001call to order the med ever Regional School Board of Education meeting the time 6:30 February 27 2021 the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to yes to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meeting public B at which any business affecting their interest is discuss for a frequently in accordance with the provision of this act the mwan aine Regional School District Board of Education advertised this meeting on June 5th 2024 in the Asbury Park Press and the Star Ledger this notice was sent to the municipal Clerks of the bur of mwan and the township of aine and the mwan aine public library the notice was also placed on the district's website you please stand for good evening Mrs Coy Miss Vias here Mr McGovern here
002miss pal here Mr Monon here miss Scott here miss bell Miss Martinez here miss wari be it resolved that a closed session be convened for the purpose of discussing privacy personnel and legal matters the subject matter of these discussions will be disclosed to the public when the reason for confidentiality suids 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 can I have a motion and a second to enter executive session I'll second good evening everyone welcome to the madaan abine regional school board meeting thanks for coming we're excited to see your kids uh perform and I'm going to turn it over to Mr lemman for the superintendent's report
003at this time it's my pleasure to introduce acting principal stor Elementary School Mrs Kevin thank you Mr lean my first time using one of these so can can everybody hear me okay okay thank you um good evening Board of Education members superintendent Perez Mr lean Mrs case Dr braws District staff parents and extended family members and community members thank you all for joining us tonight welcome to elementary school it is my pleasure to stand here as acting principal and share with you some of the wonderful things happening here in our school I have been here at shmore just shy of two months and in that short time I have learned how special this draft more Community is I expected that stepping into this role in the middle of the school year would bring its challenges
004what I did not expect was just how lucky excuse me just how quickly it would feel like I have always been here the entire Strathmore Community including the staff the students and their families have embraced me and have given me the warmest welcome they have all had a hand in making this transition a smooth one and for sure a very special one for me tonight you will hear me reflect on the spirit of community that defines our school the growth and Leadership opportunities we provide for our students and the strides we are making in both academic and social emotional development before I dive in board members please take notice of the hearts in front of you created by our students to show just why they love Strathmore School each message is unique and genuine and
005will be displayed throughout our hallways it starts with our staff I am incredibly proud of the staff at Strathmore School our Educators play a vital role in shaping the future of our students through the lessons that they teach as well as the care and the commitment they bring to their work shmore teachers are not just teaching academics but building the foundation for life skills social emotional growth and a love of learning this is evident in the unwavering dedication to the students they serve the teachers and support staff work tirelessly every day to ensure that each child is not only learning but thriving in an environment where they feel valued and supported what truly sets our school apart is the sense of community that permeates everything we do our staff members are not just colleagues they
006are a team United by a shared commitment to Student Success as well as to each other whether it's collaborating on lesson plans support supporting one another through challenges or celebrating our students the camaraderie and Care our staff show each other is a model for all School communities our teachers show up for each other just as much as they show up for their students our staff are not just colleagues they are truly friends and family this is what makes store Elementary extra special one of the highlights of my time here at shmore is the staff breakfast held in recognition of our educator educator of the Year kindergarten teacher Mrs Colleen Burton an educational services professional of the Year child study team social worker Mrs Christine fry The Faculty Lounge was transformed into a beautiful Cafe filled
007with food light and most of all love for our outstanding staff and their commitment to our school Community their respect and value for each other is inspiring under the the guidance of terrific facilitators we have taken important steps to nurture leadership among our older students our student leadership programs provide opportunities for students in the upper grades to take on meaningful roles within our school Community whether serving as a member of the safety patrol a peer buddy or a member of the flag crew these students are learning the importance of responsibility teamwork and initiative we believe that these leadership opportunities not only help build character but also provide our students with the skills they need to become confident and engaged citizens both within our school and in the larger Community led by Mrs Lon this year
008our safety patrol has 20 members eager to take a leadership role in their school safety patrol gives students the opportunity to take initiative develop leadership skills and shape their Community our members assist during arrival and dismissal help monitor our bus line and help maintain help to maintain overall safety during our school's busy times they are responsible themselves to maintain academic and behavioral standards in order to continue to participate throughout the school year Meet three of our me of meet three members of the Strathmore safety patrol with a very important job Dominic Emily and Henry with oversight from Mrs albanes these students are responsible for the daily task of raising the flag in the morning and lowering the flag in the afternoon the students were selected for this job because they are dependable and demonstrate an
009understanding of the importance of the task they recognize that the flag symbolizes their school country and community and their role in handling it requires care and attention the students must adhere to the protocol of the task and the rules for care working together on this task requires communication cooperation and the development of collaboration skills that's truly one of my favorite Parts um about Strathmore and they're out there in all weather conditions and they really enjoy what they do um I am not a cinematographer so I apologize for the the poor quality of the video um but I did you know want to display um their efforts and how seriously they take it so it's a pleasure to watch every day equally important Is our commitment to to fostering both academic achievement and social emotional growth
010in our students we understand that learning goes beyond the classroom it's about developing the whole child academically we've seen our students grow in ways that make us incredibly proud from reading and math proficiency to enrichment in areas like science and the Arts our students are demonstrating a deep love of learning our students come with a wide variety of strength needs and learning style the spectrum of support we provide is flexible dynamic and inclusive and includes specialized target targeted support as well as enrichment opportunities our enrichment classes taught by Mr ersa and Miss Webster enhance knowledge skills and creativity and provide experiences that promote intellectual emotional and social growth just this week I had an opportunity to watch our enrichment class make their very own harmonicas so there's some pictures of that up there as well
011as some of our students doing stem activities at every grade level it is essential to create an inclusive environment where every student feels like they belong and have access to the resources they need differentiated activities can meet students where they are and can include small group instruction peer-to-peer learning and Project based learning programs like our peer budy program provide opportunities for our special education students to participate in activities and learning with typical iCal peers in an inclusive environment the benefits of a peer buddy program include promoting so promoting inclusion and acceptance fostering the development of social skills empowering students by developing responsibility and Leadership skills and encouraging acceptance of differences led by Mrs D brienza and Mrs Fisco we have 52 third grade students that participate as a peer buddy this year each group gets
012multiple opportunities to meet with their assigned peers from our special education self-contained classes and spend time on an activity with them academic success is only one part of the equation we also know that to truly support our students we must nurture their emotional well-being at Strathmore we are focused on creating a safe and supportive environment where social emotional learning is embedded into our daily practices classroom lessons led by our school counselor Miss Connelly in collaboration with each classroom teacher allows students to engage Eng with social emotional learning Concepts in a meaningful and consistent way furthermore seal routines and expectations can help to establish positive classroom Culture by teaching resilience empathy and effective communication our students are learning how to manage their emotions work through challenges and build positive relationships we are not only preparing them
013for academic success but also for a future where they can navigate life's challenges with confidence and kindness student of the month is just one of the ways that we support seal through character development at Strathmore since starting at Strathmore I have had the pleasure to be able to recognize over 35 students for their role in contributing to the betterment of the student Community these students were nominated by their classroom teachers for demonstrating behaviors that align with character traits for the month which in December was kindness and in January was teamwork we look forward to recognizing our February students for perseverance although the month is not quite over we have a special recognition this evening a student Spotlight tonight we would like to recognize Zariah for goo a second grade Strathmore student that truly exemplifies perseverance
014Zariah is an incredible example of perseverance and a model for our students she arrives at school happy every day and her smile is infectious she has taught us about patience and perspective empathy and gratitude we are incredibly lucky to have her as part of our school Community Di's classroom teachers have put together a brief slideshow in honor of this Rec recognition [Music] said plus 7 [Music] very good nice job [Music] h [Music] I would like to ask Miss kushara and Miss buner to come up [Music] zah we congratulate you on being chosen as the February student of the month for miss kushara and miss buner second GR claque in recognition of your ability to persevere [Applause] she is truly an inspiration finally we would like to close out our presentation with a sneak peek into
015our third grade concert this evening Mr evera will be directing some of our third grade students and performing a song from the upcoming concert over the course of the next several weeks under the direction of Mr everol our students will be working diligently to create a memorable show as one of their culminating events as Strathmore students good evening there we go okay hi I'm mrol as M Kelly just said uh this is part of our third grade course let's give them a hand 18 students were selected based off of their uh commitment to learning own songs they were selected based of how well behaved they are and also more importantly just how excited they are for the show um and as you can see we have Justina cha Gard Virginia Gigi Amelia Thomas Cammy Violet
016Gabriel Penny allora Lucy Anthony Logan be Evan and car give him one more the them for our concert is strap War Cinema I did not realize there used to be a movie theater called that around there so that is a very good unintentional little thing that happened there uh a song tonight we'll be singing uh is little sneak peek at one of the songs we' been working on uh it's called I'm a Believer and uh hope you enjoy andile [Music] someone else not for me [Music] oh yeah face I'm aever another face another May 15th 2025 Thursday night 6:30 don't miss it it's going to be a great show give it up one more time a night than you I hope you all can join us on May 15th at Lloyd Road for the third
017grade concert they did a great job I'm super excited to see um I had one more slide and it really just said thank you everyone is always welcome at Strathmore um you know we're an open door and we love for the community members to come in um so everyone is welcome I thank you all for your time tonight and I just want to say as we continue to work together together I am confident that our school will continue to grow and Thrive I want to express my gratitude to the board for your ongoing support and for the opportunity to provide just a small glimpse of the wonderful things happening here at our school we look forward to our continued partnership and providing the very best for our students thank you all good evening oh you
018know what good evening everyone I have some great news to share um in regards to our band um as we know they we recognized a few months ago for um being state champion Champions um they are now we just received notification in recognition of their hard work dedication and commitment to Excellence in the area of the AR us band is acknowledging their achievements and they have Pro promoted them to a class to an Open Class for the 2025 season which is a big deal so their placement and scores of the 2024 competition is what moved them on to being a more competitive level and in that open competition um open class so they qualified to compete in the 2025 US fand Open Class National Championship which will be at metti in East brother this November
019another announcement um as these just came in literally this week um we also at the high school um we had two groups of students um participate in a dual enrollment entrepreneurship class um they competed in a diamond challenge Regional Venture showcase at Rucker University the high school competition um brings together students students um student LED startups from around the world to compete for a prize pool of $100,000 these students made a 5 minute pitch to potential investors and judges followed by a 3 minute Q&A out of the approximately 30 student Le startups from across midatlantic region our student groups each landed in the top three in their category so sh I'll forward this um to to the board members but I did want to highlight that two of the um startups that they spoke about
020were Peak Performance recovery which was for um and I'll just read a little bit it was high school athletes um they said High School a athletes often suffer from preventable in injuries that can derail their athletic careers because of their lack of ability knowledge and support to properly train to prevent injury and recovery after playing their sport so the students LED um um what they were leading and you know they I guess they um were sharing with the judges um they created a personalized injury pre prevention and Recovery plan for high school athletes so it was pretty cool and then the other was titled men matter and they share um a little bit of some some of the statistics that they shared at the event but um they essentially sh they shared 60% of me
02160% of men are reported to feel different forms of societal pressure less than half of them get treated for a variety of reasons first young men don't feel res they don't feel the resources out there are adequate to support their needs um so what they pitched were was a peer matching service where men will be matched up with a peer mentor who is also struggling and can relate to their problems and is willing to lend I just felt that these um what they presented and also with the fans just as a little Glimpse in terms of what um our high school students are going to be contributing to the community and just across the state and hopefully Nationwide um so I I'm really really proud of them so thank [Music] [Applause] you thank you Mr
022President it's definitely a testament to the efforts of the district we appreciate your leadership as well um can I have a motion and a second to accept the minutes second and can I have a motion and a second to accept the correspondence to the board at this time we'd like to turn over to Mr David ruin um for a ethics presentation for the board members thank you madam president and good evening everyone uh as many of you know we lawyers are governed by a code of conduct that regulates our behavior is called the code of professional conduct um lawyers can get in big trouble if they don't follow the ethics rules that apply to l and as you're probably also aware board members and high ranking administrators are also covered by a code of ethics
023it's the school ethics act that was adopted back in the '90s it's been amended from time to time since then and every year we do a brief refresher course um for the basics of it um board members who've gone to their new board member training from New Jersey school boards probably spend a number of hours going through this but every year just like spring training and baseball which is underway it never hurts to revisit the fundamentals once a year so if you've heard of speed dating this is going to be speed ethics training for this year brief uh bit of background School ethics Act was adopted back in the early 90s it was modeled on a law called the local government ethics law which was a law that governed ethical Behavior by Municipal officials they
024decided they wanted to adopt a statute that was almost word for word the statute that governs Municipal Employees and other local government employees so they adopted into law and most of the original provisions of the school ethics act had to do with financial improprieties things board members would do to put money in their pocket those their board member wait around to financially Advantage themselves their family or their friends um when I started practicing back in the 70s the New Jersey school boards Association had its own code of ethics for school board members it was not um it was not law it was something you would see in some board meeting rooms on a big long uh tapestry um it was not anything that you could imagine every week would be adopted into law because the
025code of ethics for school board members from the school boards Association was written so vaguely and so generally that no one could imagine how anybody could ever be prosecuted for violating it well they cut and pasted those about 10 years later and stuck them on resp a list of things he could be prosecuted for under the school ethics act in 2001 we're going to review just some of those very quickly tonight and carry away the basic themes of the law we're not going to go through every single U provision I have found I'm a regular practitioner before the school ethics commission which enforces the school ethics act I represent board members and administrators before them I've been doing it since they opened their doors and I can tell you by and large most people who
026get in trouble with the school ethics act at the board level do so because they forgot what their role was as a board member are really never understood it to begin with so just as a brief reminder of the role of board members which is somewhat counterintuitive because when you run for public office um as I've often said in these presentations I've never met anybody who's run for public office because they're ecstatic about the status quo and want to fight to reserve it uh anybody who runs for public office is running because maybe they have an idea to approve things maybe they do want to blow things up who knows but nobody runs because they like the way things are they want to do things when they get elected to public office and when you're
027elected to an office like a mayor where's some other Provisions where you have a staff and you have executive Authority you can actually do that you can order people to do things you can direct people to follow your instructions when you're elected to a a member of a local board of education however it's a much different role you're one member of a deliberative body you're an oversight body board members have no executive Authority they hold the superintendent and the business administrator's feet to the fire to make sure they're getting the job done and making sure the district is being well run but don't have any executive Authority themselves and board members who tend to get in trouble under the school ethics act sometimes forget that going to run very quickly through a couple of what
028I call the frequent flyers under the school ethics act these are the provisions that board members get prosecuted most frequently for um this is from the original version of the school ethics act obviously no school official used our official position to secure unwarranted privileges advantag employment or members of their immediate family you can't throw your board member weight around to Advantage people because you have that unique access to the keys for the Kingdom so to speak subsection C makes clear that we're not just talking about financial advantages anything that secures for a personal advantage of some of some type you cannot throw your board member weight around to pursue that as well uh the list of items of the code of ethics for school board members that was adopted 10 years after the initial adoption
029of the law I'm going to go through again frequent flyers from those um here you see them up here uh the first one um from subsection of the law says I'll confine my board action to policymaking planning and Appraisal usually when board members are charged with violating this it usually goes hand in hand with violating this one I'll carry my responsibility not to administer the schools but to see that they're well run usually when board members ACC of one hand inand or accuse of the other and who gets found guilty of these typically typically these are board members in my experience not this ever happen here of course but board members who may be retired may have a lot of time on their hands you'll see them roaming the halls of the school building during
030the day glad handing people perhaps stopping in the personnel office to suggest why maybe we should be getting a new football coach uh people who are on campus day in day out as if they run run or own the place um exerting all the executive power that they absolutely do not have those are the people who typically get involved in violating this particular section um this one is also one board members are frequently um charged with um and this relates not only to activity that happens person to person but also activity that happens on social media we have to be very careful to make sure that whatever we do we don't do anything where we are making commitments on behalf of the board or looking like we're making commitments on behalf of the board and
031this is a bit of just to drop a footnote to give you a little bit of bad news in my profession as I've shared with you from time to time we used to have a rule in my profession called the appearance of impropriety Doctrine uh we have a whole bunch of rules we lawyers are supposed to follow we can lose our license to practice law if we don't follow them but there used to be a rule that said even if we followed all the rules if it might have looked to somebody like maybe we didn't if there was an appearance of impropriety even if we didn't do anything wrong we could lose our license for that too we lawyers got together some years ago and we said to our Supreme Court this makes no sense
032we are Ru followers you give us the rules we will follow them if that's not enough rules give us some more rules we'll follow them too but please don't tell us somebody can take away my livelihood because what somebody on the street might have thought I did but I didn't um makes no sense the Supreme Court did away with the appearance of impropriety doctorate for us lawyers bad news for you board members the appearance of impropriety Doctrine is alive and well at the school ethics commission as a matter of fact most people who get found guilty of violating the school ethics act do so not because of what they actually did or intended to do but because of how what they did may have appeared to to this reasonable Observer they talk about we don't
033know much about this reasonable Observer we don't know whether it's male or female we don't know whether they're well informed about what's going on in the community we don't know if they just landed here from Mars we don't know much about the reasonable Observer but whoever this reasonable Observer is we have to make sure we don't do something that looks to that reasonable Observer like we're violated any of these rules which take away from that is if as a board member you feel you're getting close to a potential violation here probably time to take a at 10 steps back so you're not even close um interaction with the community we have to be very careful there are a number of of of sections of the school ethics act that address this we have to be
034very careful that we do anything that would be perceived as board endorsement of positions without board authority to do it um we see a lot of this in terms of charges before the school EIC Commission on social media going back years when social media was new and no one really had their head wrapped around it the school ethics commission came out with a rule that says if you want to post a message on social media as a board member you have to post this very explicit lengthy all in caps disclaimer that made it very clear 10 times over that you were speaking only for yourself and not for the board that rule has evolved over the years they no longer require you to have a disclaimer as long as you can meet the burden of
035showing that nobody reading your post would think you're speaking for the board based on all the surrounding circumstances today the disclaimer rule goes something like this doesn't hurt to have a disclaimer um but you don't have to have one if based on all the circumstances of that social media post everybody in town would know you're speaking only for yourself a very squishy standard and by the way even if you have a disclaimer that might not be good enough either if it still looks to everybody who's reading it like you're really speaking on behalf of the board perhaps with awaken and eye so have to be very careful about following that rule it's a very subjective standard maybe good reason to stay off social media altogether although you're perfectly allowed to do it but just be
036careful and again no authority to activate commitments on behalf of the board um here's a biggie a lot of people get accused of violating this one of subsection G of the code of ethics um from the moment you're sworn in as a board member and do board members realize this from that moment literally you will have priv to all sorts of confidential information about staff about students about contracts were negotiating about security measures all sorts of stuff that legitimately should remain private or must remain private to protect the Privacy rights of people who aren't even on the board and even though we live in an area with people like transparency and government we all do I think at the same time we also realize that there is a role for confidentiality as long as it's
037not abused and overused anything that you learned solely because of your role as a board member that you wouldn't otherwise have access to must remain confidential cannot be disclosed to anybody else there's a separate section of that section of the code of ethics that has nothing to do with confidentiality but says um I'm also obligated to provide accurate information to the public um what the heck are they talking about in this day and age what you know what is truth what is accuracy who's to say um they made it very clear in their decisions they're not talking about stifling expressions of opinion by board matters or speaking out on matters that are legitimately subject to debate what they're talking about just to give an example are are matters of objective demonstrable effect so let's say
038Mr govern here doesn't like the budget that's been proposed one year and he wants to speak out against it which is allowed to do um but he post something on social media saying I'm against the budget because in line item x uh the superintendent is recommending $20 million for some purpose that I think is frivilous well she's not recommending $20 million it's $2,000 state statement of objective fact that's clearly demonstrably wrong that's the sort of thing that can expose somebody to prosecution under this rule not matters that are fairly debatable or expressions of opponent um when they adopted this one we really had no idea what it meant um you knowes this mean we're supposed to escort teachers to their cars after work what are we really talking about here U but after 30 years
039of decisions from the school ethics commission under this section we think we know what they what they intended to mean by and large most people who get prosecuted for violating this section if you just look at the facts of the cases by and large most of them have to do with board members humil or embarrassing Rank and file staff members in public so let's say um we have a teacher who's coming here to make a presentation for the social studies Department you're a board member you're sitting here listening to this Public Presentation you think is the silliest thing you've ever heard because you're a social study teacher yourself and you're thinking this person I don't want hire this person and you start taking them on in public in a way that's demeaning humiliating what have
040you that would be an example of something that um would get you in trouble in this particular section um then there's this one just coming down the home stretch here um the school ethics commission hates it when board members play gotcha they hate it when board members play it with each other they especially hate it when board members played with the administration um if you hear something down in shoppr or wherever folks here you know in town go over the groceries and you hear somebody with a problem nothing wrong with telling them you know redirecting them back through the chain of command or passing it along to the superintendent obviously under that other world we talked about you can't tell them I'm going to go solve your problem for you but we should refer things
041to the administration something that they may have a chance of being able to solve and not wait until Midway through a board meeting a month later to pop it out of the woodwork and watch the blood train out of M pz's face because you're hearing about it for the first time in the middle of a board meeting they hate when that happens so we're to the wise we don't want to do that um very quickly um we all know that when it comes to Personnel matters leg relations there's all sorts of requirements restrictions I should say who can participate in What U we're not going to go into detail but just so the public is aware if a board member has a relative employed in the district there are sever restrictions on that board members
042ability to take part in Personnel actions involving that relative their supervisors all the way up to the superintendent and if board members have relatives employed in other school districts there's limitations on their ability to take part in negotiations with the same Statewide Union that their relative is a member of um there are some advisory opinions from the school ethics Commission on volunteering I find it very frustrating myself because what are you if not volunteers um the school ethics commission has a whole bunch of restrictions on what board members can volunteer for just to boil it down um they do not like it when board members volunteer for things where board members have the kind of executive Authority I was talking about before so it will be an example of that um let's say we have
043somebody on the board who's a retired um Broadway director and we have an opening for the adviser to the school play here and you've got some time on your hands you're retired who better than a retired Broadway director to take over that role you're volunteering for no compensation out a goodness of your heart the school ethics commission would say you can't do that because what is an advisor to the school play they like a boss of stuff you get to decide which kids get which parts you may decide which vendors are going to be used to supply sets and what have you um you get to order people around you know in a good way but you're you're running things you're exerting executive Authority if you want to show up and sling a hammer and
044help build the sets with the kids sort of the low man or woman on the totem hole they don't have a problem with that but anything that involves executive Authority they just decided a case a couple months ago just in November involving somebody wanted to be a volunteer football coach no compensation just wanted to show up I think it was a former lineman uh either at the college or Pro level just wanted to help the kids out with some skills training for that particular case they didn't even show up to all the practice they said you can't even do that because a coach is by definition an authority figure and and the kids respond to them that way so can't do that um an example of what they said they have no problem with is
045if it's back to school night and you want to show up with your Dr Seuss hat and read to the kids they don't seem to have a problem with that you want to sling hamburgers in the concession stand at the football games as long as you're not bossing people around they don't have a problem with that so anything that requires executive Authority or makes you look like you're a fixture in the building they don't want you volunteering for that so please don't shoot the messenger I find some reason this a little frustrating myself but just be aware of that so quick recap uh we don't want to use our board position to secure benefits for us our family our friends respect the chain of command and as I said before under the reasonable Observer standard
046appearances matter so I think my hourglass has run dry I thank you for your attention and I'll see you next year thank you Mr Ruben that was a great refresher for all of us uh please know in front of all the board members there is a ethics training certificate one is for you and one is for me if you can pass it down and then there's also an acknowledgement of receed that you received this course this evening so if you could sign that and send it down thank you thank you um I would like to give the bo president report at this time so I'd like to start with the fact that we had our qack evaluation the speak qac stands for quality single accountability Continuum it measures how well public school district of New
047Jersey meet quality performance indicators there are five components instruction and programs fiscal governance operations and Personnel the district does a self assessment and then we have an on-site visit and the district is required to meet at least 80% of the quality performance indicators and this case has an update for us uh good evening it we had our desk got it on Tuesday and it went very well uh we are not finalizing our scoring however it was great to see all the teamwork that we had together uh we will have building walkthroughs for our schools coming later this month and we're excited for that as well I'd like to provide also an update on a social media lawsuit that our district is part of against big social media companies we decided to take this on under
048the advice of Mr Ruben um or we actually asked him if we could take it on um this is an effort uh we started about two years ago and it's an effort to address the rising prev and costs associated with mental health concerns which Studies have shown can be directly attributed to social media use in young people and the team bringing the suit has um asked districts now to provide mental health intervention data and so we're in the process of gathering and providing that and hopefully um the also is successful and get some compensation um we also started just recently with our private security company petoran that was funded by state aid uh that's specifically earmarked for security and uh the board had the pleasure of meeting with the team that's going to be on
049site here at our school buildings and we found them to be extremely qualified very impressive professional and they come from some great law enforcement background including some of the biggest police departments in the state um the New York City Police Department paratroopers National Guard highly trained individuals they're building connections with our school community and they're going to provide their insights and potential updates that we may need they work with our both of our police departments as well and they'll actually be doing some training together um and one of the things that they have been uh have offered to do is to observe and offer insights about the traffic patterns and safety during school drop off and dismissal we would ask that the community do its part it's critical that families follow the designated drop off
050lanes and traffic patterns as the current situation is becoming increasingly dangerous every school has a structured system in place it's been developed in partnership with our police departments and this is to ensure Ure a smooth safe flow of traffic so please help us by adhering to these guidelines to protect our students and as a board in the district we do want to thank the amine and Manan police departments for their continued partnership and just for the record we do support any uh police department summons that have to be issued for violating any on-site U parking or traffic violation so you've been warned um many of you have seen the district in initiatives to decrease student absenteeism um um those efforts are bearing fruit we're seeing improvements and keep in mind that this is a corrective
051action plan that the state has required us to do because our chronic absenteeism is above 10% um in some cases it's a lot above 10% um so the state uh unfortunately the state doesn't recognize excused versus unexcused so an absence is an absence and a lot of our schools have pretty high absenteeism um and keep in mind that we're not trying to Force kids to come to school sick or you know there's extenda circumstances we understand that this is really an effort to make families aware that maybe just save those days where you're not really feeling it for you know when you're actually sick and try to come in um as much as possible and there's circumstances that are out of our control of course so please be in contact with your teachers and your
052building principles to work out anything you need to um in terms of that um and lastly we had our ass sign installed in front of the office administration building it looks fantastic so thank you to everyone to make that happen it was a long time coming and we're excited to have now everybody know where our central office is located and it's so just so everybody knows also that's a new building um we've been there a little over a year and we did that so that we could um have extra classrooms in our preschool expansion which um we moved our the central offices out of to have more classrooms so with that I'm going to turn it over to miss TR for the student represent thank you good evening starting off with updates for the high
053school principal Wells would like to thank the staff and students who volunteered their time at the Husky Experience open house for seventh and eth graders this was a wonderful event at which middle school students toured the school and learned more about our academic programs clubs and sports thank you to all involved the mammoth County Guidance Directors Association will be hosting their 2025 college fair at 600 p.m. on Thursday March 6th at Brookdale more information on how to register can be found at www.star.com the mrhs night of the Arts will be held in the high school cafeteria on March 11th starting at 6 p.m. stop by to see student artwork samples support student vendors at their booths and to watch performances of songs dances and more this event is always a great way to bring our
054community together lastly for the high school students against your destructive decisions or sad is hosting a safe driving orientation event for students and parents on Tuesday March 25th at 6 p.m. at the high school students in attendance will receive priority parking next school year the link to register was included in Mr Well's husky weekly update email as for Ms throughout February their student council has been selling raffle tickets to benefit the American Heart Association the winning ticket will be pulled tomorrow and one lucky student will win Bando a stuffed dog as well as a Dunkin Donuts gift card thanks to everyone who entered the raffle and helped with this worthy cause mans's new attendance initiative is going great so far the competition between advisory classes has been Fierce with tight battles at each grade the
055first month first month's competition concludes tomorrow and three winning home rooms will earn an ice cream party next week thanks to Sundays of aine for contributing the ice cream individual student attendance has been up all month long as of February 25th 422 students have perfect attendance for February which is an increase of 50% from January m''s admins are excited to recognize middle schoolers who demonstrate good attendance and make everyday count next up Lloyd Road Elementary School conducted their school spelling Beyond January 30th and invited all classes to be in the audience as the top spellers in fourth and fifth grade competed on stage all of the students in the spelling be did a phenomenal job and we are incredibly proud of each of them the overall spelling be Champion was fourth grader Amanda elgamal who
056will proceed to the scripts Regional spelling be throughout the month of February Lloyd Ro Elementary School is celebrating Black History Month with the help of our student council who researched and compiled quotes to honor and recognize the significant contributions and achievements of African-Americans throughout history each morning as part of their daily announcements a quote is read aloud by a student volunteer that highlights a prominent figure from history in the Civil Rights Movement this is meant to educate and raise awareness about about black history and culture and to reflect on the struggles and triumphs of black Americans as well as to celebrate their Rich cultural heritage Lloyd Road Elementary School also celebrated random acts of kindness week the week of February 10th the purpose of highlighting this week is to promote a kind caring and accepting
057learning environment to appreciate diversity and inclusive inclusivity sorry and to celebrate everyone students enjoyed the various theme days throughout the week including wearing something that sends a positive message dressing like someone who is a hero to them wearing workout clothes to show that we can all work together and wearing a shirt that represents something they like finally the Lloyd Road PTO is gearing up for its popcorn fundraiser and they encourage all students to participate to raise funds for their school Community next up Cliffwood is thrilled to share some wonderful updates with you from the past month their students had a blast celebrating the 100th day of school in February 18th they dressed up as 100-year-olds created vibrant 100 Day posters and made necklaces with 10 patterns totaling 100 be needs some classes even made fun
058trail mixes with 10 groups of 10 snacks a special thank you to the soin family for renting a 100 day sign for families to enjoy outside the school it was such a fun addition to the celebrations thanks to The Bravery of Mr Wyman they raised $600 during their fundraising event where he allowed students to shave his head it was a moment of great fun and Community Spirit looking ahead Cliffwood is excited to announce that Thursday May 15th is set for the Harlem Wizards game against the Cliffwood staff they hope to see everyone there cheering on their staff and helping raise funds for their playground cliffwoods Title One Cosmic Family night was a huge success students had an amazing time playing math games with their friends and participating in the free raffle baskets a huge thank
059you to the Cliffwood staff for organizing such a stellar event the next title one night will be on April 10th where they will focus on the one school one book program they can't wait for their book reveal on March 20th clip also hopes everyone had a sweet Valentine's Day with their loved ones their students enjoyed exchanging Valentines and even created a kindness tree to celebrate the many acts of kindness happening throughout cwood School they're also excited to introduce officer Todd the new school security officer he's already made a positive impact assisting with arrival and dismissal and they've even learned that he has an artistic background officer Todd is full of great ideas and they're looking forward to collaborating on a project to beautify the outdoor spaces finally Cliffwood is looking forward to read Across America
060week in March they can't wait for guest readers from the community to join them on Friday March 7th to share stories with students thank you for all you do to make Cliffwood School such a special place we are truly Cliffwood proud of this amazing Community moving on to Strathmore this month the Strathmore self-contained special education teachers invited District PSD teachers to visit and observe their classrooms in preparation for the student transition to the 2025 to 2026 school year the morning was filled with learning and and articulation to benefit student programming the preschool classes wrapped up another tools of the Mind theme with a pet vent Pet Vet Pet Vet event sorry students had a visit from a veterinarian technician and her rabbit and learned about caring for all kinds of animals additionally students and staff
061participated in theme days for national week of kindness during the week of February 18th kindness compliments were heard extra loud this week through the Halls students and staff celebrated the 100th day of school by dressing up to Mark the occasion Additionally the world's finest chocolate fundraiser wrapped up this month which with tremendous support from the PTO everyone at Strathmore is also looking forward to read Across America next month and is anxiously awaiting their visits from guest readers please join them if you can next up is Ravine Drive February included many celebrations starting with Groundhog Day on February 2nd and Valentine's day as well as the 100th day of school Ravine Drive students celebrated the 100th day in many different ways counting to 100 creating shirts with 100 items dressing like they're 100 years old and
062writing 100 unique words the day was also filled with love as they honored the January remarkable road runners who were selected by their teachers for demonstrating hard work throughout the year as the warm weather is upon us Ravine is excited excitedly looking forward to their spring events they will kick off one of their favorite events of the year The Color Run while they search for a leprechaun over the next few weeks lastly for Cambridge Park Elementary in recognition of Black History Month students are are celebrating the beauty of diversity by reading books written by black and African-American authors additionally parents and Guardians will visit Cambridge Park this Friday February 28th for a special buddy reading event this brings me to the end of my report thank you and have a great evening thank you miss
063trer you always have a really thorough report and we enjoy hearing from you and I know you work really hard F to get together so thank you um one last thing that I want to note before I um go to the agenda items we do have a student um at the middle school who was recently diagnosed with a serious uh health condition and the family the mom also works in the district so the community has pulled together um wonderfully to try to support them as best they can we have a few events coming up on March 12th from 3:00 to 8 at the Burger Shop burgers for Ben if you mention burgers for Ben you'll get um the 20% of their proceeds will go to that family um store is doing McDonald's tonight um you
064I'm sure you'll be able to provide details for anybody that wants that and um there's also a gift card fundraiser the student is being treated at Children's Hospital Philadelphia so there's a lot of back and forth so things like uh gas cards gift cards um breakfast McDonald's things like that um to help the family out is greatly appreciated so just contact your building principal and I'm sure they will tell you exactly how to get that uh your donation to the family and we appreciate that okay um moving on to the curriculum and instruction agenda thank you and good evening we're asking the board to take action on the items as listed on the agenda a travel B other the items that are listed in red which are new additions from the Catt the red items
065are on page one of three and continue on page two of three the remaining items is listed uh we were reviewed at the Cal that concludes crial instruction thank you Mr motion and a second to accept the curriculum and instruction agenda second any questions serves the student services we're asking the board to take action on the items as listed on the student services agenda under item two in red there's one addition in red in this case I'd like to make a change to the minutes so under item two in red student 1671 for the program learn well the cost that's listed $2,320 that's correct when we go to the bottom of the page in red under the account um it's off by $20 so it should reflect 2320 continuing on page two of two item
066number three one additional student listed in red for an ad District placement for the 2425 school year cost is listed and item number four for in red we're asking the board to approve the recommendation for a program at Keys Academy where this there's no cost to the district uh and the the program um comes in to speak about um reducing factors associated with behavoral health conditions uh so this is a program specifically for the students at Keys Academy that concludes student services thank you can I have a a second to accept stud second any questions um yes it's um it's not actually question but just to point it out for the public the um under number one the new Ro school um I know that seems like a very large sum of money but that
067is for multiple students correct for that year also just so the public is aware um we basically um we can have cost adjustments coming in from um out of District placements for up to years got okay so up to three years so that's why you will see dates that are you know a year ago on here but something you'll see two or three years um and we never know unfortunately um what those cost will be so they may not always be budgeted for because um you know with the adjustment uh you know it could be a few th000 to 20,000 30,000 um and sometimes they'll be or [Music] if it's going to be over 10% uh the that district will then send out a letter to us letting us know that there is that potential
068so that we are well aware um but other than that we have to wait until the audit is completed and approved by the state and then they will send a revise Bill and that's what you're seeing on this agenda I also just wanted to point out um Keys Academy is mentioned in this portion of the agenda um that's a really unique program that we are really blessed to be able to participate in and phasically run um it's a recovery program so students can finish their High School uh curriculum and graduate while in recovery um and it's um really something that is only happening in places in the city so um we hope to be able to hold that and actually see if we can even find more started offering out of District students this opportunity
069so hopefully um we can help students in other distes any other questions I have a question um under item 20 um can we just explain to to the public the um differences um and the reasons to send some kids to Long Branch school district versus NE with the with the great yes so um I can speak to La branch first So Long Branch School District offers a program that we currently don't have so this is a alternative Behavior program so we are sending two students to that particular program because it's something that we don't offer in District and so from time to time when we list different school districts on the agenda typically they would it's either a they're offering a different program that we don't have or for some reason a student um under
070certain circumstances for example if they are homeless or considered homeless um they would be attending another school and that gets listed on the agenda uh so both cases are true in this particular agenda item thank you're welcome than moving on to Personnel thank you in addition to the regular agenda uh the board receiv received two blockin pages uh for personnel which include resignations appointments and staff array changes uh in addition to a uh um extension or medical Le with pet for the regular agenda we have uh that we're asking the board to take action on we have resignations and retirements we have two in red uh which include retirements of our transportation supervisor and a bus driver in uh section B we have leaves of absence which include medical leaves absence FMLA leaves and personal
071leaves in item C we have new hires in Ray um which include three three new hires and one including a new special leg class for autism that we starting over at the middle [Music] school on page three of seven we have extracurricular activities as listed uh with one new and red the assistant coach in item three we have through pages 3 through 7 home instruction as listed in in red on page of six of seven we have some staff array changes which account for uh covering classes with overloads with certified teachers at the middle school and we also have Cambridge Park item uh item five on page six we have a college student observation and then we have uh one new volunteer in red on item number six on page 7 of seven uh we
072have the reported hi uh and then we have items 2 through six with uh administrative Le with pay and then we have our school calendar in red and we have an additional pay uh in red as well to help out in the special education department and that concludes the personnel can I have a motion in a second to accept the personal AG I'll second any questions com I just want to acknowledge I'm so happy that we have the ability now to give fathers fraternity leave and I'm so happy to see that we have a teacher who is taking paternity this um I just wanted to ask if anybody had any questions on calendar because there was a lot that was submitted if anybody still had any questions because um I printed the question so I
073wasn't sure anybody had anything outstanding Mr Le if you wouldn't mind um highlighting the changes made from last year's calendar to this year yes for the public we're speaking about the proposed 25 26 school year calendar so we're required each year to approve a calendar from September to June U the change significant changes for the board besides the obvious St changes um we eliminated two early dismissal days from the calendar this school year we had an early dismissal day in January and we had an early dismissal Day in February leading up to holiday weekends um they they're not required to be early dismissal day so we've removed them from next year's calendar in addition or this year's calendar contractually staff in grades K to8 and in preschool twice a year have an opportunity for an
074early dismissal day for students so teachers can um have time to do grading at the end of a markting period they used to be four separate early dismissal days in this proposed calendar we've combined them so it's now two so prek is joining the K to8 staff so instead of having four early dismissal days we have two so essentially we've if you think of it that way we've eliminated four early dismissal days from the calendar that was important feedback when we did our presentation a month ago about chronic absenteeism feedback that we did receive from parents in the community was about early dismissal days um so we're doing our best to to be cognizant of their their requests but still hold true to the requirements of the calendar those are the probably the most significant
075changes and just to clarify to the public those were um it presents a hardship for working parents to be able to have early dismissal days where they need to figure out how their kids are yes I I had a question about that um so when I was going to the calendar I was looking for like opportunities where it clearly wasn't an ear early dismissal day for professional development or something like that where there's an early dismissal day for students and staff and I did see some still on on the calendar for this upcoming year um a few of them I mean they're kind of traditional ones the day before Thanksgiving break the day before the holid the winter holiday break I mean I I get that but then there was um specifically November 5th and
076March 27th that appeared to be just early dismissal days and I wasn't sure what was going on and why we still kept them yep so it's important to distinguish between the two categories so the first couple you mentioned uh before Thanksgiving before the winter break those are contractual the the second two that you mentioned are not not contractual so it's up to the administrative prerogative if we want to continue those so the November one is an early dismissal day prior to the njaa teachers convention um typically a week where when we look at attendance overall it's a it can be a rough week um especially when we're a district where we are open that week and neighboring districts are not uh we did a survey of neighboring m County District for next year and the
077majority not all but a majority are open that week um so what we decided to do we've done it a couple of years now with an early dismissal day um it helps with staff attendance right so in order to make sure that we're doing the best to stay open for the full week that's a day that works in our favor in that case and the same thing is true so there was a number of years where we didn't have that March is the day before Spring Break um there was a number of years where we did not have that as an early dismissal day and it actually caused some confusion especially in elementary parents where we have an early dismissal day before the big holidays the Thanksgiving the winter break but we didn't before spring
078break and they're often confused at calling and saying do we or don't we have an early dismissal day um we have a lot of parents who'd like to get a jump start on spring break and we were finding again especially a lot of Elementary buildings where parents were constantly having coming in doing early pickups throughout that day so I think last year was a first year we went to an early dismissal day before spring break to try to alleviate some of those issues that it has worked in our favor as well but that's important for the board to know that those two things are they're not contractual and I mean the the uh the balance on the other side is it's not it's not just the young children that end up missing because their their
079parents have to come up with an alternative plan that might involve them being care for at someone else's house that isn't close to the district but um the other thing is I'm starting to perceive as my own kid I get older is that early dismissal day at middle school and high school lead to very little actual education because they spend most of the day just walking between classes just walking walking and walking and walking and walking because it's a tight time frame and there's you know especially the high school are dat classes during this time so I I don't know I hope that we continue to minimize the number of early dismissal days that we have because it seems I don't know it's just and Diana I just want to piggy back on what you
080said um as a parent who's had two kids go through the high school those half days mean they learn nothing their classes are down to about half an hour it's the day before a Break um and they receive no instruction and I tend to be of mind that if it was a full day they wouldn't be able to do that so it's a hard balance I find you know saying that parents don't know when the days are we put out the calendar and we can do a lot of communication to make sure they know like I believe I got a um I got a reminder that next Wednesday is a PV day like it just came out electronically to me and I check my calendar and all of that I think we could do a
081good job with that because we're here for education and that half day before spring break the holiday is in for days into the next week so if people know the calendar comes out now our focuses on education so giving them that half a day um I would hope we be able to have it enough students in to have it count as a day and have it be instructional I believe that the 27th is a Friday too I mean it's it's not late it's a little different than than Wednesday before nextg um in terms of the half days I do appreciate that you guys did um revise based on our feedback um you did take out two half days that were there and it was for the younger kid so I know probably the hardest for
082working parents is to find people to watch their children um those days so I appreciate that you were able to um combine those and to now on own having an additional half day so completely um love that um in terms of the half days I I guess I understand the concern on both sides because um I do know a lot of students tend to miss Ates when they're in sometimes if we have a full day we also know that we have a very large you know good amount of students and staff out those things so it it's kind of balancing it so I think every year we try to just keep that in that's but love see that off um the other thing was thank you because you also took into consideration Passover in terms
083of the planning of the calendar which I thought was good because sometimes in years pass they haven't linked up and last year we made a special request halfway into the year partway into the year and made the change but this year we're going in planning that way so I thought that was great um and then last thing graduation dates those are canidate so just I don't know before we put it up to the public had and so the purpose of being tentative is due to snow days so should there be inclement weather or should something happen power outage and things like that um yeah that that's where there's always an as we could absolutely do that yes always no problem yes it does remind me of of one more thing about half days there's a
084half day plan for e8th grade graduation so we have a half day for the entire district for 8th grade graduation um is that is that absolutely necessary is there a way to so I think you're speaking to the last two days of school which are early dismissal days for the entire District not specifically for e8th grade promotion is not the purpose e8th grade promotion happens to fall on one of the last two days um but the purpose of the early dismissal days is when we get to the end of the year and grades are done and assessments are done and uh the weather is warm it's an opportunity to end early yes and I think it's Fin and yes yes yes and we're on we're on the high school field yes we are one last
085thing um just to address the fact that we have um a disparity in the last day because of some closures in certain schools and not others can you just refresh everybody's memory yes so probably in April we will come back to the board with a revised 2425 calendar U because we're hoping by that point we've gotten through the weather and we would be able to solid ify graduation um but what you're speaking to is this year when we had a power outage at the middle school and at Cliffwood they essentially had a snow day in the fall so they they do have to make up that day so they will be going one additional day so that will be reflected on the calendar we bring it back to the board in April so at the
086moment two buildings going one day additional than the other five thank you any other questions Dr R policy agenda please thank you for policy first read uh we have two policies uh both in student categories we have promotion and retention which was a slight uh policy where Mr Leman worked with Mr Van Horn um to based on the Middle School um curriculum program to change some retention uh information and language uh the other is the student smoking policy which this uh the board revised last year uh but um there was some new MOA language from this new MOA that needed to be included and code that needed to be included so that is a slight change that is in the student smoking policy the second read uh are policies that we all visited back at
087the uh committee as a whole meeting and they are listed uh here here and that is all for policy um I just wanted to reiterate um I had asked um Dr rolls can you just explain the board was confused like I was and and the rest of us about so the AI policy and The Spectator there is not options can you just explain that because that's what we thought yes the the AI policy there aren't that's an optional policy itself but there aren't any options I think that it was the uh the dashes that that confused folks that were next to the numbers but there there were no options on that policy okay so it's as is and then The Spectator there were but you kept in all of them giving admin some other options
088exactly okay exactly just want to make sure because I know a lot of people had asked about that um and then I wanted to mention um the food service that's going to be our next policy to work on um that policy is brutal um and I know Mrs SC brought up last month we're going to have to look into what part of that what's actually mandated what's not try to tighten it up but we also want to get it more involved in about the lunch debt and and all of that stuff but um yeah so that's going to be next with the committee and um I think that was it yeah okay thank you I appreciate that also just to clarifi for I know there were questions about the smoking student smoking so it's called
089student smoking and it starts off the first paragraph talking about smoking but there is right after that a disclaimer that when that policy references smoking it includes vaping any electronic Del delivery device any tobacco in any form it's all kind of encapsulated in there so I think that covers the definition my concern was it opened up talking about theard of toac only and then talking substances standpoint it seemed so updating it didn't seem right to keep that there unless expanded the definition or away um Dr R do you think that we need to adjust that or should we I mean it's that's the policy that from stra yes and in uh in some additions that were made last year when it was revised by the board uh if it's the board's pleasure we we can
090certainly do that but um it's not like it just seems so in Congress to start out talking about the hazards of tobacco and have a policy about any substance so [Music] I about it I think we'll clarify it so for this agenda we will um table it when it table it's a first read so oh it's a first read never mind we will um work on adjusting with the policy committee thank you and then I had a question on the um promotion and retention policy I know I sented him but just wanted to get thoughts around um we mention in the policy there summer school mention for the Middle School um and I wasn't sure for the high school if there should also be a mention of credit recovery it is pretty specific like the
091high school kids do have an opportunity for that um so I just thought it might be this way it's consistency and so parents understand that there is option yes it's up it's only first tonight maybe think about it get Mr Wells yes yes I'll work y we'll work with Mr Wells that's a really good point it's one of those things when you start changing one of these sometimes it's kind of like once I noticed the middle school then I was like why aren't we thinking about the high might as well do it all at once for yes um yes that that has been shared with the High School administration we'll work with them to get that awesome and then just a question um just for Clarity on the parent organization policy um I wasn't sure
092do we know if all our school PTO are either considered nonprofit or 501c3 and do they have liability insurance do we know we don't know ask yeah just just so we understand if they have insurance if they are Mrs Scully if I may um when we met with the PTO um presidents last week or a couple weeks ago when we went over the policy um and I think Mr ruin had given us some insight so they either need to be a 501 SE or um the other and then as far as the liability insurance I think there might only be one school that has but overall um I I know Miss case had mentioned that it falls on the building correct at the end of the day I mean yes right I mean they should
093have it but if if for some reason they do not it would fall under the umbrella the buildings insurance so as of right now I think there's only one but we can absolutely only ask we built it into the policy so I want to make sure that if it's in the policy and we approve it then that we take the next step in action so the PTO presidents were there for this discussion and they didn't raise any objections so they're they're aware I just make so I think that they're either looking into it or have it but they didn't raise any objections about that um quick question I'm sorry I should have brought the policy with me um but I was under the impression the the liability insurance it it said the policy said that
094it recommends right recommends having liability insurance rather than requires thank to make sure didn't misr Finance this case good evening we're looking to take action on the following items uh the board secretary's report for the month of January as well as the treasures report approving the appropriate transfers approving the bills list routine travel acceptance from the aine Husky track club and we are also thrilled to add two new uh one additional new acceptance of donation from the Ocean County students assistance for the keys Academy for gift cards that are needed for students from shop Michel Target we are also happy to accept an additional tuition student for the keys program as listed and then the fire and evacuation for the month of January that concludes my any questions on the plan agenda oh a motion
095in a second to accept a motion any questions um m perz i I talked about this before but can because you're you were so involved can you just give a little overview of the keys for us so it is a yes I'm very proud of um Keys we opened up Keys um when we applied for Grant um back in 2017 um we were awarded $1.1 million at that time um we were able to serve probably about 15 kids our first year um in my with the thought Keys was not necessarily to be exclusive to just our district but it was for students in um multiple counties so we sered Ocean County Middle sex Union um some travel from gler County the students served are all high school students that have um that have been struggling
096with drug and alcohol um abuse um and some have some mental um mental health issues as well um it is really a home for those students because they're able to attain uh their academics while still nourishing their mind and body with Wellness programs that are offered and activities that are offered through the program um we get we get a ton of um brilliant speakers um that come in that may have struggled um some have you know are kind of you know famous I guess like singers and stuff so it's pretty neat um where they come to talk to kids um there's a peer mentor component in terms of not necessarily a sponsor but just um somebody else that may have been going through the process of recovery um I'm happy to say that we've had
097you know a 100% success rate when what I say is that we have not had any student um die orose and that's really the goal it's about saving life um one at a time our families are committed um they come to everything every parent um activity we have major Comm we have a lot of Community Partners um last week we had um John Joy JB not John but joy I'm so sorry I was really hoping for that I yeah really get um but anyway um um JB Soul um so where they came um and they developed a um nutrition lesson with the kids that um Incorporated food um the kids love to cook they have a lot of talent in the Arts um with music um and also um drawing and things like that what
098what's unique about um the program too is that we share there are three only three in New Jersey um and what's unique about Keys is that it's on a college campus so they are also able to get um participate in dual enrollment classes so they're earning college credit as well there um they and the other piece too is that because it's part of Madan they are actively engaged in any of our activities but not only that but um our teachers and our staff the opportun to go there and um either whether it's to volunteer or or actually do you know teachers who teach Math and Science um they'll travel there as well so the challenge is is that there there was a reduction in funding um to over the last few years it's been $500,000
099um and then with some appropriation from um Senator goal between two 250,000 to 500 I'm happy to say that I spoke with his office yesterday so they will designated some appropriation in addition to you know any funding that we are receiving from the Department of Education so that'll be able to support it um so it's it's grown a lot so we're really I went to the graduation last year phenomenal so if you're so inclined you can write to your legislators and say keep funding Keys um a yeah I'd like to now ask for a w call on all agenda items oh thank 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 are limited to three
100minutes duration 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 and no participant May address or question board members individually all speakers are requested to express themselves in a civil manner with due respect for the dignity and privacy of others whose legal rights may be affected please note while it's 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 seek guidance beforehand from their own
101legal advisor um hi I'm uh srio uh 107.0 in Madan I had two questions or maybe they're more like concerns that were filtered through me um from District um one of them is the fact that when there's not enough substitutes like our kids use their specials um I know this is at both rine um as well as Strathmore I don't know anywhere else but um my daughter actually told me the other day school was crazy cuz they got to their class no one let them in then principal came and let them in and then they had five different substitutes throughout the day um and then that same day like other kids didn't have their specials so um it's just like a concern some parents we sh ask that was happing too was having a lot
102of strap more I don't really know why this happens um I know there's a lot of things but I just thought you should know that there's a lot of talk about it um especially back and forth with par so um that's one concern and the second concern is I don't know if this is true or not but um like a lot of us are preparing for our kids to go l Road next year um and kids were kind of I know that right now they switch classes between morning and afternoon and I've heard that's going away but I don't know if that's true or not but there's a lot of people talking saying it is going away the switching of classes and that is of concern for for parents um so I thought I kind
103of let you know and then I also wanted to thank you for eliminating as many half days as you possibly can those days are useless um miss them all the time because I'm not going to I don't know it's like they don't do anything um even at the little level um you know they have 8 minutes of this um they still eat a snack and lunch on half day so like just going to throw that out there um but I do thank any I know some of them are are helpful but um I do appreciate everybody who brought their concerns about the half that would be echoed by everybody everywhere um they are anyway thanks thank you thank you so we appreciate uh your comment um in terms of the substitute that is districtwide um
104but are primarily the K to 5 PK should say prek 5 that we are struggling with substitutes um we're well aware and so when when when your child comes home and says maybe he had five different he might it it is true because we're trying to manage um keeping instruction um going throughout the day um and so and we have some have some flow some weeks are better than others unfortunately there's been you know there has been a lot of illnesses going around um and that does impact you know some of the students in the staff in terms of if they sta are not here um and the coverage but we are working with the building administrations in terms of being creative and also just seeing if there other additional substitutes to be able to
105cover for those particular cles are outside contracted um and regards to Lloyd Road we cannot comment specifics on any of that but um as we prepare for um the 25 26 school year there's always a discussion in terms of programs Services delivery models and there are a lot of op a lot of thing a lot of thinking caps you know around the table including teaching staff um to to see how we can improve what um the instruction that students are receiving throughout the day so it they may have that discussion I will just say that I think that discussion has kind of got people like why are they switching to a new school if like you're just going to be in the same classroom all day when having like a school then school to school
106and these parents with kids in three different schools three different times and the the busing three different time like all of that you know what I mean like if they're getting some sort of cool benefit by being at that school by the opportunity switch and a loer you know it makes you feel like worth it but if it's just going to be like elementary school but now you get to have two kids at two schools or three kids at three schools that was the full circle conversation that I'm relaying because I have one kid so which are all valid points because you want to minimize the transition for kids right if you can um however you know right now in terms of the setup that we have I think when we do have more information
107and data um with the demographer I do think that we'll have information to be able to share those are possibilities that stud the way the wayed so um but we'll see thought I would share in case app you guys are not on social media and not seeing it like everywhere are I'm not I also just wanted to mention that we did um when we met with the PTO presidents we asked them to put out to their schools that were really in need of sub so moms or dads that want a sub um that you know are able to have certifications so you know just we're definitely aware of the shortage so thank you yeah yeah and um Mr lean can you just go over quickly the qualifications of for a substitute yes in order to
108be eligible for a New Jersey substitute certificate um you have to have a minimum of either 30 college credits or 60 college credits and the difference would be um how old you are in terms of being aged 19 or older uh but basically to you need to have college credits and you need to pass a criminal history background check a great option for anybody who wants to take advantage of that um any other public [Music] comments oh at this time before we take a vote on the agenda I would like to get some updates on um some of our committee members and committees so I'm going to start with the finance committee um we've have been very busy in budget season so U Miss has an update there yes so um the final we've been
109meeting every um every two weeks in preparation for the next upcoming board meeting so that we're well prepared um for the bud budget presentation um that's coming up um as we mentioned in the last me we're going to get update at every board meeting so the community understands kind of what we're working on and ensure that everyone's in throughout the process um reminder on the timeline uh this past Tuesday the 25th the governor gave his budget address um today around one o00 or sorry 3:00 um we've received our state aid numbers which we'll go through um March 20th um a regular Action meeting we're going to have the tenative budget up for um approval for fiscal year 25 6 um the public hearing on the budget has to happen between April 20th and May 7th
110and we need to give the public notice four days prior to that um we're currently thinking about um doing something a little different this year um we just have a special meeting for that um budget presentation so that it's really very focused um the attention so that the public can really fully understand ask any questions um we can give as much information as possible so TVD on the date for that but you will have to between April 20th and May 7th um central office team uh completed their dep Department budget meetings um for anticipated needs for each of the buildings um and Facilities uh they're looking at the budget in totality right now over the next few weeks especially since we just got our state's Aid num so that helps kind of fill in a
111lot of um you Mt pieces that we're missing um and paints a picture um we'll go through that they've been Gathering projected CA salaries benefits supplies utilities um estimated project uh projected enrollment numbers in District per building per classroom so that we understand that um so as I said we got the C numbers today so now over the next um few weeks we'll kind of figure out exactly what that means for us um let's see we did you know initially we working we were working on two different budgets because we didn't know what was going to happen with the even because we had a lot of you know we heard a l lot of Rumblings um so we had done a budget that was flat and a budget that had a decrease um many areas
112of our budget are seeing increas in costs which I'm sure is not news to anybody because I think all of us um personally are feeling it and seeing it um we know how uh the benefits are going up um double digits um special education costs are up programming costs are up there you know everything's basically up so we're we're going to factor obviously that into the budgets um the team is looking at different options on how we can achieve the goals um potentially approaching them a little bit differently so you know still giving um still the same goal of an excellent exceptional academic standard in a safe supported environment um we're trying to see if there are areas potentially in contract related Services where we can um get some savings so um that being said
113[Music] you okay so I'm gonna have Miss case um take you through the numbers but it's good news uh so with that being said um the state over the past year had been working on um leaving S2 so that was kind of a seven-year reform and they had been working with redur to kind of do a study and figure out what the necessary steps are so they had made some tweaks to this year's uh State numbers with that being said uh one of the main tweaks is that adjustment Aid is out and then uh it changes ization need and so what does that mean for us that means that they are doing a three-year look at where we are for our property value and um Mammoth county has a special thing that they actually go
114ahead and they review property value every single year for a pilot program that started in 2013 and then the other thing that comes into play is income so they used to take those into a one-year look now they're actually taking threee look at that to determine what's necessary along with that being said there's different categories uh categories that we fall into are special ed security transportation and preschool and with those categories one of the nice changes is that special education was based off of census data uh now they are actually taking it off of the actual enrollment numbers that we are giving them as of that October 15th snapshot so that is a much needed Improvement and we're very glad to see that that um so with that being said we are having an increase
115of about $300,000 overall um we are thrilled for that we were a little apprehensive a few weeks ago they sent out a notice letting us know that um while they were asking us to project three different budgets this year that they were looking at for those categories being at least 3% down um so we are thrilled that we're having an increase especially with the fact that we did have a slight adjustment in our enrollment going down about 75 students um so again 300,000 we're thrilled we'll take it hopefully next year we'll see more improvements any other questions that I can add I'll just to a point of clarification so the adequacy piece is that the state looks at the property values basically and decides um basically how wealthy a a district is so the fact
116that the um tax assessments and the property value assessments were happening annually and you've seen the cost of housing in our town it makes it appear that you know we are a wealthy district and we can afford you know parents can kind of pick up the slack on their own with things that are lacking so obviously we know that that's not necessarily the case and everybody's struggling with their own home budgets so the fact that they're looking at it over a three-year period will take into consideration those big jumps in housing prices and hopefully they won't consider this you know $700,000 houses like the norm in this area um that's what they're going for on my street which is crazy but um so that's on piece and then the actual special um Services versus kind
117of like basing it on population is also a great Improvement um I will say that basically this is considered sort of flat it's not like we this is going to end up absorbing some of the increases that we were expecting so again it is great news because we were really concerned to be honest that um we were going to have to look at what we needed to reduce and we don't want to do that because we're just trying to we're we're trying to do the best we can and every year it's like holding our breath to see that we can stay um as you've heard all the things tonight what the district is doing and we just want to keep delivering that kind of um education and services and activities and enrichment and all those
118great things for our students so we're we're very and just to um close out so the equalization aid while that went down special education security transportation and preschool we saw increases in all four areas um which is great so but as Miss um had said um basically devel flat because uh Medicaid reimbursement is lower as well so it's so it's it's a good thing we're flat because we've still got increasing um but we're in a really good place so I think overall we were very happy with what we saw um and just want to thank Miss case Miss perz Dr RS Mr lman and the entire central office team because they've been working incredibly hard um to make sure that they had very detailed information put in to share with the state um and allocating
119the dollar so that they knew exactly where we needed the money um so thank you and thank you for sharing the information with the board I think having a committee is helpful for us too because then we can come back and tell every we everything stand thank [Music] you uh so a little bit about I guess Federal so federal grants uh we were informed as well that typically we're able to budget last year's allocation to about 85% uh we know right now there's a little bit of flex going on so we've been informed by the state we cannot do anything past 75% so we'll take that into account as we're budgeting we do have a Medicaid reimbursement Federal did reduce that uh significantly um so we're also taking that into account that when we're budgeting
120we need to project on that loss and revenue and another note I do want to um I forgot to mention in my update that the YMCA will be offering um summer programming here um for for K5 um it'll be held here at store it'll be Monday through Thursday :30 to um I going say 1: p.m. um that'll include day trips um things like that um we know that last year when or over the last two years it's been a struggle for the community some of our families we need some type of um Assistance or just a break I need a break too I used to anyway when I they were younger um but so it gives them an opportunity the the price is um I think is is fair um and so if you know
121things were booked up last year I think they build up very very quickly at the recreation in town so this is just another option for families it is C so we will be sending that information out it will be open to um about 60 to 70 f um children and Miss perz that's for all district students that's not just aine at store so mwan residents clip residents will also be able to do it and what's great about it you can do week to week so you don't have to commit to the four the four um four to six weeks you can just do that yeah um we used to have a preschool program and it was hard to staff because of that so some weeks everybody came some weeks not a lot of people came
122and so it was difficult for us to put that um Revenue out for a very influx program so this was a great solution that the YMCA will be running this program and um that way parents do have a place for uh kids to go over the summer at their choice one week two weeks week week seven or week six week one week 2 week four all that so we're happy about that um uh we also know that both towns put out their recck programs as well they were able to increase their enrollment so you know there's multiple options out there and you want me to go over medic yeah just expl okay so every year uh we receive projections from federal on how many students are eligible and participate in Medicaid with that being said
123uh there is then a requirement that part of our Revenue comes from that they dictate what that fee is then we are required to show uh how we facilitated resources for that and then there is a reimbursable to that um they actually cut those expenditures this year by 40 to 50% and only each service is uh being reimbursed right now at [Music] $3.50 thank you um yes we're all shaking our heads any other oh uh any other questions there on finance or budget or anything before we move on um Mr McGovern um Mr McGovern is the liaison to um aing Township for us and he's going to give a quick update on um his last conversation with his counterpart at the a Town Council yeah so um I got in touch with him on Friday
124to mui um it was a very good conversation U basically started off with introductions uh talking about how we want to communicate and then went over some stuff that we've communicated at our last couple meetings just to make sure that to council's in the loop and some stuff going on in the news the community and he was very open and receptive to building this relationship out to forer a collaborative environment so I'm looking forward to our next conversation we're going to start off meeting every month once a month and then but as items come up if we need to communicate he'll reach out to me I'll reach out to him so it's not saying we only a good me once a month but just as a b part thank you Mr M and um Skol
125is uh plays the same role as a liaison to Matan from the board yes so um so I am uh liaison with um Miss gun on the mine Council and we typically talk um a couple of times a mon maybe two to three times a month usually pre and post board meetings um we have a very good relationship open communication um I just spoke to her yesterday um updated her on the current status of budget planning for the board um council is also in the midst of their budget planning um they're waiting our numbers so once we have them ready we'll share those um those going to their budget um and we should have a better idea I guess in the next few weeks um that would we got our state numbers um also update
126you know I keep her updated on the status of the demographer in terms of where we are with that um and uh made her aware obviously that we need their input and to work together in terms of like current future plans from a town perspective so we can understand what building is currently going on what's um potentially coming down the road um they welcome the study as well um and uh lastly I fil dur in on the status of how security been going the schools um so good conversation and we'll keep do thank you Mrs scly and um finally uh Miss pel has um in her professional role she um has a grant writing consulting company and so she has been sort of overseeing some of the um Federal changes and just sort of keeping
127us in the loop along with Mr Rubin our attorney who is also excellent at keeping us in the loop of what's going on with those uh developments yeah so um as uh M wari said I am a contract grant writer and so therefore the uh current uh situation with the new Administration is affected my profession a lot more than usually a transition does I'm also the co-chair of the governmental advocacy committee for the national Grant professionals Association so uh our committee has gotten a lot more attention within the association than it normally does so we've been working on monitoring executive orders memos um the directors from departments to um grantees and subres and contractors and so in in that role I'm seeing all the executive orders and all this other stuff so then the thought
128was well if I see anything affecting education I might as well let um board leadership and the um the administration know about it now um all of this with the uh under the you know I the the acknowledgement that U Mr rubin's uh group Bush Law Group and and Mr Rubin are providing a lot more professional guidance I'm just hey I saw something let them know you know that sort of thing but um just wanted be the public to know that the board is aware of what's going on and um that uh we uh you know we we follow the executive orders the implementing memos the the letters currently many of the executive orders um are in direct or and memos and letters are in direct conflict the state law as Bush Law Group has
129brought to our attention so um we will follow their advice um and uh also wanted to let people know you know in case you somehow missed this that there there are proposals to abolish the US Department of Education um which from a district perspective if that happened really is is about us watching what happens with Title One funds and IDE idea funding um because that that is what affects us most directly I also wanted to bring point to everybody's attention just so you know um and and none of this is with a Bend one way or another but just so people are aware that um what flew under the raadar was the um uh major major cuss to The Institute of Education Sciences which is a the original function of the Department of Education was
130mostly research and um a lot of the cuts there one the B big ones was the what works Clearing House the contract for that that's a giant consortial database of resource of of Education research that was really highly searchable and functional and I I haven't even gone to see if it's still there but I know it's not the contract going forward has been eliminated and that was something that probably our staff and administration was using um as well as the um digest of Education statistics which had a like decad statistics for the nation's education system from pre kindergarten through graduate graduate school um I will keep everybody posted as I see more things uh of course I'm not making any recommendations I'm not a lawyer I'm just letting people know as I see what I
131see because I have to do this every day for work so thank you thank you thank you okay with that we will do roll call vote for the agenda items Mrs goie yes Miss VIIs yes Mr McGuffin yes Miss pal yes Mr montone yes Miss Scott yes Miss barell yes however I'm going to abstain from the Personnel walk in items so noted Miss Martinez yes Miss Mar yes all items move thank you for attending tonight thank you Miss Kelly um appreciate the presentation it was great I will take a motion on a second to adjourn the meeting oh sorry do we have any new business um just I know I sent this in as a question but just the community is aware in terms of the fishing emails that you know there's that came through
132um you know I think the more we as um parents um tell our kids to just not open any suspect emails that come through even if it's from you know someone that's a staff member here um you know the last one was that I think you know taking a job for $300 a week or something um you know obviously a fishing email um but just making your kids aware to um you know be cautious on those don't open them um ask your parent about them or your teacher um but we're also looking into I think potentially training or something we can director of Technology already for to provide you know but the other P too is we're looking at to students because sometimes students we recognize sometimes students don't share those emails with their parents
133especially after the high school um so they may open it um but we all really need the train Miss Perez I don't know if there's specialized training for educators but um in my world I work in the tech Tel industry and I have a little quiz The Telltale science of how to spot aition Emil so I'll that to you than you you can use that um any other new business business um just to let everyone know the M players of Middle School um musical is March juice thank you that's a fun show I hope everybody can make it there Mr mcom just wanted to give some recognition the mine Regional High School special UniFi bowling team took second place in the njs a UniFi Bowl Championship today excellent [Music] [Applause] congratulations and also wanted to
134uh thank Mr Aron and all the staff and volunteers for the snowball I got to be there that night my my son was at the wall and it was awesome to see all the kids you know just out there dancing but it was really cool to see too CU some of the Special K was shot sitting down and the other kids were coming over motivating them to get up and dance it was it was an awesome event and he did a fantastic job thanks grateful he that are we good okay roll call vote please in a second to adjourn we did the roll call vote sorry I'm all out of sorts good night everybody