be an opportunity for all seventh and eighth grade because they're all
042moving their buildings um to come and see Memorial, see this building, um and have an orientation. And then our five six um students, they'll be split. Fifth, fifth fifth students will be able to go to see their new building and have orientation. And then the sixth grade students as well. And then we are also offering an opportunity um to honor McAuliffe. Since we are closing that building, we'll also offer an open house and a ceremony to recognize its legacy in the school district on June 16th for the community from 4 to 6. Miss Phillips is actually offering another experience for staff that have worked there earlier than the 4:00 time. So, they also will have an opportunity to come back and visit this school that they worked at. Um, so there are many more decisions
043yet to be made. um every time we make a decision, there's another decision that we have to make. Um and we'll continue to make those decisions and continue to update the community and the board on those. But as you can see, there's been a lot of work being done along with um the normal school business that occurs. So with that, I'm just going to go right into the budget presentation if that's okay. Miss Cass, would you Okay. So Mr. Mr. Beginsky has the um school district proposed budget presentation um this evening. So I turn it over to Mr. Beginsky. Okay. So tonight I'm presenting the final budget for our school district for the 2526 school year. Uh this is unchanged from the tenative budget that was presented on March 19th at the board of education
044meeting. And the typical budget process for us uh starts in October uh September and October. uh it involves uh engaging a variety of stakeholders including school level and district level administrators. And so what we're looking at this year is something that's very different. Um the the factors that that we're dealing with redistricting and restructuring, the closing of Rosenau and McAuliff, the selling of school property, uh decommissioning and removal of trailers, uh the loan from the state, and also the state assigned fiscal monitor. So this year has been anything but typical with regard to our budget process. Uh but in general what we go through is a very thorough process that looks at every line item and involves a number of stakeholders. So student enrollment is a driving factor for most of our line items particularly
045when it comes to supplies and services. And on this table you see the year-to-year comparison between our current year and what is projected for the 2526 school year. These enrollment figures are based on flat enrollment of student cohorts moving up from one grade to the next. Uh and enrollments um next year uh should we should expect about a 3.7% decrease in the overall student enrollment for 2526. When it comes to our projected expenses, they really get broken out into two types of items. non-discretionary items and these are items that are either mandated or required uh in some way whether it be uh via state law established facilities needs such as energy uh related expenses educational programs determined by law such as special education or contractually obligated items such as salaries and health benefits. So on
046the other side uh you see some of the things that are in our control and these items include costs associated with substitutes, technology, supplies, equipment, athletics and co-curricular costs and some portions of transportation including courtesy busing and after school activities. So the our budget is predominantly non-discretionary items um which is uh an obvious uh challenge u because it's out of our control. So what you're looking at here is a proposed budget spending plan for next year and the spending plan includes $147 million worth of expenses that overall reflect less than one a 1% increase from the 2425 school year. The two largest categories of expenses are related to salaries and health benefits both of which have been impacted by the district's re redistricting and restructuring plan. uh in all the school mergers uh resulted in
047a savings of approximately $7 million which would not have been possible without the mergers. Uh salaries alone would have increased by uh slightly more than 3% and health benefits were projected to increase close to 17% this year going into 2526. So the numbers that you're looking at here reflect those savings and those savings are really permanent savings, permanent operational savings uh for the school district. Uh the decision to uh reduce staff for our district uh as Miss Permilly mentioned in her presentation is a difficult one. Uh unfortunately um it's one that we've become all too familiar with over the last 7 years. Uh we are an organization that is one of the largest employers in Ocean County with over 1,800 employees uh who provide the essential services uh to support our students on a daily
048basis. Um, as I mentioned over the S2 period, um, we've really been hit hard. And, you know, when you're in a a a profession that's 85% staff and staff driven expenses, um, the only place to go when you're looking to try to cut budgets is is really staff. And so, what you're looking at on the bottom there is the 7-year period, how many positions have been eliminated in this school district? Uh, and it is uh, it is significant. And so the number this year being 99 positions uh being recommended for for reduction, you could see where we've been in the past and those are years that we did it without redistricting or restructuring and without merging schools and closing schools. Um so it is not without the recognition that this is a very emotional decision
049for our staff and our community and we certainly respect that. Um with regard to some of the other savings um that are generated through the uh merger um you could see on this slide um that the decision to close Mclliff and merge the high schools really uh resulted in a savings of around $2 million comparatively to the current school year with regard to uh some of the facilities expenses and the school budgets and supplies. And when it comes to out of district placement, uh out of district tuition rates, that's something that is also out of our control. And you know, for our out of district students, uh it's projected to be a very significant 21% increase next year. And in spite of the outstanding work of our special education department to continue to support these
050students needs in the district, uh sometimes this those students needs have to be met by uh through an out of district placement school. And those schools um can set rates um basically within certain parameters by the state. They far exceed what we are capped at as a school district. And some of those tuitions uh approach or exceed $200,000 per year. For 2526, we're projecting to have 50 students attend an out of district placement school. Uh the final two categories of expenses are related to transportation costs with the major cost driver being the the rising cost for aid and loo for non-public students which is increasing by 1.7 million in 2526. Uh as of March 5th the district was responsible for transportation for 6,414 eligible non-public students. This number is expected to surpass the number of
051public school students to be above 8,000 non-public school students, eligible non-public students school students for 2526. The major components of of uh of our general fund budget as I mentioned before uh are personnel related and this pie chart on this screen illustrates that where you see the largest chunks come from salaries and health benefits. So, how do Jackson's expenses compare to what the state calculates we should be spending on our students? Uh, this is not a slide that uh in any way we are proud of, but it is essentially the product of the state aid cuts that we've endured for over the last 8 years. Every 3 years, the New Jersey Department of Education uh publishes what is called the educational adequacy report. Uh it it which updates the major elements that uh make up
052the school's funding formula. It publishes the report so that districts can compare themselves to the state and what the state says we should be spending to provide a thorough and efficient education. Uh the comparison range the comparisons range from what the district spends on transportation security facility maintenance to what teach we spend on teachers, administrators, guidance counselors. The state calculates uh each school district's adequacy spending. So it and what this says is what we should be spending on our students. This year, it indicated that our district is is anticipated to is projected to spend $40.5 million below what the state says we should be spending to educate the students here in Jackson. And you can see the previous years there before with 23.7 this current year, 8.5 the year before, and 1.1. This is on
053the uh you know, so this is a a cumulative effect uh and it's something that presents a real challenge to the school district. Um the major sources of revenue for our school district come from four basic sources. Uh federal and state grants which make up only uh 8.7% of our total revenue. Uh local revenue which includes facility rentals, tuition fees, and property sales. Uh the local tax levy, which now comprises over 66% of our revenue sources. And uh state aid. And with regard to state aid, um state aid, uh the drastic state aid cut that we've experienced in our school district over the last seven years continued on into this next school year. Uh although the way we were allocated the aid slightly changed. Um there was overall a 3% reduction in total categorical aid
054for our school district. So, our aid went down by $700,000, but they allocated it a little bit differently with transportation aid increasing, special education aid increasing, security aid increasing, and then equalization aid being zeroed out. Uh, the net effect there is a $700,000 loss in state aid. Um, the the state aid here in Jackson has been talked about at every budget hearing for the last seven, eight years. It is something that um that has really permeated everything that we do here in the school district with regard to our spending. And in this slide, you see the history of it with our aid decreasing uh very precipitously every year and far outpacing our enrollment. And so when it comes to that time period, our aid actually re reduced our state aid was reduced by 54% during
055that time period, but our enrollment only decreased by 20%. And this is a cumulative effect from year to year. It's kind of like taking a pay cut every year, every year, every year. And you do that for 8 years and now your pay is 50% of what it was 8 years ago. Very difficult to run a household, very difficult to run a school district. With regard to federal and state grants, um so we get a number of federal uh and state grants and we budget for approximately 14.2 2 million worth of of revenue in that area. They include uh IDEIDA grants for special education, ESA tit or our title grants, uh the state preschool grant, and then some smaller grants like the Perkins grant and the school-based mental health grant. Uh and all these grants
056show um in our budget as both a revenue and as an expense. So we budget them as a coming in and then the exact number as going out. And so whatever we take in, we spend that year. Um, with regard to other local other revenue, uh, the local revenue includes our tax levy, uh, which makes up the the lion share of of this local revenue. Um, this, uh, this year we are, uh, increasing the projected increasing the tax levy by 4.5 million, which is a $4.48% increase. Uh, this levy increase is exceeding the 2% cap. So, the general fund is going up by 2%. Um but it we also are availing ourselves of what is called a health benefit cap waiver because our health benefits costs have exceed have gone up so much for next
057year that we are eligible to increase the tax levy to make up some a portion of that. Um and then uh down the bottom you see the miscellaneous income. Uh the district is planning for next year um a miscellaneous a very ambitious miscellaneous income number and you can see that it's going up by $7.7 million. But you also see there that we did not plan specifically for a sale of property. Knowing that we're with closing the Mclliff school, we're going to be looking to generate revenue that would show up in the miscellaneous income next year as either a rental of the McAuliff school or the sale of that property. Uh the total proposed budget is going up by uh is going down by two just over $2 million. um which is a um and which
058is something that uh is very difficult to pull off in this day and age with everything going up and considering that our state aid and our revenue going down. Uh but in summary, the the 2025 2026 proposed budget will provide the funds essential to keep this district running and to keep this district uh running well and efficiently. It includes all contractually in salary and bene benefit obligations. Uh also all building maintenance and building utility costs. Um and so um with that being said um the impact on the taxpayer for this uh the tax with the tax levy going up uh just over 4.5 million will be $227 per year additional on the average property assessed in Jackson. And the average property assessed in Jackson is $652,896. So if your property is assessed exactly at that,
059you would expect a $227 per year tax increase based on this school tax levy increase, which amounts to be $18.91 per month. Um, we will move this district forward. Um, this does present for us a balanced budget which our revenue matches our expenses for next year. Um, we will continue to achieve established educational goals, uh, and we'll provide all Jackson students with the highest quality educational programs uh, that we've all come to know and expect from our school district. So, that is the budget presentation. Thank you, Mr. Beansky. very informative um and outlines exactly um where we stand with a balanced budget which it has been uh difficult as always but the first year we can actually say that we have a balanced budget going into this budget vote. Um so I I asked the
060board if they have any questions on either presentation before I turn it back to Miss Cass for the public um comment section for the the budget. Does the board have any questions or comments? Well, thank you for uh Miss Primilly for showing all of the uh new availability offerings at the high school, middle school, and 56 and even at the elementary level cuz I feel like we thought about it, but to see it written was impressive and I clapped for flag football cuz I like it. Um thank you. And uh that was my comment on there. And you know, Dan, you always do a great job with the budget presentation. Um we wish we could make it easier for you. Thank you. Okay. Well, then I'm going to turn it back to you, Miss Cass,
061to open the the public section for the budget. Made a motion to open public forum on the 2526 budget only. We will hold another public forum during the meeting for other questions. This public forum will be for questions on the budget only. Second. Please sign in and state your name and whether or not you are a Jackson resident. Each person is allowed a maximum of three minutes to speak. No person may speak more than once on a topic until all others have been heard. Hello, I'm Kathy Dapiro. Yes, Jackson resident. Um, first, thank you for all the work that went into the budget and also into the restructuring. Um, I particularly appreciate that you've managed to create a budget that's creating additional opportunity um, and properly serving the children of the district. Um, considering that
062the state of New Jersey has pretty much abandoned them. Um, I just had questions about just a couple specific line items and just kind of what the practical effect of that cut is. So, I'll just list there's four of them, so I'll just list them. Um so the first one is uh security which is 22% reduction for this year. So just what the practical effect of that is then same question for um co-curricular which is a 43% reduction what the practical effect of that is um same for ROC which is a 27% reduction and as we just saw we're going to have more students next year so what is the practical effect of that and then the last one um is Just the very last item is a transfer of funds to charter schools which
063is an appropriation for next year that hasn't been in previous years. So my question is just what that is. Thanks. Are there any additional budget questions do you want to answer before? Sure. Yeah. So with regard to the uh the decrease in security with the closing uh that's an line item with the closing of McAuliffe we do anticipate a staff reduction with regard to security um for co-curricular reduction with the merging of the two high schools and the two middle schools where the lion share with with the only thing in the elementary school is the safety patrol uh but every other co-curricular is in both middle schools and both high schools and the merger um it was almost just under a 50% reduction in the co-curricular line item uh our OTC um we had a
064change uh mid year we went from two full-time instructors down to one so you want to explain a little bit Y so um we had budgeted in this current budget for two um for two staff members um at a certain salary and the salaries for our next year's two staff members is lower than what it was budgeted for for this year. It matches it because we have different individual one different individual. And the last one, the transfer funds to charter schools. So, we are obligated to um to establish uh funds to for any students any of our Jackson resident students who are attending a charter school. And so, uh the reason why it hasn't been in years past is because we now have some students who do attend charter schools and we need to budget
065for that. Can I ask a question on the charter schools? How does that work with districts that have a large number of students that go to charter schools? Do they like is that always a local expense or is that um additionally budgeted at a certain percentage like fully by the state? Yeah, it's kind similar to be budgeted the way we budget out of district placement students. Um when so you the money follows the students the per pupil allocation that we spend here in Jackson if a student attends a charter school in another in another in another location um that money would go to that to that charter school and so we have to anticipate who's going to be attending those charter schools. I'm kind of asking like um what if you had like a district
066where a large number of kids went to charter schools kind of like oh an off balance like we have transportation let's say how the local people have to fund that or Yeah. I mean, you you uh I'm looking over at Carol Morris because I know uh uh she's been a monitor in places where that is the primary that is some that is a primary uh uh budget driver in those schools. And you're you're you're legally responsible to uh to fund that transportation as well. Transportation as well or just does the state give you dollar for dollar for them and it's like not it's like almost like an expense like a prepaid expense. So this what we would have spent on that student here in Jackson on a per pupil allocation is what we would give
067to the charter school. And correct me if I'm wrong, Miss Marl. Yeah. How about special ed? Same thing. The the charter school special ed. The charter school when it's created goes through an application to the state. the if the state approves it as a charter school then u they their expenses are paid by your budget the local for instance I'll give you an example it's easier to follow in Asbury Park three charter schools have been approved there if you're following the asbury Park press you know it's been an issue there because those three charter schools total over 500 00 kids that come out of the public school and go to charter schools and the tuition is somewhere close to I don't hold me to it but close to about five or $6 million that the
068public school has to pay to the charter schools for tuition. So there's nothing with the state with like I don't know how many students are in Asbury but let's just say there's a thousand, right? If it was at an equal percentage like the state, is there any like um No, I know I know where you're going and you're correct and there is no limit um to at all. That's in every town with multiple charter schools. Yes. Well, if they've been approved. Yes. Interesting. For instance, in Newark, they have several. And many times in Newark, they are in the public school. They rent floors from the the public schools and um they're still in the same school, but the budget that's uh attributed to NORC is deducted and paid to the whatever number of kids are
069in those uh charter schools. I know we won't talk about that district because it'll be too too debateful. No. Well, as far more someone who Yeah, it varies from from then and then some districts have no charter schools. So, you know, they don't have as Dan is saying, this is the first time I guess Jackson has had that expense because it's the first time evidently you've had a charter school approved in the district. But it is something to keep your eye on because it can be a lot of money. Interesting. Anyone else? Anyone else? Okay. Seeing no one come forward, I need a motion to close public forum. Motion. All in favor? I. Standing committee reports. Um, buildings and grounds. Mrs. Rivera. Yes, Mr. McCar. Sorry. Yeah, I got it. Uh, capital improvements, uh, projects
070districtwide. Uh, boiler and generators passed inspection by the Ocean County Board of Health. Elevator inspected and passed by our insurance company and kitchen equipment uh, have been repaired and replaced. Crawford Rodriguez cooling tower service and place into cooling season operation. Switlick portable renovations were completed. Elms green project completed including the installation of a shed and greenhouse. Uh Holman and Johnson all trailer areas were replenished with top soil, grass seed and hay to ensure proper growth. Johnson, the ADA compliant ramp was installed and Memorial High School and Memorial Transportation, all hazardous potholes were repaired. Okay. Budget and fin did you have any questions on it? Okay. Budget and finance. Uh Mrs. Cartella. Um we met tonight. Uh obviously the pres presentation was tonight. So I have no no updates from us policy uh policy met on
071April 8th and uh we are still working and strategize strategizing for um a fundraising policy throughout the district. Um scholarship Mr. Walsh. Okay. So far all the students have been chosen for the scholarships. They'll be notified in the next two weeks. Scholarship night is June 4th, 6:00 pm at Liberty Auditorium. As of this time, there is a $153,000 worth of scholarships which will be handed out that night. That is all. State and County School Board's representative, Mrs. Rivera. Yes. The C um next county meeting is tonight. The last um meeting for the school year and then the next um meeting will be determined over the summer. Thank you. [Music] Um advocacy committee, Mrs. Gardella. Sure. We met with um two legislators. Um, we were getting a lot of good feedback and from what they've told
072us, they encourage, uh, they actually all mentioned how last budget season a lot of the Jackson residents flooded their emails and they knew our town. So, I think that's something that we hope that the town can come behind again for this budget season. The legislators approved the governor's budget in June. [Music] I need a motion for approval of policy regulations. Second reading adoption. Motion. Second. Discussion. Roll call. Dr. Osman. Yes. Mr. Walsh. Yes. Mr. McCarron. Yes. Mrs. Rivera. Yes. Mrs. Baroas? Yes. Mrs. Gardella? Yes. Mrs. Cass? Yes. I need a motion for approval of the minutes. The close session meeting March 19th, 2025. The official board meeting March 19th, 2025. Business meeting. Motion. Second. Discussion. Roll call. Dr. Osman. Yes. Mr. Walsh? Yes. Mr. McCarron? Yes. Mrs. Rivera? Yes. Mrs. Baroas? Yes. Mrs. Gordella? Yes.
073Mrs. Cass? Yes. I need a motion for approval of the bill list. Motion. Second. Discussion. Roll call. Dr. Osman. Yes. Mr. Walsh. Yes. Mr. McCarron. Yes. Mrs. Rivera. Yes. Mrs. Baroas. Yes. Mrs. Gardella. Yes. Mrs. Cass. Yes. I need a motion for approval of the treasurers and board secretaries reports. Motion. Second. Discussion. Roll call. Dr. Osman. Yes. Mr. Walsh. Yes. Mr. McCarron. Yes. Mrs. Rivera. Yes. Mrs. Mr. Baroas, yes. Mrs. Cardella, yes. Mrs. Cass, yes. I need a motion to open the public forum on agenda items only. We will hold another public forum during this meeting for other questions. This public forum will be for a quest for questions on the agenda only. Motion. Second. Please sign in and state your name and whether or not you are a Jackson resident. Each person is allowed
074a maximum of three minutes to speak. No person may speak more than once on the topic until all others have been heard. Any agenda items? Seeing no one come forward, I need a motion to close public forum. Motion. All in favor? I. I need a motion to move finance. Motion. Second. Discussion. Yes. Um, I just wanted to uh recognize finance item number 11. Um, there was a donation from Zangle Industries and Labio General Construction for a gaga pit at the Gats Middle School for the 56 next year. And I also wanted to discuss um for uh for us to discuss and let the public be aware that we were presented um from administration that we were able to raise the tax levy tonight. um even though we did not do the resolution last two weeks
075ago um at the deadline. So, we chose not to do it and they offered it again like maybe we want to do it a little more and we just wanted the public to know that we obviously went with our tenative budget. Um I don't know if anybody wants to make a comment on that. And I also had the 14% reduction in security, but we have a great explanation on that and we know that we're going to be fully staffed. So, thank you. And um those were my Oh, Mr. Beansy, I meant to bring up can you talk about a semi? Um it was a revenue stream for us and it went it's going down and we kind of talked about it. You mentioned that it was due to federal grants being reduced which trickles down
076to state reduction which trickles down to our reduction of students who qualify for receiving what is that title one or title two. Oh, the semi special education Medicaid initiative. Yeah, that was a surprise um to every school district that uh receives that semi uh um those funds from the state. Um and it really came off came off came off as something that from the federal government made a cut to the state and then the state kind of passed it passed it along to the districts. And so we weren't alone. every school district that received those funds and it was a significant decrease and that was for students who were eligible for um that Medicaid initiative. Um I also want I always want to thank everyone for all of the donations. Um and then just remind
077everyone too that we have our unpaid lunch balances and we sometimes get donations for that. Um unfortunately we do have some um challenges with that in the district. So again, if anybody ever feels the need to help out that we um we appreciate all of that. Thank you so much. Roll call. Dr. Osman, yes. Mr. Walsh, yes. Mr. McCarron, yes. Mrs. Rivera, yes. Mrs. Baroas, yes. Mrs. Gardella, yes. Mrs. Cass, yes. I need a motion to move facilities. Motion. Second. Discussion. Um, I just wanted to bring up that we received and I don't know Mr. McGinsky if the month survey but it looked to me to be March, April, May and June like 53,000 in additional miscellaneous revenue through facilities rentals and I thought that was great. That was on your document. Um, F. Yeah,
078good job. Roll call. Dr. Osman, yes. Mr. Walsh, yes. Mr. McCarron, yes. Mrs. Rivera. Yes. Mrs. Baroas. Yes. Mrs. Gardella. Yes. Mrs. Cass. Yes. I need a motion to move programs. Motion. Second. Scashen. With the esports uh that grant is that going towards hardware, software, or salaries or a combination of all? I'm going to ask uh Dr. Godi. She has been working closely with that grant. Would you respond? Sure. It'll be for some salaries for like the after school portion of the program. Otherwise, it's embedded in our technology curriculum. So, it'll go to salaries to uh revise the curriculum to include the esports part. It's uh not gaming during the school day. It's more career-based and what kind of career explorations students can engage in to be in the esports. um I guess uh line
079of work as they grow older. And so we'll also be outfitting with some hardware and software so that the kids can do the program after school and compete with other schools. So they'll actually be learning to code. Absolutely. Okay. Very good. Anyone else? Roll call. Dr. Osman? Yes. Mr. Walsh? Yes. Mr. McCarron? Yes. Mrs. Mr. Rivera. Yes. Mrs. Baroas. Yes. Mrs. Cardella. Yes. Mrs. Cass. Yes. I need a motion to move students. Motion. Second. Discussion. Roll call. Dr. Osman? Yes. Mr. Walsh? Yes. Mr. McCarron? Yes. Mrs. Rivera? Yes. Mrs. Baroas? Yes. Mrs. Cordella? Yes. Mrs. Cass? Yes. I need a motion to move personnel. Motion second. Discussion. Roll call. Dr. Osman. Yes. Mr. Walsh. Yes. Mr. McCarron. Yes. Mrs. Rivera. Yes. Mrs. Baroas. Yes. Mrs. Gardella. Personnel. Um, abstain 10B2 in 2081. Mrs. Cass. Yes.
080I need a motion to open public form for any topic pertaining to the board of education. Motion. Second. Please sign in and state your name and whether or not you are a Jackson resident. Each person is allowed a maximum of 3 minutes to speak. No person may speak more than once on a topic until all others have been heard. [Music] Seeing no seeing no one come forward, I need a motion to close public. Oh, so are you coming forward? Okay, [Music] great. Sorry. Hello, my name is Paula Robertson. I am a Jackson resident and a actually a Jackson Memorial graduate and a lifelong Jackson resident and a school bus driver. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. I have some questions regarding the transportation department in particular employee retention, communication, and safety training.
081Um I have a concern um what appears to be a high turnover rate among transportation staff. Could the board share any insight into why so many employees have left and are leaving? Is the board conducting exit interviews? And if so, are the results of the exit interviews being tracked? What feedback are you receiving? Do any include working conditions? If so, what steps are being taken to improve employee issues? Is the board considering any incentives or improved support systems to retain transportation staff? Um, I believe communication is key to improve safety and retention. What formal and safe way do employees have at transportation to share feedback or concerns with leadership? Are employees voices being heard? And what systems are in place to support open communication without fear of retaliation? And lastly, safety. How much of the
082transportation budget is allocated for safety training? Uh, specifically, defensive driving, CPR, and CPI training. they're no longer offered or required. Is this due to the current budget situation? Are there any plans to expand or improve training programs in the near future? And if so, who is responsible for implementing and developing safety training programs in the transportation department? Lastly, I would respectfully request that the director of transportation, Mr. Sodto will be invited to attend future board meetings to provide updates and address concerns within the transportation department with staff and the entire Jack Jackson community. Thank you for your time and commitment to the safety and well-being of our students and staff. Anyone else? Seeing no one come forward, I need a motion to close public forum. Motion second. Favor. I. Thank you. So, just to address
083some of uh the questions that you asked, I won't be able to address all of them, but we certainly will continue to have discussion and conversation. Um actually, we just had a conversation about exit interviews uh just this week. So, um we are working on that. Um we are um always paying attention and looking and reviewing and we are in discussion and conversation about what we need to do to retain drivers. So, we are right at this moment in discussion and conversation about that. I'm going to turn it over to uh Mr. Beginsky who will address some of the other questions that you have. Um again, not all of them will be able to be answered tonight, but certainly we know where to find you and give you some responses. Yeah. So, first, thanks for
084the transportation department for showing up tonight. It's it's good to see everybody. Uh and uh I think Paul, all of your points are great points. Um the school district uh believes deeply in training. Um training is when is the answer for most uh issues that we face. And I would be happy to work with the transportation department leadership to make sure that we um can expand on the training opportunities that we already do in the contractually required training days that we have already and to build off of it. Um I could tell you Miss uh Miss Primily mentioned about the exit interviews. We used to do exit interviews because they I used to do them out of my office uh up until um COVID and and when COVID happened, they never came back. Uh so
085we just talked about that this week to to bring them back. Um I think I mentioned at the previous board meeting that the role of the bus driver is one of the most uh difficult and challenging roles uh that we have in a school district and there's so many state laws and so many requirements that are are are required of bus drivers and transportation employees that it can be overwhelming and you know concepts like training are super important. Um, I'd be happy to, um, with regard to the communication with the transportation leadership, something else that we've done in the past that we've gotten away from was having regular labor relations meetings uh, with school uh, transportation leadership and some district leadership and the representatives from uh, the drivers and and the aids. Uh, I think
086that would be a good idea. um commun you can't go wrong with with communicating more frequently um and more openly. And so that is something else that I would be happy to set up and I'll make sure I follow up on. Um and with regard to um having uh updates at the board meeting, uh I think it's a great idea. Um we've been jam-packed with everything else at board meetings, but you know, hopefully we're moving into a slower time period where a transportation update to the board of education I think would be very appropriate. So, great points. [Music] Uh, we'll do board comments. We'll start down at the end. Mr. Walsh. Uh, I see, uh, we have some retirements coming up. I just want to give a shout out to Lisa Diagenio. It's been around
087for a long time. I worked with her as a a teacher, supervisor, and she does a great job with literacy uh in this district. And uh good luck in your retirement. Also, I'd like to give a shout out to a program that we run in the summertime. My kids went through the program and it's really a good program. It's the digital med media summer camp. Okay. It's great at getting kids interested in getting into technology and the different types. That is it. Just wanted to thank everyone who's uh providing scholarship opportunities for our students. It's such a fantastic number. Um I know that it's uh definitely a help to all students going to college and moving on next year. Thank you all for coming out today. Um, I just wanted to say congratulations to Mr.
088Levenson. Good luck on your new position in your new school. I also wanted to just give a shout out to Danny Barry who just broke a he's a volleyball player at Jackson Memorial High School and he just broke a record for aces. I don't know anything about volleyball, but apparently he got 83 aces. So, I'm sure that's great and good for you. Um, Danny, congratulations. I also wanted to just wish the juniors a fun time at their formal this week. And to the seniors, just enjoy your last weeks of, you know, I know they're all I have a senior and very excited for the next step, but just kind of want to remind them to slow it down, enjoy your last weeks, and you know, you only get to be a kid once, so enjoy
089it. Thank you all for coming out. I want to thank everyone for um attending in person and live stream. Thank you all for your input, your comments and presentations and thank you for all the volunteers that you know contributed to the input for the unity. And then good luck on all retirements and everyone have a safe and wonderful night. Um I just want to say thank you to Mr. Beginsky and Miss Permilly for your presentations. Um I think the uh the um township and uh our staff and everyone are really appreciate the transparency. They were really well done and uh very much appreciated. Um, last time after the board of ed meeting, uh, Megan and myself were able to attend the, uh, Gets Drama Club, um, the Spongebob musical youth edition. And once again, incredible.
090Uh, these kids, everyone from the the kids on stage to the people behind the scenes to the people up above, uh, they just do an amazing job. We really love supporting you guys. We're looking forward to many more shows uh, in the next in the next year or so. Um, and also a thank you to uh Miss Mrs. uh Meg Morowski uh for stepping up and doing so much for these kids. There was no one to run the drama club and uh there she was stepping up and we know she has so much going on and we really appreciate it. So, uh thank you. Um also, um uh happy birthday to my husband. I'll be home in a little bit and we can celebrate. Thanks. Good night to everyone. I just wanted to echo congratulations
091to all the retirements, to all our athletes, um to everybody getting inducted to the National Honor Society tomorrow. Uh I'll echo that the Spongebob play was amazing. I brought five almost nine and 10 year olds and they loved every moment of it. It was a great show. So if you got to see it, you got to see something special and you know, I said my thanks on everything else. So everybody have a great evening. Um, I too just want to thank everyone for coming. Um, best wishes to the students on the junior formal that's coming up. Um, good luck um to all of our uh retirees and I wish them the best on their next uh the next chapter of their lives and congratulations to Mr. Levenson as well. So, uh I'm really excited um
092about the budget even though we're obviously in a lot of distress in this district and everybody knows but looking at some of the new opportunities for our students is pretty exciting. So again, thank you both for um all of your hard work and uh the presentations and and the transparency that we have. Um so just thanks everyone and have a great night. Need a motion to adjurnn. Motion