NHV BOE Meeting - 04/21/2026

001to order. The North Hunter and Vorhees Regional High School District Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, April 21st, 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, this meeting was sent to the Hunter 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 the North Hunter High School and Vorhees High School provided to the municipal clerks of Bethlehem Township, California Burrow, Town of Clinton, Clinton Township, Franklin Township, Glengardner Burrow, Hampton Burrow, Hybridge Burough, Lebanon Burrow, and Lebanon Township, Tukesbury Township, and Union Township, as well as other interested parties and posted on the legal notices

002section of the district website. Uh, fire exits are located in the directions indicated. If alerted to fire, please move in a calm and orderly fashion to the nearest smokefree exit. Restrooms are located through the doors behind this desk and to the right as indicated. At this time, please silence all cell phones. I do just want to also read the mission statement. The North Hunter and Vorhees Regional High School District empowers all students through innovative and personalized learning to achieve their full potential, embrace lifelong learning, and contribute responsibly to a changing world. Roll call. >> Miss here. Mr. Chapman >> here. >> Mr. Hanley >> here. >> Miss Hint >> here. >> Mr. Lordy >> absent. >> Mr. Matthews >> here. >> Miss Mezakappa >> here. >> Mr. Morgan >> here. >> Miss Reyes >> here.

003>> Mr. Spanton >> here. >> Miss Stein >> here. >> And Mr. Mcisac >> here. Stand for the flag to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. So, we have our uh working session. So, uh a lot of these things obviously we'll be reviewing and discussing and then acting on them next week. Um the first item of business we have are two minutes from March 17th and March 24th. Uh, was there anything in the minutes that anybody wanted to um bring up, address, or had any questions about? >> Okay. Um, our next section is our NJ school board training. Uh, so this is for our superintendent and board of ed self-evaluation process.

004Uh I know I've been sort of alerting to the board that this process would be beginning and this is sort of the official kickoff with uh the facilitation that we're going to have from Kathy Poria, our field services rep. Uh and then uh there'll be some additional information both from Kathy and from uh Dr. Burgess regarding next steps. And if you saw the email tonight, you should have access to the link uh in an email if you wanted to pull it up on your computer. I know Kathy will have it up there. So Kathy, welcome. Thank you for coming back. >> Thank you. >> Well, thank you for having me again tonight. I think at this point I have met just about all of you at least once, maybe. >> But my name is Kathy

005Por. I am the field service rep for Somerset and Hunton counties. And tonight we were talking about the CSA evaluation and the board self-evaluation process and the tool that you will use to do that. I know that you have a lot of business to cover tonight. So we are going to try to go through this very efficiently, but if you have questions along the way, feel free to stop me, ask your question. We'll have time for questions at the end, too. Superintendent evaluation. Think of the superintendent evaluation not just as something you're doing to check off a compliance box. It's actually one of the most important things that you'll do during the year as a board member because it's your way of holding your superintendent accountable. Your superintendent has a really, really big job. He

006is accountable for just about everything that goes on in your school district. It's a huge job and you all have big jobs with overseeing that. And your superintendent evaluation process is the tool that you have for oversight. and accountability. This is what we'll be talking about tonight. Some legal guidelines, the process itself, evaluation tools, and just as a reminder, if you go back to our ethics presentation um over the winter, if you have a relative that works in the school district, you may be conflicted from participating in the superintendent evaluation process. I did give you a chart from the school ethics commission defining who a relative is to you. If you need that, I have it. I'm happy to send it to you. Again, you also can check with your attorney. We always advise if

007you think you might be conflicted, always reach out to Brendan and he can help you check with your board attorney. Again, accountability, the evaluation of your superintendent is your uh means of oversight and appraisal of the effective management of your school district. When we talk about going back to the ethics and your roles and responsibilities, when we talk about one of your roles being appraisal, your main way of appraisal is your superintendent evaluation. I keep going back to the next slide or lower to the next slide. Sorry about that. So again, think of this in terms of holding the district and the system accountability accountable and use it as a tool of continuous improvement as a cycle of continuous improvement. There's a lot of really good research that shows that a relationship between the board

008and the superintendent, if you have a good relationship, it helps with the achievement of the students in your school. So, use it constructively. When you're writing comments, make them constructive comments. If you feel that there's room for improvement, that's fine. But have your comments be constructive and a means of helping your district move forward in a positive way. These are your legal guidelines. You have these. There's a sheet in your folder and in the folder is a booklet about the evaluation process. On the back page, I think the back two pages of that booklet, um it outlines this as well. But on the um the left side there, 18A, 18A are all of the statutes that govern public education in New Jersey. On the right side is the administrative code. Those are the regulations for

009how those statutes, the laws are implemented. QAC. If you don't know what CUSAC is, it is the quality single accountability continuum. I don't know where you are in your CUSAC cycle, but the Duey will come in every three years and they look at everything. One of the things they look at, one of their um sections is governance. They will look to see whether you have completed your superintendent evaluation. They will look to see whether you've had training on the superintendent evaluation and this these are two of those indicators. Another indicator is your mandated training. So make sure you do your mandated training as well. Uh this is also covered in governance one. So if you're a new board member, you will have taken governance um superintendent evaluation training. Is the use of our tool required?

010It is an optional service that we offer to boards uh to help you with your evaluation. It provides for a standardized methodology to meet the statutory requirements. It allows for full participation by all again non-conlicted board members. It's anonymous when you're filling it out. It's it's all anonymous. Um your board president isn't going to see what you wrote or how you rated it. Your superintendent isn't going to see it. I don't even look through them. I hit a button and it compiles and I send it to your board president. but it's anonymous and it was developed in collaboration with NJASA which is the New Jersey Association of School Administrators. That's your superintendent professional organization and they worked on it for about two years I believe. So making the process seamless your census is up to

011date. I checked before you came. So thank you to your BA. Your BA is the only one that can update the census. You have to identify if you have a conflicted board member or if your board president is conflicted, then there'll be an alternate lead on it and that will all be marked in the census. And have you developed an evaluation calendar? If you haven't, it's okay. You have to do what's best for your board. I put a sample evaluation calendar in your folder so you can see about where you are. But the most important point is that it's due July 1st and you need to work backwards from there. Now, how you do that is up to you again as a board and what works best for your board, but you want to make

012sure that you have your evaluation conference scheduled and you're not scrambling at the last minute to try to get a meeting in to get it in by July 1st. Your VA must enter the board president as the board president into the NJSB platform and census, which you did already. So, thank you for that. This is just about making sure the census is correct. you have all these slides so you can look through them. If you have questions, let me know. This is again a sample calendar. So, we're at the end of April where you want to start thinking about doing your evaluation, but again, you do what's best for your board and what works with your own timing. This is our evaluation process. So, you start with goal setting. Set district goals together collaboratively. Your

013superintendent creates an action plan, reports out periodically on the goals. You can do a pre-conference if you want where you can answer questions about where you are with the goals or just if there's any questions that anybody has about the process. You can do that. Not all boards do an evaluation pre-conference, but you can do one if you'd like to. The superintendent will go in and do his part for our tool, which is completing his self assessment of the district goals. Uh after that you'll get an email where you can log into our tool tool and start the process and you'll complete the evaluation individually. After that all non-conlicted BOE members will meet in executive session go over the compilation and decide what the majority opinion is. You have to rice notify your superintendent. I

014did um give you a sheet that defines what a rights notification is, but anytime you talk about somebody's employment at a public meeting, you have to send them a notice at least 48 hours in advance, and they have the option of having that conversation or discussion in public session or executive session, but you should typically have it in executive session. Then I'll non after you've met determined what your majority opinion is and it goes by majority opinion. So and there's 12 of you. So it will you know you'll go by each individual to determine what your majority opinion is for the evaluation. Your minority uh absolutely will have a chance to voice their opinion but what goes in the actual report is the majority opinion of the full board. So after you sit down together

015and figure out what your majority opinion is, uh Brendan will type up the annual report or you can even start that part together in the process if you'd like to. And then you'll meet and discuss it in evaluation conference with your superintendent again with race notification in executive session. At that time when you have your conference, you can allow the minority opinion to be voiced if they like to voice their opinion and then your board president, your superintendent have to sign it. Pre-conference we covered. Any questions on that? District goals assessment. So when I was a board president, a lot of times I get questions like, "What goals are we evaluating the superintendent on?" Again, it's your district goals that you set collaboratively with your superintendent. There are three to five of the most critical

016focus areas for the year to move your district forward and advance student achievement. And then you use the evaluation process to hold your superintendent accountable for those goals. It's should be an annual collaborative process between the board and the superintendent. And keep in mind that some goals can be multi-year. So maybe you have a goal that you want to close an achievement gap. It might be a couple of years before that shows up in the data. So keep that in mind that you can set a multi-year goal and it might take a couple of years for that to be achieved. So something to keep in mind. Uh action plans. When you set the goals and you vote to approve those goals as a board, your superintendent will be developing action plans. And those action plans

017should include indicators that let you know whether that goal was achieved or not. And then of course progress updates throughout the year. Those should be on your agenda. This is what our website looks like. If you're looking if you have your sup you're ready to log in and do your superintendent evaluation. Go to our website. Scroll. Just scroll all the way down from our homepage. It's down there on the right. And that's just what it looks like. This is what it looks like when you log in. This is what the district goals assessment uh part looks like. So you'll mark whether you feel it was achieved. There was satisfactory progress made or little or no progress made. You can leave comments. Try to leave constructive comments. As a board president, it is very very very

018helpful to have comments that are constructive when you're doing the final evaluation summary. So help Brendan out and leave him some constructive comments. This is what it'll look like when it's compiled. So again, this will go to your word president and that will eventually be shared with you, but this is just an example of what it looks like once it's all compiled. Again, there's no names attached to it. It's just numbers and then anonymous comments. After you are done with the goals portion of the evaluation, you'll move to standards. So, we have standards that are specific um that you'll be evaluating your superintendent on. And they didn't just come out of nowhere. They actually uh came from this uh National Policy Board for Educational Administration, this um ISLC. If you want to do some light

019reading, there's actually like an 18-page document online that talks about how they came up with these leadership standards. Um, but they reflect qualities and values of leadership work integral to student success and they assist your boards in identifying areas of strength and where more focus may be needed. And these are the six standards. Mission, vision, and core values, governance, ethics and professional norms, operations management, curriculum, instruction, assessment and school improvement, community of care, equity and family engagement, professional capacity, community of school district personnel. So when someone asks you, "What does a superintendent do?" you can say they're responsible for all of these things in our school district that are actually really, really important to the success and achievement of your students. And this is what your standards assessment will look like when you log in.

020Again, you um you will rate as exemplary, proficient, area for growth, unsatisfactory, or not observed. If you are a new board member and you just haven't observed that yet, you can mark that. It doesn't reflect positively or negatively. It's just neutral. And remember, if you are a new board member, you're evaluating from the time that you join the board to now. So again, you can leave comments here as well. The indicators for each standard are listed. And again, try to leave some constructive comments if you can. And this is what the sample compilation for a standard will look like when you get it. Again, all just numbers and anonymous comments. All right. So, the annual performance report will be your compilation, your majority opinion, and then that will lead to your what your annual performance

021report looks like. Anybody have any questions about any of this so far? Kathy, when you're talking about the majority opinion, obviously that is represented in terms of where the numbers are, but you're talking also majority opinion in terms of a summation of the comments as well. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yeah. The final report that you give to your superintendent should be what the majority of your board feels. So if you have seven that are like you know great great job but then five that are like you know so you go go with the seven >> question yes >> we have proportionate representation does that matter >> that's a great question and the answer is for this purpose no >> so it's a strict >> every person >> you're not using your weighted votes for

022the superintendent evaluation it's number of people >> I have a question Um I think you mentioned that we were supposed to get together as a board and >> talk about this. >> Yes, that's before we fill out the form. >> No. So you >> fill out the form this online individually. >> It when it'll get compiled usually I as board president I would give a date to my board members and say please have it filled out by this date which should be before whatever board meeting you want to sit down and talk about it. So it'll be compiled by then and then you'll sit down and you'll talk about the compiled document. So all of you should have access to or print out or whatever of that compiled document and you'll sit down together and

023decide you know what the consensus is. >> So looking Mel just looking at the calendar and I feel like we may have done it this way last year. I think it was um by the end of May we had an executive session where there was sort of the compilation document so that we were able to see what the opinions were have some discussion then the charge is the compiling um that allows us to have an executive in June where that um document is sort of more or less finished and affords us an opportunity for conversation in executive with Dr. Dr. Burgess as well um to meet the July 1st guideline or deadline. >> Sounds sounds right. >> And I think that's kind of what we tried for last year. So I guess one of my

024questions building on that Kathy Kathy is um >> how much time uh typically like if we're trying to make a May executive and I know Dr. Burgess has his things done and we are on the cusp of receiving notification. So, um, if I'm asking the board to be done, like I I'm trying to figure out what window of time would I need to ask the board to be done so that that could be compiled for our May meeting. >> It compiles like almost instantly. >> Okay. In terms of comments, >> I hit a button and it automatically like I'm not going in and compiling myself. I don't even look at it and see what everybody wrote. I just >> hit thing it compiles automatically and then I will I'll send it directly to you >>

025and then you can in whatever way you feel is best get it to your >> thinking the timing so that we have it for that May that May executive first. >> So um annual performance report has the majority opinion. >> Where does the superintendent get the opportunity to hear minority opinion >> that would be at the summary conference >> at the conference. >> So you'll hear it orally but not be in >> Yeah. Yeah. It's not in the final evaluation >> that goes in the personnel file, but the minority board members will have a chance to voice any concerns that they have that just didn't make it into the final evaluation. >> If I mean is the term compilation used in two different ways like One is you just you said you hit a button

026and it basically transcribes everyone's input into one document. >> Yes. >> But then there's this process of compiling all the inputs into a final report and that's a that's not a push a button. That's a >> no that's what you'll sit down. You'll look at the >> compilation which are the numbers >> and the comments >> and then you'll determine as a board what the majority opinion from that compiled document is. That second step you don't call it compiling. >> Yeah, it's Yeah, it's determining the majority opinion I guess would be the right term for it. >> Anything else? >> So, yes. Um, do you have an opinion on this? If you have a board that um is comprised of a number of brand new members, >> might not be saying that the conduct is

027unobserved, but they might have an opinion. Um but the board members who are more senior and seasoned to have really who who have more knowledge about working with the topic might have a different opinion that from where I sit perhaps would be weightier because they have more experience. How do we rectify the fact that you might have an evaluation um where the majority uh is a bunch of brand new people um that don't necessarily reflect the experience of the ones who have dealt with things for longer? Um, and also do you think it's appropriate in that situation for a conversation between the experienced ones and the new ones before we fill out the form? >> You could certainly ask about goals or if there's something you're unclear about, you can certainly ask. I would keep

028the evaluation, do the evaluation individually from what you have observed personally. But certainly if you have questions about the goals or the progress towards the goals, I think those would be appropriate questions you could ask your board president. you can reach out to your superintendent and ask and again there's no harm with putting not observed. >> Okay. >> I guess also as you're saying each of us has the experience of coming on to the board and only being there for that second half of the year and having this um you know I I and I guess other members certainly feel free to weigh in. I think if there's um things that I feel like I've observed but I feel like the window is limited. In other words, I've I've seen a little bit of this

029and a little bit of that. I've tried to say that um um just to to qualify that while I've not seen the entire year all the dimensions of this. Um let me comment on what I have seen that is either this or that as my own way of navigating that and I don't know if others have navigated it similarly or or not. >> Yeah. It's a snapshot. >> Yeah. >> And I think once we'll all get the compilation um so we'll all be able to see what's been written but we don't know by whom. So when we meet um before he does his summary of it we can you can flush it out. So you might when you were filling it out, you might not have, but once you start reading through what everybody else

030has said, you might be able to bring more, you know, in that session that can be added to the summary, the final piece. It doesn't have to be locked in when you're doing the survey. >> Thanks. Good questions. >> These are your steps to your final outcome. So again, all the non-conlicted board members will meet to discuss and identify the majority opinion in executive session. Do not forget to race your superintendent. You can either start with just the compilation. Your board president may see it and kind of get a good idea what the majority opinion is and maybe start a draft. Um otherwise you'll determine your majority opinion and then the performance report will be written by the board pres president or the board president's de design designate if the board president is conflicted and

031then you'll discuss that evaluation at the annual summary conference. We do have the annual report template that we'll send with the um the compilation of the evaluation. so you have something to use. And again, this is what the template looks like. And it's helpful, I think, too, if you bring a blank copy of this to the meeting that you'll have as a board to determine the majority opinion. It's sometimes helpful to just bring this and mark it off as you go, as you talk about things. Again, this is more of the template. that you have a copy of this and the annual summary conference. So again, all non-conlicted board members and superintendents will meet to discuss the evaluation in executive session. This has to be completed by July 1st. Share the evaluation with your superintendent

032before that meeting. So he has a chance to look at it. Um the minority opinion might be may be expressed again. And then the minutes of your executive session need to reflect that you um held the annual summary conference next step. So your individual respon coms will compile your individual responses. You'll receive the confidential compilation rice notice your CSA. We've said that several times already. Write the performance report. You can use the template and then uh you'll have your summary conference. So, who keeps a copy? This is important. We don't hold on to the superintendent evaluations. We can't because they're personnel document around late December, early January. They're like permanently deleted from our servers or files, however it does it, but they are gone. But we do keep them until then because some boards, believe

033it or not, need them or something happens and they contact us for their evaluation. So, we do hold on to them until that point, but then they're um they're purged. And we recommend that your superintendent keep a signed copy for himself and the board keep a signed copy. Some boards choose to keep their copy with their board attorney. And just some considerations, it's not a once a year event. Use it as an ongoing cycle, an ongoing system of moving your district forward and school improvement. Review the performance over a full year. Develop a system to retain evidence uh because your superintendent will be uploading that into the system. Um progress updates and two-way communication are critical. So you again, if you have questions or if you have questions about the goals or the progress towards

034the goals, just reach out and ask ask your board president, ask your superintendent. But hopefully you've been hearing progress updates throughout the year and you're pretty well verssed in what those are. And it's the responsibility of all eligible members to participate. Again, it is one of the most important things that you'll do throughout the course of the year as a board member. So, if you can participate, be sure to participate. Give it the time and the thought that it deserves and that your superintendent deserves. All right. Any questions about superintendent evaluation? Because we're moving right on to self-evaluation. All right. Good. All right. Self-ealuation's a little bit different. So self-evaluation, you should be aware that it is a public document. The superintendent evaluation is a very very confidential. It is a personnel document. It is

035highly confidential. Board self-evaluation is a public document. It can be over requested. Um but but we do recommend that you do it as a best practice. It's not mandated. It's not required. It's something that we say, you know what, if you're holding your superintendent accountable, you should hold your super yourselves accountable as well as the board. So, it provides self-reflection of the board as a whole and individual board members. You can rate yourselves. It can be completed by all board members, including your superintendent. There's no statutory deadline. You can do it any time of the year. That's good for all of you. And again, it's not required, but it's best practice. It improves governance and management. The results can be used to develop your board goals if you have board goals and you use them.

036It brings your individuals, all of you together as a team. Again, it's something that you're doing together. And it sets a standard for board conduct and operations. So, you complete it annually. You can include your superintendent. It has board goals and standards. It's pretty well aligned now with the superintendent evaluation, how it looks and how it's structured. It determines priorities in six areas of board governance. I compile the results, deliver the summary, and review the findings for the board. So, I do not read through your superintendent evaluation, but I do read through your entire board self-ealuation. And I'm not reading through it to judge all of you. I'm reading I'm reading through it because I'm looking for comments that can be s considered a evaluative of staff members or your superintendent because um you only

037evaluate your superintendent and that's confidential. So, anything that winds up on your self-evaluation that could be considered evaluative, I'll highlight. I'll send it to your board president and say, "Hey, check with your board attorney. See if these might be considered evaluative. If they are, I'll redact them." But that's really what I'm looking for when I look through your board self-ealuation. And then we recommend completion timelines based on your reorg meetings and your board goal setting dates. Again, this is just what it looks like when you go to our website. This is what it looks like when you go to our website. These are the descriptions of our rating. They align with the CSA evaluation. Again, thank you for updating the census. So, this is new and I was very surprised by this last year when

038I was board president. So, your board president needs to enter evidence like your superintendent enters evidence of goal completion. So does your board president this year. If you didn't don't have board goals, you can just hit that you don't have board goals. That's okay. But just something to keep in mind. If you have board goals, you might want to start keeping tabs on the completion uh evidence of completion of those goals. Again, this is what it looks like when you go to our website. It's very similar to the superintendent evaluation. These are the board standards, vision, mission, and goals, policy, accountability for student achievement, governance, team relationships and accountability, resource management and oversight, and community leadership. And they come from NSBA's key work of school boards. Again, this is what it looks like when you

039log in. I'll move through these because I know we're uh short on time. And then at the end you'll be able to answer reflective questions. And again, keep them constructive. Don't use the board self-evaluation to, you know, I'm going to evaluate you and you you can evaluate yourself and your board as a team. Try not to make comments about individual board members. It's just not good boardsmanship. And then we'll have a report. board members can see their own report while you're doing it. You'll be able to see and this goes for the superintendent evaluation as well. You can look and see who's done it. Uh but you can't see again who wrote what. So it's anonymous in that aspect is that you can't look and see well who rated who left the comment or who

040rated each section what and then you also along with your compilation then again I'll compile it and send it to your board president you'll also get a summary of your evaluation responses that you can use year-over-year to see where you are and this is year-over-year comparison and what that looks looks like. These are all of our CSA and board um self-evaluation resources that are on our website. So, you have a link to this. And remember, of course, you're evaluating only the board, your board team's performance and efficacy, not the district and not the staff. So use the opportunity as a conscious conscious governance tool for improvement and how to improve your own board and be very effective so you help enhance student achievement here. >> Any questions >> on board goals? Are those um do

041those need to be um publicly sort of um part of an agenda or declared in any way? >> You should vote on them together. Okay. >> Again, it's not a mandate. It's not mandated to have board goals, but we consider it a best practice, but you should be deciding on board goals. And they can be things like we're going to start a new board member orientation or we're going to make a board handbook or things that apply to your own board and your functioning as a board. >> Well, and and the reason I bring it up is, you know, we did have them. part of this conversation is always sort of that moment of you know let me make sure I can find them and that we did in fact have them from last year

042and we had talked about strategic alignment and goal monitoring being one because we launched the first year of the strategic plan and obviously a lot of Dr. Dr. Burgess's work is the reporting on that work. Uh we had for ourselves a norm about um rather a goal about establishing governance and norms, professional conduct uh which I know we've taken some steps in that direction and then uh also community engagement and communication uh and communication. So there's been some steps in that. Um, I just didn't know if those I I cannot recall if they were officially done as part of an agenda voted on as the board or just sort of discussed informally and whether or not that makes a difference in terms of reporting out on them. >> Yeah, I you can vote on them

043and >> you should. As far as reporting out, I think a good practice is when you're superintendent is reporting out on the district goals, then maybe you take that opportunity if you have a president's report to report out on the board goals. I don't think those came from thin air, I think. >> No, they they didn't come from thin air. They came from I think our last goound and they were sort of they they were surfaced from there. What I wasn't what I was unclear about is whether or not they had to be or were officially proclaimed and voted on at any point or just mutually agreed upon. I know we >> I don't remember if it was actually like a >> vote vote like you know roll call or anything I think but we

044>> it was discussed as a board. >> Yes. Right. >> Correct. >> And at least there was no one saying >> no no no I don't I don't want that. We kind of >> with oursel >> we congealed around. So you consensus >> I just don't recall >> either one way or another it was all recommended like what we recommended and it was compiled and said this is what the top goals were there was more yeah there was a few more >> and then we just we just tweaked the wording I think that was the discussion of the how how it was worded. So, I would argue we we we did adopt them as a board. I'm just not sure if it was vote, >> right? >> That's what I was just trying to get

045at. Yeah. >> Okay. >> So, you could always do that going forward. Talk about them and then you can put them on the agenda, >> your district goals, and you can all approve them if you do your board goals at the same time as your district goals. But some boards do them separate. Some boards do their board goals in January for reorg and some boards do them over the summer and have them aligned with their district goals throughout the school year. But again, you have to do what's best for your board. >> Actually, I see there was a fourth one on the second page, operational efficiency and infrastructure. >> Yep. So, I will share this out with the entire board just so that everybody has it. Um, and thank you for the tip of, you

046know, um, making it a habit of of commenting on or reporting out on those because I think that helps keep it present. >> Sometimes they get lost. Board members come on, sometimes boards forget about them. So, it's it's good to >> report out on them periodically and just have that be part of your agenda planning calendar. >> Even even though and when I think of like each month, I know Dr. Burgess usually gives us some updates relatives to some of the strategic plan things like that. Uh his newslet his weekly updates um will often have either the language of the goal or the reference to the goal kind of in items in there as well. Um which I recognize does keep them present but also can easily make them invisible at the same time simply

047because you you you see them over and over. >> Any other questions? All right. Well, thank you. We always end with a thank you for everything that you do for your school and your district and your community and your students. So, I wish you the best of luck. I know it's a very difficult budget year this year, but I wish you the absolute best of luck as you try to do the best you can for your students. I hope to see some of you next week at the county meeting, which is April 30th. Right, Tara? Yes. So, I hope to see you at the county meeting next week. And then of course workshop registration is open and we have a lot of amazing professional development opportunities that are being planned and in the works. So

048we hope we'll see you there in October as well. And then I hope to see all of you again soon at a board meeting. So good luck. Have a great meeting. It was nice to see you all again. You're welcome. Any questions? Anything that you think of tonight I should have asked. Always feel free to reach out. >> You're welcome. >> I did not have a question. >> Yes. and and tell me that we can't discuss it and I'm actually not looking for the why, but do we have any expected board members? >> Not that I'm aware of, but I know with new folks in the self-reporting I because that would be Kathy, correct us if I'm wrong in terms of colle conflicted board members. It's generally relations with uh district employees who are >>

049the most Yeah, the most common Well, I'll let your board attorney answer that question if he wants to. We always advise you check with your board attorney. But yeah, most commonly it's you have a relative working in the district. >> And if you need the chart, >> let me know. I will send you the chart. >> Yeah. >> Jonathan, >> it can be others. I mean, it's it's uh in the context of what you're describing with respect to evaluation in the district. Yes. it's family membership as you all know we've done collective bargaining or other interests perhaps it could be something else so just it's it's a case by case and the school less commission has done a sufficient job is making as confusing as possible and keeping us uh in making a living so

050you can let us know if you have questions on that going forward >> thank you >> all right thanks Kathy >> thanks >> uh all right um we have our working session we're at the part of the meeting for our public hearing and adoption of the 2020 26 27 school year budget which is actually the official public presentation is next week. Um but we do have some updates and information as that moves along. So uh at this point Katie I'll kind of turn to you to kind of tell us where we are in the process uh what details are firming up and and sort of next steps as well and then what to anticipate for next week. >> Of course. So at the last meeting the board adopted the preliminary budget. single county office immediately

051with all the documentation supporting all the budgeted numbers. They took their time to review and we went back and forth with them a little bit last week. They do a common question and answer period with us. Um and they do have submitted their or approval with us for the budget. So we are now approved by the executive county superintendent and business administrator. So now it is our turn to take it back and finish our presentation, firm up all of the tax rate and schedules so that we can um finish the budget presentation for next week for again this is a public presentation to um the public in general, not necessarily for the board. So it's going to be aimed at um the public next week. So as far as everything else, we will advertise our

052budget this week. Now again, we do not have newspaper advertisements anymore. So it will be posted on our website. So the budget will be advertised on our district website as well as the presentation next week. We'll post that on the website after that's finalized. >> In terms of since the audience sort of shifts from the board to the public um for folks who are new and I know each year there's sort of the presentation that goes with it. What are are there typical components of the presentation or what can folks who are new sort of expect about some of the additional details and information? >> We'll reiterate some of the same topics that we've had for the past few months, but we'll also be a little bit higher level so that we can reiterate some

053of the um components but also keep it um understandable and make sure everyone understands um the different pieces of the budget, especially the tax section. Um being a regional district and the 12 municipalities, it is a little bit confusing how that changes each year. Um it is based on the equalized valuation of the town and the number of students that are attending from each town. So that weighs into the calculation of the tax base. So that'll just be something that I make sure I cover next year. And I know um I know this year we've been operating a little bit differently which actually I think addresses one of our goals on communication in terms of uh the presentations that you've been doing over the past couple of months getting them up onto the district website

054uh if so that they can be viewed. I believe Dr. Burgess has them linked or the site linked in here tonight as well. I know there was also the addition of the um document uh that is sort of explaining your tax bill as well which >> that was the that was the latest thing that I um did add to that website which is basically looking at your tax bill and being able to interpret and um me and Brendan had a lot of discussions revolving around this um just so that people understood that while our tax levy is going up you know 4.29% um that doesn't mean your tax bill goes up 4.29% 29% you know there are quite a few components in your tax bill and if anyone had a chance to look at what

055was posted um the easiest way I can explain it out of all the documentation was for every dollar that your tax money goes to um 45 cents of it goes to the K8 district 22 cents goes to our regional district um 18 cents goes to municipal services like police DPW and admin and then 15 cents of it goes to Hunter County which is our parks and roads and recreation things that nature. So, um you know when people talk about school taxes that is the biggest part of their tax bill but our portion of that school tax portion is anywhere between and those calculations as well um yeah anywhere between 20% so depending on which municipality you come from um 20% of your tax bill could be to the K8 or I'm sorry to the high

056school and 80% goes to the K8 and then on a higher end it was um 45% actually went to um the high school and 55% went to the K8. So again, it's depending on the size. A lot of times, you know, Glen Gardner Burrow is going to be a lot different than Clinton Township just based on size. >> But when you're talking about those percentages of 45 and 55%, 55 from the K, 45 from the regional, that still is just the educational portion of your tax bill, which tends to be around 23ish >> about 70%. >> Yeah. Somewhere of the the total tax bill. And then I know you had some information in there also. You sort of gave an example of if you're in Clinton Township and your home's valuation is this. Uh there's

057actually a way to sort of see what that what that translates to for you in terms of your tax bill like what percentages or in approximate dollars that are going to for each of those. See, I went down a little bit of a rabbit hole one day where um you know, I live in Kingwood, so I went to Kingwood Township's web page and I can see my tax bill and I view it all the time because I have to pay my taxes and they they're not scripted through my mortgage so I have to go on and pay them. So, I get to see what they provide and I was like, well, I'm sure everybody has that. So, I started looking at different townships in our footprint to see what is there. And it's very interesting.

058It's quite different. Um, some towns really hide or I shouldn't say hide, but they protect, you know, the information of their residents on what they pay for their taxes and others all you need to know is someone's last name. Put someone's last name in and find out exactly what they paid, whether or not they're in rears for the taxes, whether or not, you know, what their assessment is. It's it's, you know, it's just interesting from a um open information um perspective what you can get from some towns and the other. So, I did find one in our footprint. Um, and I put a sample tax bill there just so people could see that breakdown. Hopefully, even if I couldn't get to the information in your town, I'm sure you could if you log in somehow

059or do something. But, you know, it really breaks it down from the county tax perspective. And that includes, you know, they break it down even a little bit closer. County tax, county library tax, county open space tax. Then it has the district school tax. And when you see district school tax, that's the terminology they use to say for your K8. So, when they say district, that's K8. And then the next one is regional school tax which is your 912. So Arch charge and then it breaks it down for local municipal. This one had a higher tax. So some places will have some different tax there. And that's kind of yeah and that's where I saw that information and I guess next week Katie when it comes to the final tax aortionment of everything can you

060just talk a little bit about what that is and sort of what what helps shape and determine that? >> So the A4Fs that are generated out of the budget software for each municipality gives us the tax rate based on the amount of taxes that we need to assess for each municipality. So we take our total budget number and then that gives a portion to each municipality based on again that assessed value and the number of students attending from that municipality. I take that information I put it into a worksheet and then I try to come up with well I do come up with um school tax um for 2627 I then have to break it out into 2025 versus 2026 calendar year. So I kind of go through a process of putting that into a

061worksheet and coming up with the school tax rate for the calendar year after generating the um fiscal year for the school year >> and the because those two variables I guess the total tax uh taxes on the municipality and the port and the number of students that they're sending to the district because those change every year there's a there's a different there could be the instance where there typically is um some municipalities you your tax rate will go up because we are raising taxes. However, there are some that are actually going down because the number of students is decreasing or the number the amount of the assessed value is going up in certain townships and then that makes some of the other townships look low and then they'll actually have a reduction in taxes even

062though we're raising the total tax levy >> because those other variables >> because of the other variables moving down. Great. >> And then I know there was a question I think um Dr. Veres, you've provided either some information about the whole concept of equalized value as well as being one of those things where um because municipalities reassess on different schedules. Um my understanding is it's an effort to sort of keep everyone as equitable and current as possible. >> Yeah. So, originally I had thought it was the it was the assessed value um based on what the towns do. Um and um and I think a lot of people um believe that was the case and and it was one of these things that's you know especially in an area that has as many districts as

063we do that it's like well that town isn't doing their due diligence and they're not paying what they should be because there they haven't reassessed in 20 years. Um whereas my town did. Um and then we found out that's not the case. It is um the county actually looks at the equalized value and it's when when you look at the county documents and you look at our equalized value that we get out of the budget software it's not exact and at first I'm one of those people that when it comes to numbers it has to be exact but I mean it was within like five to $35 of you know equalized value. So it was very close but I'm sure there are some different calculations you can use there. So, it's equalized value, which means

064that everybody is paying their fair share based on what the um homes are worth in that area according to the county tax officials, not versus the municipalities on when they last did their assessment. >> Um, other questions or right and then Mel. >> Okay. >> It sounds like um rather than what you've been trying to get out a lot of this presentation is this I'll call the so wet for the individual taxpayer. you can will the individual taxpayer get the context of right >> taxes may go up may go down you know all depends on a lot of different things or several different things >> but the presentation will also have the justification for this 4.3 or two that that kind of does that the whole >> look at the healthare >> how did we

065>> okay okay because yeah that's that's I think the First really important step is why are we getting to four 29 >> 4.3 >> Yeah. And then the nuances like what that doesn't mean your tax is going to go up by four. It's >> it may go up by different numbers. Even even the the high school district piece of it will go up. But now that's only a little piece of this bigger thing. Okay. >> Your whole tax bill is not going up by 4.29%. A certain portion of it. 22% if it's that if that was the you know and again it varies but it's around that right and that's >> and it's all a little >> you never really know >> we don't know how much anybody's tax bill is going to go up

066it's just that we can say with assurityity it's not all on our >> yeah shoulders that it goes up by >> right and it's not your whole tax bill you know somebody shouldn't get in their head oh I pay x amount of taxes and then do it times 4 you know 4.3 and that's it's going to be on only a portion of your taxes. I think it's also another >> Yeah. And you can I mean I was using the document that's posted to the website. I just sort of personally ran it for myself where you can look at the uh value per $100 of house value and figure out what portion what what dollar value of your taxes you are paying to the regional high school and then what an increase actually translates to. >>

067Mar. >> Yes. Um to follow up with Brian's comment about um why we're at 4.3 or 4 4.29. Certainly we had an open meeting when we compared 2% and and what cuts would need to be made if that's what we were going to do versus what we ultimately wound up with. But I'm wondering because I think that that goes a long way to transparency to the public and I think the public is going to hold does hold the board accountable around this issue. is that information um might that be reiterated if we felt during the presentation there was a need for that? >> Do you mean as part of a formal presentation or as discussion around the presentation? >> I well I mean I I would defer to those who do it uh every year.

068>> I'm open I'm open to suggestions. I typically wouldn't reiterate that, but if you'd like that to be a slide that we incorporate, I can do that. So, but if I'm understanding what you said, Merryill, correctly, there's this idea of um we looked at different options here and and one of them would have meant um additional cuts to the tune of x amount of dollars uh potential programs or or implications of of what further cuts would have potentially meant. >> Yes. So, so the public knows why we're at 4. >> Got it. and why we agreed to 4.3 and not something less, >> right? Okay. >> Yeah. I mean, yeah, I can roll it into just our budget goals, right? And I think that um our budget goals are are very um I know they're

069in the presentation and those budget goals are what really drives what we want to keep and what we're willing to cut, right? And and again, those budget goals are driven by our strategic plan, which was driven by our community input. So, you know, there's much bigger picture. So we can make sure we incorporate that to the presentation as well. >> Uh Brian, >> um I'm not advocating for this to be in a presentation, but I wonder conversation. Um so we we kind of are in the weeds, you know, as a board we need to be in the weeds of this. Is the public aware just how many of other school districts that are facing this kind of do you think? >> I mean, are there people who who would Joe or Jane on the street

070would know that Oh, there's people who are raising taxes by 40% or 30% or whatever it is. >> I mean, >> or is that just because I live this in this? >> I think and I mean certainly, you know, I think there's a certain we have a perspective on this simply because of our proximity to the work. I think in many cases and I know and I'm going to comment in a little bit and Andrew and I attended the u the board president vice president roundt. We had that since the last meeting and we heard from all of our uh sending districts and the range of percentages that they were um uh going to be raising. Uh and you're right, you know, it's a much bigger picture than it is just of of us. But

071um I think we all sort of recognize in the room by virtue of the positions we're in um we have a deeper understanding than I think the the I know my neighbors sometimes when I talk about it um you know they don't and they're not they're not looking very closely and maybe a question comes up and I can clarify um and I mean I would just use by way of an example we've been we've been posting those video presentations over the past couple of months um and I'm I'm no web traffic expert but based on YouTube views um it's not skyrocketing uh in ter you know and it's even making the information available and um I could see uh you know whether we at a future communication on the other side of this process maybe

072seek to clarify you know some of what comes out of that as well uh just for those who are interested and want to learn and and understand a little bit deeper to be able to explain where we are why we are uh and some of the bigger picture challenges that are there uh and certainly refer them back to the other resources we have. I mean we have heard from some folks who have looked at those and and actually thanked us for them. Um but I would say the sheer views on it don't give you the sense that um you know that it's it's a lot of traffic >> and I know in the mainstream media it's this has been an issue that's around New Jersey over the last few months. There's been news segments on

073some of the districts that are having to slash teachers disclose schools and all that. So, it's out there. But I have a real quick question, Katie. Um, so when we look at declining enrollment and then they can figure out the allocation per each district on how many students they're sending, what happens in school year, say we have big developments going on. I pass them all the time. Like what if you we get an influx from one or two towns of, you know, a dozen or more students. Does that impact their tax rate? Not until next year. >> Not until they do the recalculation and it's at 10:15 each year, October 15. >> All right. Yeah. I'm just curious because we have so many big developments coming. >> I I know ahead and I have had

074this discussion too that some of the projects that are going up are um you know, pilot projects and we're not sure which ones are and which ones aren't, but for those that aren't familiar with a pilot is a payment in lie of taxes. Um and so basically a developer can come in and negotiate with the municipality um or a um building project and say we'll pay you x amount of dollars per year for x amount of years um but we don't pay any property taxes and right now the way the law is written um is that the school does not is not entitled to a percentage of that payment. So property taxes then for everybody else has to go up you know at some point it has to be raised to to absorb those students

075that are coming from those areas. So, um I know Brendan and I are going to work on some um trying to figure out what projects are pilot projects in the area. Um and then at least we have a have an idea of what we're dealing with at that point. I know you had some experience with >> Yeah. And I only shared that because on my prior board experience with one of the developments that was coming in, the municipality did engage the school board um about that project. Um, and that's essentially when I learned about what they were and how they worked and how traditionally the schools are more or less usually cut out of that process and the money is guaranteed to the municipality and then invariably you have students who move into those units

076who attend the school and the school is not getting a portion of the payment that the town is making to the municipality in some cases upwards of 30 years. Um, and I know we've begun to talk a little bit about, and we actually have a sample resolution, uh, that Tara worked on tonight. Um, it's one of those things where as a board, um, in in many of these instances, we're learning the ways that we are limited and our hands are tied. There are expenses that are moving, uh, raising that are absolutely beyond our control. Um last meeting we talked a little bit about the funding formula and the lack of transparency and the the lack of actual funding of the funding formula and um hence something like a resolution to sort of um say something

077back to Trenton about just the the unfairness of that. Um and the other thing to potentially brooach is um how we are liazing with our municipalities um and are there opportunities for conversations when we have a greater understanding about what projects are coming in, what potential pilot projects are in discussion and is there an opportunity for us to have conversation with municipalities to see that as those kinds of projects um happen or go forward. Uh is there an opening for us to um for lack of a better word be dealt in on the the aortionment of some of that as those deals are brokered >> or for those those elected officials to be held accountable when their constituents's tax burden um is not shared by the property that they bought that they brought in. And

078I'm imagining there's some special overarching policy or reason when a a town can agree with a builder to allow that and maybe we don't want to have a board discussion around that. But >> yeah, in as much as I understood it from the last go around, it's mostly incentives for the builders so that um they're not looking that it's a financial incentive for them to invest into the project and it's sort of a trade-off that they will not be paying the full freight of the kinds of taxes that they would otherwise have to pay to the municipality. And so that sort of sweetens the deal for the builder and the advantage for the municipality is they are usually the sole recipient of of a lot of that. Uh and the schools are sort of cut

079out of the deal. Uh despite the fact that students, you know, will live there and ultimately attend the school. I know when there were some conversations in Clinton about new development going up, um I worked with the superintendent so that we could actually just get a sense of um how many current students we had coming from various projects. And it it gives you a a more tangible sense of what the burden of something like that is. It also gives you a sense because a lot of times when demographic studies are done or building projections are done, they will often estimate the number of anticipated students that you might see, those numbers really kind of run the gamut. They're they're they don't always hold true in different ways for for in different perspectives on that. And

080at this point, Jonathan, I'm going to turn to you. Your hand was already up. So, thank you because I was going to say, please check my math on any of this. >> So, I think one of the things that's important uh as you're talking about things is is you know this is this we get this in a lot of our districts concerns by school board members about the impact of pilots on you know the school age and you know it's it's a very controversial topic throughout New Jersey because the statute did at one time from what I understand have a requirement for contribution to school districts or at least a a an opportunity for contribution to school districts and that was carved out surprise by surprise with the members of the legislature who are often

081not coming from the schoolboard world in some cases until a couple years ago were actually both municipal officials and simultaneously uh members of the state legislature. But without the commentary in general, you know, it's a it's an issue, but it's also important to just keep this in mind generally speaking that the idea of pilots are is to get land moving. Land that may otherwise sit there. Some of it in some cases is, you know, polluted property and maybe not as much in this part of the state, but in other places it's, you know, there's a lot of stagnant land in New Jersey. So the design was listen and the municipality will shoot back every time. They'll tell you this wouldn't happen if it weren't for a pilot. So you'd be lucky to get anything left

082that way. But yes, if you feel strongly uh and you think you can make the argument, I I I would always rather be on the school board side of that argument with the community because, you know, people know that it it does eventually cost money to educate kids. On the other hand, you know, you'll see the back and forth of debate and on the other hand, municipal officials tend to be a little bit more political than the school board officials. So, you end up in that sort of back and forth if you end up there. But it is a really really controversial topic. You're not the only ones wrestling with it. And uh it's something that I'd be happy to talk more about, you know, with Rich and your team as as as you move

083forward to the extent you need some support. >> But I know and I'm and I'm only touching upon it in the sense that some of the conversation here uh and kind of going back to that board goal about building community, we have had some loose discussion about the ways that we might better liaz with the municipalities. And you don't know if you know just by virtue of interaction and presence uh there's opportunity for dialogue there. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I think I asked this question last week about we did this study, demographic study previously and how often that happens. But I think it's really important that we do interact with the towns. Um you know Leonard Township there's not any development hybrid there is. Right. Right. And so >> you know

084I've I've gone to the meetings I've talked to people and you know the current mayor has said sure you can have a seat at the table but current mayor is not going to be the next mayor when that happens. So like but I think it's something we should seriously consider if not us going to you know saying yes we will go to meetings every once in a while and >> be that representation. >> Yeah. >> Just so they see us they reminded >> and I don't know you know now that we're coming into sort of um the end of one year and the beginning of another year and something like board goals becomes a topic that's up for discussion again. Um it might be an opportunity for us to focus in on those types of

085things whether it's you know what kind of legislative pressure or you know board pressure can be brought to Trenton as regards funding what kind of liazing with municipalities at least gives us some voice on those dimensions of um school costs um that we really we're not active in right now or there's an opportunity to become active. I don't know what happens at the end of the day and I'm sure there's people who will tell you, you know, you can go go, you know, go howl away at these folks and nothing may change. Um, but I think there might be some some merit in at least um trying to make that good faith effort to explore those avenues. And if that's a topic that the board sees as goalworthy going forward, we can certainly figure out

086what that might look like and how to sort of um take action in those directions. Other comments or questions as we prepare for next week? >> We're just still on budget. I just want to um you know, I know I shared this with all of you through one of my updates, but uh for the public's um information as well, you know, there is something called the taxpayers's guide to education spending on the Department of Education website. Um it's just you can get all the data on all the spending for every school district in New Jersey and do comparisons and look at things. Um and you know so and and they break it down into luckily for us into things like just high school districts. Then you can take what high school districts have more than

087one high school in it. How many have you know some districts high school districts have five, some have two, some have one. And you know so breaking down that data and comparing it comparatively to um a district like ours that runs two distinct high schools, you know, with you know x amount of um revenue, you know, that's it. It's great to compare that um to other places across the state. So, and some of the things I shared with the board, you know, I that's where I get that data from. I just want you to be aware. Um, sometimes a little dated. It's, you know, like sometimes the last data you get is 23 24 school year. So, it feels like a long time ago. That usually gets updated sometime in the next couple months. So,

088then we'll see the 24th 25 school year, which by that point will feel old as well. But, at least it gets to show you some trends and it gets you to do some comparative data analysis. And then I guess as we go forward with any of this and maybe even including that um as possible additions as links to our website where we're trying to be just uh provide more information I think would be great. Uh anything else that anybody questions or comments on? So then uh we'll have the official presentation next week um and obviously vote on it next week. Uh we are honoring in this moment as we will again next week an opportunity for public comment because we present the budget. The public will get an opportunity to comment. Um so I guess

089this is sort of practice for next week. Um that we are at that point in the agenda. Um during this portion of the meeting, the public is invited to address the the board with comments on the 2627 school year budget. You're requested to sign the register provided and to state your name, municipality, residence, group affiliation if applicable, and direct your comments to the school board president. Do we have anyone this evening who would like to make comments? >> You in the back? >> All right. Like I said, it's practice practice. All right. Um All right. So, we are moving on to the chief school administrators report. So again, typically I've been waiting to do my full report at the um action session. So next Tuesday you'll hear a lot more from me. I was going

090to talk a little bit about the budget information website that I link there, but I think I already covered that unless there's any other questions. So you more than that question, right? >> Um so I was looking at the the monthly report and I was just wondering if there's an opportunity for additional information that might be useful. Um, namely we have a, you know, detailed withdrawals with a historical withdrawals for the year, but we don't have a historical of enrollments for the year. So, I'm not seeing like I see that we lost 80 students over the school year. I don't know how many we gained over the school year. So, I'm wondering if that might be something we could add if that's useful. If other people might think that useful. >> So, you're talking about

091the chart at the bottom of the second page on the lower left, correct? where there's the codes, the number of students for this month, and then historical >> and is that supposed to be just the past year? >> Yeah, that's the historical dates from July one of last year according to the top. >> Um, so that's >> Yeah, we can look at how many students come in just to see for trending. >> Absolutely. >> Um, the other thing I noticed on this which I just want clarification on and I think I know it is but I'm not sure. There's one um withdrawal with his uh D5 economic necessity entered employment. I assume that's an 18-year-old who decided to leave school because they need to go get a job. >> Yes. And sometimes they'll give us

092that information so we code it correctly. Sometimes, you know, they just quit school or leave school and don't finish it. >> Disheartening to see that three months before the end of the year. And I'm just wondering I I assume we offer some type of like understand what's going on. here are your options to complete your GD type of stuff. >> Yeah, there's a long process that goes into it before anybody um actually gets a sign out. I mean, Mike, do you want to chime in on any of this? I mean, one one of the things I I know I've always done um is make sure the students and the parents have plenty of counseling, plenty of resources, they understand what um help we can give them. We connect them with county services, municipal services. Um

093any ways that we can keep that kid in schools, you know, we do. Um there are times that students just don't want to do it and sometimes um parents, you know, don't think that's what's in the best interest of their students either. That's why the arguments parent >> feel like it's better for their child to go out more. >> There are a number of things that factors that that go into a student that might withdraw at this point. Um we do meet with them individually um and offer them and link them to community resources uh depending on their situation. Uh It obviously is disheartening to see a student that is so close. Um, but it's hard to tell exactly what the individual student is experiencing, but we do offer them um, you know, meetings with

094the counselors. We offer them resources and and again linkages to anything that we can to help them um, you know, be as successful as possible with their next steps. >> Great. Uh and then one other thing about the the historical enrollment piece from earlier and I should have said this before um and you may not have it but the reason for enrollment might be good as well move into district or leaving a private school you know just so we can see those same trends. >> Yeah. If we were going to what I would try to do is duplicate the chart there's same um state codes that we use when people come in transferred from school within state out of state private school things of that nature. So we try to do all those codes. >>

095Thank you. >> Yeah, we we really when we get enrollments though, we we don't record the same information like you know often it's just because they moved into the district, you know, um we really don't record that in the system. When when we have a withdrawal, we have to put a transfer code in there, but when we're receiving them, it's usually just because they moved into our district. We don't really record any specifics about the reason behind that rule. >> Yeah, I'll expand on the reason why. You know, there are some people in my district who think that there are people leaving the school in droves to go to be homeschooled for reasons. >> I don't know. And if we record that there are people leaving to be homeschooled, >> but we're not recording that

096people are coming from homeschooling in, >> it may look like that is a trend. >> Yeah. So, I'm just wondering if we can, you know, more information the better. I don't want to make a ton of work, but I'd just like to see. >> Yeah. Let me see what we can do. Absolutely. >> Okay. Anything else? >> Uh, no, that's it. No questions. All right. Um, on my report, we have a couple of things here. one. The first one is the uh resolution that Tara had worked on uh requesting greater transparency, predictability, and full funding of the New Jersey school funding formula. So hopefully uh you had a chance to look at that. Uh I don't know if the specifics of it sort of the language resonates, it makes sense and if it's something that

097we think we can vote on next week and sort of move on. Uh this would be the opportunity if there was any sort of changes, amendments or revisions that anybody would suggest. >> So we Tara and yourself drafted this. >> Uh it was really I have to give Tara the credit. She sort of was I think motivated on our conversation last month but did the research and and pulled it together. >> Right. That's thank you Tara. >> So my question would just be there's some piece of it that's the kind of like here's the complexity trend you know where a a few whereas paragraphs that I would just want to make sure at least what I remember being explained to me but it I wouldn't want those to be technically wrong. So, are they Have

098you had a chance to look at it? >> I'd like to go through it in greater detail now that our budget's approved. I can spend a little bit more time just to review and make sure that I agree with everyone >> as far as the language. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> As a as a resolution, >> the credibility will will drop if if it's well, you know, that's not actually how it's driven. It may be how we kind of understand it as layman, >> right? But um and then I think the last was that okay who we're going to put it to we're going to send it to NJSBA the delegate assembly distributed governor and members of the representative district. Got it. >> So it's very clear about who we're going to send to. >> And

099this one is comes up all the time. It's been such a common theme even on our presentations from school boards. It's very convoluted and even these experts who have been doing it are saying we need to address this. It's >> you know and the timeliness of it and also um the big part too is um you know we're not getting back what we're paying in and >> yeah I mean my personal opinion it's clear uh that something's broken or not working well. I just the suggestion that I need to take a look just to make sure it's >> technically sound so if it needs to be tweaked we can and then it carries more weight. Yeah, I did read through all the wherees. Nothing stuck out to me, but we'll make sure um things been

100>> certainly how I understand it as a layman, but some of the issues that are are >> um Okay. Anything else on that? >> We be submitting it to our uh to our municipalities, our reg, you know, our individual the governments of our or copy them. I don't know if you CC >> our local governments, but to know that, you know, >> we're concerned and we've been Yeah. doing our >> I mean, right, we're they're not obviously actors, >> right? I like more of a carbon copy. I don't know if that's a kind of also goes with our trying to be transparent and letting them know that, you know, this is what these are the tasks we're giving and we're doing the best we can. It's not like we're just nilly willy raising taxes, you

101know. >> So, I Yeah, I I would like to see that, you know, we to officially uh let our our sending municipalities know that we're we're taking a stand on this. >> You mean sending district presidents as well? >> Uh you know same thing. >> So now that we're you bring that up and actually the next item on the agenda is the board leadership round table. So uh what actually works kind of nicely there is we now have everybody's contact from all of those board leadership. So, uh, I can very easily communicate out, hey, here's a sample resolution of what we're doing. Uh, so on the March 26th, we had the, uh, president vice president roundt. If you recall, this was sort of a reconstituting of a roundt that for a number of years went

102on and then it sort of stopped in in and around COVID and uh wasn't resumed and and so um and now I think actually it matches very nicely with one of our goals of trying to uh connect with community leaz with community um we had uh good attendance all but two of our sending districts were able to have representatives there um it was an opportunity for us to sort of go around um meet who was there uh and really discuss a number of issues that we were all sort of confronting. Obviously, budgeting seasoning being upon us was a big topic of discussion. It was kind of interesting um just listening in the room that you had uh one or two districts who were coming in at that 3% range uh and some of the reserves

103that they were leveraging to be able to do that. Uh, and then we were sort of in that four and then from there it was 5 6 7 8. I can't remember if it went as high as nine. Andrew, do you recall? I think >> yes, somewhere in the eight was the the rest of it. So, uh, I can't remember who brought it up earlier. We learned very quickly um, the degrees to which we're all in very similar budgetary boats, if you will, with the challenges of of what we're doing. Um, and then there was just a number of conversations. Oh, we did brooach that we had the um the regionalization study going on uh and welcomed all of the districts to participate in that. Uh we have four of them. I think it's four

104now five because I think there was one that we caught up with like the next day who want to give us the resolution the day that we um the day after we actually submitted to state food grants, >> right? And we were sort of clear that once it's officially recognized by the state, they can still join that. So, it's sort of an open invitation and uh this was an opportunity to sort of get to know one another and um you know Andrew Andrew filled in for Tara who wasn't available. Feel free to chime in on any of the details. I would say there was there was just like a a robust but very earnest conversation about the dynamics of regionalization, what makes it possible, what makes it challenging, uh the considerations why districts would be

105find it attractive versus districts that would not find it attractive. Um and I would say that was I I think probably the biggest part of our conversation at night. Um there was also then uh a desire a to continue meeting. So we're hoping to have at least one more meeting before the end of the year and sort of keep this going. But there were some smaller discussions about the desire to have exploratory conversations whether it's among administrative administrations or further among boards about um if there's funds or monies out there that might be pulled or leveraged advantageously from professional development, coordinated professional development efforts. uh conversations around title funds around uh health pools. Like off the top of my head, Katie, I don't know how many folks are in the same health um this shift

106that we're in. Um and you know, whether there's other explorations there, things like transportation, things like um special ed transportation. Um these are the things that particularly smaller districts um are are bigger pressure points I think for them and um recogni recognizing that um even if regionalization is a long-term study or a study a conversation that never even happens um there are ways that there will be continued interest in in sort of exploring the pooling of those kinds of resources. Um so very much >> we're actually doing that now with some training monies, right? We are the um title 2 consortium um and we have something called the 100 county ESC which is the services commission that services um a lot of shared service functions for the county and that's one of the things that

107we're actually going to be doing this coming year is pulling all of our resources and using that for districtwide footprint um special >> right and I think that that was um cast as a bait for some of the districts that may not be interested in regalization or not off the top, off the, you know, off the cuff. Um, being like, well, we're already doing this and see we're benefiting from it. So, like, let's baby steps instead of being like all in, right? Some districts want to join do this, you know, right now, right, >> because they're struggling. No, there's don't want to do it because they're not struggling. But if they can see the benefit >> in small cases, they might be able to see the benefit. The title too is like professional development in

108the um articulation things that Rich is going to talk about tonight. You know, um that was one of the things I I I heard other superintendent saying, you know, well, if we're going to hire a breeding specialist come in and train on this program, it would be nice if everybody in our footprint could participate in that. That's where ESC can coordinate a trainer, invite everybody in, spend the money once instead of spending it two or three times, and then get more bang for the buck. And I think um you know one of the things I would make clear is us in certainly hosting the meeting and facilitating the conversation uh we sort of articulated that the regionalization study we saw it as simply due diligence and a responsibility on our part to be looking at

109actively looking at options and opportunities that are there. Um and uh you know understanding that sometimes districts might be hesitant that even participation is signaling intent. Um and uh recognizing that it's a long process uh I think we were just trying to convey that idea that we are we're happy to look at all options opportunities and explorations that are out there. But to Andy's point uh yes I think we have some districts who are very eager or would be very eager to move in that direction and then similarly you have districts who would be very hesitant to move in that direction and the reasons are as varied as you could imagine. >> Ryan, >> can you update us on the status of the study. You you you you may have used the words loosely, but

110you said it started. >> Well, we have our submission in. So, >> the school regionalization efficiency program um is the grant has been submitted. Um we actually submitted that about a month ago and then two weeks into it, they came back and said we need a couple more documents which is all the resolutions that all the boards have passed. We had to compile all that, upload that. That was all submitted two weeks ago and now we're waiting to hear. It says application review. >> Okay. >> So the application has been submitted to the state as soon as we hear from them that is approved or not approved anymore. >> So the study is not started yet. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> And even when we get approved for the grant u the next

111process will be um typically going out for an RFP for a vendor that will then take on this project. Right. The vendor will take on the project and that's what this grant will pay for. pay vendor to do the study, do all the due diligence to collect all the information, make recommendations for all boards to review, determine what they they like what they see, if they don't like what they see, and and there'll probably be more than one recommendation. It'll probably be multiple paths that we can move in. Um, you know, regionalization might be one thing, like one K12 region, right, for all of our municipalities. Another one could be a K12 region for the 40s footprint or K12 region for North Hunter footprint. Um, another one could be a 712, you know, regionalization thing

112where, you know, we elementary schools maintain their elementary schools in each individual area, but then we have a a shared middle school kind of environment. Um, or it could just come up with things that say here's what we recommend you do with shared services. You're not going to save any money. And you know, educationally, when it comes to money, and we talk a lot about money because it's budget season, but the the the biggest reason to do this is for the purpose of education, not necessarily for um >> you know, savings >> savings. Um there hopefully there will be some fiscally some fiscal savings as well, but the the real reason is for educational continuity, making sure that the curriculum is the same for all of our students going K to 12 all the way

113up through um their entire career education group. >> Well, and I think one of the things you hear about is the difficulty with our K8s depending on their size um whether it's programs offerings and and opportunities some have that or don't have depending on really the the size and recognition that there are educational and uh experiences that can be leveraged differently across a larger footprint. I'm stepping all over Rich Broom's toes because he's doing on articulation tonight. He's probably over here going, "Well, >> let me just ask. We're going to have these conversations for many months, years, maybe, but is it possible to have a K through 12 district that has additionally some sending districts that are that only send in after high for high school? I don't know an exact answer to that. I

114believe it is because there are plenty of areas I know that are K12s that had other schools pay tuition to come to them, right? And so yes, I think it is possible. I don't know in our current status how to get from point that where we're at to that point. I don't know. And I think it's a lot of groups that don't really do that. >> Okay. Anything else? Um All right. Um everything else is is pretty much just updates. We have obviously our annual budget hearing and regular board meeting next week, April 28th. >> Uh I'm sorry. >> Oh, right. We're going to be meeting at 6:00 for um HIP hearing uh before the meeting. The meeting itself ideally would start at 7 the official meeting. >> Yeah. So, right. >> Our idea would

115we'll start a public meeting at 6 um and then go into public session or executive session. Yeah, >> do the hidden hearing and then come out hopefully around 7. If we come out before 7, it's up to the board whether they want to start before 7 or wait until 7:00 to start. >> So, that's something if you can let Rich know um about that availability, we can factor that into next week. Uh and then we have graduation season upon us. uh the dates for um where he's in north June 16th 9 and 10:30 a.m. respectively. Now uh for those of you who are new um I can't remember the order in which sort of the communications begin that you have the opportunity to participate in the graduation um and uh there are even coordinated that

116if you're aspiring to to be in both you can um start at Vorhees get some coordinated transportation to come here for the 10:30 um kickoff as well. Um, beyond that, I know there's communication about things like roads and hoods and stuff like that as well. >> There'll be a ton of communications regarding graduation coming out, but yeah, the general idea is that for board members that want to participate in both ceremonies, we usually have we arrange for a bus to pick us up here. Um, um, you know, usually around 8:00, 8:15, we leave, go to Borhees, everybody gets ready, has a few refreshments, and then we get to the Borhees ceremony. We go through the boarding ceremony and then as soon as that's done, we beline to the bus, jump on the bus, they run

117us back down here, we get off, march on to Nordsfield and they're usually just about to start at that point and then North graduation start. So it's a hectic morning but it's a great morning. You can participate in both. It's it's really something um to see because both schools >> do a phenomenal job with their graduations. Um they're both a little different though and you can see a flavor with each but it's really interesting to see what they do. And then I don't know does anybody have a student graduating this year? So some really unique having experienced it myself it's a phenomenal opportunity to to be on the field when that happens. Exactly. >> There'll be special invitations out to you to talk about you know what you would like >> as part of that.

118>> Yeah. >> Okay. So more information to come on that. >> Uh all right. So we have actually our uh regular 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 of residents, 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 schoolboard 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 minutes to speak and no one will be permitted to speak

119more 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. Do we have any members of the audience who would like to speak at this time? Okay, moving on. uh curriculum instruction technology. Uh we have Rich Brown, director of curriculum uh presenting on articulation and a achievement. >> Good evening everybody. I was uh glad to hear such a great conversation about articulation to uh give a little preview to what we're going to be talking about today. Um so so my title is director of curriculum articulation and student achievement. So often we talk about the student achievement part and the

120the curriculum part but I thought it would be good to talk about the articulation part uh today to give you a little taste of what we look at for articulation and what we do with articulation. So there's two areas I really wanted to focus on. One is why is articulation important and then how do we go about articulating and we can answer and ask questions throughout. So please feel free to, you know, ask questions at any point. Yes, >> you're working with definition of articulation. It's not how well you're pronouncing words, right? >> No, that is one definition for articulation, but in a school sense, the way that I look at it is a way to provide a smooth and continuous educational experience for students. So really, we try to work together. You know, we

121have the the way I always look at it is we used to have nine middle schools. Now with Bloomsberry attending, we have 10 middle schools and we have two K5 districts that send to one of those 10. So we have 13 districts in total. And the articulation part is really looking at them all as being interconnected and trying to work together to help to have a smooth transition for the students throughout their career in education. Is it if this was a K through 12 district with no 70 districts? Would you would you keep that in your title, would there still be a great question because when I so I used to >> work in a K12 district and you know those articulations that took place were between the buildings. >> So yeah, it's just a

122different different kind. >> It gets even more complicated. Vertical articulation. >> Yes. between horizontal from grade level >> probably horizontal >> ed just making sure everybody's you know on the same page >> thank you for >> starting with that question yes that's a very important part so when we look at that articulation we look for curricular alignment we look for instructional calibration um these are all kinds of things that we talk about through the articulation process process and I'll I'll show you some of the things that we do um to do this. Uh obviously the gap reduction, you know, there's a lot of conversations and identifying areas where students are struggling within individual subject areas or in a more global sense so we can talk about some areas that we might need to focus on

123um to help reduce those gaps. The goal from our perspective, the high school district perspective, is that we want to be able to support students from the first day that they get here. You know, think about it. um you know if we get a student here and we don't know anything about that student and we don't know anything about their education then it might take us a marking period to find out wow this student is struggling they need some support. So throughout all of these discussions that we're going to be talking about here our goal is to be able to to know the student who's coming in as soon as they get here to be able to give them the supports they need to be successful from day one. That's really our goal. And then

124a lot of our articulation with the sending districts comes in the form of professional development. We already talked about, you know, trying to use title two funds to help facilitate uh professional development among all of these districts as well. So there's really three main areas through which we do this articulation. There are and I'll talk about each of these in detail after this. There are regular superintendent meetings, there are subject area articulation meetings and other ones that I'll talk about. And then we also have our teacher coaches. So those are the three main vehicles that we use to help facilitate um articulation. So the superintendents do meet monthly um I think it's this Friday is the next one. So and it's been really good turnouts uh for those meetings uh where they discuss topics that

125are relevant to that time period. A lot of discussions about budgets recently um discussions about using title 2 funds for professional development those kinds of things. But every month they also talk about shared services. You know what? If if there's a district that has a need for an art teacher, but maybe maybe not a full-time art teacher, maybe they need a part-time art teacher, and there's another district that's interested in a part-time art teacher. So, those discussions have brought about a lot of shared services, um where, you know, for example, if there's a a world language teacher that they only need two days a week or something like that, it's really hard to find somebody to fill those positions. But if they're able able to work together and maybe hire a full-time person and share

126them among districts, they're, you know, it's a it's a much easier position to fill in that sense. A lot of data sharing. So, you know, I've shared with you, you know, PSAT results. When I when we get those PSAT results, I always break it down by sending district and share them information with the superintendent. There are ELA and math placement tests. So, a lot of discussions about the results from those placement tests. Um this Friday I'm going to be sharing with them. There was a uh there were some questions throughout the placement pro or not the placement process the course selection process that recently took place. Superintendents were interested in well how many of our students are going into Spanish 2 rather than Spanish one or what level of Spanish are they going into? So

127I prepared all that. I'll be sharing that with them this Friday. And obviously when all this information is shared it's just they're just getting the information from their students and no student names or anything like that. Um, but you know, we try to give them an idea of basically if there's something that they want to find out about their students, how they're doing when they get to high school, we give them that information. Uh, there was a question one year about um, science and students how students are doing in science when they get into high school. So, we're able to break that information down and share it with the superintendent so that they can look at their programs. Uh, a lot of the superintendent meetings focus on planning for the October inservice. So, uh, a

128few years ago, uh, we did get all of the sending districts on board, not with the exact same calendar, but most of the same professional development days, and that was a big accomplishment, and they all agreed that that October inservice day that they would all have a full day uh, professional development day. So, since we started doing that, we have all of those districts have been joining together for professional development on that day. Um, we're in the process of planning that day for next year. This Friday, I'm going to be sharing with them a draft agenda and sharing some um uh some keynote presenters that I've gathered to get their opinions on which one would be best for us. Uh but those all of those discussions take place in those superintendent meetings that take place

129on a monthly basis. Uh a couple of I think this is the second year now where the superintendents have agreed to um have a transition coordinator for each building. So there is a transition coordinator for North Hunter and a transition coordinator for Vohees and is a stipen position that this the superintendents pay through their budget. Um and you know the goal is to create activities and to help students and parents with that transition process from middle school to high school. So they plan, you know, uh actually they were just today, I know the north group's uh student ambassadors were in the sending districts talking to the eighth grade students about that transition process and uh there is a transition web page that I linked here that I think that you will receive this PowerPoint if

130you don't have it already. Um so >> Okay. So there is a link to a transition web page that the coordinators put together which tried to put take everything together to help eighth grade parents and students see the process of what they go through from registering with Aspen to sports to you know course selections you know try to put everything that they need in one page there and it's separated by north and Vorhees as well although most of the information is for both so those monthly superintendent meetings are are a great way to uh communicate And then there are the subject area articulation meetings. So, uh I'll show you the list of all of the different subject areas that get together, but we do have regular subject area articulation meetings and those help to form

131that community of educators. And you know, you just alluded to it earlier today that there are many districts in our among our semi districts that there might be one or two math teachers or one or two social studies teachers. So, they don't really have anyone to share those ideas with or to observe or anything like that. We usually try to tie observations in with these um articulation meetings. Usually in the morning have an opportunity for people to come over to observe some of the classes in that subject area and then in the afternoon have the actual articulation meeting. But it's just about forming that community of educators. We talk about updates from the state, you know, relevant topics. Uh the same data that I talked about before, we share on a bigger scale, you know,

132not the individual districts. And we share best practices, you know, that's one of the best things. and share resources that people are familiar with or uh or talk about what they need. You know, what are the things that you're finding that students are struggling with in that subject area and really just develop that community. So, in October, so one of the things that I'm really happy about with doing that October inservice is that when we get people together in October, there's no need to remove people from classes because there's no classes on that day and there's no need to pay a substitute because there are no classes going on that day. So we have the bulk of our articulation meetings on that October inservice and it you know for the other articulation meetings in the

133spring people send one or two representatives but in October because there's no school that day it's everybody you know so for these subject area articulation meetings it's everybody from sixth grade through 12th grade able to get together in one room to talk about the things that are going on with that subject area. So, I have the list of all of the subject areas that we do, but the even better part as I walk around popping into all these meetings is we're able to set up prek to five articulation meetings. And obviously, we don't have any representatives from that. But, you know, most of these districts, they only have one or two teachers in those subject areas. So, let me tell you something. you go to a kindergarten articulation meeting, there is a lot going on

134in that meeting and and they're very passionate and they don't really have that community to talk with. So just having that opportunity to bring them together is really a great opportunity. So we have we usually host these at North Thunderdan and you know there there meetings going on all over the place and uh and it's great to stop into them. After that, we have for for our core subject areas, we have a spring articulation meeting as well with child study team, ELA, math, science, social studies, and we combine world language and multilingual learners as well. So, those uh articulation meetings take place in the spring. Um they've all Yes, we just recently completed uh the last one of those. But for the core subject areas, we like to do that second one um because there's

135a lot to talk about. So, In addition to those subject area articulation meetings, we regularly have curriculum coordinator meetings, usually one or two a year. This year, as we were transitioning from NJSLA testing on the Pearson platform to the Cambium platform, um some of the curriculum coordinators who are also the district test coordinator said, can we get together to talk about, you know, what we need to do with this new platform? So, we had a great meeting with um you know, representatives from all the sending districts talking about that there's this huge file that has to be completed in November and it was um let's just say the state doesn't always give us a lot of great information for that. So, we were able to get together and share information. Um and we've had followup,

136you know, we basically created a community of district test coordinators in our district as well to talk with about um the new testing platform and things like that. There are special services open houses regularly. Um and then the counseling department has meetings. Uh eighth grade counselors meet with 9th grade counselors just to help with that transition from 8th grade to 9th grade. Again with the goal of supporting the students from this from the day one from when they get here. And then the third part of this is our teacher coaches. So we do have an ELA coach and a math coach. It's been six uh or so years that we've had these positions. Um they again work to help the departments operate as if they're in one district. Uh their goal is they they primarily

137work with the eighth grade teachers in those 10 setting districts. So they try to get to each district each week or every other week. Um you know, you think about if they if they go to two districts a day for five days, then they're able to get to 10. But they also work with the high school teachers trying to help support them. Uh they do some co-eing, they do observations, not formally, you know, the informal observations um and provide feedback, you know, throughout the um testing process and with the placement process, things like that. But one of the one of the great things about them since since they uh started in these positions is that it allows for that constant communication instead of just having communication at those two articulation meetings. It's constant. So, you

138know, we're able to constantly communicate with the ELA and math teachers in our um, you know, in all of the districts on a regular basis. So, we really know what's going on and we're able to provide supports. We're able to highlight some of those things. So, if one thing is great is going on in one district, we're able to share that art at articulation meetings or ask for them to provide a demonstration of it, things like that because we we're actually in those classes um, and we see all of the students. when it one of the greatest things to see is when we have our eighth grade student orientations. When those students come in, when Maria and Sarah are there, they're greeting them by name. You know, it's great to have a high school teacher

139know your name before you've even started in the high school. And obviously they help with placement decisions because not only are they there uh they know the students, you know, they know what they're capable of and they're able to help with those decisions um and give feedback uh as far as what level is best for them. >> Yes. >> This this is these are full-time. >> Yes. >> This is their role. >> Yeah. They primarily work eth grade uh teachers and students, but then we also support the high school students and teachers. >> What do they do? They tend to be more experienced teachers that have maybe towards the end of their careers or I mean you don't come out of school doing this, right? >> You don't. Um so the the people that we

140have teaching >> are doing those roles right now are veteran teachers. Yeah. And uh one of which was a actually a middle school teacher for the most of her career. So it gives a unique perspective. >> Yeah. Uh so that was everything. Were there any other questions that you had or anything else you wanted to ask about? Yes. >> So, sounds absolutely fabulous. >> Great. >> Um, >> I imagine that part of the articulation process is very focused on making sure when you're talking about core curriculum that students coming up from the eighth grades are are ready for what you're offering at the high school, >> right? Are you ever experiencing the opposite where you have kids coming up from 8th grade and maybe their program was better or more advanced than what the high

141school is doing? And if you were experiencing that, do you react to it? >> Yeah. >> Districts as well. You know, we we if if there's something that's going well, we want to share that with everybody. And those are a lot of the conversations that take place at the superintendent meetings, too. You know, if we're noticing something that's really great in one district, that's one of the great things about the teacher coaches and the articulation meetings is we can say, "Hey, this is going on here. It's leading to great results as shown on these test scores or this um you know, the PSAT results or NJSLA results. Is there do we want to talk about bringing this into the other districts? >> How about bringing it to the high school? Do have you ever felt

142that you need to up your game at the high school level because you need to meet the readiness of what's coming in from the eighth grade? >> I mean, maybe with individual districts where there are some, you know, really great things coming on >> going on. So, you know, we we often say that it it sometimes takes, you know, the first semester with freshman classes to find out where everybody is and not get them on the same level, but just to find out where everybody is so you can make those adjustments. And if we have students coming in who are for example reading on a much higher level that's great. Then we can challenge you know the students with higher level text and things like that. Um so yeah we we meet students wherever they

143are. So if they're at a higher level then yeah that's something that we need to look at. So you know it's it's kind of um the standards are the standards. You know a lot of the conversations take for example in science there are always discussions about I wish that this topic was covered in middle school. it would make it easier to start off in high school. It's not in the eighth grade standards, you know, so you have to start at the high school level. It's just not there. And and a lot of times, you know, the high school teachers aren't really looking at those middle school standards. So, it just opens up people's eyes about what is required at those levels. >> Yeah. >> Sure. Merryill, some of the things I >> I know certainly

144with math, we have the ability, high schools have ability to receive kids at very different math levels because as they move through the middle school, um you have kids on very accelerated trajectories who then just sort of land here at an accelerated trajectory. I'm trying to figure out though if you're asking um you know more broadly about other kinds of practices and things of that sort because having having you know done some of the work some of similar work myself sometimes you see and now I'm speaking more specifically through like an ELA lens. Um, I know like um with I've worked with teams where there have definitely been practices and things that we've been able to learn about that happen more commonly at lower levels that you begin to sort of import at a at

145a high school level. Um, and that could be a simple thing a simple thing as uh literature circles or that students might have experiences with at younger grades where historically high schools will tend to trend towards whole class reading but then find ways to diversify their practice to sort of meet the more varied experiences that kids are having some of the success that they're having. I also don't know if you're talking about specialized programs or or projects or clubs or things like that as well. >> Um I was talking about academics. >> Okay. And I was thinking we have three different levels as well. There are students that are going to come in with, you know, like we have an honors track that a lot of students are coming into with the honors track. >>

146And that's actually one of the piece of data that we look at with the superintendent to show at each uh for the core areas um which placement where students are being placed you know overall. Yeah. Um any other questions about the articulation piece? >> How do you feel about the current status of the districts? Is there a lot of stark disparity like district by district coming in or is it is it evening out for this process? >> Less disparity than there used to be. Um I know that when I started in this position, I think it was 2017, one of the first things that I did was look at that PSAT results for the nth grade students and it was all over the place. Um we don't see that anymore. It's pretty consistent now. Yeah.

147Yeah. And I think a lot of those conversations lead to that. I think a lot of times and I think you've made the point that district's ability to see where their data stands relative to other sending districts data can often sort of open up discussion about opportunity. And I think to your point, Maril, I think one of the nice things about this design coming on the heels of a conversation of we're 13 different districts despite the the reality of that. Um there's systems here that are really operating not as though we're 13 separate districts, which I think is is important work. So >> yeah, and one of the important things about those specialists >> is that we form a relationship. you know, if if I notice that there's a district where, wow, I just in

148looking at this information, you know, they did much more poorly on a placement test than the other ones did or or the percentage of students going into honors is so much higher here. We have the relationship that we can reach out and have those conversations. It's not nobody views it as, oh, the big bad high school is trying to change everything here. It's just about forming those relationships. That's what these meetings are really all about, you know. Any other questions? So, uh, outside of the articulation, I did want to mention just on the agenda, there are four items there on the agenda under curriculum. Uh, home instruction, a consultant, a text, new textbook to approve, and the revised school calendar. Were there any questions on any of those as well? Did you want me to

149say anything about them? Are you going to talk about that? >> No, I mean, the school calendar I can just, you know, that's two unused snow days. We have four built into the calendar. two, which I can't believe we only used two snow days this winter. It felt like the longest winter we've had in a decade. Um, but I think it was all about timing. So, that's okay. >> Home instruction. I did want to mention, we did talk about that last time quickly. Um, and actually Rich Brown, you know, brought this to my attention, but one of the most important reasons for um approving home instruction, we had that discussion um why we approve it because it has to be done anyway. Um, was um order to receive state aid, you know, a district must

150prove students are receiving the legal minimum of five hours for general ed students and 10 hours for special education students. And the board's approval basically serves as the official record that the district is compliant with state attendance and funding laws. So that allows us to get, you know, it's one of the requirements for state funding that we adhere to this and that's one of the ways the board shows that we are adhering to it is by approving these. Um, and there's also, you know, the fiduciary responsibility and also the personnel approval. The personnel approval isn't specific to each individual teacher here because this board approves them at a reorg so that every certificated staff member is able to provide home instruction. But now you see how many hours the students are getting and we did

151add a little footnote there to give you what the contractually contractual hourly rate is. So at least you have an idea what it's costing. Other than that, no other required to be in the home or in this day and age can it be a >> it's mo it's I would say 95 maybe 100% virtual >> or Google meets. >> It's Google meets. Yeah. I mean a lot a lot of it is most of it is virtual. Um and a lot of times if it's not virtual we will meet in a neutral location like a a library. They used to use a north county library a lot in Clint. So meet students there provide instruction. >> Any other questions or clarifications? >> Thank you, Rich. >> Thanks. >> All right. Under policy and school school security,

152we just have updated job descriptions. Um Dr. Burgess, I didn't know if there was anything specific that you wanted to say to those or >> No. So we're just doing a little house cleaning really is what it comes down to with job descriptions. You know, we tried to do this over the last year and we didn't get as far as we wanted to. So we're trying to acceler accelerate it a little bit more now and do two or three and categorize them. And so school counselor and student assistance coordinator, we went through those job descriptions, looked at what our expectations are for them, looked at the New Jersey school board's model job descriptions, and then this is a combination of those two recommended language changes in questions. Are these >> open um job postings right

153now or just updating them in the case that it comes up in the future that it's updated? >> It's just so it's in the future it's updated. There's no postings right now. >> Cynthia, >> I just happened to notice um with the school counselor and the SACE. School counselor does say maintains um student records and ensures their confidentiality. And for the SACE, I didn't notice that. So, I was just wondering, I just found it interesting that it's on one and not the other, but they're both dealing with sensitive topics and confidentiality for the students. >> Yeah. I mean, a SAC is part of the counseling department, so they would have those same confidentiality requirements, but I can look at the individual language and see if there's a way to incorporate that into the sack just

154so it's memorialized. >> Yeah. Just so it's Any other items or questions? All right, we have finance, facilities, and transportation. And obviously, a number of these items will uh get populated as we wind into next week. Uh Katie, did you um could you just maybe run them down for us so that again contextualizing what they are, why they are, and what we'll see. >> Absolutely. So, the grant easement for Elizabeth Town Gas, I was hoping to have a little bit more of an update today. I am hopeful that we'll have a final contract to prevent the board next week to allow Elizabeth Town Gas on the property and to install the gas lines. Currently, we're looking at them installing three meters, one in the back of the building, one at our um stack check and

155another one on their maintenance garage for the maintenance garage heating. Um they've been very gracious in absorbing the cost of putting in the gas line from the road to each of those locations. Um but we do need to give them easement to allow them on the property and allow them access. So, we are right now working with legal counsel on getting the wording and terminology correct, making sure that we're okay with all of the rights of access that they have proposed in that ease bin, as well as the engineer at Pratt Sanjin, our architectural firm, to make sure that they're comfortable with everything as well. So, we're hoping to get that finalized this week so we can have that attached for your approval next week and then allows those guys to keep moving. competitive contracting.

156The next two resolutions um is part of my spring process of looking at do we need to go out for RFP for anything this year. I typically like to do anywhere from 3 to 5 years even if we're satisfied with the vendor for let's say auditing services, architectural things of that nature. Um every 3 to 5 years I still like to go out for RFP just to make sure we're competitive with pricing and other services that they're providing. Um so not to say that we're unhappy with services but um just to do our due diligence. So I am looking at competitive contracting for SIS system which is our student information system. We spend a considerable amount of funds with um our current vendor and I think it's good due diligence to go out for competitive

157contracting and the reason why it's called competitive contracting and not necessarily a normal RFP is because you're using pricing and other factors. So you kind of develop a rubric to um analyze the vendors and their submissions and say you know 35% of our score goes to you know a certain analysis of what services that they provide and we can kind of break down and evaluate each submission of those vendors to how most likely G um will utilize their service and and um characterize the importance of the different services that they provide us. So, I'm asking the board to allow us to use that competitive contracting under um public school contracts law for us to do that this spring. And 12.3 is allowing us to go out to evaluate proposals for insurance brokers. And that's using

158EU. So, that's another carve out of the public school contracts law to allow us to go out for what's essentially an RFP for insurance brokerage. We went out for our health benefits broker in 2024. So, we are due to go out for our liability insurance broker. So, that is the one that I'm asking the board to approve. So, I'll be attaching a resolution to state that um I would like the board to authorize allow us to go out for um that EU RFP for the insurance broker for liability insurance. And there's a few other RFPs that I will be soliciting. I don't need the board's approval to go out for them, but I will most likely be soliciting auditing services, architectural services as well. So, just for your awareness. Um, the only other item to

159note is 12.4. The purchase is above 53. Um, we are looking at purchasing the Chromebooks for our onetoone initiative for next year. Um, we typically have this approved around this time of year because it's very difficult to get all of the Chromebooks in hand to issue to all of the students in August. So, we try to do this as quickly as we can in the spring so that G can have all of those Chromebooks ordered and in our hands so that they can be set up and then issued to students over the summer. So, that will be on this agenda >> with um Chromebooks when I know we I believe we collect them annually, right? or or no, I can't remember. Or and then at the end of >> there's a problem. >> Okay. All

160right. And then at the end of their lifespan, um what do we usually do with them in terms of selling them to some vendor out there who who buys old technology or do we have a process for that? >> Yeah, the Chromebooks we collect, we use um >> we use up deals so that we can Yeah. >> And we usually palletize them, right? I don't think we're selling individual Chromebooks, but we'll palletize things and somebody who's a recycler will usually come out and you know buy a thousand Chromebooks for >> it allows an open bid so that anyone can put in a bit high >> I think unless the something goes wrong with the machine you get it as a freshman and you hand it in in senior. >> That's correct. Yeah. >> So this

161is the Chromebooks for the incoming freshman. Correct. Correct. And perhaps anybody >> or new students or >> transfers. Yeah. a few people that might need a new and I think supply um chains are very difficult right now. So G's trying to get things you probably >> have gone up see that. >> Yeah. He's trying to lock in prices now before they continue to go up and um and just even availability. I know it's it's been a tough year for >> actually a statistic I heard was that Chromebooks have gone up about 50% in the past year simply because of the chips, the ability to get search the chips for them and they're anticipated to go up an additional 50% the next year. So, we're looking at potentially a 100% increase in the cost of a

162Chromebook in a two-year span. >> Just to give it just an example, we had pricing for hardware for cameras just for the the recording of the cameras and we had a bid one day it was 250,000 48 hours later it was 380,000. Wow. >> Because the data centers are >> Thank you. AI. >> Yeah. Yeah. is about the RAM and the >> my largest corporate client has stopped all global purchasing of computers because of the pricing. They have to re rework their budget and figure out if they can refresh the way they're claimed. >> Yeah. >> So, typically the attachment for that usually has the exact dollar amount of what we're going to be purchasing them for. And I did want to mention that um G is doing his best to find the best pricing

163on those. It may be a little bit different than you're used to. I may have a not to exceed amount and then in May I may revise just so again we can lock in pricing and then I'll have the board approve it again in May with the actual um final pricing that we're able to get. But next week is just trying to give us the not to exceed amount so that we can actually solicit the quotation. Everything else is standard and that will be attached in the next few days for Friday's release of next week's agenda, the training and travel. Anything disposing of those list, financials, etc. >> Any questions or clarifications on those items? All right. Do we have any updates on community relations and student affairs or delegates reports? I don't know if

164we have another county meeting is next um week the 30th and it's the teacher of the year who is um uh from uh Spruce Run School. Um her last name is May. It's going to be at the chalet and then it's also going to be the awards for board members as they meet their 10 year 15 20 and then those who have reached certification um either certified board member or master board member or certified board leader those awards will be given out. So it's a nice way to wrap up our year and um it starts at 6 for dinner and then the program will go and we usually finish up by 8:30. So >> is that still active? >> Yeah. Go on. that there's no cost and you can do it yourself. Just go on

165to your school board account and >> and register and then delegates is not till May 16th. Um um that'll be down in Trenton. >> Okay. Um All right. Uh I guess that brings us to our um executive session. So, I do need a call for a motion and a second to adopt resolution 042126-1 for an executive session to discuss matters reflected in the attached resolution. The board expects to be in executive session for approximately 45 minutes. Um, and upon return to public session, action Well, no, action will not be taken. Well, >> action will not be taken today. >> Not today. Yeah. Uh, but we do have to vote to go in. >> So, can I get that motion? Stephen, I think motion. Dan had the second. All in favor? I opposed. Extensions. Okay. All

166right. We'll be back. had a call for a motion and a second to reconvene public session. Can I get a motion? All right, Brian was quick. Dan on the second. Thank you. All in favor? I opposed. Extension. None. >> All right. Uh obviously we have uh reviewed personnel and executive uh in executive and we'll pick up with that vote next week. Uh do we have any old or new business? I do not have anything in particular. >> Just super quick. Nothing. Uh one thing I'd like to add to our resolution, just some information in general. I have seen some articles. One Rich Lordy shared with me, one I saw in one of the school board blasts that I so many of them that was behind a payw wall. The other one was from NJ.com. But

167that they're uh the legislation it appears that our legislation is being vocal about the school funding formula currently. So when you asked before like do other people know about you know raises and taxes and things like that like that's not directly but partially still involved. So the new director of education I believe the the Leslie Laauo I believe I got that title correct um >> commissioner yeah has said that it won't be addressed this year, but they will look at it and they plan to I guess have it for next year, but probably then I would assume wouldn't be implemented till the following year, right? But I still think that our resolution holds that to to be able to back our legislators that they're being very vocal and almost demanding that it is addressed and

168you know I would hope that it would be done sooner or than later to them. So I still think it holds ground for us to continue with that resolution. And then I also think that I I think I might have mentioned it last time when we were talking about resolutions but potentially including a resolution about addressing how healthcare is for schools because that's our biggest uh driver of our cost increases and it's a state it's state-run health insurance. So, we can't do anything about it but take it. So if if it's going to keep happening, you know, there needs I feel that there needs to be something that is done and I think our legislation should be also driving that to our government u officials to to consider as well. So I think that that's

169something that we should consider adopting another resolution for potentially if everyone else is has that same feeling. >> So we have two, one addressing the school funding formula and then one addressing the healthcare is funded or caps on raising it in general. I mean, it seems I don't know how it how it affects other government workers, but only just seeing it here 20 to 40% for schools. Is it also shared across all those and in general that's just insanely high? There should it should be looked at to have a cap. Everything else gets a cap. Why doesn't that get a cap? I don't know. something to figure out wording for in that as well to have our legislators consider, you know, because that's a major factor for our our costs. You know, we can't continue

170putting that on to our constituents as a the burden of that cost. >> So, there's um I mean, what I'm hearing there's there's a couple of dimensions here. We're talking about funding. We're talking about health care costs. We're talking about things like pilot deals in municipalities. And as I'm hearing you say that um and again kind of framing it through possible goboard goals as we sort of try to build some voice and momentum around and coordinate some of these efforts. I don't know if we get to a place where on a goal do we want some subcommittee work done that's sort of imagining who are who are the who are the recipients of these these um concerns that we have. uh what group can sort of work on articulating and sort of promoting action on

171our behalf >> and I assume that it's kind of the school boards because they have that legislative legislative voice that does heavily seemingly heavily influence decisions in our legislation. So that might be our number one place to look, but also looking to partner with maybe our um representative of in our local or not local, but our our >> legislative repres. I'm not sure who works on the respective committees of those things. Uh and then also I know there's often partnering with the professional organizations uh like a superintendent association who understands very you know firsthand what sort of advocacy they want to see in terms of full school funding or or other fair fair fairness considerations but I think it's all all good ideas. >> So what an idea could be I remember at one of

172um the county school, they had brought in the SBA kind of like um legal one of their legal gurus who kind of gave a little like here's what's going on in the legislature right now. We're following this, we're following this. We you know, it might be a benefit if we're if we're interested in if we're at a point where we're saying who do we need to talk to or who is most effective to talk to, right? Maybe asking SBA, one of the legal advisers to come in, we can articulate what our concerns are and they can advise us. You need to go to these people. You know, these five senators, they write the all the rules. If you contact them, you know, make sure you they know your what your your issues are. >> It's

173really done at the county. It's really done just at the county level. you know, the county and the statewide level. You want to get to the to the policy makers. It's not an individual boarding. It's really a your your NJ your county NJSBA rep, whoever that is would be the one to sort of bring your thoughts to the county pull together with others and then there's a the group's call with the NGSBA there's a they actually adopt legislation or >> it's our delegates delegates. That's what it is. And they do this >> and you know they have a fair amount of impact with respect to their their lobbyists whatever else but they just are less likely to listen to the schools >> individually >> than they are healthcare companies or whomever. It's just the reality

174of trend. I mean the bottom line is though that is the best way for you all to get and you could be leaders. I mean your district is you get the most board members. You you could be leaders on this if you want but you have to you don't want to spin your wheels either. If you have these concerns, you should try to deliver through and then get other county reps to agree with you and then adopt some some of this stuff out. >> Yeah. >> Kind of fortunate to have the county school board president. >> Is that right? >> But I think >> that's great. >> I I to your point, Stephen, I think I think there will be a lot of voices looking to gather these this energy and this effort over the

175next year or two >> for sure. and healthcare. Katie was whispering to me by chapter 44 >> because I think the angle that you're going in is, you know, what's binding us to this expensive increase and that's the chapter 44, >> right? I remember that. Yeah. >> You know, so those plans and that plan design is locking us into offering that plan at a very cheap employee contribution rate. >> And as we've articulated, you know, that's what's causing us to be kind of, you know, our hands are tied in that respect. So, you know, a resolution kind of spoke to that and chapter 44 is suns setting at the end of the coming year. So, that's something that we are looking at and vocalizing concerns about chapter 44 while it's suns setting is a great

176idea. >> Yeah. >> If chapter 44 were to sunset now, now what does that look like moving forward for negotiations with teachers? Right. So if we're asking if, and maybe this isn't the right time, just a theoretical, but if we now are looking at teachers contributing significantly more for their own health benefits, were effectively paying us, right? Like they have less buying power in the world. So are are they now going to come back to the table and and we're going to be on the hook for massive raises? >> And I don't I don't believe they'll let it expire without replacing it with something. Okay. >> Hopefully they don't replace it with something that is mutually beneficial, right? I guess, you know, to what Steve's trying to I guess articulate is that that that would

177be what we could advocate for, right? Is >> because if it if they just let it expire and let it just hand every district handle it would still be in place. >> That's true. Chapter 78 would still be in plan, but I it would it would open a lot of question. >> Yeah, I mean like at the end of the day, health minutes are really really expensive, right? >> So that's that's like the the macro side of it, right? Like it's just not going away. So, >> and right now if their contribution is only based on their employee salary increase and not based on that plan increase that's going up 20%, it's only going up there three point then obviously it's never going to keep pace and we're always going to be underwater those increases.

178>> Okay. Uh All right. But I I do think let's kind of keep that in mind as we go to goal setting as we think about future work. I think it is going to be increasingly important. Um, anything else? Andrew, >> do one more thing. Um, so last meeting I want to call you up, Cynthia changed the vote at some point and I think we need to nail down what that proper process was, right? Because I was looking at the Rox order and like we technically we were supposed to like reopen the whole topic to change that vote. I just want to make sure that going forward we don't do something that's going to bite us up later. Yeah, we're trying to get some more guidance on that. We have got some more guidance. I

179don't have answers for you tonight, but um but yeah, we're we're trying to get something to do what they intended, >> which actually, thank you for bringing that up. I did ask um the board president Brendan and as well as uh superintendent when should I bring up if I needed to change a vote >> just to clarify to make sure. So if it is different then yes we do need clarity >> right yeah I think there's something in the meeting that's one thing right it's after the meeting that we're trying to get that was like the more difficult >> cool thank you >> anything else can I get a call for a motion and a second to adjurnn motion second all right in favor >> I post abstensions >> none all All right, that's a

180wrap. So, see you next week.