NHV BOE Meeting - 05/19/2026

001Folks, we are going to get started. Um, the North Hunter and Vorhees Regional High School District Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, May 19th, 2026 is now called to order. In accordance with the requirements of the Open Public Meeting Act, NJSA 104-6. adequate notice giving the time, date, location, and to the extent known. The agenda of this meeting was sent to the Hunton County Democrat, Star Ledger, and Courier News on January 7th, 2026, and published on January 12th, 2026. In addition, notice of this meeting has been posted at North Hunter High School and Borhees High School provided to the municipal clerks of Bethlehem Township, Califon Burrow, Town of Clinton, Clinton Township, Franklin Township, Glengardner Burrow, Hampton Burrow, Highbridge Brow, Lebanon Bur, Lebanon Township, Tsbury Township, and Union Township, as well as other interested parties and

002posted on the legal notices section of the district website. Fire exits are located in the directions indicated. If alerted to fire, please move in a common orderly fashion to the nearest smoke-free exit. Restrooms are located through the door behind this desk and to the right as indicated. At this time, please silence all cell phones. Roll call. >> Miss here. >> Mr. Chapman >> here. >> Mr. Henley >> here. >> Miss >> here. Mr. Lord >> here. >> Mr. Matthews >> here. >> Missappa >> here. >> Mr. Morgan >> here. Stein >> here. >> If we could stand for the flag [clears throat] of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. >> All right. Um going to ask folks to

003bear with us tonight. We're going to have to use our our outside voices because it's a little noisier here with uh the the extra air support we have going on due to the weather. Um but welcome to our working session for the month. Um as we go through items, the first couple of items that we have to address are our minutes from the April 21st and 28th meetings. Um any questions or clarifications on those meetings? Um all right. Um next is our review of the New Jersey Department of Education school self assessment for determining grades under the anti-bullying bill of rights. And I don't know what we doing. >> So that'll be next week for the action item. Jareski will present that to you. If you remember, she has to present the self- assessment scores

004to you as a board of ed in the fall. Then they get sent to the state. It's been sent to the state. Then the state approves them. And then once they're approved, you have to approve them again that the state has. So that's what >> All right, that brings us to the chief school administrator's report. >> So again, most of this I will um cover next week. That's usually when I do the bulk of my report. I did want to um mention two things. The legal notices publications. I want to make sure we put that out there as much as possible because that is a new process. Um, and again, we're going to link it here. Um, so that all of our meeting changes, things like that will be posted on our website on the

005legal notice publication. Um, I did want to also just publicly thank all of the um staff, faculty, administrators, students, and parents for their cooperation yesterday uh with the swatting incident, the bomb we had at Mory's High School. Um it was um you know scary um to say the least, but um all of our faculty and staff I I I can't tell you how many times I heard about them taking care of students, comforting students, um being there for those students to make sure they felt safe and secure. The students themselves keeping a calm head and being able to get through, you know, something as traumatic as that. And then um you know, just the way it was managed, um I think went very well. Um and law enforcement, I can't even say enough about the

006response. Um, you know, if if anybody did get a chance to drive by there, you would have thought there was, you know, it was it was scary to see. But, uh, we had police officers responded from Readington Township, Tombra Township, Lebanon Township, of course, Hybrbridge, um, the sheriff's office from Hunter County, the prosecutor's office from Hunter County, and then the sheriff's office from Somerset who has the bomb sniffing dogs, and that's they use the um, the school. So, Hunter County only has drug um sniffing dogs and so these are specially trained in Somerset and um we got some very good um kudos from the um sheriff's department who functions in this whole area of Somerset and especially and um they were very happy with our response. So, thanks to all the first responders, police officers

007for making sure everybody was safe and it was um you know a learning experience. We're going to take you know what we learned from it and tweak a few things and improve our systems. But I just wanted to publicly thank everybody. >> Thank you, >> Rich. President, >> the one thing that I wanted to to call out uh you you said the way it was handled operationally. I think the way the communication was handled by the office. Excellent. Uh the the constant um updates I guess that came from Juliana. I don't know you facilitated that. Um it seemed like they were as soon as new information was available it went out and then followed up with what you had put out today I thought the communication piece was spot on all around keeping everybody informed

008at all times and it uh speak to a lot of which I think I don't know if it happened to you guys but a lot of people wanted to reach out to us or they didn't to me and I didn't have much information but information flow coming from the from the office was uh was excellent so >> like Good job on that. I appreciate that. >> Um, anything else that you want to >> No, that's all I just wanted to mention unless there's any questions on any of my reports. >> All right. Uh, I just have a few updates. Uh, first on my report, you'll see there's a resolution um 052626 urging relief from rising public school employee health care costs. Um, this was sort of coordinated with uh Tara and Kathy Poria. If you

009recall, as we had budgetary conversations through the budgeting process, um we began to focus both on the transparency and the state funding. And we passed that resolution at our last meeting. And this resolution is asking at the state level, legislators, governor to really uh look into the cost of health care being one of those um budgetary topics that we have we have no control over. um and really urging um solutions and explorations at the state level. So, I encourage you to take a look at that resolution. Uh I don't know if anybody had a chance uh thoughts about it. Um we'll, you know, vote look to vote on it next week. I think anything that we can do as a representative board to sort of push on these fiscal issues uh that are beyond our

010control, I think are are very important for us to follow through on. Um, anything Brian? Yeah. >> Yeah. I So, I I uh [clears throat] I like all of it and I think it's a good uh a good thing to put out there for our our government, New Jersey government. I I I do have one I don't know who wrote this. They did a great job. >> Schools. >> Yeah, I think school boards has been working with boards on this. >> Okay. So it might be kind of boilerplate but there's one question I have um and that's about the in the language [snorts] it's uh if you go on the first page it's it's the second to last whereas the main pause the thing so for families and students these districts serve the down uh

011sorry yeah the downstream consequences including district deficits that's it's It almost made me think ask a question. It's not really about this agenda, but or this resolutions, but can we run a deficit? I thought we were not allowed to run a deficit. >> You're not allowed to, but there are districts facing a deficit >> then having to make severe cuts in order to get their fiscal status out of deficit. >> The districts that go into a deficit have safe monitors and are taken over by the state and are by the state. Oh, okay. >> But I guess the if I'm understanding your question, it's this idea that uh the healthcare expenses are causing districts to either go into deficit and make cuts so as to make themselves poor. >> My thinking was that we'd always

012have we would always have to cut we could never run a negative budget. And and so this my mindset is we don't want to put language in there that um allows it to be discounted because it looks like we don't know what we're talking about. We're just being flam inflammatory. >> Okay. >> Um and this is a very minor example, but if if we can't run deficits, if we can run if it happens, if it has happened just never us, you know, cross our fingers, whatever, >> um that's fine. But I just didn't want to put something that was absolutely false. >> Mel, >> is there a better way to say it? >> I mean, and I was wondering if you were suggesting risk >> versus run. >> Yeah. >> Really, if it can happen,

013I I I don't have a problem with that. I I just thought, well, wait a second. I thought we couldn't do that, >> right? >> We could do the next part of the sentence, which is program cut, school closures, >> right? etc. Those things happen. >> I think maybe if we just change the language a little bit, we needed to, you know, could potentially run a district deficit that's causing significant program, school closures in order to mitigate that deficit, right? Maybe we could just clarify. >> Yeah, I I >> And I don't think if it's not perfect against the school board, I think it would be fine as long as we all >> I'll tweak it. I'll work on it and send it to you all. um reach out to Kathy and then we should

014have something fine tuned for next Tuesday. >> And if it was the case, someone was going to learn something. >> Yeah. >> You said no. [laughter] >> No, we don't want to do that. >> We don't want to. I'm sure. I'm just not we were even allowed to. >> No. >> Um so moving to the board self- evaluation and CSA evaluation. Uh I will be asking Kathy Pory to pull together the CSA evaluation material and I will get that to you once she has it so that we can have a preliminary discussion in executive next week. Uh and then if you recall uh I had to do some fine-tuning on the board uh self-ealuation. It turns out I had to upload things that I was unaware of. So, uh, since I have uploaded those, you

015should now be able to proceed with the board self- evaluation because those goals are now there. Um, and I think I had asked, uh, for the end, you know, over the next week to get that done. We're not quite on the same timeline as we are for the CSA about, >> did I miss something? Did you send that to us? I did send I think at the maybe last weekend when I updated the the the goals in the board the goals into the platform itself. >> Yeah, I'll I'll send Yeah, I'll send a reminder out. But once you go into the CSA evaluation, there should be something in there to um get you to the board evaluation as well. >> Well, then maybe I did that forever ago, so maybe I did do it. I

016>> I found that you had to go If you just log into NJSBA, not don't use some link that says here's your don't go directly to CSA evaluation. >> If you scroll down, there's a a box that says board evaluations. >> Yeah, >> maybe I did it if if it was if it was married with the if it was married with the >> superintendent. I didn't find it in the CSA evaluation. >> All right. Yeah, I'll take another look and just make sure because I did put a communication out so I can kind of resend that and that might have the link in the direction. >> Um, coincidentally in today's JSBA email that they sent out they talked about the CSA evaluation. They specifically had in there an important prerequisite is the board self evaluation.

017So it sounds like we really should have had the self evaluation prior to doing [clears throat] the CSA evaluation. Not quite sure. >> That's interesting. >> The relationship is there looking at both of them but >> they specifically have that sentence >> because when they do their presentation they will often signal the board self evaluation as optional but a best practice. >> Right. >> Yeah. >> Okay. struck me as interesting. I'm not sure if anyone had any >> um >> one thing, um >> I'm not sure if anyone else had a similar issue, but I had tech issues with it. >> You did? Yeah, someone else did as well. >> So, I got I kind of used like some of the comment section. I put things in there as like a placeholder so I could

018get through some of the stuff, right? >> I couldn't do it all in one sitting. Uh and I got to the end screen where it said submit. Hit the back button. It submitted. >> Okay. >> So that was bad. So then Kathy was able to undo it. >> Okay. >> But then everything that I had done was gone. >> Oh, start over. >> What? >> So that stuff, but hopefully that doesn't happen for anybody else, but it happened to me. So they're aware of it. They said it's like a known glitch tech issue. So be cognizant if you're doing the the board evaluation that that could possibly happen. I don't know if they fixed it, but >> they're aware. We're still operating in the old days of having to hit the save button versus things

019that automatically save. >> Uh, okay. Um, board leadership roundt. I am going to communicate out to the sending or the constituent districts just to see if there still is the interest in one more in a June meeting. I'll keep you apprised of that. Um there is a deadline to submit nominating pet petitions for schoolboard vacancies to the county clerk's office by July 27th. Uh our regular meeting, our next week action meeting May 26 is 7:00 in the district office. Um we did survey folks for the June meeting and it looks as though we're going to consolidate into the one. Uh everybody was either in favor of consolidating into the one or didn't have a preference, but the date I'm trying to uh We were trying to avoid the graduation challenge that many of us were

020having with the 16th. So it would be the 23rd. Okay. So the 23rd will be our consolidated June meeting. Uh and speaking of the 16th, we have our two graduation ceremonies coming up. I know you've probably received communication about uh I think it was next week the the caps and gowns would be at our meeting. And if you're planning to go to both, there's coordination to be able to ride from here before [snorts] he's back to here. Uh, and those of you who have uh, kids graduating, I'm sure you're you're doing that and and I want you to do that and I want you to enjoy that. >> And we'll be in touch about processing that too as far as I'll say uh, for those that were here last year uh, it was pretty seamless.

021So you had set up that bus here for us. the easiest way to do it. So assuming we're gonna probably do that again. >> Yeah, we're gonna do exactly what we did last year. >> Great. >> Yeah. And um you know, it's right on the money as far as time. >> There's not a lot. >> But again, we we'll communicate all those details, but we get done with Morris. We sort of hightail it to the bus, get on a bus and run down and then hide tail it to the stage start. >> Any other questions or clarifications? Brian? >> Yeah. Since this is a working meeting, I don't quite feel so bad, but I'd like to go back to the previous agenda item and ask a question about the monthly reports. We can either do

022this this year, this week, or next week. >> I can answer. No, I will >> April 24th. You ask about >> Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] >> Half the students. >> I couldn't figure that one out either. And I have kids. >> Take your kids to work with me. >> Is that what it was? It was also >> 23rd that was childhood >> 24th >> 23rd >> and they trip to >> Oh no 23rd you're right the van was on >> and I was taking to work >> those um students were not in school I think they were busy doing the activities that that they set up for the students and so they weren't in class and not walked out to the class. >> Thank you. >> I think several of the clubs help out like >>

023and was there a band trip? Wasn't that the music chip? The Vorhees music chip. Were they >> They did go to >> before >> the No, the Warheese one was >> Yeah. No, I thought they were >> they went to Disney. Yeah, but I don't think it was the same day. >> But those were their like excuse. Do they get They don't count. >> You know what? It might have been Teen Arts though too. >> Yeah, it was something they were happening that week. Yeah, >> because I remember um the teacher that took them, you know, Mr. Reynolds, he said to me, he said, "Yeah, I just got back um from Florida and now we have teen arts tomorrow." >> Yeah, there is. So, I think there was an additional reason there was kids were

024out. >> But I can look into that before next week. I just make sure that sounds reasonable. >> Stephen, did you have some? >> Okay. Uh that brings us to our opportunity for public comment. During this portion of the meeting, the public is invited to address the board of education with comments. You're requested to sign the register provided and state your name, municipality, or residence, group affiliation if applicable, and direct your comments to the school board president. While all comments will be considered by the board of education, and a response may be forthcoming if and when appropriate, individual school board members may not respond to the speakers at the time of their appearance. The public comment period will be a maximum of 30 minutes in length unless there are unusual circumstances. You'll be allocated three

025minutes to speak and no one will be permitted to speak more than once on the same topic until all others who wish to speak on that topic have been heard. Please keep your comments respectful and non-defamy and maintain the level of decorum appropriate for a public meeting where students may be present and in the audience. Uh do we have any folks who would wish to speak at this time? Um Karen go Hybridge not speaking on behalf of the Hybridge Board of Education just to say um constituent I guess um I want to commend you on how the incident was handled yesterday. I had two kids graduate from Vorhees and my students, my kids have never felt anything but um safe and supported while they were there. Um and I would like for this board to

026continue to allow all students to feel safe and supported. Um you're currently being sued by the husband of a sitting board member um about parental rights and trying to um revoke policies that protect LGBTQ and transgender students. And I would like the board to stay the course and um keep supporting those students even though that sitting board members husband is going to cost us thousands and thousands of dollars in legal fees. Thank you. Any additional comments from the audience? Okay. All right. At this time, we will move to curriculum, instruction, and technology. So, this presentation, I don't know if it's for next week or this week. >> Yeah. So, this presentation we I actually asked Jen and Bobby to do this next week because of the amount of things that we had on the agenda

027this week. I just didn't want to actually ask to see if they um so they they were able to come next week. So, we'll have them here next week on our special education program. Um our curriculum other curriculum items are uh our resolution for a curriculum articulation initiative which I'll ask Dr. Burgess to speak about. It's also an interesting byproduct I think at the coordination of uh among sending districts uh as a result of roundt and superintendent conversations and then we have the PD plan and home instruction. >> Yeah. So I can take these one at a time, but the resolution for the curriculum articulation that came out of our articulation group of superintendent. So once a month all the superintendents from all of our setting districts um you know meet here uh and we

028talk about things that they can do for each other. We talk about things the high school can do to help them and things they can do to help the high school. And out of that conversation came something that you know they they the idea came up that why can't we develop some kind of a curriculum initiative where we could have K12 curriculum be decided by that whole group and then have that be managed through like the 180s who was a organization that could manage you know some funding and um and also some programmatic situations. So this resolution is basically, you know, the board showing support for that idea to try to um do shared services, build a curriculum consortium that would um satis that would allow all of our sending districts to be on the

029same page as far as curriculum and develop sort of a K12 curriculum. Um and then you know once all those things are going to happen that the the actual deviling details will come to you as we develop more. do curriculum director. It's going to be a district um districtwide kind of thing. You know, we would all be approving that later. This is just to show support for that kind of idea. And so, all the other sending districts are also passing the same resolution, ESC development resolution. So, we all pass it. We have buying from everybody and then we know how we can move forward to create all these systems. That makes sense. >> So, Rich, you do have buyin from everybody. >> Yeah, I'm pretty sure. I mean, I didn't count all the emails, but

030I'm pretty sure everyone said they were passing it towards. Um, so if if not everybody, we're going to have the majority of our sending districts that are going to join as part of it or at least show support for it. And I think everybody just wants to show that they support this idea and then we need to go and actually do the work to develop all these systems that will benefit our kids. >> So, a district doesn't have to join. >> Exactly. >> They don't have to join. No. Um and again we are doing that regalization study which you know could give us some more data um to support this but instead of waiting for that we wanted to do something that we felt was and again everybody we had really good participation in our

031articulation group and they were all supportive everyone that was here was supportive of it. You know we're usually missing one or two because some districts it's difficult for them to get out of their buildings. Um but for the most part everybody is on board with it. Even the smaller ones that might have not shown support yet, I think once they realize everyone else is doing it, they'll they'll jump on board as well. >> I guess benefits everybody. >> I would say and andrew, you know, chime in. It was definitely the type of topic of conversation when all the board roundt was here recognizing that there are duplicative roles and services across our footprint um and leveraging certain funds collaboratively could could begin to explore some savings, >> right? And I think this is an example

032of one of these what was referred to as kind of the baby steps to get to make regionalization more palatable to some districts that don't feel it is right like how can we work together in a non-reionalized way to benefit everyone and get shared services share costs and this is a good example >> that's the whole idea behind >> so um general question specific one the general question is If this goes forward, do you see this as telling those districts, including our own, what their curriculum is going to look like? >> No, I think >> this like a sharing of best practices and suggestions. >> Well, I think it's more of a sharing of best practices, but also um having one person sort of like monitor that, say, what is everybody doing and why are

033you doing it? And then when everybody gets together and understands the rationale on why they should be doing something this way, the hope is that everyone will adopt it so that we're all doing it the same way. And it comes down to math curriculums and you know what literature they're reading in the seventh and eighth grade, sixth, eighth grade years. And you know, a lot of transition to high schools, but also just for um the our districts as well. you know, like what third grade reading program are we using and can we buy that as a collaborative and and save money because some districts are very small and some are very large and can we pull all of our resources and do things like that? >> I guess what I'm asking is is this is

034not setting up a new authority at this I mean if we were a gigantic K through 12 district then there would be a top curriculum authority. We're not establishing that right now. and say, "Let's get together, talk, try to find efficiencies and and reduce conflicts where we can. You know, you're teaching this, but I'm teaching that." And then at the school, high school, it doesn't align. Those kind of issues. >> That's exactly what we're trying to. And in the future, we might be moving towards model, which we have somebody that be, you know, responsible for that. But that's not >> I'm thinking authority. So could tell, hey, Bloomsberry, you can't teach that anymore. you have to teach this other thing because that's what we're all doing. >> Yeah, we try to say, you know, hey,

035Bloomsberry, look at what we're doing. >> Can I just ask Bloomsberry is in the room tonight. So, >> no, not as an example. >> You know, that's sort of how this works. >> It's a cooperative kind of um process that we go through. It's not a um top down. Um then my very specific question is the first of the two resolutions within this resolution to be a further resolved kind of reads like we all have to be all of the districts have to be on board for it to be valid. >> I think they're trying to make >> must be presented to and approved by the individual school board district. >> We don't want that right. We actually want if you want in come on we we'll take you. >> Yeah. I I think there

036and I think in conversations we had we felt like we had buy in from everybody and this resolution was supposed to encourage everybody to become part this resolution to show the support from a board level that they want to be partners. So, if somebody didn't from this list, um I don't know if that invalidates the the resolution. It still shows this board supported it and the other boards that voted on it did as well. >> And they can join this >> and they can always join after >> because I think as a lot of that work exists right now, it's leveraged through our own articulation processes with the sending districts. Um, and I know the sending districts, they're individually tasked with spinning up a lot of this work, uh, with their own staff, personnel, time,

037energy, and money. Um, so there are those opportunities to, uh, have these efficiencies built in. And then when it comes to math programs, where kids are at different levels, uh, ELA readiness and things of that sort, um, there is the opportunity to to to leverage a a broader system for that. So, so two comments or questions. So, whether I as a board member support the resolution um doesn't part I do want to consider what my sending district wants to do. >> Sure. >> You know, so I I wouldn't be supporting it in in a vacuum as a board member on the high school if I thought that my sending district that that I represent was not in favor of it. And I'm hearing you say that >> the superintendent there was and I believe the

038superintendent at your sending district is bringing it to your board to approve as well. I don't know if they've approved it yet, but I think it would be considered. >> Okay. My other question is and I think you partly answered it, but um in terms of talking about what the curriculum would be and some of the other issues, who leads it? Is this just a discussion? So, who's deciding what the third grade curriculum should be? Who who's the leader of all of this? >> So, right now, every um district and their board of education has the authority to decide what their third grade curriculum is, right? And and this resolution doesn't take that away from anyone. Um what it's doing is it's trying to set up a system to encourage superintendents in these districts to

039work together, >> okay? >> To um make sure that whenever possible, we're on the same page. that there's nothing binding here that says you have to use XYZ for any kind of subject area. It's just a in the intention of this is to make sure the districts are working together to try to make sure that students are well prepared for not only high school but you know middle school, right? You know, coming from the fifth to the sixth grade level. You know, they want to make sure that students are um at the same levels within our study district so that they're not playing catch-up then in sixth, seventh, eighth grade. And it's, you know, it's fascinating. Actually, Jen from Tukesbury actually was sort of the lead on this. Um because you know a lot of

040times when a high school tries to do something like this and says you know this is what we want to do and um it's not as well received because it feels like we're trying to be authoritative, right? Um this was actually um developed by our K8 superintendents. They want this and that and at the high school I think it's a great idea. Um, so I was really excited that they came up with this sort of on on their own accord and that they want to move in this direction because it'll help us. I think it helps them. I think it helps. >> Other questions >> I guess one question. Um, also from understanding isn't a big part of this is to kind of level set kids coming into the high school, right? So each kid

041is trying to get them to the same level because we have kids coming from different districts doing different things with different skill sets kind of have something similar to try to get them up to par with each other right without a doubt. for this board's consideration. That's probably the most important thing. >> I agree. >> You know, that transition to make nth grade. Um there are a lot of other components and that's what I want to make sure everyone understands. These there's a lot of um benefits to our K8s amongst themselves as well. And so us being a part of this shows that we're all supporting, right? We have each sending district essentially can be doing their own thing. Y >> this helps to at least put some guidance in place so when the kids

042get here maybe they're all working at towards the same level so there maybe isn't as much close that discrepancy a little bit that's out there >> close that gap absolutely chance we close that gap is >> so closing the gap is fine this is probably going to sound silly but >> I don't want any standards lower >> so I don't want any standards lowered >> so that the so that the gap gets closed. >> Yeah. No, I understand that and and well and again I understand that that's not really up to me. Again, that's up to our K to8 board of eds and their superintendents. Um but I don't think anybody knowing the people that I sit around this table with on a monthly basis, they would never lower their standards for their students. If

043anything, they're looking for ways to continually strive and get better. this so this resolution does establish a K through 12 curriculum director. >> It does not um it it's that's an idea that they wanted to put in that resolution because they felt like that was going to be something that would >> eventually if we can do that >> um that would really make a difference in charge. >> This is just an idea that we're voting on right now. >> Yeah. We're not >> and then when these next steps are made if there is a curriculum director director appointed or or suggested that that'll be a further discussion >> and we're actually evaluating models um from other school districts. There are um regional high school districts that have this consortium right that usually is run through

044like an ESC or somebody collect money and everybody gives in like a per pupil, you know, cost of what it would cost to pay a curriculum director. that person becomes a K12 curriculum director and then it gets paid through the consortium and then that person works for all the districts and that's that's why they want that because that's the idea. Yeah, it sounds like there's a lot of potential shared services like you said that could be consolidated. you know, as far as even just the the softwares that are used, you know, it's like, oh, well, we're going to use this for our 200 people in every single school, middle school, elementary school, you know, they've got 200, 600, this, but if you're like, we've got 3,000 people, we're going to, you know, then you might

045get a cheaper rate for that software and things like that or or they're using pay schools and we're using power schools or this and that. Well, why are we all using different things for lunch when we can all be and save some money here? So, it sounds like a way for things to be thought of and kind of the same for everyone all around. >> That's exactly what the intention here is. Uh professional development. That was another one that popped in my head as you were speaking, which is, you know, there are some districts that might have two teachers they need to train in a certain product, right? And then another district has five and another district has eight, another district has four. You know, instead of having a training for four different groups, you

046have one for 25 people and get everybody trained. >> Yeah. >> So that's what they're trying to do is get all those things. >> Yeah, I think it's great. Rich, is there any district actually implementing this right now? >> Well, >> not in ours, but somewhere else that we can try to >> Yeah, we have >> or steal some of their ideas. >> Absolutely. Yes, we are looking at um other borrowing ideas. Um we um we're looking at other districts as well that are doing this. >> All right. I didn't know if you wanted to speak to the professional development plan and home instruction. >> So, I don't know if there's any questions any of those. Um, home instruction is is typical, I think, um, especially this time of year from what you'll see on

047there. Um, and professional de development plan is a state document that we have to fill out. Um, Rich um, chairs a professional development committee that meets and talks about what our professional development needs and priorities should be. Um, and that's how the plan came up, right, Rich? >> Is there any questions on the plan or Brian? Not on the plan. Not in the development plan. The home instruction. >> Oh, okay. >> So, you had started this pro uh is adding the the rate at the bottom of that page. >> Oh, yeah. Look at that. >> And >> we did start that >> and it did not >> come through this time. >> Yeah. >> So, you fixed up before next week. Absolutely. >> The other thing that um you you you educated me us uh

048last month, I think it was last month about why there's five hours per week and there's 10 hours per week. Is there any text that you could put at the bottom of the page as well that explains that? Like I think 5 hours a week was for non >> well if it's Mike correct me if I'm wrong here but nonsp special needs students get 5 hours a week special needs get 10 hours so >> okay maybe that doesn't need to be explained at the bottom >> and again that's why we have student ID numbers here >> well there's student ID numbers and that's that's why we have that there so there's confidentiality >> that's fine okay but you had the rate before >> yeah we'll add that I might not know those sorts of things.

049>> Nicole, >> um, by special needs, do you mean students that have IEPs on file? Anybody with an IEP? >> 504 and 504. >> I would just like to commend on the PD plan. It's nice to see uh while I understand that artificial intelligence is I think looming large in all of our lives and our world as as we and students get educated. I I I do like that um the idea of authentic uh assessments um are there those sort of realworld type of assessments and and opportunities to explore different kind of assessments than than traditional uh tests. uh also the emphasis on the higher order thinking skills analysis synthesis I think that's equally crucial uh particularly as kids are uh navigating an AI world that they're not losing an emphasis on uh building those

050thinking muscles and that is good to see as a priority as well anything any other questions perhaps all right policy and school security. We have a couple of policies here uh and a conversation uh that is also going to be a little bit connected to uh a finance uh item as well. Uh so I don't know how Brian I don't know if you want to >> start some conversation. We've got a couple things going >> right. So uh the policy ad hoc committee meeting met last week and one thing we talked about was in the is the um second item under the FFT portion of the agenda 11.2 uh that was approximately half our meeting. The other half of the meeting was spent on this policy section and it's essentially um some suggest suggested language

051changes that you can see in red line version or highlighted version um on two policies that are surrounding uh overlapping issues student parking and transportation busing. So um what I think the administration has come up with is a very well thought out and good plan. That's my opinion which is I characterize it as like a win-winwin. So the first aspect is seniors will not pay for parking. like that >> as long as they forego busing. Uh and and it's also now extended to juniors, you know, in the second half of the year basically as they start to get their driver's licenses on a kind of first come first serve availability basis and and there's aspects of that to be worked out, but that's kind of regulations. basically the the board would be saying we want

052uh seniors as long as they forgo the busing to not have to pay for parking. The second one is that anybody who foregoes busing gets 75 bucks from the from the school district. So basically we're going to pay them $75 if they promise not to take a bus >> for the whole year. For the whole year >> for the whole year. This applies to both seniors and anybody who's getting dropped off in that monstrous drop off line at least at North. Um if they and so if they don't want to if they can say we won't take a bus, we already park in Beaverbrook and pay 75 bucks a month to do it. Now you just you get you get a 75 bucks if you you want to do it that way. We'll pay you

053to to not take a bus. And then the third win is that the district now has reduced the number of buses or at least you know how long the bus routes are but basically reduced transportation costs busing costs if they get these people to forego transportation of busing. And Rich did a little, you know, what if kind of scenario based on what he thinks might be how many people would take in, you know, buy into this deal. And it would save us on the order of $100,000 >> by the district if we could cut, you know, couple bus routes even after we paid everybody who signs up for the program 75 bucks. Um, that's a whatif scenario. So, you know, we want to if if we approve this this these policies next week, well, the

054first reading of them will be next week. um then uh we would be basically buying into this idea for at least the next year and we'll see if it's a good idea or not a good idea. >> So, can we legally deny somebody the opportunity to take the bus? Let's say we've given them $75 because they've said we're not going to take the bus and now their circumstances have changed and a good luck getting that $75 back and then they're going to be able to take the bus like and same thing with the parking the kid who wants to park at school. >> If their situation changes, they have to be able to take the bus. >> So parking is a privilege. Um so there's no requirement for us to allow a student to park

055at school. that providing a seat on a bus is a legal requirement. And so, right now, we have language in our policy that allows a a parent to wave their right to transportation for a year, but there's also language in here that says they can um op back in at any point um that they want to. So, but there's no incentive for them to do that, right? And so, I know of parents that drive their children to school every day um and if they had the option of getting 75 bucks the end of the year, they're going to fill out the waiver because they'll get 75 bucks the end of year. Right? right now there's no reason to fill out the waiver because it doesn't there's no incentive. Um and so but the the the

056parents wouldn't be paid the incentive until the end of the year if they kept that transportation waiver for the entire year. So if you revoke that transportation waiver and say I want my kid to have a seat on a bus again, then you're not eligible for the $75 reimbursement. So we're not going to give it to them first. We're going to wait until after. And are you thinking that in the real world, like I gave a hypothetical example, are you thinking that in the real world there probably won't be that many students who say they want their parents to drive them and then change their minds and want to take the bus or lose their parking privileges because you're you're looking to cut bus routes and you're looking to save money. >> That's that's the

057other is the transportation. That's one of our biggest drivers is is cost of transportation. So being able to see where we can go that yeah transportation was one of our highest cost as we all know. So this was an effort to try to look at where we can save some money and trying to do this cutting some bus routes would save some cost is the main goal >> which is great. >> So So Mel way you phrased it made me a little uneasy. He said, "Is there is there are we allowed to deny someone a bus seat? We I don't think we can just say, "No, you can't have a bus seat." We have to go to the busy, but they can opt to >> forgo the seat. >> Forgo the the the right to

058the busy. >> Yes. >> So maybe in in a court of law, those two things might be different. No, >> they are different. I It's maybe I'm laboring it. It it sounds wonderful and I would love to be able to cut that cost and I would love for it to be able to work with you as long as people stick with the plan and you don't have a 50% oh I've changed my mind and now we're adding bus routes because we have to provide the busing but if you I guess you think that that's >> we we talked through it and we said we we talked through it and and the the the transportation services we were told could do it probably, you know, they'd say, well, they'd set some maximum time like a week

059or something like that. Like if a parent said, uh, I don't know, lost my job, the car broke down, whatever. I can't do this for the rest of the year. You can't like the next day have a bus. But actually, it could probably be in a few days. We talked about this. So, but they'll say they'll tell them we'll put in the in the the agreement will basically say something like up to a week or something like that, you know, but you have to give us at least a week notice or something. And could this cause the whole thing to fall apart if 50%? Yeah, I think now you're, you know, you're probably losing a lot of the advantage >> and you're probably >> because you're not you're not going to losing any, you know,

060you have to add in bus routes because we we also talked about you don't want any bus route to be an hour and a half or something like that. Some of them you can't you have to keep bus routes so uh at some reasonable amount of time. So there's just like that one person way out the edge of our district who opts to still take a bus, you know, it might cause the routings to not be as favorable as as we hope. One of the one of the uh logistics right now is our bus routes are significantly underutilized. Um so we have a significant number of parents and kids getting parents bringing kids to school or kids getting rides to school. So we are funding uh bus routes left and right that are underutilized. So

061this is an opportunity that if a typical bus route is $100,000 and if every kid on that bus route said I'm not going to take that bus, we would pay out somewhere in the vicinity of $15,000. It was 100,000 for two buses. >> 100,000 for two buses. We would pay out all right roughly $15,000 per bus if every kid waved it. But then we would reduce two bus routes, which would save us >> from 100 to 15 to 15. >> Some of our routes start at 50,000, but they go upwards of almost 80 to 90,000 per per rout. So I mean it could be anywhere in that scale depending on which students opt out and how we would And then >> uh Andrea had a question. >> Yeah. I mean I guess this uh a

062little bit more about the routing software. I know I guess we don't own we don't run our own buses so we don't own the routing software to model this out. Correct. So we were kind of doing a little bit of modeling uh without you know really being changing influence right >> assumptions. Okay. I didn't know if there was any way to get to get a better assumption um better modeling but it sounds I just wanted to ask that but that sounds okay. I was wondering though if we free up buses for regular routes does that help? I know sometimes our sports teams and after school activities even after school uh we don't even have late buses on a regular basis. I don't know if by freeing up some of our regular routes if we get

063more opportunities for after school activity busing for sports or even for more late buses because I'm sure as you know as a parent you know letting your having your kid do an after school activity does mean that you are committing to to picking up sometimes it's at a convenient time and sometime you know 5:30 is sort of convenient with normal work hours 4:30 is a killer you know like >> anytime we can save a we can get a driver and a bus that's available that's going to help out with. >> Yeah. So, I'm just wondering if this might provide opportunities for that because I could kind of see that, you know, being a benefit to the district if our after school activities have more to support the buses. >> And we'll see what participation is

064like in this first year, right? And then that's what, you know, could we um eliminate bus runs mid year, next year if we had enough numbers? Yes. You know, that's probably not what we're going to see. We might. Um but we're going to have numbers and we're going to know what to plan for for the following school year based on the amount of people that we And I guess conversely we understand what would happen if we have to all of a sudden add in a room you know in mid year like we do have a 50% you know retreat from this that's a lot of uh redoing work >> accommodating and a lot you know just that's >> so I think we'll learn and community will learn too like there'll be some families that it

065worked out well for and you know got a a dinner out of it at the end of the year. >> Yeah. >> Oh, >> pizza party or something. [laughter] >> Yeah, cuz that was my concern. Um the surveying like cuz I know a lot of people driving like my own children never took the bus. Um but we didn't have a choice to opt out. We just logistically it worked out that they never had to take the bus other than sports. Um, so I'm just curious on like what the number is of people who like our family was that just never, you know, just because of the way >> driving went. >> Our plan would be to communicate this out to um at as soon as the board makes this decision and it's official um communicate

066that out now that this is going to be an option for next year and then communicate it again over the summer and then communicate again the end of the school year so that you know people know it's coming, know it's coming again and that here it is, here's what you have to do and Hopefully we get a lot of people that take advantage. >> Yeah. >> Uh Andrew, >> is is there a situation like yesterday where we might have to evacuate every student and be in a situation where we do not have buses because of that or sufficient bus because of this? >> Um in a situation like that, if that did happen that we didn't have sufficient seats to get all the students home, uh they would run double. So they would run students

067home and come back and fix them. So inconvenient but not impossible. Nobody would be strained in in a situation like that. Um yesterday we had about 50 parents in the park across the street that took their kids home. But that's what what happens in a lot of situations like that is parents. >> It's funny. My uh my fear is that so many parents will take us up on this that we might have to watch it very closely based on the number of kids I see getting rides. Um, I I do think it is a great opportunity to sort of balance out that parking for seniors. Uh, just the fact that we can begin to offer it to juniors at I and I know they pay $75 a month over at Beaverbrook versus being able to

068have it over here at a prrated point during the year is significant savings for parents as well. Um, and I don't know that I want to call it the Rich Lordy special, but when par when kids are getting $75 back at the end of the year, uh, that'll probably take a nice bite out of a prom ticket and a prom cost or end ofear expenses uh, when that time has come. So, >> you're willing to call that also. [laughter] >> So, I got a couple of my questions here. Whose idea was this? >> Actually, it's Steve's idea. >> Great idea. Transformation. It's a great idea. I mean, it's it's first time hearing it. Um, I think this is exactly the kind of out of the box thinking that you have to you have to do

069in this day and age to to combat uh escalate costs. I think, you know, like I I either Brian or Richard Bren said, I'm not sure, but you know, I don't think the community is going to fall apart in any chance trying to save costs. I mean, I think Bill I think there's more um downside than the board and continuing to do the same thing, right? So, I commend that this idea. Uh, I think it's great and I I think to to to Mel's uh concern and kind of Brennon mentioned too, I think there's going to be a significant I don't know, but I think there's be way more uh people that opt in than might have a change in circumstances and that's obviously going to happen, right? I think they'll probably be the outliers.

070And um I guess my other question is is the bus run is is uh I think you said it could range from 80 to 100,000. Is that is that right? >> Somewhere from 5560,000 to about 90,000. >> So So So your projections are based off of eliminating one to two buses. >> Conservative estimate was on the low end. So I was assuming the route would be the $50,000 route. >> Again, I don't I don't want anybody than what could be the most conservative option >> and then a student or family option. they qualify for the 75 because they don't need buses throughout the school year. How do how do they get those needs? >> So I would maintain a list in our office and issue payment at the end of the year the completion of

071every single school day something similar for blue a blue transportation for non-public students. So something that we're used to doing in our office >> like like they would receive a check. >> They receive a check at the end of the year. So, as long as they not utilize transportation, we'll get their money. Thank you. >> Uh I think part of the conversation as well was that if somebody did act opt out of their seat on the bus, even if they faced a hardship at some point during the school year, as long as that was, you know, not an extended period or the rest of the school year, as long as they then opted back out of their seat on the bus, they would still qualify for the $75. Was that >> Yes. If [clears throat]

072there's um and again some of these languages state code, right? And part of that is the hardship language and um so if somebody had a hardship and they need a bus for a week, we're not going to say you lost your $75 every but if they you know they're going to need it for the rest of the school year then that's a different story. Yeah. >> To jump on that with the hardship though, isn't the point of a hardship like to alleviate financial burdens from people? So if we Yeah, granted they're giving up that seat and you know, traditionally you would lose that $75 because of a hardship, which I assume has specific guidelines to qualify for that hardship program, so to say, shouldn't those people facing a hardship still get that $75 back? >>

073So, and again, the nice thing about the language is hardship is a um loose term. >> Yeah. not I wouldn't not loose but it's or you know that can be interpreted different ways right so you know again there there's going to be certain situations that we might say yeah you know what based on this situation you don't lose your >> weight okay so it's already kind of written that way in a sense because hardship can be interpreted different ways we can case by case >> I mean we >> we'll have to look back at that um but we're going to be human Yeah. Yeah. I just make you know if it's written then maybe it should be just make sure that it's >> clearly yeah understood or that there's no way I don't I just

074feel like if it's a hardship thing, a financial hardship reason like like school lunches you people qualify for free lunch and you know you're going to get that free lunch because of so same type of thing in a sense if there was a reason that qualifies. It didn't have to be something like primary both parents in their jobs or something crazy you know happening and unfortunate to put something in that situation but just seems like that should still be waved to that person if that's their situation. Maybe I don't know just >> I think we'd have limited partnerships like that and the ones that are we're going to look at on a case by case basis. >> Yeah, they can be looked at case by case and then then whatever I'm saying is already in

075there. So >> well I think the idea of like free and reduce there, you know, those are students when it comes to things like AP exams or or other school expenses are there's always due consideration, right, for for those students. Andrea and then uh Andrew Brian. Yeah, I would just say a hardship. Uh I would there's the opposite. Somebody gets a different job or gets a job and then they can't drive their child to school. I think that should also be, you know, a reason to allow a change, not just a hardship because that, you know, is a meaningful change in the family situation. Maybe it's for the better. Uh but I don't, you know, not saying that you get the money back or not get the money. I just saying that that should be

076considered if if a parent has a significant change in a job whether job loss or a new job that means that they can't now drive their child that I think that >> so two different things you can always resend your waiver okay >> and forfeit your $75. Um but if there is a hardship that hopefully would be be a temporary solution but you know um we we would provide that transportation and not not say that >> yeah the transportation is the given. >> I can my interpretation is we've lost track. We're not charging anybody to take a bus. Right. >> Right. >> Yeah. >> We're never going to charge somebody to take a bus and then give the money back later. So nobody gets charged a bus whether you're Elon Musk's kid going to school

077or in a hardship situation. >> Yeah, those seats are perfect. >> It's just if you can allow us to to reduce the amount of buses we do, then we're going to say thank you in a way, right? Because we get a benefit, the district gets a benefit. So, >> thanks Brian. That makes that actually ties it in a lot better. That clears it up a bit too. For sure. Makes it what I said. less worrisome. >> Just want to clarify one thing because I kind of heard two different things which I think I understand how it works but I just want to clarify eliminating parking fees if you opt out of >> correct. So >> but it's not really eliminating parking fees. It's there's still a parking fee. >> We're giving you $75 to go

078towards that park. >> We're going to reimburse that park. >> Okay. And that's the incentive to make sure that it's like a deposit, a refundable deposit. >> Exactly. You get your money back. You wait for the whole >> It's not that you're opting out getting $75 and getting >> Correct. >> It's It's one of the other. >> Exactly. >> Got it. Thank you. >> Other questions, clarifications? >> Hold on a second. So, >> so the the parking fee for the seniors is going back. >> Yes. >> They start by paying. Yeah. They start by paying. They waved the bus route. At the end of the year, they didn't need the bus. Here's your $75. >> So, So, does that mean we have to undo what was already done on the senior parking piece last year?

079>> No. This policy is um basically states that you know we will come up with we'll decide an annual fee for work and then what we're going to do is bring the park fee back that was there give them the waiver option so they can get that park reimburse at the end >> and that was actually the whole idea that was planned here to begin with and he sort of got held up a little bit >> can't undo what happened >> but we can change something now that will make it um make sense So, what was missing before is the the $75 parking now is being incentivized for drivers and non-drivers. Um, uh, paid by drivers, refunded at the end of the year, open to non-drivers to enable us to reduce the bus routes. and

080say >> and obviously somebody that has a parking pass that's easy one for them to wait and get back because they're not driving. >> So essentially it's not undoing what was done last year. It's the the addition >> it's a new approach to the whole thing. It's a new approach to it, but the additional detail of it is is that they're allowing the waiver for the bus seat, which is going to in the end save us additional money on top of >> at the end of the year. Parking will cost nothing. We will potentially reduce multiple bus routes and save over $100,000 at at least $50,000 per route potentially. um and uh open up parking to juniors who will no longer have to pay private entities off campus to park. Again, juniors is limited basis,

081no available spots. We might not have a spot for every junior in May. There's a lot of people getting the license, but again, it'll help. So, so the seniors that were paid for parking had a parking pass issued to them. that was not being calculated into the bus routes. Correct. We still had to provide a bus seat for every one of those because they did not leave their transportation. >> So, so, so every senior that parks right now >> has a bus seat also assigned to them. So even though regardless if they were paying or not that those seniors that were not utilizing the service because we know who was issued a parking pass was not being pulled out of the numbers that was given to the to the busing company for seat bus. We're

082not allowed >> because the parents have to wave that bus seat in order for us to not account for that student. That's the whole point of this is that this would give us the ability to give them the incentive to wave the seat so they can get that argument back in essence. And if you're not even senior, you can still do that if you were driving to school. >> And the thought that there's like in our situation, there's people who drive every day. The kids don't take the bus, but there's a spot on the bus. We're paying for that even. So, you know, they don't know, they're not aware that we could give that seat up if they're going to keep driving. So, this will be a big help. those seats are already there. >>

083So the only way to leverage the elimination of the bus is to get the waiver paper. >> So hold on. So So I guess my question would be >> when they get the parking pass, wouldn't it part of that process be? >> It probably will. Yes. So, so then I guess >> it it will go out to everybody anyway, but we'll also make sure that those seniors when they apply for park pass say remember you can do this waiver and get your respect. >> So, so hold on a second. I guess that's not part of the process now. >> It's not should. >> Well, there's I mean we could ask them to wave a seat, but there's no reason for them to wave it because there's no incentive. They if they >> Well, hold on

084a second. So, if we if if if partying is a is a is a privilege, right? Mhm. >> That means we can essentially dictate the process. >> You can't dictate transportation process, >> but you can say if you're going to park if you're going to park on on campus, if you want a parking permit, >> this is this is this is the process. This is what you have to do. You have to apply. You have to you have to forgo your seat. >> I don't I [clears throat] don't think we can force a student a parent to wave their transportation rights as a condition of giving them a park. >> Can't do that. >> No. >> Okay. >> We can't do it the other way. But we can put a financial incentive there that again

085there might be people that say I'm going to buy the parking pass and I don't you know I don't want to wait my right just in case I my kid needs the bus this year their heart breaks down the bus right they might say I don't want to wait now um but are the people that will and so the people that want to fill out the form they as long as their students don't need transportation that year they wave their right they get the money back everybody's happy. So there's certainly yeah there's certainly a big chunk of seniors who we know are not taking buses who will probably leverage into this. >> Um we may then also see a significant underassman population who are getting rides. >> So how many people how many parking passes

086I you told us before last year I don't total ballpark how many parking passes between North and >> I don't know the exact numbers but North has about 300 and some seniors. So probably about close to 300 parking passes and 40 is probably about two something 240. >> Okay. So baked already into this calculation assuming you're going to you're going to make the assumption that you're going to get 500 kids off the route right there. >> More than likely >> before before even anyone else that is not a senior and getting dropped off. >> That would be a great case scenario. >> Right. That's that's the only that's how I see it. Right. Right. You're baking in 500 plus kids out. The only the only nuance to this though, even though a senior has a

087wave right to a bus, we do overload buses. So when we do our transportation routing, you can't overload bus 54 passengers. We already do that. So that's where I caution for making assumptions that if we get rid of 54 students and they wait that we can eliminate. That's not the case. I in my assumption I project maybe 100 students then I think but again it all depends on where they all fall in the square miles that we have in this district you know it depends on who's opting out where they are and how that could strategically reduce something bus so I would caution making assumptions um based on exact number and who's who would be monitoring that process you or the the routing because the routing or the busing company would have no sense understand

088how ESC does our bus routing right now and we work closely with them. So I would just be working with them, you know, through this process to see how this would work. >> And and they do have an incentive because they have already drivers, right? >> And again, most of our buses are contracted out. So they don't make any money off from us. We pay them a management fee. So if they cut a run, they're not losing any money. So they work with us. >> Sure. >> Okay. I'm still willing to call it the Rich Lordy uh prom uh deposit. >> If you're willing, I'll >> All right. Um All right. So, that will Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry, Stephen. >> I just had a question on the student use of vehicles policy part. Um it

089says automobiles. Does that include like motorcycles in automobiles? It doesn't specifically. I don't know how many high schoolers ride motorcycle. I don't know. My 12-year-old thinks he's gone up and [laughter] but you know um I saw one kid on a bike here. He might have just been here for something else. But it doesn't say on motorcycles. Are they allowed? Should it say there's a class under automobiles? >> Yeah, it's it's classified under automobiles. Um but you know we the seniors that we do have drive motorcycles, we usually make sure we talk to them and make sure they understand you know >> especially on campus the safety concern. >> Y and then >> dismissal. It's mostly dismissal and arriving though. >> Okay. And then it it talks about like bicycles, but then like non-motori I mean

090with the rise of ebikes and everything like that is that and like people being in close enough proximity to me not want to ride a bicycle but I can ride my ebike and then I got my moped license cuz J July whatever they're going to change the laws you have to have a moped license but that's 15 and over. So that might be if you change if we change that to like if they're allowed you might get people in closer proximity to the school who might take their ebike I guess. I know >> as these new laws go into effect, I think we're going to get updates from our policy service that will probably change some of this language because I agree. I know the laws are changing. Yeah. June 1st, right? >> January 6.

091I'm sorry. I'm just saying July. I think it's July something. >> Yeah. And you have to have a license to ride bikes. >> Anyone under get their moped license. Anyone under 15 can't ride one type of thing. So when things like that happen, we usually will get updates from our policy service, which we're going to be talking about when we get in finance. Um, and so I'm sure that get us new language. So even though we're adopting this policy now so we can be prepared for parking and and transportation waiverss next year, um, we might be revisiting this in a month or two um, with new language as well. >> Okay. [snorts] >> Thank you. Um, sorry. >> His question just made me think of of this. Um, for those who would ride motorcycles, >>

092do we ensure that they have a motorcycle enforcement on their license, >> right? You register a ve you have to register a specific vehicle, not just any. You can't just you don't get a park pass for any vehicle. >> You can own a motorcycle and not have a motorcycle enforcement on your license. Yes. >> But >> yeah, and so but they do they verify and that's why I guess that's what I was alluding to is that if a student registers a motorcycle, we call them in and go, "All right, let's talk about, you know, let's make sure you have the motorcycle endorsement. Let's make sure that you are, you know, have the proper insuranceances. Make sure you understand that, you know, this is not the kind of thing that you're not going to get on

093your bike and tip buses on the way out, right? There's a few other things you talk to them about that we're giving you responsibility here on a something that could potentially be a very dangerous vehicle. So we expect you to take that question. It's just those little things when you sit down and talk to them. And usually the kids that are registering those, they already understand that. >> All right. Uh going to move to finance, facilities, transportation. We have a uh capital projects presentation to kick things off. Um Katie want >> Yep. I'd like to introduce we have three gentlemen here for Brett Zanjen Architects. I work closely with them for our capital project needs. So I asked them to come tonight to give us a little bit of where we've been, what projects we've

094done with them, and where we're going in the future, what's to come. So we have we vanister partner at I've got Will Ross who I work directly with project. Thank you. >> Welcome. >> Good evening. Um should I is there a way for me to >> There you go. Ask and you shall receive. [laughter] >> So good evening. Thank you for having us. Um I know you got a packed agenda, so we'll get through this pretty quick. Um, but if we go too quick, stop us. Or if you want to wait till the end and you have questions, let us know. >> I'm Bill Bannister. I'm partner at Brett Hunt Architects. With me is El Ross, senior associate, >> Dan Vanco, associate at PSA. So, the agenda is pretty quick. It's just three big items.

095It's our firm introduction. It's our history with North Hunter and then some future planning. Um so PSA by the numbers just so everyone kind of gets an understanding about us. We are 30 38 years in business. We have 108 team members. Um we've been servicing K12 clients for 32 years. Um we have 21 licensed architects, three interior designers, and we have a team of mechanical engineers of four. Going through our numbers over the years, we've uh we've calculated that we've done um that we've worked with 456 repeat clients, 80 K12 repres uh clients represented, 10,000 projects executed, over $3 billion in construction that we helped manage for those K12 clients, and we've helped execute over 60 referendums throughout the state of New Jersey. So here are four stories that to to to kind of take

096this back to to our roots. We have our core values um as an organization and then we have stories because there we need to stand out a little bit. Um I'm not going to go through these stories but basically they're they're stories that kind of explain us as an organization. And the elephant and a blind man is a story about about how we try to understand what a school district needs. And the harmonious teamwork is about how we'll we'll collaborate with all of the various stakeholders to try to get a project to completion. Um the the fiduciary responsibility is understanding your challenges with your your budgets and your capital monies and and how can you get certain things done with the limitations that you have. And then smoke jumping is is kind of where we'll

097help you and and and and that's based on on the firemen in the west that that that get dropped into these big fires and while everyone's going one way, they're going the other way. And that we kind of pride ourselves on making this partnership where we want to be dropped in there and try to help you get through whatever it is that that that you're experiencing. Will's going to touch on um some of those examples that we've had with you um over the years. So, jumping into what we've helped complete in the last five years, um it's it's a pretty good length of projects, uh with a grand total of about um $12.5 million worth of work completed. And through that, we've actually returned um roughly a million dollars in unused allowances which are included

098in some of those awarded projects. So, we've completed HAC um upgrades, improvements uh and efficiencies at both campuses, site improvements and ADA upgrades at both campuses, door replacements and security upgrades uh at both buildings, uh interior renovations um at North uh for the locker rooms and the district roof here. Um we're currently working on the HVAC and the air conditioning for this space. You >> need to speed that one up. >> We're working on it. We we met we were here this morning at 8:00 a.m. 9:00 a.m. uh with a contractor to to to work through this. Um and then Dan will take you through some of the the more specifics of each of those groups. So, as Will mentioned, we've been uh very active in the last four to five years um since we

099became board's architect record. One of the big bigger accomplishments uh that we've had was the completion of the $6.5 million of construction related to the 2022 referendum. Um here we just have a listing some highlights of some of the projects that were completed at both schools. Uh some of them including the plaza renovation, the locker room renovation at North and other HBC projects at Warheis. So I'll take you through um some of those highlights. Here we have uh photos of the before and after of the locker room renovation at North Hunter High School. So, some of the key takeaways here, the existing space prior to our renovations, um included open shower areas, um outdated toilet facilities, um just conditions that weren't really ideal for the students for them to use and for their for their

100privacy. So, the bottom row photo shows um some of those renovations completed with updated toilet facility sinks uh to meet ADA compliance and the shower stalls for um privacy use by the students. Here we have some photos of the plaza uh prior to the renovations and on the top I have photo of the completed plaza. Um so here uh just to highlight some aspects of the project, it was more than just a beautifification project. Um in addition to you know renovating the space and creating like a welcoming environment for visitors and and the school community. The plaza also addressed some life safety concerns which is egress and proper circulation and and even walkways. Uh it addressed storm drainage for the plaza. It gave it more open space for maintenance and ground staff to actually be

101able to properly clean and maintain it especially in snow events. Um and then at the bottom tied to this was the security vestibial entrance over by the end of the plaza. Just replacing that to give a a more secure entryway at that point of uh campus. Next is sticking to security and life safety or just various door replacements. So this one specifically for the referendum had to do with the stair towers and um the egress doors. So again upgrading the doors on the left you see something that's a little bit more outdated. Doesn't latch, doesn't close properly. The door on the right shows proper latching to meet not only fire code and life safety egress requirements um and ADA or barrierfree uh accessibility with the hardware. Next, uh, some images of RTUs. Not the most

102glamorous, but on the left, it's just an outdated RTU that's probably original to the last, um, wave of major renovations that North uh, experienced versus the the newer unit on the right. So, between the referendum and the future or the grant project that I'll touch upon in a future slide, between the two campuses, I mean, there's been around maybe 25 to 30 different pieces of equipment that have been replaced just on the roof. In addition to that, there's also the indoor equipment, whether that's heating and ventilation or just the sheer introduction of air conditioning certain spaces. Um, all those improvements have been implemented buildingwide. And not to mention the benefit with some of these projects or just the controls that get uh installed with it. So, just giving the uh maintenance and staff the ability

103to check on the system to be able to see if there's any um errors and just streamline the process just to uh troubleshoot uh equipment. Here we have a photo of the pedestrian bridge and the stair access over at Borhees. So again, the left shows the existing photo of really a stair with just uneven treads and risers, right? Just kind of awkward and spread out. So we replaced it with something a little bit more uniform with code compliant uh handrails to just make that a more uh friendlier stair access for for students in in the community. Here's a photo of the stairs going down to the pit or the soccer field over at Vorhees. Again, just replacing the old elabated boardwalk style stair with the um uh wooden handrails with proper aluminum handrails. And as

104part of this project too, there was a reconstruction of retaining wall at the top. Uh leveling out, regrading the area so that the the bleacher stands actually have like a level place to to stand on. This is a project over at War Vorhees with the chiller. Um, as you can see on the left, it's just a really old outdated um, deteriorated insulation system around the chiller. So, just re refurbishing that and other miscellaneous insulation work within the space so that your equipment can work more efficiently and last longer. Here's an image of a new RTU installed at Vorhees over the uh, back gym. So, this was uh an example where we actually introduced new HVC systems and a new air conditioning solution for the locker rooms over at the basement level of the swing. So,

105next we'll get into the SSBR or the school and small business ventilation and energy uh efficiency verification and repair grant or what we like to just call the grant project. Um here again, there was a lot of miscellaneous types of HVC improvements between the two schools. Um here we're just highlighting some of the the the key projects. One being the upper right hand corner, the uh weight new weight room system at North Hunter and the theater RT replacement at Warhees. So the key takeaway with this it was about $6 million worth of um awarded construction where the grant funded 75% of that cost. So really the local share on the district was um um about maybe like just over $2 million that they had to fund through this green project. So this is an example

106of where we're part of your team uh part of your professionals uh to give you guidance. Um when the vocation school came to North looking to build their north campus on this site, um as the district adviser, we were part of that from the beginning to oversee their drawings, provide some professional recommendations, um review construction periodically throughout just to coordinate um activities, um electrical shutdowns, site access, uh security, um and then at the completion of the project, we're now working on the punch and moving through that to make sure that the grounds are rehabilitated and restored. Um and then both parties are happy. Um so that's been an ongoing project for I guess now 3 years. Um moving into some capital projects. Um at the board office here uh we did the parking uh hall

107uh the addition parking that was uh one phase of parking here is um in north behind the we did additional parking that was in response to um the vote building eating that bus lot and taking away some parking. Um also in the back there was some uh damage with uh the recreating of that. Um again and the ad to this room was replaced. Um and here we are in that smoke that brand. So these are projects these are things that have come up over the past where phone call to help. So whether it's and just coordination their facility um field house monitoring um some root of um pass on do recommendation just help need um uh some missing holes from inland tree roots that were deteriorating um theations that were splashed here just kind of

108coordinate that up from a risk standpoint um the pipe stairs happened months ago we were on site at meeting just recently I went out into audience um and other existing planning here are the team from the projectation to um we met with the BA the buildings and grounds list facilities and there's a product for those base. Andrew, assuming this all passes in November, when does it actually go into effect? Is it is it immediate? Is it to go to the next school year? When does that happen? So, if you were to look at the statute, the timing is set by the Department of Education and everyone involved, we expect it to take effect on July. The vote would take November. Yes, that's >> more so the following year. >> So you'd be able to set

109a budget as a board knowing that you have the constituent member as opposed to assembly from >> Okay. But did you say the representation would follow in July as opposed to January? Got it. Okay. Uh Nicole. Um, so maybe this is like a two-prong question and I don't know if part of it would be answered now or later, doesn't matter. But we have a weighted vote of the system. Um, how is that weighted vote determined? Would that be from constituents in the district? And then what would happen? I see like it would be Union Township and Bloomsbury. So, how would that weight get split for the two votes there? Like, how does that work? How would >> I answer that for you? >> I'm sure you can. >> At the last meeting, we decided that

110union's going to be 6.1. You guys, [laughter] >> so you can't talk about that already. I I think you did to answer your question. Yes. So the one the only seat that we have to add a member, right? So we have to go with 13 members. The only place we could add a seat was Union because they're at a 1.4 already. Adding Bloomsberry's population of Union brings them above a 1.5 which would allow that seat to be that Union would get two representers at 8. >> Okay. So nobody else's >> nobody else's. Absolutely. Well, there'll be 13. Correct. Everything has to >> get in the It does. It all gets adjusted, but in the end, no, not necessarily. It doesn't. We used to have I believe there is 13 members, but that doesn't mean you

111can't have a 13.1 or like we used to have a 12.1 instead of a 12. um you know so it it it is based on population and the the the real um we would work with the county office to figure out what would happen now >> as soon as another census happens. So when the 2030 census comes out the county office then next year they look at all the populations and reallocate all the waitings and that that happened in the last census. So in 2020 census Bethlehem lost it used to be a 1.3 and it went to a 1.2 >> right >> and it's all based on population. Yeah. >> So, Rich, if I can ask a question, this may be for legal. I'm not sure. So, now there's going to be a 13. This

112could be this could be mandated by the state. Yeah. But now you're going to have odd number of board seats. Can you just go to a one vote system? It has to still be weighted. Can't be one seat, one vote. >> Not when you go above the nine. If you have nine, >> it has to be weighted above nine. >> Okay. >> If anything above nine, I believe you have >> you have to have a weighted vote. Brian, >> so if this could could be contentious how the different vote waiting happened. I would recommend we ask county supervisor to pretend like you know what what would you have done if based on the census Bloomsbury had been in our district already and rather than us try to hackle it out. >> Absolutely. and chip away

113at a 6.1, ask the superintendent to make a recommendation. >> That That's what we would do. Um, >> we'd work with the county superintendent to make sure we got all those numbers correct. Um, this is just really um for the for the ballot language. We know it would end up being that would have to be slipped waiting though all about those other waitings would have to be. Does that get included on the ballot question or is the ballot question just okay? >> This is the language actually. >> That's the language. >> Got it. Got it. >> That ultimately would be blessed by the county office. So, um technically even though Bloomberry does get a vote perfectly, but the election is essentially run by you. So, the county office would interact with you. would bless the

114ballot question and any explanatory statement before the ballots are printed. So, you know, again, looking at a November election, we're we're just in time to go through all of that so that the language is sent to the county office. I know I know this is your work session, so I don't know exactly when you're going to vote on this. >> Next week. >> Sorry. So, ready to go. Once you vote, we would send this to the county office and make sure we have plenty of time to get any of your questions answered and most importantly to get the ballot blessed so there's not any delay in terms of printing absent ballots. >> And we have already worked with special counsel. We have the draft letter that's ready to go to the executive county superintendent. We've

115shared it superintendent. So, it's all it's all ready to go so we can move it forward as quickly as possible so that you can start reaching out to your constituents in whatever way you deem um appropriate to educate them um in advance of the referendum. >> Just just to put into the public forum like what what are the advantages of this just you know financial advantages? I mean the financial advantages are you know from a send receive perspective um it's not much different I think the money that this that our district receives from the send receive relationship versus having them as a constituent district was just about even and that was a part of a re part of a feasibility study that was done to show >> yeah if you wanted to see the details

116are in the feasibility study um I I here here I can tell you one major difference right so every town saves about the same amount of money. Um it's 87,000 per year is the savings just from adding Bloomsberry as a send receive partner. That drops down to 78 if they're part of the district. Here's the key. >> No, total. >> No, it's total. >> So each town saves a few thousand. >> It's a small number. >> And the the details are in the feasibility study that that was issued in October. Here's the big difference. The big difference is for any capital projects as a matter of law, you can't pass the court the the the cost of a capital project onto a send receive partner. You can only include in the tuition rate a portion

117of the interest. If Bloomsberry is part of the district, they share in the cost of any capital project just like uh any of you. So even though the the savings of having them as a member of the constituent member as opposed to a send receive partner drops by $9,000, the significant impact would be felt every time you did a capital project. >> That's good. I didn't know that. >> But it also allows us to have stability too. So you know that's never seen thing. You know, every year you're negotiating contracts. you know this we you know from a tax perspective we know what we're going to get and it's you know every year it's not the same >> Nicole >> is the feasibility study available for us to see the drive >> probably is there

118from the fall right >> we came here the last time >> last time we were here so it came out in in October >> I'm new to the board in January so I wasn't here that I just want to make sure that I >> so I'm not being it's available to see Here it is. But I know I know that your board office has a copy of it and if for some reason they don't have it. >> Okay. >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> Oh, I just wanted to say and I think too for being in Hun County my whole life, Bloomsberry is part of Hun County and they're not at what point I think I had heard the buses getting up over Jugtown Mountain back when North Hunter when they did the that before Bores

119was even built. But um I just think for the students, for them to be part of our student and the the culture is going to be positive for for that part of our county. So I'm glad you guys are going to be joining us. >> Yeah, we we've heard that the they can't get the buses over the mountain story quite a bit. I think I mentioned this uh when I was here. I I uh used to live over here off Allergen Road uh almost 30 years ago and um 31 was a onelane highway in either direction back then by the way. Um and that story has been going on forever. Like why are they going to school in Warren County? But obviously with I'm sure your taxes. This is beneficial. just I I you know

120typically a referendum has a huge PR push behind it and I just want to make sure we're paying for it because it would be ashamed for to go through this yearslong process and then it just like oh just put the question on the ballot and don't worry about it. So >> yeah, now that's a good question with the um referendum has to be approved by all 12 of our current districts or just the the collective majority. So if one district voted no when the rest of us overwhelmingly voted yes, it wouldn't go. Okay. >> But I I do think given the nature of what we're talking about, the why do this is really what drive this? What difference is it? Why why should I as a care? I think that message needs to get out.

121I don't know that you need the help of PR firm to do it. We've certainly seen how that plays out. It's generally in an argument not cost effective. And in a circumstance like this, you're not going to be fighting with folks who are encouraging to build. You're you're you're challenge here is Africa. Um when you're when you're dividing up a school district, for example, school district, some entity taxpayers group, certainly teachers association will be campaigning for no vote. I don't know who the royal people were campaigning for no vote. Your your challenge and I say challenge of course I don't mean it's a big challenge is educating your populace as to why it's important and making sure you vote and I hope to do that. >> I wasn't suggesting hiring a PR firm. I was

122just saying that >> similar questions have have been required a big effort. I just want to make sure we're prior to it because it would be terrible to, you know, just quit before we hit the finish line or lose before we whatever fall before finish line. >> There have been Andrew, that's an excellent point. >> Oh, yeah. >> There have been questions that have come up that have been completely misunderstood and have been voted down because there wasn't or voted yes or no. I mean, I think a lot of times typically you vote no because you don't understand it, right? So that's or you don't vote at all. you just don't answer that I think is common voting behavior. So just we need to overcome that. >> Any other questions or clarifications? >> All right.

123Well, thank you for answering our questions and we are we're we're looking to a looking forward to a good partnership and and success going forward. So, thank you for coming. >> Thank you very much. You folks are just very collaborative before the voters approve such a partnership. So, we thank you for that. It sounds like I'm gonna spend a little time with you in the fall. So, >> let me get the word out. >> Good night, Miss Albbright. Thank you. >> Um, all right. We, um, 112, uh, we have the Strauss Smate proposal. Uh, Brian alluded to this before. Um, I don't know, Brian, did you want to speak to anything specifically on it or we just um >> Well, one of the things we I can talk. So, um, we had uh basically the

124the uh principles of St. process may spend an hour with us going over their um their offer which is encapsulated in their um the proposal which is linked on the the agenda. Um and we as we said before we're exploring should we move back to stress test money. We're now suggesting that yes we should. So the natural question in my mind is uh you might be wondering about is why would we do this? Why would we move back? Just a year ago we were with Strauss SB and and decided to go with school boards. So um I think it's a a number of reasons a number of factors that they start with a little bit of buyer remorse. Um it didn't the transition didn't go quite as smoothly as we had hoped as we've talked

125about at the board table before. In fact um even aspects of this uh of the policy resolutions sorry uh first reads that we talked about earlier in this meeting. They were missing pieces of that when I went back and looked at the uh the manual they gave us. they did not transfer the regulation related to student partying. So we anticipate a fair amount of work fixing things like that. Um some of them kind of errors, I would call them errors, others omissions or just maybe peculiarities of our district. But anyways, if we stick with uh school boards, we've got some work ahead of us. So what strame basically said was look every one of your districts already uses us. In fact something like 90% of all school districts in New Jersey work with them. We

126would not be the first ones that left recently and came back. In fact, one of our sending districts did this. Um so I think there's an element of continuity if if our parents are accessing policy at the sending districts when they come to the high school it's now you know there will be a continuity and have it look you know language that's like straight and um and uses the same interface that would be some some value in that the cost difference is uh a few thousand So we're talking about less than 01% of our budget, you know, just it's it's literally like less than 20 time I calculated because the one thing is in the multi-year contract it's 20 times less than how much we spend renting copies is the charge for policy support. So

127I'm impressed. You know that it's it's tight. The point is it's time. So we had a directionally there was an interest of saving some money previously but it's really you know school boards is not that much better lower cost some um they also include a number of services with their arrangement. uh they have a policy manual audit. You know, before you go through QAC, you you kind of ask they'll do this as part of the the deal. They'll look at your policy. Make sure you're up to snuff for your QAC, you know, as an example. If you have a new policy that you want to have some help with, you can get asking just have them consult. They'll basically have the there's a whole group of people there that work there and this is basically

128all they do. And uh and they're there for us to call. Uh they also have an annual conference that they talk about things that are going on that we've in the past I've never gone to but other people have and so it's very very useful used to with them. Um and then I guess finally I I would say now is the time if we're going to do this eventually now is the time to do it because it's been one year. So basically, it's really pretty uh inexpensive for them to just kind of boot us back up to where we were a year ago and then add their changes for a year. You know, go look through what what what the what they had suggested to current customers who've been with us for the last year,

129what changes they made, and then they think that we'd be up to the date. So, it's a it's a minor uh reboot. Um >> um >> oh no I was just going to ask I know Tara Rich and Stephen were on the call. I didn't know if you had any uh specific takeaways that you wanted to share as well. I mean, I thought Brian had a good question, which was part of the cell for going to school boards was the simplicity of the policies and just how, you know, everything was more vague to interpretation, that kind of thing. And the counter that was made that was that how these the policies with stress estimate are very thorough. They're less susceptible to, you know, liability and all this. And I thought that he had a very

130good response. You could end with your question. I'm glad you brought that up because I I did I I did in some ways challenge them to say look you guys are viewed or at least we viewed you that board that made the decision viewed you as more complex and and they basically owned up to it. They said this is a feature not a bug, right? >> We we write these policies with a lawyer in mind because we want you to be confident when you get to that point where your policy has to stand on its own in front of some administrative or judge >> person or other um they felt that that's the better approach and so I respected that decision that they basically said yes that's what we do >> and it didn't try

131to sugarcoat it >> exactly >> I yeah I would say having worked on policy committees under both um I always appreciated the summaries that Strauss Esme has on uh the policies very digestible. Um and I think our experience or at least my experience here, we've seen policy notifications that have come to us to us late uh out of sync with state requirements. Um and we've just seen the amount of correcting that we've had to go back and do. Um that was my my takeaway. Brandon, as somebody that was working in this last year, it never made any sense. I just got on last year. It didn't make any sense to what we were doing. >> We were in the the committee meetings et rewriting [clears throat] it, >> which never made any sense to me.

132But we're moving to a product that we're now tasked with reading every single month of all these 100s, 200s, 300s, whatever they were. and we were going through what language sticks out that we need to rewrite which didn't make much sense. So I don't think um the error is is moving back. It was the calculus I guess didn't work out to what the benefit was to switching to didn't work out right. So I mean >> you know kudos to you guys putting in the work to to figure it out that hey if we have to course correct >> course correct now. >> Now exactly because at this point what was it 20 to 30 have this past year. So, it's not like the whole catalog. It's a short amount, but every year that we wait,

133it's just going to keep growing and then it's going to be a lot of work to update what's been changed since we've been gone last year. >> School boards were aware and did they have any feedback for it or were they like, "All right, good luck." >> Yeah. >> Not yet. This this would be the motion. >> Yeah. next week. Maril, >> I think you're gonna vote on this um next week >> and I won't be here, but I just wanted to say um course correction makes perfect sense to me and the reasons um for why you want to course correct make perfect sense to me and it's a good idea. >> Any other questions or clarifications? >> All right, Katie, I did Oh, >> sorry. Just one quick one there. on page three of

134the stratus proposed policy document where it's going over the fees. >> Um we did talk about having them post our policy online and that's the district online, right? That's their That's their >> the district online hosting service >> versus what we're currently using right now cuz then it'll >> we did talk about >> they had that little >> I was like why can't our policy you had just go it's and it was because we didn't post our old stress estimate policy on their host website. So now we'll get rid of the one that we're using and use district online instead which will have some other advantages down the line potentially or whatever in general have some advantages. Um just one quick so I just wanted to clarify that that's kind of what that was and

135then um I guess the public access is the constituent facing side of that service so that everyone can view it when they go to our website. Um I guess one question I guess in general just as a curiosity question cuz I I also feel that we should go back you know not being here last year or whatever but the reasons for it all sounds uh sound you know like a good reason but is that just is there cost for that hosting more or less than what we are uh what our current is that considered I guess already in your cost savings of things of like oh yeah we don't skip this anymore and this where it just replaces it or anything like So we we currently pay about $2,000 for hosting services um for our

136policy manual will be online and be public facing and I think that's I didn't do the math here but it's almost the same. >> Okay. >> So the those components were almost saying what we the extra money is for their expertise in writing the policies and giving us the updates and keeping up the legislation and that's where we'll just have better policy. >> Yeah, it's better for us >> and that's in that annual pass. >> Exactly. >> Uh cost effect. >> So yeah, good point. Those things are broken up and they're not required, but I think we we would do all of that just because it's what we currently do. I think >> sure keep it all in one place so it's all no third party has to oh I need this done this guy,

137this guy, this guy. They just get it done. It's better to have it all in one place. >> All right, Katie, did you just want to walk us through the rest of the items? 113. >> So 113 is requisition of taxes and the payment schedule. I issue that payment schedule to each of the municipalities after we finalize our budget. So that's already been distributed. I'm just asking for the board to authorize that payment schedule purchases above 53. I will have an attachment for this next week and it will be for a plow truck, a truck with a cloud for um anything over the bid threshold after um so I am getting final pricing. It should be upwards of like 66 to 68,000. We're getting final pricing. It'll be from a co-op bid, so we do

138not have to go out to bid for it. It's already been cooperatively bid, so we're able to purchase it under that co-op once the board approves it. We're replacing a 20-year-old bio oven. It's pretty rotten. Um, we've been trying to maintain it best we can, but I became this point. So, I like this time of year to do purchases like that because we can see if there's any facility repairs that need to be done by this point. I know that I have funds in this account and I will appropriately purchase this item. Multi-year contracts as I think someone mentioned the your contract is on for um approval. Um she did a great job with soliciting other quotations from other vendors. There was three other Toshiba, Canon and Sharp were the three vendors that were um

139quoting us for leases and Sharp was the most cost effective and we've used them in the past and have had great um support from them with our so we are recommending for to improve the sharp multi-year contract >> to that. So uh we previously used Sharp and their bid was still good. So we want to go with them again, right? And has there obviously you know it's a four-year contract. Has there has it gone up a bit from the last one? >> I think it's gone up slightly, but I think Jean, you might be able to speak to this. I think we actually reduce some of the machines that we have. So I think it's pretty in line with last year. Um even though the pricing has gone up, we reduced the number of machines.

140Correct me. >> Uh yeah, we scale back some of the uh the usage that we saw as well as improve some of the extra features that we And did we go right to the manufacturers for those quotes or we go to like brokers too that sellers? >> You go right to the vendors. >> Okay, cool. How many copers do we have here? >> How many copers? >> How many in total, G? Uh so we do about uh 400,000 >> no machines two high schools >> and the district office >> 27 were in the district office [laughter] >> it makes more sense at least 39 machines as opposed to buy >> I don't know anything about Yeah. So, >> assuming it does, >> yeah, you're you're paying maintenance contracts and stuff um at that point if

141you if you buy them outright. And so, by the time you end up adding more components into it, it makes sense to just they usually have about a four year life cycle anyway. So, we get looking at three years from now, we'll see whether we need this many copies, three years, four years. So, if the machine breaks, they come well or whatever. The rest of the items are pretty standard travel. We do have a head foundation at North is donating snap circuits. We're working with them on that donation and I'll be attaching those lists and financial reports for next. >> Okay. uh brings us to a couple of new proposals and clubs with community relations and student affairs. I don't know if you can walk us through that. >> So the the what you're the

142first one the 12.1 is a swimming co-op proposal. Um I think everyone knows we have an ice hockey team in the district that is a cooperative between Northern. Uh we also have a gymnastics team that used to be a North only program and we um got permission to have it be a co-op program. and more students participate in gymnastics. And if you read through the proposal, basically swimming numbers are not that great. They haven't been that great consistently for the last 5 years. So having two programs at each school is actually dis disadvantageous to our students. Um combining them in one co-op will give them better opportunities. It will give them more time at the pool. Um it will save money with transportation and because we won't need as many coaches. Um so in the

143end it's this this proposal was already approved by um the Skylands Conference and NJSIAA which is the state organization. Um and it will be better for the athletes and save money. So not very often you can say that happens all in the same pattern. So I don't know if there's any questions on swimming but it it looked like a no-brainer. >> The other two were club and pool. Just real quick >> asking you to speculate a little bit. It sounds like a great idea. I like it. It makes a lot of sense. Are we going to have 40 too many parents at the next meeting telling us how bad of an idea it is or do we have a feeling that the parents are >> I have a feeling that the athletic directors have communicated

144through the coaches through their athletes that this that I think they all want. >> Okay. Well, it sounded like at some level we compete for time against each other at Raron Valley and then compete for transportation. Uh there might be a little competition for some spots on one of the varsity teams in a in a different way. >> That's possible. Um but again, I don't think that's going to be huge impact based on >> it. Sounds like it's going to improve the health of those students who want to be in school. completely improve the health of the program. Yeah, I would. >> But other people could have >> I don't have to crystal ball, but I don't anticipate >> used to use not a lot of pools to to get. >> Yeah, there's only so

145many pools and you have like >> well like ice. I don't know if you see Conquest's swim schedule with their own with their own swim team on top of the central uses that very few and far between that you can get that >> I don't think it's the low priority capital [laughter] >> there there are some people in the past that have regretted not adding just because of the money you've made renting space >> yeah when was built I remember my parents going to the meetings and there was a big push to put a pool in at that time um and be able to have >> but there's a lot of maintenance to >> and then the other two here are are clubs at North that are being proposed these are both being um these

146are both run as volunteer clubs next year um one is about mental health and recent stigma of mental health the other is related to mental health as well but specifically for medical careers and what kind of stressors and um supports um people going into medical careers need to be able to handle the stress and the demands of those groups. So, they both seem like great clubs. I don't know if you had a chance to read through them, but they did a great job of presenting their goals and objectives and >> well, it was interesting because the one student brought up and I hadn't considered this that if you were not a student in like the biomed academy, you're not necessarily you don't necessarily have that outlet for for those those topics and those interests. >>

147Yeah. Okay. So, they both seem like great clubs. Again, they go on a um volunteer list and then as paid clubs come off the list, volunteer clubs come up. So, we don't ever adding until something's out. >> Uh delegates reports, Tara, do we have any updates there? >> Um yeah, we had the delegate assembly this past Saturday. Um there had been seven resolutions that had been submitted, but one with pulled um because of some deficiencies. um in the uh details, but all six you can go on to school boards and go into delegate and then you can read each one, but all six were um adopted through the assembly. So, um and they're they're varied on what their um the resolutions and topics were. And then our Hunter County, we had our end of the

148year teacher of the year and then we'll start back up again in um September. And I did want to say we we are members of school boards and school boards does so much for us and even though we were using we switched over to do you know the policy um it wasn't the best fit I think for our district but school board gives us so much and that's why we're members. We do have in the fall um the uh workshop but all of our training comes through school boards. So all of our governance, so all the things that we need to run as an a board um and make sure that we're compliant, the school board provides for us. So you know, we'll always maintain our school board association because we meet its requirements of

149our basically the training. So each year you have your governance one, governance two, um and three and four and so on. Um, but you know, as policy, um, I was going to say I'll be here next week, but, um, working seven years with Strauss SMA and on policy, I'm I'm feeling confident that it's it's a good move for us. >> And you just reminded me, you probably saw an email for workshop. I think the first emails are coming out for the conference in October. Um, you know, I I've had the opportunity to go several times over the years. Um it definitely is a very enriching experience if you have the time and the ability. Uh lots of great sessions and just sort of current trends in education. Uh there's training opportunities there as well. Uh

150but you can get up to speed on a on a lot of uh current uh just topics and and everything from whether it's business operations to grounds to what have you. Whatever your interest is, uh there's something there. So it's definitely worth checking out. And then I think Katie will let us know if we want to attend um uh workshop. We'll have to let her know because we have to get on the agenda. We as a board have to approve our travel expense. So I would say by August, right? Or >> yeah, by August at the latest. I did already send out a survey. So if you do have interest, please let me know as soon as possible because we're early for a discount. So the sooner that I know, the sooner I can provide

151this to everyone. Um and I can even get you on for June 4th or make me a little interested. Okay, >> thank you. >> Um, all right. So then can I get a uh a motion in a second to adopt resolution 051926 for an executive session to discuss matters reflected in the attached resolution. The board expects to be in executive session for approximately 30 minutes and upon return to public session uh action will be taken. Will we have action? I don't think we will have action, right? >> The action next week. >> Action will be next week. Okay. Just be quick. Can I get that motion? Tara, thank you. Second, Merryill. Thank you. All in favor? >> I opposed. Abstain. >> All right, we'll be back. Um, can I get a call for a motion

152and a second to reconvene public session? Can I get a motion? Andrea, thank you. Can I get a second, Rich? Thank you. All in favor? >> I opposed or extensions. >> Uh, all right. Um, we uh where the heck are we? Uh, obviously we will revisit our personnel agenda items and minutes next week officially. Uh, any old or new business at this time? >> I hate to do it. [laughter] >> Um, >> because she is one of my constituents. Last week, we had someone come up and ask about adding a second public session to our board meeting. Um, and it looks like if we did want to do something like that, it would require changing our policy or >> the bylaw bylaw and how our meetings are are done. I'm just curious if there's interest

153in doing I think it might be good way to interact more with the community, which is one of our goals, >> right? >> Um, and I think it's a relatively light lift. >> I agree. Yeah. Um, >> Tara, Andrea, Nicole, >> and I do want to point out old and new business. Someone brought up also that they'd like us to bring up old or new business earlier because a lot of times it's at the end of our session and then there nobody here to hear the older new business like >> Yeah. Um, Andrea, >> um, the way I've seen two, uh, public comment sessions work is the first one is for agenda items only and the second one is for, you know, non-aggenda items. So that I think that's a good parameter to put around

154it unless somebody has another similar idea or better idea. But >> and I did check with both Lebanon Township and Hybrid, they both do have two. I don't know if any has two >> our town council has two. Nicole Brian. >> Um I as jokingly as I was when he said new business I tend to agree that uh it does leave room for additional yeah additional feedback from what's discussed so that when we go into our because we are having our working meeting and going into our action meeting next week. It leaves room for hearing from our constituents before vote is is passed. So, >> uh, Stephen, >> would >> Oh, if we have two would the time constraint obviously 3 minutes is per person, but then didn't it leave like 30 minutes overall for

155public comment time? So shouldn't then that be split to 15 minutes per or is it like 2020 or something like that to put a cap on the max just in general like following the housekeeping of it all >> you know something else to consider with >> right versus 30 minute time frames >> right I mean if there's a cap if you're going to have it you know I know they're two different topics but 2020 or however you know whatever >> Brian >> for clever we put it after the executive session no one will ever >> [laughter] >> over here. >> No, my point was we can't have it after >> um I know the models that I've seen to the same structure. The first one for items on the agenda, >> correct? >> The second

156one is just sort of an open comment >> though. I guess >> yeah, I guess I'm curious because I you know having heard the the the comment as well. I I was trying to understand if because the idea of a public comment before uh we take action is an opportunity for the public to weigh in on an item that's there. Um I don't I was trying to understand if the concern was weighing in on things that we're going to vote on. It seemed like it was also there was new information that came up through discussion that um >> and that's sometime people come back and stand up again. But if somebody, I don't know, uh, said there was an issue, say, about maybe a practice being shortened and they were upset about that, that it's

157not on your agenda, but >> they would come, >> but they might come. You would say, "Sorry, you we you have to wait until our second to talk about that." >> Um, >> uh, Rich, then Andrew, >> is that slightly inhibited though? Because then aren't you asking people, you know, what if a student were to come and want to talk about something that's not on the agenda? You do have to manage that actually >> till 10:00 at night. >> You do. You do. And I've seen that like people will get up and they'll start to talk about whatever is on their mind and you have to I would have to say I'm sorry this public comment is just for items on the agenda. There will be a subsequent one. Then they stay and they come.

158Yeah. And they they do that later. And I think the value to it or it's more valuable since we now have two public meetings on the same topic. Previously this >> right this is all committee >> they're hearing a discuss they comment >> on something they hear a discussion they might have a comment they want to give but they have to wait a week to give it >> and then we're not hearing it until we're voting that day. Right? So I think there is value for them to be able to give that feedback as we all way over our heads for a week before we go. >> Okay. >> Suggestion that both meetings then have two public comments >> is the agenda. >> Yeah, I would have not thought of it. I don't >> I

159don't know if it would have to you might create I don't Yeah, >> create confusion is not the same and you would have disgruntlement, >> right? which is what >> which might be worse than having to allow two public comments at every meeting. Just a suggestion. It's good news. >> Um Nicole, did you have another >> Yeah, I I just want to be clear that the second public comment section would be for non agenda items agenda but also >> also responses to discussion during >> it's it's an open floor at that point. But I mean still you're not supposed to defame anybody or all the same rules, right? There's there are guard rails to it as well. >> I mean in theory it's the idea that we're here asking questions. >> Someone might have something

160to share that's consequential or they may have a question that we didn't consider that they could bring up at that time. That's what >> you expect them to have normal pages for budget forum. Um, >> that's what the Gav >> Brandon, I'll give you I'll give you uh one live example. I sent you guys an email today about that when I spoke to the mayor Gardner and that potential pilot mental health program. I don't know any details uh when we discussed it leader got here at 7:30. We flew through that first part and he didn't make >> So we had a second, you know, maybe it'll be the next one. I don't know what the schedule is, but if we had one, we'd probably be hearing that now because we missed the >> or it

161would be just the agenda items we had. >> Um, just cuz you brought it up. Um, is that something if he's presenting a program to us to look into to sign on to be a part of, should that kind of be proposed to the board? >> Yeah, I have no idea. I just told him to whatever the process is following spoke with him. >> Oh, you did? Yeah, >> I spoke to him. >> Oh, yeah. I just told him my guy is come to the meeting and wherever it goes, >> it goes. >> But Nicole, you were going to say you don't think that that's >> I don't think I don't think it's the right for us. >> Uh for proposing that we sign on to something to come and speak publicly like we're not

162going to turn around and say yes, yeah, we'll do this. You know, >> put a proposal together, put the information together, send it to the board, we review it, and then discuss. But public comment isn't the right forum for >> for that >> in my >> Well, no. I don't I don't think he was looking to have a debate. I was just introduce himself. This is what I'm looking to do. Tell me what the next step is. I I'm not going to speak from I don't know. I just told him to come here and >> I mean >> that's the best that's the best advice I can give. >> Right. And to your point, Nicole, things that are operational that have all sorts of considerations obviously have to go through a much more thorough administrative

163review process anyway. if he still has interest, tell him to contact me again and I can get away. >> But I mean, innocently, you can have a community member get up and say, "Hey, you know, I'm looking to connect my volunteer program and is there some way we can connect with the schools and do something for you." And you're like, "All right, let's talk." Right. >> I'll just echo Stephen's uh comment that we shouldn't add full make 60 minutes of public comment. We're going to add more public comment. >> Yeah. >> Especially to this working meeting. >> Yeah. Well, the thing is public comment is always articulated with an amount and a consideration to extend if circumstances require it. >> So even if we have 30 minutes on both of them, the second one if

164no one's here, it's not 30 minutes, >> right? >> But it could be worst case scenario. Yeah. >> Some of us have lived worst case scenario. >> That's true. >> I believe we used to have two points. We actually started back to doing one. And I think it really came down to people getting up at the agenda item only, >> right? >> Starting to speak and then it was hard to get them to stop. >> But okay, so this is a bylaw. So, I guess what we can do is we can look into it as a bylaw and just figure out and and bring it up at a further point and say what it is that we would potentially need to detail and articulate to make some sort of a switch. >> Was the reason

165for adding a second cuz I just heard Rich over say we used to then we dropped it and now we're looking to go back. Like did the did they feel like there wasn't enough time or opportunity to speak at public comment? Is it too early? Is it because they're missing like like you said like oh we'll talk about this later and no one's here to hear about it so public comment should be later why there should be two I believe her comment was um we have a public comment where I can comment on things that I'm reading in an agenda. Yeah, >> glad to do that. But then you guys have a discussion which might stir up some other questions for me which I can then not not give to you until the following weeks

166time to digest what they what they say. >> Should public comment just be moved to later in general. So then if someone's hearing something they can either add or review what they're going to say cuz someone might like them. For example, at the meeting where the gym or the resting parents came up, right? We spoke about it before they had opportunity for public com or after there was opportunity for public comment. So they all like you know had their time to speak but they then hear after the fact that oh this is what we're doing like oh did I really have to be here? So same thing goes either way. It's either you say something that makes me think of something or you say something that makes me not have to say something. So should

167it just be one later? I do. Well, I have to imagine that the one is where it is because everything after that becomes actionable. >> So, it's the opportunity for public input before we're taking action. >> I'm I'm surmising that. And I don't know, I just asked Tara if school boards has just some examples of models or even strategies of to your point different ways of talking about a working session and an active session. Right. Right. >> One thing would work well if one would work well and figure out two different things or make something that works kind of >> well I would be curious to find out what school boards has like what are some different models that they say are there or is it like no it's universally two and and some who

168do >> looking into what our options are. >> Yep. >> I know Franklin Township has two. >> Yeah. >> Do they also have two meetings a month? I don't I don't but >> I will look at Clinton because they used to be a committee of the whole so it was two meetings a month but but I'll double check what theirs is as well >> there's a lot of different things to weigh in on like they said different types of meetings this was better here better there these people did it but they didn't have the same all the same things to to start off that comparison that happens to happen >> correct >> all right so >> war against I think the least we could do is get some more information so that we kind of

169understand and have a better picture of some ideas and options. >> This whole road as a whole, so we're we're >> right. Yep. All right. Uh Andrew, any other new business? [laughter] >> All right. I don't know. Um All right. Can I get a call for a motion and a second to adjurnn? >> All right. Motion, Andrea. Second, Nicole. Thank you. All in favor? I opposed. Extensions. None. All right, it's a wrap, folks. Have a good night.