001This meeting of the Malawa Board of Education is open to members of the public to be physically present. Members of the public that attend will be asked to follow the same procedures as all other visitors to our schools. Those procedures can be found on the agenda page of our website. Additionally, the board meeting will be livereamed for viewing purposes only. Anyone wishing to view the meeting may do so via Zoom. Webinar ID for this meeting is 89804342952 and the required password is 996253. All right, I call this meeting to order. Mr. Lamb, roll call, please. Mr. Copan, Misso, Mr. Dilva here. Mr. Denise here, Mr. Gallow here. Mr. Yu here. Miss Jansen here. Mr. Kizarski, Dr. Morty here. and our student representative Miss Casper here. Adequate notice of agenda of this meeting has been provided
002to the Ridgewood News and the record specifying that the MA board of education will meet on March 26, 2025 in the administrative offices 60 Ridge Road, MA, New Jersey. A copy was filed with the township clerk. Mr. Gallow, would you lead us in the salute today, please? I allegiance 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 for all. Thank you, Mr. Gallow. All right. We do not require executive session at the beginning of the meeting. So, we will go on to agenda questions. Please limit your questions at this time to resolutions under new business on this agenda. As a matter of fairness, you're asked to limit your questions to no more than one and your
003remarks to no longer than three minutes. If you are here representing a group, please identify yourself, the group, and your position in the group. If you're here as an individual, please give us your name and address. This section of public participation will be limited to 15 minutes. Please specify the resolution on the agenda that you are referring to in your question. All right. I need a motion to open the meeting to the public. Mr. Gallow, second by Mr. D Silva. We are officially open to the public. All right. Seeing no one come forth at this time, motion to close the meeting to the public. Mr. Hughes, second by Miss Ting Jansen. All right. Our MA student representative report this evening. Um the musical Anything Goes is open tomorrow and today for senior citizens and it
004is going through Sunday. Congrats to the drama club directed by Mr. Maym and new um National Honor Society applicants are applying through the process or currently. Um the juniors have just completed the NJ GPA testing. Saturday we have a winter percussion competition at Fairon High School. Juniors also just had a junior formal at the Legacy Castle last Thursday. Shout out to Miss Graph and the junior class officers for planning a great event. Um, our very own SJA executive member placed at the David Good Memorial Memorial 3D bridge competition at NJIT. Lucas Hart led a team including Sophia Rose, William Patado, Constain Har, and Mr. Calves placed second in the largest load and stiffest um bridge category. second place overall. The symphonic band uh won gold at the regional one band festival as well as the
005band would win section hosted by West Essex High School. T-Irds crushed it at the future problem solving state bowl this past weekend. The the community problem solving got first place in their category going to the state bowl and wrote a book on Amazon illustrated by Riley Kim written by Mary and Catherine. 21 students earned invitations to the future problem solving international competition this June in Bloomington, Indiana. Congrats to all. And lastly, the Robo T-Birds won the rising star award at their last competition. Thank you very much. It's a lot going on. Uh Dr. Duro, do you have any report left for us this evening? Got a lot of crossouts. Um, so we'll start with some things that were not shared. Um, we just wanted to have a big congratulations to Ben Wagman being named coach
006um, of the year. He was selected as big North Patriot League coach of the year for wrestling. Um, standing next to him is Ava Nolla. That's actually at at states in Atlantic City. So, um I'm if anybody knows Coach Wagman, he is truly committed to the wrestling um organization and he's done a great job of building um not only his wrestlers throughout the season, but building the number of wrestlers on his team. So, I just want to congratulate him, his staff, and all the wrestlers that were committed to the growth this year. So, congratulations, Coach Wagman. Um this is Coach Dlesio. He was also selected as coach of the year for bowling and their bowling team won their division. So, Mr. Pascal and Mr. Phelps here do a champions breakfast for all the uh different
007league winners and coach DeLisio and the team were there this morning. So, congratulations Coach Delesio for all that you do for our bowlers and congratulations to the bowling team. The next one is um as we know It's springtime, so we have our incredible plays both at Rampo Ridge and at Ma High School. Rampo Ridge this past week uh performed Annie Jr. was very well attended. The play focuses on a plot that is rooted in hope, the importance of family and overcoming adversity. Uh the central office team was fortunate enough to crash the senior uh performance today uh senior citizens performance today of anything goes. It's absolutely spectacular. Um the the music is beautiful, the acting is fantastic, the singing is incredible. Um I strongly recommend everyone in the community to come out. Um it's just
008wonderful to see all of the kids. There are so many kids that are in the performance and the quality of the performance is is truly amazing. Um if you do attend, I want you to also please take notice to the set. Uh Mr. Pascal made us aware that this is the first year that one of our students built the set. Uh the cool part about the set is not only is it obviously a beautiful set u but there's a staircase in the set that stu probably about five or six students walk across the staircase and it held um and also uh there's there's movement in the set and just the the artwork and things like that. It's just um it's really great to see not only the performing arts side but also our wood woodworking
009students on display. So please attend if you can this weekend. Another thing that wasn't discussed uh therapy dogs at uh George Washington School on March 20th GW students participated in SEAL learning day reinforcing skills they have been developing all year. Ma High School student volunteers led activities that promoted self-awareness um and mindfulness. The Seeing Eye graciously brought three of their pups in training. Uh was it Schwaz? Or Schwaz. I like Schwaz better. Me too. Swayy, Claus, and Jerry to teach our students how seeing eye dogs help others gain independence. I like Schwaz. Schwaz is on one of my one of my kids TV shows. He's he's a great character. [Music] Habitat for Humanity. As we all know, last year our senior class um raised a significant amount of money to put towards a project we
010wanted to build in in Ma. It just so happened that Habitat Habitat for Humanity had a place in Oridel. um we connected with them and actually they're going to uh they already broke ground but the first day is June 2nd. A number of our seniors from our graduates are going to be attending to take part in the build. So it's just a it's just a wonderful example of the MA community coming to together to help um a surrounding community. So congratulations to our MAWA senior class of 2024 for really leaving their mark. I'm not going to speak to this because this is already talked about. This is the symphonic band. Congratulations to the symphonic band. Again, congratulations to our Robo T-Irds. Um this we got a chance to talk to the MSF the other night
011uh to put in for grants and uh Mr. Montana was there and you can see just a sense of pride um that Mr. Montana has for this group. It started with just a couple students. Now we have over 50 students that were talking about getting a uh a second a second robot for their for their build because it's just so many students that are participating in this activity. So it's a great problem to have and we will definitely address um that challenge in the future. Again something that our that our high school representative shared was our um community problem solvers. Uh yet again they did MA proud um and were winners in their division in their most recent state ball competition. I don't think that she spoke about this one. This is the winter guard
012competition. Ma took first place. The Thunderbird winter guard took first place out of 16 teams at the Bridgewater Raron High School Ma main winter guard competition. Congrats on their top score of 77.14. I believe, and I don't want to speak, I believe that's the top score that they've ever had in competition history. So, congratulations to our winter guard. Can I add something to your add something to your report? Yeah. Can we go back to the picture of coach? Oh, sure. There we go. There we go. So, you mentioned next to him is Ava Nolla and she was recently honored by the Berkeley County Women's Coaches Association earning first team all county for wrestling. So, she's she's that was a picture of her states this year. first first female wrestler from to earn states and then
013the first team and I'm going to add to yours um it's the I believe the um winner athletic awards was March 18th and there were a number of um of our athletes that were honored one being Ava um and then we had a number of other um athletes so we would love to honor uh those individuals. Um so the next board one because they're still all coming in all county and um all all league and things like that. So we'll have all of them because we do a great job of honoring a lot of our performing arts. I wanted to take a moment to honor our winter athletes as well. But Ava had a tremendous season and a point of pride for all for sure. Great. Thank you very much. Um Mr. Lamb, do we
014have a report this evening? Yes. Uh Dr. Morphy. So as the business administrators report this evening, we will have an update on the 2526 budget uh that was approved at the um the preliminary budget was approved on March 5th and it remains a preliminary budget until the board uh approves it a final time on April 30th. So we will have another update tonight on the progress of the budget submission. Uh so tonight we're going to go over uh special education, our out of district tuition, our benefits, and some operations. Uh uh so our special education the costs continue to grow. Um we uh a large a part of our cost is out of district tuition for special education students. Uh however uh when we have the opportunity to bring programs in house uh we do
015so because it's best for the children it also happens to save the district uh substantial amount of money. Uh so for example next year we're starting an ind district prek to grade three autism program in partnership with Bergen County Special Services uh which allows our students to remain in our district and the uh the cost savings relative to if we had to pay tuition out of district uh is about a million dollars. So, it's a win-win for the students and for the district's budget. Uh we uh in addition to the out of district cost, we have uh hundreds of thousands of costs in related services for speech, physical therapy, occupational therapy, also transportation costs for sending the students out of district. Uh we have general administration the child study team. Uh we have the staff
016who have to write the IEPs, uh continue the evaluations and manage that process. Uh we are continuing a half-day preschool program uh in district uh in partnership with Burton County Special Services uh that we have this current year. And just as a uh uh in terms of the magnitude uh our in district special education uh prek to 12, we have 449 students on roll. Uh and that's in district, not even counting the out of district. And if you consider our total special education costs in our operating budget, including our out of district uh tuition, our transportation, and all of our industry costs, it's about 31% of our budget. Uh and but we're we're required to service these uh students with whatever needs they have just as we required to serve all students. So, uh just
017want to say it's a pleasure working with our child study team and giving the students the resources they need. Can I just add one thing? Um just I just want to bring to the board's attention. We've got a chance to speak to uh most of the board members, but I want to make sure that we're aware. The second bullet point up there along as of in district, our prek through three autistic program. Just to give you an understanding, we currently, this is our first year having our prek program um for our autistic uh children in our district. This year we connected with Burton County Special Services, Miss Rizzo and Miss Astano worked with them and we were fortunate enough to bring back I believe it was six students back into district. Um the great part
018about that partnership is Bergen County Special Services has an established reputation with other districts in doing this. So they worked handinhand with our team and created a a wonderful program for our students. Because of the success, not only um from the feedback from Bergen County Special Services, but also the parents of the students involved. Uh we felt it was important to continue that that partnership and relationship of having our kids continue to go through our district. So, we're we're building another section kindergarten through third grade that allows our students to start in preK and travel through. So, our we're going to be um recommending and it's up for a vote to open another section kindergarten through third grade for our CA u our autistic program uh with a connection with Burton County Special Services. Thank
019you, Dr. Dur. Uh continuing with our out of district costs, uh this slide shows our uh a summary and breakdown of our out of district costs. It includes both regular education and special education. Uh we have right now about 68 special education students going out of district as determined by the IEP. Some of them go to uh other public schools. Uh some of them go to Bergen County special services in their various locations and programs. Some of them go to private schools for disabled. Um and then we also have out of district costs for regular education students. We have a number of students who go to uh Bourbon Tech County VOTE and themies. Uh and two students are shared halfime with MAWA and halftime with Bergen County VOTE. And we have two Adams district students
020uh who attend a charter school which is considered a public school but we're still required to pay for the tuition and the transportation for those students. So our uh total tuition budget uh is over $6 million about 7.6% of our budget. Uh fortunately we get about $600,000 in idea funds which we use to put towards our out of district tuition. uh that is federal grant money. Employee benefits uh continue to be a large part of our budget. Our total contractual benefits include health, prescription, and dental, but also include other benefits such as work working workers compensation, the social security taxes, uh pension payments, tuition reimbursement, and then uh pay payout of uh sick time for retirees. And our our total employee benefits budget is 12.9 almost $13 million. That's about 15.6% of the operating budget.
021The trend over the last decade or two has been that employee benefits continue to be an increasing part of the budget. there. Although salaries go up at a uh rate somewhere typically two 3% uh employee benefits going up at a much higher rate in some years double digits. Uh and then uh the bottom aster explains uh our our district is uh taking advantage of the use of a health waiver because our employee benefits specifically health benefits are increasing by more than 2%. we have the option to raise the cap on our tax levy uh above the uh base of 2% uh to go higher and we explained that at the last meeting and we'll explain that again at the final budget presentation on April 30th. Uh continuing more on employee benefits uh more specifically the
022health benefits uh our medical benefits we have four options from Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield direct access 10 or 15 New Jersey educators plan or garden state health plan the good news bless you the good news for the district was uh this past January we made a switch from the uh state health plan school employee health benefits plan to be official to a private plan from Horizon. The collective savings from for the district and its employees was about $900,000. Uh even with that savings, our our bill still went up by about 2% from December to January. It would have gone up even higher if not for that change. Uh but come next January, we're expecting another large rate increase, double digits. The state plan is expecting a 14% increase. Uh and private plans are expecting
023increases between 10 and 15% and we're budgeting at 12.25% increase. And again, that increase being above 2% allows us to use the healthcare week. And it should be noted uh well, I'll I'll note that on the next page. So again the types of medical benefits uh we have medical we also have prescription and dental and as high as medical benefits have been going up the prescription rates have been going up even higher. Uh in some years you may have a medical plan benefits go up 5% but the prescription costs go up 20%. That's not atypical. uh that that uh the prescription rates in many years are driving uh the medical increases overall. Um so the the remember the total benefits budget was almost 13 million but about 10 million of that is are medical prescription
024and dental benefits. So the majority of the benefits are health related. And then the employees are doing their fair share. Uh about 15 years ago, employees did not pay into their health benefits. Now, our employees are paying about two uh $2.3 million into the health benefits. They're paying for about 21% of the cost. uh looking at our approach appropriations by categories uh instructional related uh support such as curriculum guidance uh library multimedia uh professional development and training and our nurses office about $4.5 million about 5 and a half% of our budget our school operations which includes our uh school administrative teams principal offices and their staff And then our central office staff uh is about just under $2.8 million. Our district operations and technology is about $3.5 million. I I always find it interesting and
025sometimes scratch my head on it that we can't run a school district without our uh computer, internet, our uh email, our servers. uh most of our instruction has some type of technology component in it but uh the state of New Jersey considers technology an administrative cost. So when you see administrative costs remember it includes technology which you can't run a school district without. Our maintenance custodial and grounds uh collectively include uh and security is lumped in with that uh is 7.2 million. And just uh as an example of our operations and our maintenance uh how uh the budget it's it's fluid, it changes and there's always surprises and changes in the budget. Uh we learned yesterday that uh we may expect a utilities increase uh beginning in July of about 18%. The bid hasn't happened
026yet, but those are the projections. Uh utilities aren't included in the maintenance budget. Good news is we are renegotiating our copier contract uh and we're going to have substantial savings in that and in likelihood the savings in uh our copier contract would be used to uh help offset the increase in utilities. So it's changes like that happen uh really on every month there's some type of change happening where we're adjusting the budget our extracurricular athletics and uh after school activities uh we're not cutting programs out. So, we're continuing all of those programs as a steady part of the budget. And Tom, just so folks know, and the security line, this includes the increase of our security initiatives, security staffing um in our other schools this year. So, every single school will have either an SRO
027or a school security officer. That's what the title is, right? So, uh yeah, to Mr. Gall's point, we do have an increase uh in our security budget, but we have other decreases in other maintenance areas to try to uh balance the budget. And we're just trying to do more with less finding efficiencies. Mr. Romero, our director of facilities, has done a great job in really trying to uh manage the buildings and keep them in great shape, but in a I would say very frugal way if possible. So, uh thank you for listening. If board members have any questions, be happy to entertain them. We will have two more presentations uh on April 9th before the strategic planning part of the meeting. We will talk about enrollment, personnel, transportation, and capital outlay and some of our
028other summer projects. Uh, and then April 30th is the final of budget, public budget hearing and presentation, and we'll give an overview, a summary, and the tax impact. And then that's when the board approves the final uh final budget for next year. Thank you very much, Mr. Lamb. Appreciate that. Um I I just do I have one question on the IDA. You said those are federal monies. Um do you anticipate any changes in that um given some of the changes um on that level, but not for this year perhaps in federal monies? Yeah, we do not a couple of things. Usually the federal money planned a few years in advance and at least what we're hearing through uh the business administrators association is that uh if uh funding if changes are made at the federal
029level they would probably still give the money to the states to distribute it. So that's at least what we're hearing. Okay. What was that? Uh we're budgeting just under 600,000 for IDPA. But even even in a even in a uh less volatile political climate, we always budget our grants conservatively just because there's probably a little bit more unpredictability at the federal level than at the state level, but nothing we should be concerned about. That was more not at this time. Good. Very good. Thank you. Um Dr. Fair. Hello. Good evening. Our audiovisisual records. Yes. So um you'll see here that Mr. Pascal has recently published the high school's latest edition of Thunderbird Connections which features updates related to alumni from the high school. You'll see here some recent posts that showcase alumni from the class
030of 2017 and 2020. Mr. Pascal happened to run into Gonyi Fetto, class of 2017, who's working at his family business and finding success there. Samra Landau, also from the class of 2017, is a research assistant in the lab for youth mental health at Harvard University. And Edman just recently graduated with majors in mathematics and computer science from Ruckers University last month. So, congrats to all of them. Another alumni uh highlight is Colin Twist, class of 2021. Uh congratulations to him for capturing the NCAA Division 3 National Championship in the 200 meter freestyle. Uh an amazing accomplishment for the United States uh Coast Coast Guard Academyy's current senior as shared by our uh student representative. You can see here our uh high school's science club won second place for sturdiest bridge at NGIT. Uh second for
031the second place for strongest and third place overall at NGIT's 3D bridge building contest. And we're back with uh Lucas Arts boat build. You'll see in front of you there is an article that features uh Lucas's progress. So, uh the article is found online from Total Boat Online where it speaks to Lucas's progress over time. You'll see here an image of Lucas with his boat as a youngster and his current work on his present boat project as a senior here at MA High School. He's in his he's really close to the finish line in terms of completing the boat and he is planning the boat launch at some point this spring. I'm hoping that the whole board can can be there to attend. Does the boat have a name yet? I don't think so. Not
032yet. But I I think I asked that question. It has a fun. Yeah, it sure does. Okay. Yes. Yeah. They're actually they're working with the town to see if they can find a place that they can do it in within town. So, see what happens. Water. You do? Sure do. And uh we have a few retirement announcements. Agenda item 18A highlights Debbie Kale who has been a passionate advocate for children of all abilities, ensuring that every student has the support and encouragement that they need to thrive. Known for her exceptional literacy instruction, Miss Kale has inspired countless students to find joy in reading, to develop the reading skills, and to discover their own voices. Her impact extends beyond the classroom, touching the lives of colleagues, families, and the entire school community. As she steps into
033this exciting new chapter, Debbie looks forward to exploring new adventures, embracing new opportunities, and continuing to make a difference in fresh and meaningful ways, especially through volunteer work. Uh while she will be deeply missed, we wish Debbie a retirement filled with joy, discovery, and well-earned relaxation. Of course, if you know Debbie, she will be retiring alongside her husband, George. So, George has given 33 years of service uh to our school district. He is uh retiring as a science teacher at Rambridge Middle School. After 33 years of service, Mr. Kale is leaving behind a remarkable legacy as a respected educator in our district. Beyond the science classes he's taught, Mr. Kale served as a team leader since the inception of the team model. In this role, he planned and coordinated the middle school experience in communication
034with students, parents, guardians, and his grade level colleagues. Coach Kale also served as a soccer and basketball coach in our district at M High School and Marish Middle School. In the classroom, Mr. Kale spent the majority of his teaching career guiding students through the complexities of physical science through his jour though his journey began with teaching earth and space science. In reflecting on how it all started, Mr. Kale joked that he was just an alternate route teacher seeking substitute teaching hours when he was quickly approached by the then building principal who uh hired George as a full-time teacher ultimately replacing the very teacher who taught him middle school science. So George and his wife Debbie raised five sons uh in our district all of whom attended our school. So we wish both of them all
035the best. Next we have Laura Phillips from GW who uh has dedicated 20 years of service uh to George Washington School. Uh now she is announcing her retirement. Throughout her career uh Laura has shaped the lives of young learners spending 11 years in kindergarten, 18 years in first grade and nine years in second grade. and she is retiring as a second grade teacher. Having spent her entire 28-year career at GW, she has been a constant source of guidance and support for students and colleagues alike. Uh we are grateful for years of service and wish her all the best in retirement. Uh when Laura was asked what's next, she shared that she's moving to her happy place in Pennsylvania and she and her husband plan to travel and look forward to exploring the beauty of the
036country's national parks. And lastly, we announce the retirement of Morin Lynch. Um, agenda item 18C, a supervisor of English grades 6 through 12 and performing arts grades 9 through 12. Um, Moren has led her department by being actively involved with all instructional programs and performances hosted by her department. Miss Lynch is completing her 30th year in education with nine of those years as supervisor in our district. In addition to her passion for literature and developing students love of reading and writing, Moren helped to extend learning beyond the classroom through meaningful student experiences such as grade level visits to the Holocaust Museum, various author visits, Rockland Community College on moral courage, and an ongoing relationship with Ramo College. In her retirement, Miss Lynch will explore her many interests outside of education, including being an avid reader,
037baker, and Broadway show enthusiast. So we wish Moren the the best of luck in her next journey. Uh we've also shared that we are hosting the job fair uh next weekend and I often give this slide to Dr. Toro. Uh but we yes he did he moved it. Uh we invite the community to uh come on March 12th to be a part of the conversation in our strategic planning meeting. April 9th. Yes, we March 12th has passed. So, um, wow, it's going so fast. That's my report this evening. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Fair. Um, my report this evening, I don't I will just reminder of the strategic plan since that is our last one. There you go. Nice segue, right? There you go. April 9th. Uh it's uh start we do actually have a
038public action meeting before at 5 and then the strategic planning meeting will start at 6. And this is uh for us to develop our objectives and goals and um so to all of you who've participated thus far, thank you very much. uh and let's make this one the most uh attended and hopefully and again even if you haven't attended previous ones please don't feel like um you don't have something to contribute everyone does and we uh greatly appreciate the feedback and did we send the survey out uh Dr. from our second one. There was a survey going out after that one uh to we'll send that out as well as the RFCP. Okay. For the third. Perfect. So um if you can attend in person, please uh complete your surveys and uh and again make
039sure your voice is heard. We do appreciate it. Um all right. Uh board committee reports this evening. Okay. John. John. There's a lot. There's a lot. I was waiting. I judging I was waiting for Mike. Yeah. Policy committee has 28 policies on tonight's agenda for first meeting. I will be very brief. I'm really interested in the eye protection one. Eye protection. Are we protecting eyes? How we protect? Is that chemistry? All right. Thank you, John. um policy and regulation 7430 school safety is being abolished because uh it's addressed in other existing policy and regulations and is therefore redundant. Policy 1581 domestic violence was revised to include a paragraph concerning the development of an action plan. Policy 511, eligibility of resident non-resident students was revised to include sentences regarding the enrollment of non-resident students. Policy 5460
040high school graduation has been revised to include a new graduation requirement for the graduating classes of 2025, 2026, and 2027 requiring the submission of a financial aid application. Policy 5512 rep. That's a requirement of the state. So that's not something that we came up with. Yes, that's something that is required. Most of these are required in the states that one stands out. Uh policy 5512 harassment, intimidation or bullying has been revised to include parental notification requirements and guidance when a school district must pause a HIV investigation to allow law enforcement to conclude their investigation. Policy 5533, student smoking, has been revised to include language requiring the reporting to law enforcement when there is a reasonable suspicion that electronic smoking device contains a controlled dangerous substance or cannabis. Policy and regulation 7441, electronic surveillance in school
041buildings and on school grounds, has been revised to include language providing law enforcement capacity to view live streaming video during emergency situations. Policy 8500, food services, has been revised to include the expansion of income eligibility to to qualify for free meals and additional parental notification of school meal information. Policy and regulation 9320, cooperation with law enforcement agencies, has been revised to provide superintendent or design with the option to designate a law enforcement unit for the district, to establish a point of contact for handle a care program for students who witness a traumatic event. and replace the term control dangerous substance with other drugs for notifying law enforcement if a student is under the influence or in possession of marijuana or cannabis. uh policy and regulation 7101 through 7434. That's part of our ongoing review of
042our policy and regulation inventory and includes only minor language changes, punctuation, spelling or formatting corrections. Lastly, policy 9163, spectator code of conduct for inter intercolastic events, is a new policy requiring immediate removal of a person from an event and school premises for violating the policy, minimum disciplinary measures including suspension of a person from attending future events for violating the policy. a required educational co component for violators, parent acknowledgement of a receipt of the of the policy and a code of conduct provisions of the policy to be posted at all venues hosting the competition to the extent possible. Yours was a minor change that required too much. I hope fire protection is still Thank you, Mr. Denise. for your report. Thank you. Um, Mr. Gallup, I was just going You never have nothing. You don't have
043to say two very brief remarks. So, one of the one of the items on the agenda tonight is the renewal of our laptop leases. um cost. We're now in, I think, the third cycle of renewing these leases. But it's it's important for the public to note that when we started the one-on-one program and robot technology in a very thoughtful way, we didn't increase the budget through an extraordinary means. We basically found economies in our budget to make this program work. So, I don't want to mention Ramsay in any sentences, but Ramsay had to go to a referendum essentially to do this. But we did this within our own uh envelope of resources again through proven budget management you know for a long over a long period of time. And the other thing is I just
044want to on the strategic plan, the table that I was with was fantastic. Great group of parents. Uh Joe Montana was a staff member. um and really organic conversation about um issues related to um phone usage uh nutrition in the schools and and one of the sort of the um I don't mean to break the circle of trust we had but the parents talked about their ability to talk to their children like at the dinner table and how phone activity gets in the way of that and we had a long big conversation about that but uh we all sort of agreed that has to be a community effort in order for that to happen. You know, the schools are just one leg of a a multi-legged uh stool and we do a lot of things
045we can't do, but there's a whole bunch of things we can't do successfully. And it was agreed that really has to be a community consensus where uh a view of the community that how cell phone usage gets regulated, social media usage gets regulated. But to a parent, they talked about how they can't talk to their kids. It was really sort of sad. So, we've moved on to board member remarks. [Laughter] So, if we have no other committee reports, board member remarks. Missing Jansen, do you have a board? You have a report for amen from I'll just combine them. Okay. Just combine this way. We're doing 15 and 16 together. So, just want to mention the MSF is having their gala next week on the 3 and just a reminder that all the fundraising they do
046supports the grants and they went through a grant review that'll be announced, the selection, but all the teachers put together some great proposals and I was really excited to hear about the applications and how that's going to be spread across the schools. So, more to come on that. But just if you can't go to the VA, there's so many other ways to get involved or to contribute in a fundraising capacity. So, thank you. Um, there will be a teer talk on May 20th just to send out the save the date and let everyone know for thoughtful discussions from community members. You can come have a conversation outside this room. We know it can be intimidating, so just want to invite our community members in. And just a plug for um myself, we're having the softball
047opener on April 12th um at the high school. So if anyone wants to come by, we'll have the JV varsity games and the young girls there. So um a lot of good fun to have that day. Thank you very much. Any other board remarks? All right. Uh let's move on to 17 old business. Let's take 17 A. We have A, B, and C. Um I need a motion on the floor. Mr. Denise, second by Mr. Gallow. Roll call, please. Mr. Lamb, Mr. Dilva. I need to abstain on 17C. Yes. Otherwise, Mr. Denise, yes. Mr. Gallow, yes. Mr. Hughes, yes. But abstain from 17 A and B. Miss Jansen. Yes. Dr. Morty. Yes. All right. Now, let's take um 18 new business. Uh we have A2X. All right. I need a motion on the floor. Mr.
048Hughes, second by Mr. Gallow. Um, roll call please. Mr. Lamb. 18 A throughX. Roll call 18 A throughX. Mr. Dilva. Yes. Mr. Denise. Yes. Mr. Gallow. Yes. Except on 18A. I'm abstaining from checks 118668, 118744, and 11874. Mr. Yes. But no on R. Miss Jansen. Yes. Dr. Mort. Yes. All right. Now, let's take um new business personnel. Generally, we take our retirements separately. Um so, let's take 19 A through D. Uh as we have four retirements. Um motion on the floor, Mr. Denise. second by Mr. Hughes. Um, and I just on behalf of the board, I mean, obviously to Deborah K, Debbie Kale and George, I mean, 66 years of of service. And then I'm wondering because this says 33 years and three months. So, did we hire George three months before? Oh, interesting. But
049again, um a tremendous couple, tremendous asset, tremendous educators um who have um really uh you know given of themselves and their service to this district. We thank them very much um for all they've done for us. Um and congratulations um to Miss Lynch as well. and uh Miss Phillips actually my Venet who's now 26 years old was a little kindergartener with Laura Phillips and in her early years um so uh again congratulations to all of them and and many many years of service we thank you very much please Mr. Dilva congratulations to our retirees yes Mr. Denise, yes. Mr. Gallow, yes. Mr. Hughes, yes. Miss Jansen, yes. Dr. Yes. All right. Now, let's take um 19E to FF. Motion on the floor. Mr. Hughes. Second by Mr. Gallow. Roll call, please. Mr. Lamb. Mr. Dilva.
050Yes. Mr. Denise. Yes. Mr. Gallow. Yes. Mr. Use. Yes. Miss Jansen. Yes. Dr. Mort. Yes. All right. Public questions or comment. Public participation at board meetings is in accordance with bylaw 0167. At this time, members of the public may ask questions or make a comment on educational issues or school matters of community interest. As a matter of fairness, you're asked to limit your questions to no more than one and your remarks to no longer than three minutes. If you're here representing a group, please identify yourself, the group, and your position in the group. If you're here as an individual, please give us your name and address. Motion to open the meeting to the public, Mr. Dilva. Second by Mr. Galla. We are officially open to the public. Okay. Seeing no one coming forth at this
051time, a motion to close the meeting to the public. Mr. Hughes, second by Miss Ting Jansen. Okay, thank you. Um I do need a motion to recess. We will be having executive session at the end and we will then adjourn directly from there. Mr. Dilva and second by Mr. Hughes. Thank you everyone. Good evening.