001Welcome to tonight's meeting of the African Madawan Regional School District Board of Education here. The New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend meetings of the public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or agreed upon. In accordance with the provision of this act, the Madawan Aberdine Regional School District Board of Education advertised this meeting on February 24th, 2026 in the Asbury Park Press. This notice was sent to the municipal clerks of the Burough of Madawan and the township of Aberdine and the Madawan Aberdine public library. The notice was also placed on the district's website. Can we please stand for the pledge of >> allegiance of America standy for all >> Mrs. Skully >> here. >> Mr.
002McGovern >> here. >> Mr. Mandela >> here. >> Mr. Montonone >> here. Miss Pal >> here. >> Miss Scott >> here. >> Miss Barrell >> here. >> Miss Visas >> here. >> Miss Warning >> here. Be it resolved that a closed session be convened for the purpose of discussing privacy, personnel matters, and legal advice. The subject matter of these discussions will be disclosed to the public when the reason for confidentiality subsides. Although the board cannot guarantee it, the length of the executive session is estimated to be 30 minutes, after which the public meeting of the board shall reconvene and proceed with business. action will take place. And I have a motion and a second to enter executive session. Thank you. Welcome everybody to our March 23rd meeting, regular action meeting of the Madawan Aberdine Regional
003Board of Education. I would like to take have a motion and a second to approve correspondence to the board. >> And I will turn it over to Miss Perez for the superintendent report. >> Thank you. And before I turn it over to Dr. Ponher, just a few comments that I want to report since we have an audience this evening. So this is great. >> So good evening board president, members of the board. I'd like to share just a few updates across the district. Um, our preschool lottery um is March 26th. Our district continues to mark an important step in expanding our programs for early learners. Having them start early um will only help us in the long run in terms of them um having their foundational skills and ready for kindergarten. We look forward to
004welcoming our youngest learners for the 2627 school year. As discussed at previous meetings, we'll we will have preschool classrooms at Ravine Drive, Strathmore, Cliffwood, Lightbridge Academy, and Cambridge Park, which is solely preschool. In 2627, we will also look to expand our collaboration with community providers to work to serve our full universe, which is projected from this Department of Education at 535 students in our community. We are not there yet, but we hope that with strong partnerships, we will soon be there. Redistricting update. Thank you to the board for your support and approval for the redistricting plan um we presented on March 9th. This work positions the district for a long-term balance and sustainability. We encourage families to visit the website for updates and resources. The website will be updated with maps showing new school boundaries
005and we will share them with the county offices in both towns as well in both Aberdeen and Madawan. So our new families who are moving here, they'll know which schools they are zoomed for. school safety and security update. Um on March 9th, we experienced a scare um in our community at particularly the high school and we were on lockdown in the other buildings. Um students and schools um students and staff remain a prior priority for all of us. We continue to collaborate closely with our local police departments to strengthen procedures through ongoing training, coordination, and review of safety protocols. We've met um two to three times within the last week and we are committed to ensuring that everyone is trained um all staff members and also reviewing the protocols and procedures that we will share
006in the upcoming months. We aim to share community information that is educational for all community members and to strengthen our partnership particularly with our parents and communities on school safety. Finance highlights um on our agenda this evening. Um there's a donation, a box truck donation from the Madawan Burrow. Um we want to thank them for their generous um donation. We will help support student programs um particularly our high school band. So we're really excited about that. Uh tuition students for our keys program. We continue to support our students and recovery in our program and we are serving um all throughout Mammoth County um all students throughout Mammoth County. On the agenda as well is the 2026 2027 budget. um tenative budget that will help us move forward with the submission of the district's tenative budget
007and we will have our budget presentation in April. I would like to point out in terms of the budget that district districts across the region in our county are facing significant phys fiscal pressures. A survey conducted across the county by our superintendents in Mammoth County highlighted the health care salare salaries and special ed costs on the rise and primary drivers in developing the school budget. Like many districts, we're working to develop a responsible student- centered budget while managing rising costs in transportation, health care, and special education. Many districts, just about a third um in of the districts in Mammoth County are utilizing mechanisms such as healthcare adjustments to exceed the 2% cap um reflecting the intensity of these financial demands in order to maintain educational programming, athletics, security, and staffing to meet the needs of
008all of our students. Um, and I we talked about this and also for the community members here tonight. Um, I'm including that in the update and there will be ongoing conversations with the board of education as well as with the community um in hopes that everyone understands and takes part of um understanding the school budget for this next calendar year. I thank you for your continuing leadership and partnership. Um, and together I'm confident that we remain focused on providing strong educational opportunities while planning responsibly for the future of our students. At this time, I will welcome Dr. Pon Hearnd, the supervisor slash um, principal of Cambridge Park. fingers cross technology works for us. Um thank you for allowing Cambridge Park to showcase um the recognition and um all the great highlights that are happening here.
009Um so just to give you a snapshot, it is going to be a presentation that's focused on what we've experienced here at Park to really bring the magic perfect school um to life so you can see all the great things that happen here. So, we'll start with just a little background about the school, what we did this year, what's it like to be a Husky Pup, and then of course, as always, we'll look forward to the future. Our building houses roughly 250 students with approximately 75 staff members each day. Um, as you noticed that our building did not have student presence here today, but in lie of that, teamwork makes the dream work. So, I'm very proud to have the staff sitting behind me here to support as well. So, thank you. We have 19
010classes here this year. Three preschool disabled classes and 16 general education classes. And in addition to the schools in mind curriculum, we also have extended learning opportunities through um specialists in our building including rom time minimum week enrichment science and fine arts. Something we did new this year. I want to highlight a few um parent events that we had. So some key feedbacks we received as we started the year was parents want to be involved and know what their children are learning. That's really important for us. So we organized three different events this year to kind of kick off and show them all of the great things that our curriculum does and what exactly their students are doing all day when they're in school with us. So we had a play and learn family event
011back in December. It was a two-day event where parents came in for 60 minutes or one grownup could have been a grandparent, aunt, uncle. Um, and they came in and spent an hour with our students in the classroom. They did play planning and then they actually participated in make play. We had pizzeria week. We were a grant for the um for restaurant week which we're hoping to roll out next year. It's kind of like a soft touch into what we think that we might be able to do. Pizzeria week spanned over an entire week at the end of February where Mr. Rafani was able to host all of our specials. In the expiration room, the old boardroom that just came from, students had on um aprons. They were able to make vendor pizzas. So, pizzas
012made out of shapes with a grown-up as well. And then finally, we concluded last week Math Madness. So, our preschool instructional coach, Miss Rickle, was able to give a presentation to talk just a little bit about what math is and how we build the foundation for um success as they move forward in their career and then also again how it is. So for play and learn again that was a 60-minute event where parents or adults were able to be in the classroom with students participating in the play planning process and then also in thankful play for pizzeria week it was about a 30 minute visit. So, we had a backdrop. We had um a raff. Students were able to pick and grant their favorite piece of topic. And then again, you can see out of
013the kindness of our PTO and our school community, they were able to donate um some aprons that the students were able to wear, they were really able to take the range of the vendor pieces with their role of grown up employees. And then finally, we did just include math madness. So that was about a 45minute visit which went in between a session here in the gym by our preschool instructional coach and then into the classroom to participate in small groupatic activities. So, I know you're all interested. What's it like to be a hockey puff? So, let's take a second to see. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Heat. Heat. Heat. Sorry, it's difficult to capture everything you do in a short snapshot, But I do want to highlight we had our field trips in there.
014We had um PCO partnerships that we had in there. We've done reading. So every part of our day and up to this point, we really tried to encapsulate how we see those opportunities and provide the students with um their growth and development to push them lower as they move forward their career. Um looking ahead for this spring. So just a few things we have coming up. We have some assemblies. Um we'll be happy to host literacy night April 30th next month. Um, we have our field trip, our final field trip this year to Main Street where they'll get to go in and look at the library and at the post office and the laundry mat and see their different parts of their town. Excuse me. Um, we're hosting another family event called Everything is More
015Fun with Music Mall. So, it will be centered around our camping um theme. So, she'll be able to kind of bring that to life with in combination with her fine arts, the kindergarten visit. So our students will visit kindergarten at Strathmore and then the moving up classroom celebration. And then finally looking forward to next year we've always got forward planning. That black top gross uh motor space is something that we're looking to really take and run with. So um we've been working with some of my staff in terms of writing grants to make um fairly interactive for our students. Building our void road partnership as most of our students will foster in that building. So continuing to strengthen that um connection we have with that building. Bringing back peer buddies. So partnering our students with
016different students throughout the building um to give them an opportunity to build their leadership capacity but also support students um in different ways. And then finally our happy husky mail. So that came from another administrator. Um we are going to send at least one piece of mail home to each child next year. So giving them something to look forward to. Everybody loves it when you're getting something in the mail. So, um it'll be from the teachers, medical just highlighting all the great things that our children did that day. Um so, that's it. Thank you everyone for your continued support as we support our school community. Thank you so much. We really appreciated that. That's a lot of what we do happens to um happens on the page sometimes. So to see it in real life,
017it's it's really rewarding um for us to see. Um a lot of us are not hands-on within the schools as much as you know our kids are grown. So, it's nice to see um you know the the kids really having a good time and all the work that everybody does here, the staff, the teachers, the aids to make it special for those kids and a lot of really creative and interesting things. So, it looks fun to the Main Street field trip sounds really cool. So excited to see and hear how that goes. So, appreciate that. Thank you so much. And thank you all of you for coming out to support your your principal. Um do you have anything else, Miss Price? No. Okay. >> Yeah. >> Thank you again so much. It was really appreciated.
018Does anybody want to say anything? reiterate that um the um event that happened on March 9th was very um you know troublesome obviously to say the least for everybody and um it was really good to hear afterwards what we could be shared with us the collaboration between all of the entities involved the police departments the towns the district administration as well as our security that we have here private security. Um I think that you know if there could be a silver lining it's that um there's uh lessons learned and some things that will be carefully considered and implemented as appropriate just based on um the experience that we had. There's always you know areas for improvement. So I think that's something that um we're going to obviously work on. we don't necessarily hear everything, but
019it'll be worked on. And um I think that there will be some additional information provided to the community. Um so we can kind of, you know, put that in our rearview mirror knowing that in the background there's things going on to make sure that everybody is protected and safe. And um so that's that's one small positive that came from that. Um and as Miss Perez mentioned, it is budget season. Um we have a tenative budget for approval tonight. Uh it's part of our timeline. It has to be sent to the county for review. Um we are seeing costs increasing in many areas. Um especially in special special services, transportation, health benefits. Um what I can say is that the board has committed to making sure that um it's carefully looked at um and is responsible,
020fiscally responsible and um hopefully finding more areas for um for some savings as we move forward through the process. Moving on with the agenda. Um we uh we don't have a students report tonight. Um Danny could not make it unfortunately, but we will um hear from him next time. So curriculum and instruction. Mr. Leman. >> Thank you and good evening. Items on the agenda this evening are for action. We are asking the board to take action on item A travel as listed. Rest of the board to take action on item B. the other you'll find that the items listed under section B are in red and this includes revised and new field trips that are on page one of two and field trips continue on page two of two that concludes curriculum instruction. >> Thank
021you. Can I have a motion and a second to accept the curriculum and instruction agenda? >> Any questions? >> I'd just like to make a comment. I just wanted to say that it's so phenomenal. Ferno Park Upwoods Park is one of our newest Mammoth County parks. We're so lucky to have it in our backyard and I just think it's phenomenal that our district is looking to take advantage of that. It's absolutely gorgeous and I believe the more it's used, the more programming that we'll get there. So, thank you for being a partner and deciding to do that because that I'm sure that's that's school driven. So, thank you. >> Thank you. Um, student services. >> Student services. We're asking the board to take action this evening on items item number one in red. Rest of
022the board to take action on bedside instruction with student costs and effective dates as listed. And action item number two in red with program costs and effective dates is listed. That concludes student services. >> Thank you. Can I have a motion and a second to approve the student services agenda? >> Any questions? personnel. Dr. Ross, >> the board has received a walk-in item that we are asking the board to take action on this item. Uh that walk-in item is a leave of absence. Now, for the regular agenda that we are asking the board to take action on this evening, uh on page 104, we have our retirements as listed. Uh, we have 32 years for Dawn Alvarez, uh, 26 years for Jill Fallon, 23 years for Andrea Longo, and 19 years for Joanne Solom. Now,
023I'm no mathematician, but that adds up to 100. I thought our Cambridge Park, that's appropriate to be here for the 100th day of school. And I one of the students had that. So, uh, just a shout out to, um, to those employees and on their retirement. We will formally recognize them later on this year. Uh but just giving them a shout out. Uh on page 104 as we go on in section B um we have leaves of absence. All leaves of absences uh have gone through um the proper protocol and process. Uh so pages one through three include those board approved um absences. On page three of four, we have appointments um for student observers at the high school and also as well as Cambridge Park. And then on page 404, we have our HIP
024report from last month. Uh we also have some chaperones for both our high school and our middle school. Uh and then we have our sbatical leave of absence request uh for 2627 for half of the year. Uh and finally, we have an administrative leave of pay uh in item number five. That concludes the personnel agenda. >> Thank you. Can I have a motion and a second to approve the personal agenda? >> Any questions? >> Um first I wanted to say congratulations um to all of the people retiring. Um over 20 years in district is amazing. Um you know wish you all the best. um in your f your plan. Uh I do have um one thing to say which I know I noted it at the last meeting but um the leave of absences um
025I thought it was long last month and this month it's like two and a half pages. Um so just you know just wanted to put out there we all know that budgets are tight getting tighter even next year. Um, so we're going to need as a board to really scrutinize um each leave of absence that comes before the board. >> Thank you. That's a good point and noted. Um, yeah. Um, and I would also like to congratulate all the retirees. Um, it's a great great phase of life that I wish you all take the most advantage of having that time. Um, and we will go on to finance. This is >> I'm sorry to the uh board president if if I could. Uh Mrs. Case, if I can read into the minutes on page 104
026of the personnel agenda, uh section A, Joanne Sullum, retirement, elementary teacher retirement should read 911 2007 and not zero. >> Thank you. All right, good evening. Um, it's our favorite time of year, budget. So, or at least mine anyway. Um, so as we go about tonight's events, we are looking for board approval for the board secretary for the month of February, as well as payroll certification, treasures report, approval of transfers, the bills list for the month, district enrollment for March. Number six is a little bit lengthy. We just wanted to say thank you. We know the timeline gets uh shorter and shorter and this year was a little bit shorter with the governor's address. So turnaround was tight and we will be looking to approve the tenative budget that goes to the county with the
027ability to make changes by the public hearing on plan for April 29th. And as we move about the agenda, we for number seven, I just want to highlight that on the last one it says 2526. We will be making sure that's read 2026 2027 for total preschool funding. The tuition costs as listed in number eight. Again, thank you for the acceptance of donate donation to the box truck for number nine. Routine travel reimbursements that need to be increased for travel for teachers as listed in the chart. Two additional added district tuition for the keys program and the fire and evacuation drills for the month of February. And that concludes finance. >> Thank you. Can I have a motion and a second to accept the finance agenda? >> I'll second. >> Any questions? >> Um can
028I make a comment? >> Sure. Um, so I I just wanted to note for item number nine that um the the bigger kind of story I think is that we've got Mammoth County originating the donation, Madawan Burough facilitating the donation and then uh I hope I'm not spoiling a surprise that we have Madawan and Aberdine donors um contributing to um some of the work that needs to be done. And so I just I just I think this is exactly what we're looking for, you know, as a community is is a lot of collaboration between a lot of different governments and a lot of different taxing jurisdictions. Like it that solved a problem. So I appreciate it. Um so one item number seven uh the total preschool funding that should say 2627 sorry um also wanted
029to um thank Madawan Burrow um for the help in um securing a vehicle for the abandoned color guide color guard um that's fantastic because I know it's really been in need um for some time. So, thank you very much. Uh, we do appreciate that. Um, and then I wanted to touch upon the budget. Um, can you I just I wanted while I while we're on that topic, I wanted to also thank um for the donation that the work that was done to get that to happen with the county um and then how that was handled. I what I wanted to say is it is a really good example of what we desperately need um with anybody parents, community, teachers, staff to you know find ways to bring solutions forward of you know helping us. Unfortunately,
030we have to start begging fund some of the things that we need because the budget is so tight and you know unfortunately there's only discretionary funding that we can take from and that ends up being the fun stuff for lack of a better word. So, um thank you for that and we really hope to see more of that anywhere anyone please. We'd love it. Um thank you. Now you can ask that. >> Sure. Um it's not a question it's it's just a statement. um you know, we've been updating the community monthtomonth in our meetings um on finance um and how that you know, how things have been going. We've been touring the buildings um to see the state of the buildings as well. And um as we've been saying since last spring when the tax
031levy incentive was um introduced and the board decided not to move forward with the tax levy incentive um because that would increase um taxes for everyone in town. Um, you know, we did talk about how budgets would be tight um and that we, you know, we're approaching a cliff. Every district is you can look at every single um district's budget and you know, everybody's kind of in the same position where um the costs are increasing not only in double digits, but we have some areas which we'll get into in April. So, I'm not going to, you know, throw in spoil um your presentation, but we do have some items that are in tripledigit increases. And while we are capped, um, a lot of things aren't capped. So the out of district tuitions, um, special education
032costs, health insurance, we're, um, seeing over 30% increase, um, this year, prescription costs as well. So there's a lot of increases going on. Um, and a lot of districts, I mean, it's in the news even, you know, a lot of districts are really struggling. So, we've been, you know, working hard as a board and with administration, um, central administration to really talk about the budget. This is a tentative budget. Um, we are going to work hard over the next month, um, to try to bring down costs and look for any potential savings. I know you guys have already scoured, but we're going to continue to try to come up with ideas and additional um, revenue that we could potentially bring into district. Um, but we're going to work hard to do that. Um, because we're
033community members as well. We know that not only does what the school does impacts the taxes, but obviously the towns as well. Um, so we'll the big presentation will be in April. We don't have a date, right? 27th of April. And that's where we'll do the big presentation where we break everything down, where the money is being spent, um cost per pupil, everything, you know, revenue sources, priorities, um all that good stuff. But we just wanted to make you aware that we do intend to do our damnedest to bring it down as much as possible. So, thank you. >> Any other questions on finance agenda? Okay. The board of education recognizes the value of public comment on matters of interest to the school community. Individuals wishing to speak must state their name and address. Comments
034are limited to three minutes duration, but any individual but an individual may speak a second time after all others who wish to speak on the topic have been heard. All statements should be directed to the board president, and no participant may address or question board members individually. All speakers are requested to express themselves in civil manner with due respect for the dignity and privacy of others whose legal rights may be affected. Please note, while it is not the board's intention to stifle comment on matters of legitimate concern, the public should be aware that if their statements violate the rights of others under the law of defamation or invasion of privacy, they may face personal liability to the injured party. If speakers are uncertain of the legal ramifications of their comments, the board urges them to
035seek guidance beforehand from their own legal adviser. We have any public comments? I am standing. I live on it and uh I'm also the director of the matter color guard and I am here as a representative for the 91 marching band and color guard uh to just say thank you to the matter board Suzanne Reynolds the school board all the donations um for this new truck which is deeply deeply needed. Um, unfortunately this past uh marching band season there was at least two times for it to a football game because the truck was not working. The truck that we had was not working. And with all the supplies that we need to bring to and from not just football games but also to competitions which is a huge factor in uh our activity. Uh knowing
036now that we have this this new option that will continue to be fixed is just very very greatly appreciated. So, I wanted to come here tonight to just express all of our thanks uh from the entire mar. >> Hello, Suzanne from Meline. Um, I am a matter regional school district K through 12 alumni and being able to help to give back to the various school districts which helped to develop me the person I am today is such an honor. I'm a current council woman in Ireland, my hometown, and this was the perfect being in the right place at the right time story. I coordinated with commissioner, director Arno and the county DBW director to get the boxation successfully completed from um county to Muro and to the final uh destination of the school district for
037the M Regional High School uh bank. I was aware in advance that there may be repairs necessary for the vehicle and I'm here this evening to present to the board of ed checks a total of the entire repair amount of $1,000. Charlie Ross, myself, Anita Espazito, Mark Bishop and Dan Belelman got together to make sure that this was in fact a complete donation with no extra cost to the school district boosters or the taxpay residents. So, please accept this donation from us and know that we will continue to work together to help the school district and the community harbor. Thank you so much, Councilwoman Reynolds. That's amazing. Um, this will be have to be placed on an agenda for board approval. So, we will hold on to this. Our this administrator will hold on to
038it. And thank you for going above and beyond to make sure that the repairs were covered. Um, as you heard just be, you know, just a few minutes ago, um, money is scarce. So, these are the types of things that tend to be not prioritized, um, or can't be. It's not that we don't want them to be. So, that's one thing we can check off the list. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, Mrs. Reynolds. And um if you could give give our gratitude to the rest of the team on your council that um donated the funds for the truck to for repair. Um we really do appreciate it and I know that it took a lot of um effort for you to advocate and just coming back and giving back
039to the community. We really appreciate it and that's really what it's about. It's about partnerships and community. So we do appreciate Thank you. >> My name is Edber. Um, I live on Broad Street. So, yay, we got a trust. Um, I wanted to talk about something that I noticed. My son is a senior now and he went to prek kindergarten to go to the district to the go through the school for the program. And there's something that I noticed that I've been hoping to work with. When he was in fourth grade, he had a terrible bullying issue, right? He just was really, it was just it was a nightmare. hospitals, um just a whole bunch of stuff that we had to deal with. And the whole time I knew who the kid was, right? But
040I never had an opportunity to sit down and talk to the parents. I didn't know who they were. They were mad at me. I was mad at them. And like my family and this family have like I'm not even kidding until last year of high school. Like the kids were like fight on site, always fighting, always fighting, right? Until suddenly out of nowhere, they're not fighting anymore. And now everybody's friends, right? that I'm still like angry because my kid went through all this and they never spoke. So, fast forward to I moved from my apartment to a house this year and guess who my neighbors are? That family. They are across the street and I'm like going to be good to finally have that conversation with the mom where we both were angry at each
041other for the wrong reasons and realize that if we would have just had a conversation or even knew who we were, we're actually very very good friends right now. We talk every day. our families are very close now. It's just really interesting. And the one thing I realized, like I said, is that the school didn't bring the parents together. I know that that doesn't work for every situation. I understand that, but I remember when I was little, if I ever did something wrong, I was sitting in that principal's office with my mother and the other kid and their parent. And it was scarier for my mom to have to deal with me than any punishment that the school could have been, or that I had to be embarrassed in front of another parent. Um, that
042was like a big, at least for me, a deterrence. So, we have rules. Everything's done the way they're done. Just as a suggestion of a parent who's been here a whole beginning to the end, I really think that that would have like stopped a lot of issues. I mean, and not only for me, but me and the mom and like the school knew like the high school's like, "Oh god, I can't put this kid with that kid and this kid's affected." If everyone was just conversation, I think 10 years ago, we might have been able to come to a better agreement. So that would be the only like maybe if we can figure out a way to get the parents together at the beginning when there are issues, then maybe we could like help not
043have kids each other. >> Thank you, Miss B. Um, as far as I understand, we do make an attempt to do that. Um I don't know if Mike or I'm sorry um Miss Perez >> both Mike and I can and I can answer. So we do try that. Um it's it the challenge is if the parent one parent doesn't agree or one child or the parent doesn't agree for us to hold the mediation um meeting. So but our first attempt is to have that mediation piece. Um I know as principal I did that um all the time. um it was never an issue, but times have changed since a long I'm not going to say how long ago, but a long time ago when I was principal. So um but that is the best way
044to mediate. We do believe that. Um I do want to highlight though at Lloyd Road that um we have there has been some training with um with our students to be mediators and also for staff members. So that is something that we we started this year and we are hopeful that we can continue that next year then then started at void. Um so kind of filter through the other elementarymentaries but yes do you want to add anything else? >> So just a couple of things. Um thank you Mrs. Burks. That that's actually a very good example different example of how the school and the community and parents can engage to help kids. So that that's important glad that you brought that to our attention. U laws have been around for a while but they're always
045evolving and the supports and programs that go with it have evolved as well. So we are always looking for opportunities to engage with parents, bring them into the buildings, do some programming for them, teach them some strategies and then when it is appropriate trying to have the adults sit around a table, have the kids sit around a table and have those meaningful discussions. Those are always good strategies. >> Thank you. Any other public comment? Roll call vote on agenda items. >> Mrs. Goalie, >> Mr. McGovern. >> So noted. Mr. Mandela. >> Mr. Montonone. Okay. >> Miss Pal. >> Yes. >> Miss Scott. >> Yes. >> Miss Brell. >> Yes. >> Miss Vias. >> Yes. >> Miss Hornicki. >> Yes. I have to abstain from TRA one travel item. >> So noted. Thank you. Um do
046we have any unfinished business? I'll I'll bring up that um we've kind of taken a little bit of a pause on the policy committee. Um so there's two two parts to policy. We have policies that come through the state that are um required. So we for example cursive writing curriculum which by the way added to our budget. Not a lot but it did. And then the cell phone ban policy that's coming that will be implemented next school year. So they come that way. Then we have policies that the board looks at because they're brought to our attention from maybe a community member. Um and then we also have policies that need to be updated through our policy provider um strame. So all those pieces come together. Right now it seems to be a little quiet,
047but we will be talking about um the cell phone ban uh to get that implemented for next year. We have a pretty good cell phone policy. We wanted to be ahead of this and we feel strongly that um there's certain things that cell phones give kids access to that should be limited at certain ages. So I think it's not going to be a big heavy lift to update that policy. So we'll get to work on that. And then um a few other things that we're thinking about looking at um some some food service items and things to get our debt under control um in that area and things like that. So, we'll be starting that. Um, and in terms of other committee updates, um, we don't really have a big one from finance, but Mrs.
048Foley talked about continuing to tour buildings. >> Yes, we're going to get back on tracking the buildings. We've done three, I believe. >> And then, um, we Okay, go ahead. say on the contract negotiations um we will have good news for next month um and and that's you know because it's contract negotiations that's all I can say but we good news for next month >> any other updates from unfinished business new business um I'd just like to congratulate the high school on um a beautiful weekend of leap of today. If you missed it, I'm really I'm really sorry that you did. Um it was really wonderful and just another thank you to Miss Walling for her million years of service and this was her last time um directing the musical and it was really nice.
049>> Yeah, it was great. I did see it. Um they did a great job. Go ahead, Mr. McGomery. >> My turn to say the same thing. Um, but also wanted to recognize Clifford. I have a friend of mine whose son goes to Clifford and they uh I got to see his leopard contract. Unfortunately, they didn't catch one. I wanted one but they didn't find one but I thought I got to see the pictures and the send out which is really cool. Um, wanted to recognize also another great Europe Read Across America week. It's such a ball going to the school. It's one of the events I look forward to every year. And also this week is enabling differences week at Strathmore. So, uh, my daughter saw me going over notes from last night and had
050me wear your brightly colored socks, different ones to work today. My boss wasn't as thrilled as I was. But when I explained the reason for it, he said, "Yeah, but they have different events every day. So, if you click open the newsletter, you can see what they're doing every day." I just thought it was something great that they're doing to recognize that. Thank you, Mr. McGovern. Um, that's it. I ju I did want to recognize um the hard work of our business administrator, Leslie Casease, and her office for really number crunching. Um, it was a very tight timeline this year because they gave a grace period for a new administration coming in. The budget was late, the state aid figures were late. Um, as you've seen in the headlines, a lot of districts around here
051aren't doing so great. So, um, we will we have our kind of what I'm considering a starting point and, um, we'll see where we go and hopefully get to a place where we can all agree and, um, get what we need to, you know, provide what we need to provide for our students and our staff. a motion and a second to Oh, we we'll be going into um another executive session. So, let me get my script again. Be it resolved that a closed session be convened for the purpose of discussing privacy, personal matters, and legal advice. The subject matter of these discussions will be disclosed to the public when the reason for confidentiality subsides. Although the board cannot guarantee it, the length of executive session is estimated to be 30 minutes after which the public
052meeting of the board shall reconvene and proceed with business. Action will not take place. Can I have a motion and a second to enter executive session two?