001going to get started. I'm going to call the meeting to order. The North Hunter and Vorhees Regional High School District Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, January 20th, 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 the extent known the agenda of this meeting was sent to the 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 Hunan High School and Vorhees High School provided to the municipal clerks of Bethlehem Township, Califon Burrow, Town of Clinton, Clinton Township, Franklin Township, Glengardner Burrow, Hampton Burrow, Hybridge Burrow, Lebanon Burough, Lebanon Township, Tukesbury Township, and Union Township, as well as other interested
002parties and posted on the district website. Fire exits are located in the direction indicated. That's my little stewardous bit. Uh, if alerted to fire, please move in a common orderly fashion to the nearest smokefree exit. Restrooms are located through the doors behind this desk and to the right as indicated. Uh, at this time, please silence all cell phones. Uh, before we go to roll call, I do just want to remind folks of our 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. Katie >> Miss here, Mr. >> Here, >> Mr. Hanley >> here. >> Miss here, Mr. >> Mr. Matthews here, >> Mr. McKisen >> here, Mr. Morgan >> here,
003Mr. Mr. Spans >> here, >> and Miss Ste >> here. >> Okay, we'll now have the flag salute. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. >> All right. Welcome to our first working session. Uh if you recall uh now that we are going to have working sessions and action sessions, the working session is operating more or less in lie of our traditional committee structure. Um as you know, I've been soliciting feedback from everyone and thank you for everything I've received so far. That information will hopefully kind of help us give shape to these meetings and proceedings going forward. uh how we'll do certain reports. But this is really the opportunity for us to have uh
004the discussion about the items on the agendas uh so that when we meet again and in this case that will be simply next week um we're able to act upon many of those things. Uh this is sort of the opportunity to raise questions uh deliberate um and so that we can go into next week's votes um with the information that we may need uh at our disposal. Um, and I know we have a lot of new folks on the board or folks once again rejoining board. So throughout this meeting and probably subsequent meetings, I might emphasize just some procedural things or ask Katie or Rich to do so. Uh, just so folks are getting acclimated to the the flow uh of that work even though this structure in this meeting is is new to us
005as well. Um, so one of the things you'll notice as being different, there are no um there's really no votes being called uh on next week's meeting. You'll see things like voice votes or calls for a motion in a second. Um, procedurally, we can just talk through these things. And as I said, um, we'll get some shape to that by the various reports that come out. But first on there is the minutes. We have our minutes from December 16th, 2025, our regular board meeting. So, in that case, some folks who weren't yet on the board. And then we have our January 6 minutes, which were our reorganization uh board meeting minutes. Um, generally, and I know this question has come up a few times, you more or less might abstain from voting on the minutes
006if it was a meeting that you were not in attendance on, um, or you were not on yet on the board. But certainly you can feel free to ask questions about any of the minutes. Um, so is there anything just on minutes that anyone would like to discuss at this point? Okay. Um, well certainly do continue to kind of look those over and then we'll be taking the vote on that next week which brings us to the chief school administrators report. So I'm going to have hand it over to Dr. Burgess. So, sorry, just thought of something. Okay. So, we'll obviously have for this meeting next week, >> correct? >> So, maybe we just keep minutes in the voting meeting like we maybe it's a way to lighten the agenda a little bit from this
007meeting is to just do all always because we is usually >> procedural, right? >> Um and because we'll have to go through the same process. Do you have any questions about it? Because this meeting's been in there as well. >> I don't know. And I guess maybe a question for Katie now that some of these meetings might happen a week upon each other. Um I don't know if that poses any complications in terms of getting things finalized for >> I think I would suggest that the meetings from tonight's meeting and the minutes from tonight's meeting as well as the executive session, we decide to bring that to February. >> Okay. because of just the time constraint of trying to prepare them in time. >> So everything will be the month before happening in review at
008these sessions and what's happening this month will be on next month. >> Brian, does that make sense just from >> Yeah, it does. >> Okay. >> Just but so everything that's on here, this is this is essentially the agenda that we're >> going to see next week. So there's going to be action to be taken and votes to be taken on. Okay. So yeah, nothing will fundamentally change and I guess in theory >> what's that? >> It could >> uh things right something could change if there was an emergent topic or something like that or if there was an emergent need that would require action next week. >> Okay. Uh anything else on that? All right. Uh Rich, >> so on that token um thank you Brandon. the um for the chief school administrator's report,
009the the committee as a whole is going to be limited as to what I typically will be put out because um most of the time it's the events that are happening at school and things that I want the board to be aware of and I you know instead of doing that this month or this week and then doing it a week later because there might not be a lot that changes in a week. I decided to do it just in that one month. So I'll do it at the regular meeting like I typically would do. Um there's a couple things I just wanted to uh bring to your attention. So the HIV incences we did link on here. So if there are any questions, those would be the things that there will be a motion
010in a second and a board vote on for next month. So we thought that was important to have there. Um the first one 5.1 report on harassment, intimidation, and bullying. That usually up until the day of the board meeting where you know anything that is closed you know we're bringing to you so that I'm reporting it to you for the first time. So that's when you usually hear me say uh you know we had two unfounded and one founded him um this month and then you have a month to deliberate that and then you vote on it the following month. So just procedurally I wanted to make sure everybody um especially all the new board members understood that's we I bring it to the board. The board has a month then to deliberate on it
011or ask questions and then they vote on it to affirm it at the following meeting. And the ones that are um listed as hip incidents that you will actually see in the agenda, those are the ones you'll be voting on. So then maybe a clarifying question sort of in the same spirit for the new folks for folks who were not yet seated on the board. Uh so these were incidents from December. >> Um would they be in an appropriate position to abstain from that not having been members at the time that that report was submitted? >> That is a good question. I mean you know it's something that happened from a school administrative level that we're bringing to the board for action now. So it's not like they missed >> the information. The information is
012still accessible to them. So unless >> if I may um just just to expand a little bit upon Dr. Bersack's comment, the board's vote is affirming receipt of of the um incident in question. Is it has that been has that been the board's understanding or is it actually affirming what the um finding was because the board has has the right to affirm, reject or modify >> the finding and and so to that extent it it we just want to clarify that now especially through new board. >> It was my understanding that the board is affirming, rejecting or modifying the superintendent's recommendation to the board. Okay. >> Right. Which if I'm recommending that the board, you know, approve this um or affirm, you know, the HIP cases, I wouldn't bring it to you if I didn't
013expect that the board would affirm it. But if there was a reason to reject it or modify it, then that would be the deliberation that we would >> Okay. Right. Does that make sense? >> Yeah. And we traditionally you we you we you presented these in December, so we've had a month, right? And now we're going to vote on them when we vote next time. So that that'll be the same process. >> And there is there's a structure to it. And if you can't find it, let me know and I can help you. But um there is a under our board share drive um there's a BOE resources folder and in there there is a HIP folder and in there you'll see we try to categorize it by dates and years and things like that
014but um there's some limited details on what this HIP case is about. So if you read that and said I have further questions that's your opportunity between those two months to you know contact me Brendan and we can get answers. So then I'm I was just confirming, Phil, your sense is that even though members might be newly seated now, it is okay for them to affirm receipt of those findings >> primarily because new board members have the same access to the same information that everyone else has. And as Dr. Verex just informed us the level of detail in those reports. While it allows the board enough information to vote, it is not the same level of detail if for example there was an appeal of an HIV matter. Correct. >> So absolutely we also didn't
015to use these as examples. We didn't deliberate on the HIV incidents in when they reported in December 16th, >> right? We didn't deliberate them because you just told us there's two >> founded or notounded >> and it isn't until now that we or next week that we would vote >> or deliberate if we had to if we had if we had questions or something >> and because of the nature of a hip case that would be something the deliberation would have to happen in executive session or you know if individual board members had questions I would try to answer those between the meetings. >> Okay. Um the monthly school reports there we typically don't spend a lot of time on those. Um but I did want to uh one thing I was hoping we could
016change up a little bit uh in the policy committee when we had a policy committee we would always talk about our attendance rates and the reason we did that was because we adopted a new attendance policy edition and we wanted to see what the effect of that was. I thought it'd be appropriate for me to just mention um as the school reports also have attendance on it to just mention that here and then it sort of separates from the policy but the rationale is that we have this new policy that we're monitoring and um so for December um we actually Northan um had a slight decrease. It went from 1597 incences in 2024 to 1576 incidences. So, not a big difference, about 2% decrease. Um, but we're still um year to date um 6.3% um
017absenteeism, whereas we were um at 14.7 prior to this policy. So, um we're seeing a significant decrease there. Vorties is really um rocking it on the attendant side. They went from 1,912 in the month of December of 2024 to 896 in the um month of December in 2025. So that's a 53% reduction. Um their year-to- date percent absent rate is 3.9%. And just put that in context, they were at 22.7, so they were much higher than North and now they're much lower. So between the two of them, and again, these are going to fluctuate throughout the year. So I don't want to, you know, the the The data point at this time of year isn't something to celebrate or worry about yet, but it's just something I want to keep you informed on monthly as
018we go through. So, we're monitoring the effectiveness and see if that makes difference. >> That's going the right direction. >> Yeah, it's going in the right direction. Perfect. So, um and that's all I have. So, >> so a question on that. The flip side of that policy change was, you know, so it's it seems to be working with its intended unintended consequences. the work the flip side was were we going to see a lot of push back from parents there was initial push back is it >> would you >> I have not it it it has it hasn't come to my desk which means that it probably the push back has lessened um principles are here I would probably ask them but I I will ask them tomorrow at our admin meeting um but I
019think that I haven't heard of anybody talking about it I think it become it became the norm now and now people are used to it and again we increased the amount of absences that you're allowed to have before there's any kind of consequences from 12 to 16. So that gave everyone four sort of more freebies. But then we didn't use, you know, certain excuses to excuse his absences. >> So maybe the cow hasn't come home yet. >> Yeah. There's going to be, again, this is not going to be a panacea. Um, but it is, you know, so far the data is showing that we're moving in the right direction. >> I think there was a a follow-up communication after it was first announced that clarified things. So I think that might have some concern. >>
020At least that's what I heard. Good. That's good enough. Yeah. Yeah. There was a little bit of noise in the beginning and I think that that's why we sent out that second clarification. >> Are there any un unexpected consequences or downsides of the policy that you've heard? Like something we didn't anticipate? I mean it's great that it's moving in the right direction, but I'm just curious if you know >> I mean I have not you know um you know I've heard you know people saying well you know if my kids sick I have to send them to school. But I don't think people are sending their kids to school if they're really sick. you know, might be you wake up with snipples and >> maybe you used to stay home and now you go, >>
021but we also haven't seen any kind of outbreaks either. >> Correct. So, you know, obviously that would if we had something like that, that might be a a a spotlight to say, well, this was a negative consequence of nothing. >> I also have a quick question. that topic is done. >> On the page two of your report is the bar uh the chart of the total enrollment. >> Yes. >> And and you probably have this all the time, but um there's multiple other columns. the the votech shared full-timemies Somerset you is the total the sum of include those things or those are all adding up to the total attendance >> so the totals that you see under total enrollment >> that includes all of those students as well but we also break those out yes
022>> okay thank you >> anything else >> I have a quick question about suspension Um, and I know it's not necessarily a fair comparison, but I've looked back at like a trailing number of these reports and it seems from like my glance that Nord's numbers are way higher. >> Yeah. >> And is wondering if it's a if it's a concern of actual behavior or enforcement at a different level and and has that been looked at? >> It has. Um, so that has been a question that came up um probably a couple years ago and what we're doing is we're actually tracking the incidences now. I've had the principal's um principal's offices keeping a spreadsheet that I have access to to look at why students are being suspended and what the consequences are. Um and it
023really comes down to there's less incidences at bordies right now. You there are months that are anomalies and you'll see there's a month, you know, where north with their population should always be a little higher, right? If things were, you know, mathematically correct. Um but they're significantly higher right now. Um and so mathematically it doesn't make sense. But there are months where mathematically it doesn't make sense that Bory's actually has more than um so it is a point in time I think you know there's different issues at both schools you know while the schools are very similar there are some differences but it is something we're aware of and we do keep track of >> okay I'm going to move to the school uh school board president's report uh there's a few items here one
024is the New Jersey school board uh recognition month. So that'll be a resolution we'll pass next week to sort of recognize the work that we are all doing. Um so as much of a pat on the back, you've got it right there. It's about as much as we can do. Um >> um we do have uh so the um school board representatives, delegates, positions, vacancies. Um, >> so I know I'm in the process of soliciting input around the positions that folks are uh indicating where they would like us to have connections whether it's things like um PTA or booster kind of liaons. Uh certainly Tara is acting in our county capacity and had uh noted the availability to the delegate assembly. Um I it's my hope that as all the feedback comes in to sort
025of put together the consensus of what folks are saying. I know I shared that I think with you in a way where you can see the comments uh and and I think there is some emerging consensus about some of those things but my hope is to sort of consolidate that a little bit um and uh see what the appetite is for folks to fill some of the roles. Certainly the delegate assembly one is one that we know is open. So, if it is something that you think you might be interested in, just uh let Tara know and we can move forward with that. Any um just any thoughts or um in the moment in terms of those types of positions that folks are suggesting? >> Can you elaborate more on what that delegate position is?
026Um the delegate um meets twice a year in June and November and um so all of the counties and each district each county has each school district has a delegate voting. Um in March they'll be we'll send out school boards will send out a call for resolutions and then they'll be submitted um and then the ones that move forward to be voted on will go into the addendum for that um meeting. Um it's down at Mercer County Community College. It's on a Saturday. Um it's from 9 to 12. They give you a nice breakfast and then they go through all of the workings of school boards. Um they'll have a legislative review and then we'll um have voting on the various resolutions. Uh usually they'll take a segment of the policies um and that's what's
027going to be worked on that year. So I'm not sure what's coming up. Um and then the same thing will happen again in November. So, um, but it's it's exciting and, um, very informative and, um, I highly recommend somebody taking the position. I'll keep doing it. I've been doing it for the last few years. Um, I really enjoy it, but um, it's real worth the time. Um, there's you'll get all of the resolutions ahead of time so you can read through them. Um, and it's quite, um, interesting to hear other school districts. People will come up and ask questions. They'll change the verbiage on things. So, it's it's engaging. So, um it's a really neat position. Um and if you're, you know, like um it's a learning also at the same time. >> So, yeah.
028>> All right. Any other questions just on those potential positions and or vacancies. >> All right. The next item is a uh conference report from school boards. Uh Rich is in the process of actually he did make copies this uh this past fall. I did attend the uh school boards convention. Um, and I put together some notes or I will say AI put together some notes and I sort of say that right up front. This is a Gemini summary where I took my notes and put it in. Um, so Rich is going to give that out to you. I'll just kind of highlight some of the themes and you can certainly read it at your leisure. Um, I think it's sort of noteworthy that the themes and ideas that are represented here I think align
029very nicely with some of the things we're doing in our strategic plan. uh pretty much if you go to an educational conference these days, you are inundated with everything AI in terms of its integration and its instruction um and the promotion of AI literacy and and teachers are in the process of really uh getting versed in that. So that was a a very large theme. Um when talking about things like challenges and policy, many districts, one of the decisions that districts have to decide is whether or not they want a policy or if they want guidance. and districts seem to go both ways. Um I think the critique of policy is that policy is more formal and the field of AI is changing so rapidly. So something that you put in policy next month may
030be outdated a month later. So a lot of districts are sort of deferring to guidance. I know we have the uh committee working this year about u uh sort of the future forward learning with AI. So, I would imagine uh guidance coming out of that, but I know teachers have been having to deal with uh intellectual uh honesty issues, but really more about um just understanding what the tools can do and discovering ways themselves to use the tools in ways that aren't inhibiting students critical or creative thinking. Um but also teaching kids how to ethically use these tools. We as a district have Gemini sort of embedded. Our students have access to it. there's a number of tools that go along with that uh that will probably increasingly use in our work as well. So
031again uh very timely as far as that goes. Another big emphasis was school culture and wellness. Um some of these uh presentations that I was seeing might have been skewed a little more towards elementary, but really talking about uh the various services that schools um partner with to see about student wellness or to learn more about student wellness and some of the initiatives um to just sort of track wellness or engage families in the educational process. Um everything from, you know, zones where kids can go and regulate themselves. Um, another one, uh, future ready skills is always sort of a big talk. I'll pretty much say for as long as I've been in education, everything has been about 21st century skills. And now that we're a quarter century into the 21st century, I think the
032conversation continues and it's only accelerating. Um, but a lot of times, um, this leads to a lot of conversations about what's called like the portrait of a graduate. And as students are going through their four-year experience here, um that could be a conversation of what is it that we want to see our students leading with uh leaving their time here with uh be it leadership, be it certain kinds of uh authentic learning experiences and again that kind of work with the uh future forward or I can't remember what the framework is called learning forward or future future ready ready framework um uh that will ultimately be given some shape this year as well. And then the last one is sort of about leadership, advocacy, and and community engagement. And that's everything from the way that
033you're growing capacity in your own district. Uh Dr. Burgess has shared a little bit about the emerging leaders program that was started this year and the ability of a program like that to create capacity within a district for more leadership opportunities or um initiatives that folks are are leading. um to everything from um our ability as citizens to reach out and engage in the legislation that affects schools and our work um and and not discounting that power that we have uh both as citizens and then collectively as a uh as a board. So um that's kind of a quick overview of that. Certainly uh feel free to look at it, ask me if you have any questions or if anything comes up next week, we could talk about it further. I believe we'll be having
034some presentations coming up um by uh by Rich tonight. >> Yep. That will >> give us some context for all of that. >> Um if you recall, there was mention at the prior meeting about the county unsung heroes award ceremony March 1 4th. Um we would just need to RSVP by February 4th if you plan to attend. Um >> and I highly recommend you all attending. It's a great um session. Um and then the ASA this year is gave a donation. So we're going to have the um 12th 9th through 12th grade um in a pool for a scholarship and the fifth through 8th graders of the unsung heroes and um they'll each get 250 scholarships. So that's something new this year. >> That's great. >> Uh next week we will have our board training.
035So just note that our meeting starts at 6 PM at the office here. Uh we have our county rep who will be doing our ethics training uh as well as some of the other questions that filtered my way through the survey about sort of a quick overview of Robert's rules of order and just explaining uh the different kinds of votes, whether you're voting no or abstaining, sort of the the context or situations that you might do that and just what they are. But certainly if there are other questions that you have coming into that meeting and on the presentation, you'll have an opportunity to ask those next week. Uh any questions on any of those items? So our next uh order of business is our interview of a candidate for the unexpired Califon Burrow uh
036Tixbury Township board vacancy. Um we've had one uh candidate apply, uh Miss Meil Mesaka. And Merryill, I'll just ask if you could come forward to the podium. Um we do have a few questions uh that we ask of uh board candidates or folks applying. Uh and basically our process would be this is an opportunity for us to get to know you a little bit. Obviously the public has an opportunity to hear there's public comment even tonight if folks were to uh you know articulate questions or wonderings that they might have. Um later on in the meeting, we'll have an opportunity to go into executive and discuss a little bit and we would look to come back and and make action uh or have action on that this evening. Um so welcome. Thank you for coming
037out. Um so uh I'm going to put the first two questions together and it's sort of what's your interest in becoming a board member and what is the skill set that you feel you specifically are bringing to us? >> Sure. Um I value an education, public education. I think um the high school years are extremely important for students. Um academic readiness, social emotional development. I think a thriving district is essential to supporting our communities. This high school district, public high school district is a bedrock of the community. Um, I would love to be a part of the board of education to in some way um make an impact on the educational opportunities for youth in our community and to hopefully in some way um help keep this district strong. I know that it is a
038strong district. Um but maybe impart things that can even make it better. Um in terms of my skills, um I would say probably my strongest skills for this role would be my ability to um synthesize complex information. uh to summarize it and to bring it to a logical point to communicate to work um professionally with colleagues. I would be looking to work to bring consensus where possible. Although I understand that sometimes consensus is not always possible, but I think being respectful of um diverse opinions is important. And I think hearing each other, being a good listener, and also a strong advocate um for what one thinks is right um is important. I've certainly utilized those skills throughout my professional career. Um, I'm also used to making important decisions often around emotionally charged stakeholders. Um, I
039work where I can to try to bring um calm if possible. Um I also have experience making difficult decisions and explaining them to various stakeholders who might necessarily might not necessarily agree and feel invested in one way or another. Uh that's something I have uh I really had to do throughout my career. Um somewhat less relevant but I'll mention it. I did teach um constitutional law, fourth amendment constitutional law to police officers for a large part of my career and I created those materials. So I have some teaching experience, although I think that is a much easier teaching job than than than the teaching job for the the educators going on here at the high school level. Um my sister is a high school Spanish teacher in Westfield. She's been uh she's been there now
040almost 20 years, so she has my ear, of course. So, um I I do have a little bit of that perspective as well. Um gosh, I I've grown up here. Um my family moved to Tukesbury Township in the early 1970s when there were, you know, barely any any roads really. Um bought an acre of land and um and built a house. And I attended um those schools, the elementary school and the middle school. and I also attended Borhees High School myself um quite a long time ago. Um have pretty much lived in Hunter County my entire life. I I left to become educated after high school. Um but came back uh lived in in Clinton for a little while in an apartment in Clinton. Um when I was newly married, my husband and I lived
041in Alexandria Township in Hunter County and then we moved back to Tukesberry Township in 2008 before my son I have one child um a son before he started kindergarten. So he went to the Tukesberry um elementary school and middle school and he attended Vorhees High School. He graduated in um 2022. Um, you've been uh actually touching upon a few of the themes that are on here, so I'm not going to ask you the same question. Uh, but I'll combine a couple of more. Um, if you could talk a little bit of, you know, what do you see as the role of a school board member and, you know, how is that potentially an extension of some of your previous community or nonprofit experience? So, the role of the board, it's my understanding, is to work
042to set policy um for the school district and to work to hold the superintendent accountable for carrying out that policy in a nutshell. And is there anything as you look or as you're looking at this opportunity, is there anything in particular that you would like to see strengthened in our district uh having had a son go through it being a being a resident? Um some of the things that you're interested in as as topics or focus, >> you know, I I don't have um a formed agenda really coming here. Um, my son had a great experience at Forhees, you know, back then. Were there things that I think could have could have been better? Sure. Were there things I think were great? Um, absolutely. There's no representative for Tukesberry or there's Andrea, but there's, you
043know, there's a need right now. Um, I feel like I can, you know, I can come at it with with heart and and really try to do a good job. I'm in a place in my life where I have a little bit more time. If I were still um working serving as a prosecutor, I would not be able to do this. I can now. Um, so it's it's really just more uh a desire to serve the community in general. >> Okay. And you sort of hinted at the last one, your awareness of the time, training commitments and ethics law disclosures required for school board membership. You seem is there anything more that you would share on that that but you seem to have a sense of that? >> Well, I understand the time commitment minimally
044is um you meet two evenings a month. Um my evenings a month are pretty occupied because I serve a leadership role on another board. It's not that I don't have any free nights, um, but I'm required to be at at at those meetings because I'm president of that board. Um, we don't meet on Tuesdays. So, um, that's that's a plus. And I do have some ability to control that schedule. I'm hearing you just sitting today. Obviously, there's other things that you're inviting the board members to to partake in. Um, and I would like to become informed and involved as I can. Um, I have a little bit more flexibility during the day. I have a little bit more flexibility on the weekends. I I I heard Miss Hint talking about an opportunity that required I
045think it was said two two weekends a year. >> So, um, that's my understanding. >> Uh, anything else you'd like to share with us at this point? >> I mean, I don't I don't think so. Um I'm I welcome questions. >> That sort of was the idea. >> Okay. Okay. >> Um so thank you um uh for your for coming out. Thank you for applying. Uh as I shared our process will be at some point we'll go into executive. Uh we had your materials already. So thank you for your letter and your resume. Um so we'll have an opportunity to discuss come out and and act on that on the other side of executive and certainly uh you're welcome to stay uh if you're unable to we understand and we would get back in touch
046with you regarding the next steps. >> Sure. I'll I'll I'll let the superintendent get back in touch with me. It's my understanding you might be occupied for a while in the back. So um I'll go home and >> All right. >> Thank you. All right. Uh, we're going to our opportunity for public comment. During this portion of the meeting, the public is invited to address the board of education with comments. You're requested to sign the register provided and state your name, municipality, or residence, group affiliation if applicable, and direct your comments to the school board president. While all comments will be considered by the board of education and a response may be forthcoming if and when appropriate, individual school board members may not respond to the speakers at the time of their appearance. The public
047comment 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 more than once on the same topic until allers 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. So we welcome anyone from the public who would care to speak at this time. Good evening board members. I'm Amy Barrett. I'm a resident of Hybridge and a retired English teacher who's passionate about reading. I'm here to remind you that the freedom to read law took effect in December 2025 and you need a library book policy and a
048library book complaint policy that comply with this law. The NJ DOE published model policy templates last summer. your current NJSBA policies, which are media center library 6163.1 and community complaints and inquiries 1312 do not comply or do not fully comply. Specifically, the criteria for selecting library materials are too vague and the review process for handling concerns about library materials is not described at all in your current policies. In addition, according to the freedom to read law, your policies need to prohibit exclusion of books based on the origin, background, or views of the author and protect library staff from si civil or criminal liability. The good news is that until very recently, North Hunter and Vorhees had a model library resource materials policy and regulation, which was 2530 in your old numbering, and a model public
049complaint and book reconsideration process in policy and regulation 9130. These policies and regulations served you well during the 2021 to 2022 and 2024 book challenges. They included detailed criteria for selecting library books and specific steps for reconsidering a book that are compliant with the new law. The previous North Hunter and Vorhees library policy has been used as a model for other New Jersey schools. I'm asking the board to reinstate the old policies and regulations 2530 and 9130 in place of the vague inadequate NJSBA policies 6163.1 and 1312. You'll need to add the statement about protecting library staff from civil and criminal liability. Readopting these policies will not only comply with the new freedom to read law, but also put you in a stronger position to respond to any future book challenges. Thank you for listening
050and for serving on the board. Any additional public comment this evening? Okay. Um, seeing none, hearing none, uh, we'll move to curriculum, instruction, and technology. Mr. Brown. So, um, this is sort of an opportunity. In the past when we had the committee meetings, there would be that monthly curriculum committee meeting. uh this may morph into the curriculum director's report where uh Rich would report out on the same things we would do in committee and then if there are action or other items required that would follow up in the the very next week. So Rich, I'll hand things over to you. >> All right. Thank you. Well, good afternoon or good evening everybody. I just need to share my screen. One second. Okay, here we go. Right. Well, good evening everybody. Um, thank you for giving
051me an opportunity to talk with you today and welcome to all of our new board members. It's been great working with you. Um, so as Brandon said, my name is Rich Burn. I'm the director of curriculum articulation and student achievement. Um if you remember we went through strategic planning um recently. So one of the uh committees that came out as as a result of the strategic planning was the future ready steering committee. So what I wanted to do today from the curriculum perspective was give you an update on what that committee has done so far this school year. I'll be completely transparent from the beginning. Uh what I did was I took the agendas that we had from the committee put them into Gemini and asked it to generate a slide presentation uh to give
052the board an overview of of what we've been doing. So with few modifications this is what it uh presented. So um you know those are some of the things that we're able to do with uh with this generative AI. So the district goal that we're working off of for curriculum is that by the end of the school year, the district will successfully develop and begin begin implementation of a future ready learning framework leading to increased integration of AI tools in instruction and learning and enhanced authentic learning opportunities across all grade levels as measured by curriculum documentation, teacher professional development records, and student engagement metrics. So really what we're trying to do is uh equip our educators and and students with the critical thinking skills required to thrive in an AI integrated future while maintaining obviously
053that integrity and privacy standards. So this uh road map gives you an idea of what we've done so far in the committee this year. So back in October, we started drafting a needs assessment um and also drafting definitions for the two key things that we were defining were AI powered instruction and authentic learning. So once we developed drafts and got feedback on those, we were able to administer the surveys for the needs assessment. We gave those to um parents, students, and staff members in November. And then we also finalized our definitions. And I'll share part of the definitions in a little bit. Once the surveys were administered, the committee reviewed those uh survey results, analyzed them and put, you know, identified some action steps based on that information and then we began recruiting teachers for
054a pilot program to integrate AI into the uh curriculum. So now in January, here we are giving the update and also I want to show you about the resource library that we started to put together. >> Yes. >> Ask question. >> Sure. No, feel free. Sure. >> Can you remind us um not names necessarily, but who is the committee? It's made up of >> yourself committee and then we have teachers and administrators from across the district. So, we have about a dozen people uh nice a nice split between the two schools and also nice representative of the different departments as well. >> Okay, thanks. >> Sure. And yeah, feel free to ask questions throughout. So, the three groups that we did survey were our staff members, our students, and our parents. And we try to
055look at things like their current comfort levels with AI um professional development for our educators um from our student perspective, you know, what they value or what they see about AI and parents trying to get information about where they are with AI and and where they think that their uh children are with AI as well. So I want to give you some highlights from uh the surveys that we did. First off, with our staff members, 85% of our staff members who responded uh agreed or strongly agreed that they have a basic understanding of generative AI. 52% of staff members felt prepared to guide students on the ethical and effective use of AI. 61% of staff members already use AI tools to increase their professional productivity, such as drafting emails, creating lesson outlines, generating rubrics, and
05654% of staff members saw AI as a potential tool to enhance student learning and personalized instruction. So, that was the educator part to it. We saw a lot of similarities between the three different groups. Uh, with students, only 2.2% 2% of them reported using AI daily for school work. It's interesting when we ask later on what they believe their classmates how often their classmates are using it, but only 2% reported using it daily for school work. Um 71% of them reported using it rarely or never. Now granted, you know, not every single student responded to this survey. We had about I think it was around 20% of our students did respond to it. So a pretty significant amount though. Um, in contrast, uh, 38% believe their classmates use used AI daily or often to cheat,
057uh, with often being several times a week. 57% of students reported being either not familiar at all or only slightly familiar with AI literacy concepts such as bias, hallucinations, and prompt engineering. And uh we asked the students what they thought about the teachers expertise on AI. 32% believed most teachers are very knowledgeable about it while 50% believe that some are and some aren't knowledgeable about AI. And in looking at the parent survey, um about half of the uh parents, about 55% of the parents across both schools supported or strongly supported AI integration, viewing it as an unavoidable tool for future job market readiness. 40% of the parents identified as being very familiar and use AI tool tools themselves. 28% and and I like these different categories that we gave. 28% reported being not familiar at
058all, heard the name but don't know what it does or slightly familiar with how generative AI functions. So I think that was an important part for us to realize that 28% of our parents really do not have that basic understanding of what AI is. So the committee feels like part of our job is to educate the parents about these tools as well. Uh the majority of parents, 84% of parents were unsure or believe their child does not use AI for negative reasons. Yet they recognize its value for positive reasons like summarizing long readings or acting as a virtual tutor. So a lot of valuable information from the from the surveys that we gathered. So I mentioned that we then developed some definitions. Um we first defined authentic learning. Um, and it's actually like a two-page
059definition with various examples, but the the core of it is that authentic learning is an instructional approach where students actively engage with real world problems and challenges that have personal, cultural, and disciplinary reent relevance leading to the creation of tangible, useful products or solutions that are shared with an audience beyond the classroom. Authentic learning initially blends digital tools with handson tactile experiences and print resources mirroring how professionals work across both physical and digital environments. And it's that hands-on tactile experience part that was that came out loud and clear throughout the strategic planning. Um so that is definitely something that was at the forefront as we're developing the definition for this authentic learning. We identified some of the core characteristics of this authentic learning as being real world re relevance, the multiple modalities, active and sustained
060inquiry, tangible and valuable outcomes, authentic audiences, student voice and choice, and using assessment as coaching. So, we're we're pretty proud of the uh definitions that we've developed for authentic learning. And then for AI powered instruction, the main part of our definition for that is that we define AI powered instruction as the strategic use of generative tools to augment not replace the teacher's role. And we thought that was so important that this is to augment not replace anyone. The focus areas include personalization of learning paths, rapid feedback loops, and automatic automating administrative workflows to maximize one-on-one teacher student interaction time. So, um, we feel pretty confident with our definitions and we're at the stage now where we will be sharing these with staff members as we move forward, especially with the pilot group that I'll be
061talking about in a second. So, some of the things that really came out in the surveys were about privacy concerns. Um, our approach is going to be with Gemini, which is Google's uh, generative AI product. And when we use Gemini inhouse connected to our school accounts, it does not leave our school district. It stays within our network. It's not being used to train their models or anything like that. Um, just like students have their emails, we are able to monitor their usage with generative AI. Um, basically they're saved all like the like emails are. You can go back to them, you know, uh, we can go back to them. So that's why we're focusing on using Gemini um because of the security and the and the privacy and protection within our district. We are also
062for any other um AI tools that staff members would like to use, we have created a vetting form um that the committee will use to review those um those AI tools to see if it's something that we should implement. Um, so we do have and I'll show you our website in a second. Um, which we haven't published yet, but I just want to give you a sneak pre sneak preview of it. It has an I a place where staff members can submit an AI AI tool that they're interested in using so that the committee can vet it for things like security to make sure it would be something that we'd want to add. So I wanted to pause for a second and and give you a quote here. And the reason why I gave a
063quote from this particular book is because um we did order copies of this book. It's called uh it's by John Warner. It's called More Than Words and it's subtitled How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI. And we did purchase copies of this book for everyone on that committee and also for all English teachers in the district because we think it is important as we look at integrating generative A into the curriculum to take a step back and look at our at what writing and look at what writing we're doing and why we're doing that writing. And the quote that I pulled out from this book that I thought was so important to keep in mind is that to abandon all writing to generative AI is to abandon thinking itself. So, I want
064to make sure that everybody understands that as we're looking to integrate generative AI into the curriculum, we're not using it to replace writing. Writing is an very important part of our curriculum. It's a very important part of what students do and what adults do as well. And one of the things that we're trying to impress upon students throughout this integration of AI is the thinking that happens while you're writing. You know, many of us can pro probably relate that as we sit down to write something, what we end up writing about is something that we never thought that we were going to write about as we started. And that's one of the things that this book is so good at explaining is the process of writing. When we talk about generative AI, we talk so
065much about the final product, but it's the process that is so important throughout this process. So we we are not at all abandoning the process of writing because it is so important to enhance our thinking and learning. So I mentioned our pilot program. Um I also want to before I get into the pilot program I want to point out the picture on this slide and I know it's a little difficult to see but initially when I asked Gemini to create these slides presentations the picture that was on this slide was of a robot standing at the front board with a chalk, you know, with chalk writing on the board and students sitting very quietly like zombies behind computers. And that is not at all what we want. So I did ask Gemini to please replace
066that picture with a teacher. Get rid of robots. I said there can be computers there, but students should be actively learning. I should have said they should have been teenagers. We are a high school district. Student looks like he's in second grade here. But um but still I think it more fully captures of what we're looking to do rather than a robot teaching our students behind Chromebooks. Uh so with this pilot program we have recruited uh departments of teachers to volunteer to teach uh to uh in integrate AI tools in controlled settings. So we do have six teachers from across the district. It's a nice balance between the two schools um who are uh we have our first meeting the end of the month so that we can work on integrating um AI tools into
067the curriculum for those different subject areas in which they teach. So, we're looking at doing this from January through March and then uh using um the rest the remainder of the year to survey students and to begin to revise the curriculum based on the findings from that. So, um we're we're excited to move forward with the pilot program with the teach the new teachers the teachers that have uh volunteered to participate in this program. >> Yes. >> Question on the six teachers. What are the disciplines like or is it >> what subjects is it? a couple of math teachers. We have a social studies teacher. Um we have a actually a member of the child study team as well. Um we didn't get an English teacher. I keep on trying to talk to some English
068teachers about volunteering and so but we do have a mix of different subject areas. >> Thank you. >> Sure. So I mentioned that one of the uh tasks that this committee has done is to work on a resource library and I mentioned that we have a forum to vet the tools that that people uh suggest. So I just want to take a second to show you um what we now I am not in any way a coder but again with generative AI it was able to say what we're looking to create and uh it was able I put in the resources that we want to include in there for now. So we uh the committee gave feedback that it would be nice besides having the tools just to have an overview of the purpose of
069this. So we added um you know the reason for this resource library but then we have you know you can filter it with all and we haven't vetted any of these yet. These are just examples that are in here although I think these are pretty good resources. U but you can filter it if you're looking specifically for AI tools. We have something to get started with Gemini. If you're looking specifically for lesson templates, we have something for students to self-reflect on their AI use. If you're looking for best practices guides, you know, we have, is this what you distributed? The profile of an AI ready graduate might have been. >> Okay. Probably alluding to it because I think it's sort of out there. >> So, the you know, teaching responsible use of AI. So, we
070have some samples in here that the committee will be evaluating, but like I also mentioned, we have a place on here for staff members to submit a resource. So, you know, when they do that, they just fill out a Google form, you know, what it is, and you know, they give us some information about it, the link, and then the committee will review that. So, we haven't linked this on our website yet because first the committee at the end of the month is going to be reviewing the resources that um the re resources that we already have on here in addition to some that the committee is uh curious about adding. So, once we review that, then we'll uh get this website out to everybody. So, that's everything. Um, I I wanted to finish with
071this quote. And actually, I have this quote at the beginning of our next committee meeting because I want to make sure that we emphasize this throughout the whole process. And Edward Hopper, if you're familiar, he's a he's a painter. And he said, "No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination." And I want to make sure that we remember that throughout this whole process that we're not using generative AI to replace imagination. You know, it is a tool that we can use and it can help us complete some tasks, but it at the heart of everything that we do is our imagination and we can't lose sight of that. So, do you have any questions about the committee or or where we're headed? >> So, you talked about one of the things
072was when a new resource is recommended is making sure it kind of meets some >> uh confidentiality and security, right? So is this somebody on the committee or how how do we make sure I mean it's just not >> GMO is our expert on the committee to look at those kinds of things. >> Okay. >> Um I was just wondering what sort of guard rails are there in terms of I know uh when students are on the network and go to a site on Chrome that might be or Google that's not allowed. There's a flag or there's a warning says you can't go there. Are there going to be similar guard rails and you know reporting if something like that happens? Yeah, >> that's why we want to stick to a Google product because we
073do monitor all of the Google products. So, it would just it falls right within that. Yes. >> Yes. >> So, I I want to commend the list of core characteristics that the committee came up with because that to me sort of signals that they're not going to lose sight of those very important things in all of this work going forward. And while AI is is sort of the exciting thing of the moment and certainly something that you know my I'm steeped in with work as well, those characteristics I feel are probably more important in terms of what sort of curriculum and learning ultimately get shaped for the student experience. And I would certainly encourage as any sort of curricular revision goes forward, you've certainly got the beginning of implementing some AI application. I would encourage
074you to take a look at curriculum through those lenses to say where is that authentic learning? Where are we affording students voice and choice? Where do they have agency and inquiry to sort of problem solve or identify and explore those real world problems? That to me is probably almost the harder work of of designing and engaging curriculum. Certainly AI will be there as a tool that students can use, but that's going to be the stuff that I think engages them, that sort of excites your teachers, um, and sort of, um, enables them to create really kind of dynamic learning experiences for kids. Being familiar with things like AP Seminar and AP Research, you see the kinds of questions and ideas and topics that students explore when they're sort of given license to do so. And
075extending from that, as you sort of think about that framework, where um you know, not losing sight of where the teacher agency is in that too, because all of this involves experimentation, risktaking, uh the the the willingness to try things that might not work. Uh and then to have the support of the administration to try things that that might not work and learn from those things going forward. So I certainly want to commend those characteristics. Um the other thing to and you alluded to it not wanting to lose sight of sort of the human in the loop the human learning the creative and critical thinking and even as folks are embedding AI tools and practices being mindful of everything from screen time to student face-toface interaction and obviously we have new laws coming with cell
076phones next year. Um, but student wellness I think is sort of rooted in the relationship um, in all of that. I think you're on the right track in terms of shaping the guidance. I think some of the feedback that you've gotten indicates that kids and parents are not fully sure yet, you know, what these things are and uh, how to go about using them. Um, in terms of parent presentations, uh, having done a few myself, you might want to lean into opportunities where you already have parents in the building, back to school nights and things like that to do informative AI sessions. Folks will be curious just to see what tools their students have or what they can do. Uh, I know I would have loved it as like an eighth grade parent whose, you
077know, grasp of algebra was many years in the rear view. being able to sit down with some of these tools and articulate with them so that I could help my kid or help my kid help themselves and the tools and their capabilities have really have reached that point. Um, the other thing you mentioned that I think is significant is process and you said it when it comes to writing or or really any learning endeavor, the learning is what happens along the way. the artifact at the end is nice and it's sort of a an indicator of of what kids uh can do. uh but the real value and the real learning is what happens along the way and I think that's a challenge for educators who are very acclimated to that end product being the
078representation of learning and particularly with the capabilities of AI you know you have to be very assured that that is authentic in terms of what's submitted whereas engaging kids in the process along the way I think reveals the opportunities and also uh I think reduces the inclination to if you've done all these steps along the way. Uh chances are you're not going to go out and hit an easy button to give you something completely different at the end. So, um I'm sorry that's that's a lot. Um but it's, you know, I think work that's important to the district. Certainly work that I'm I'm keenly interested in. And last one, just out of curiosity, the uh website, did you use Gemini Canvas to vive that? So that's kind of interesting too because for like you can
079articulate to Gemini to create a web page and that in and of itself like a website like that could be a future um product that students create like you might think of traditional research or something that kids might produce a report. Now, with the ability to articulate with spec uh specificity and resources, you can instruct AI to create a website that's functional and usable to an audience. Um, so I would certainly encourage as you're learning about and as teachers are learning about what some of these tools are and what they can do to even rethink the kinds of products I think you had on the the list there, some of it being multimodal. Um, so that would be a great example of my ability to articulate my understanding of something. Could be a website where
080I talk about process or the inspiration or the product or the things that happen along the way. So yeah, that I was just curious about. I didn't realize it was I had a hunch but I wasn't sure. >> If you knew my coding experience is more than >> Well, you're articulate. You can articulate exactly what you want. Uh, and and that becomes a key skill as well. Um, sorry, I did not mean to to to do that to monopolize, but uh other questions or thoughts? >> Um, I had a question. Um, and forgive me if I missed it, but at so after this is kind of worked through after the pilot program runs, the teachers are going to report out on what how they used AI in their lesson development or anything like that. So,
081you're going to evaluate how they used it. Well, we'll we'll know how they're using it going into it. They'll >> propose what they're going to be doing in the committee. We'll discuss it, too. But we're also going to be surveying students both before and after that unit so we can get their feedback on how it went and the engagement and those kinds of things. So, we'll be using um teacher and student feedback and using that then to bring it back to the department about other areas that we could revise as well. >> Okay. And how does do the parent how does the parent aspect work into that as well? >> Um we didn't talk much about parent feedback. I mean I don't know they're not in the classroom so it's hard for them to really
082give much feedback on it but um maybe there's another opportunity to get more parent feedback about that as well and and especially during you know like back to school night and things like that. I know as soon as I get back I want to jot down some notes about some parent programs that we can do at back to school night next year. and and what I think we'll talk about with the teachers, you know, involving their parents, the the parents of the students in the pilot program to get their feedback throughout as well. Any other questions? >> Yes. >> I suppose this might be kind of the whole point, but I'm struck by one of your questions questions put it in context of my peers cheat use it to cheat. Is it maybe is that
083is it generally viewed by students as a way to it's got that negative aspect if you're using this you're cheating. >> So we asked two different questions. >> We asked do you use um generative AI for negative reasons and we put in parenthesis cheating or do you use and and a separate question do you use generative AI for um I forget what the other word was but for uh you know uh positive reasons. and we gave examples for that as well. So, um, so we were able to get both sides of it. >> Recognize that admin, uh, teachers view it as potentially a positive thing, not necessarily all negative. It's not only about cheating. Yeah, it depends on how >> well one of the things that we're trying to put together and we some states
084have um some really good models is it's like an AI use continuum and with each assignment you can explain to the students you know this is red this is a zero like no AI use uh this assignment is is a a yellow where you can use AI to to um uh generate ideas but the product should be based on what you create or this assignment might be green with AI or use as much of it as you want. So, we're trying to one of the things that we're going to go over with the committee next the next time that they meet is having something like that throughout this unit so that students understand the different parts of how how much AI or if at all they should be using AI with with each different part
085of the assignment. And teacher modeling with that I think becomes crucial because the teacher can say hey look I'll show you to do this but if you were to continue and do this that might be problematic >> and I think if you would have asked two us two years ago about AI we would have only thought of it in negative connotations right like you know how are we going to protect our students from this tool and now we know we can't we need to teach them how to use it properly and I think that's the direction we're moving towards now. There are negative aspects to it, but there's many more positive aspects to it. So, we're still trying to curb the negative uses, but positive uses. And that is not a, you know, easy thing
086to do. That's the line that we're sort of >> following. So, thank you so much for your time. >> Thanks. >> All right. Um, Rich, I didn't know was there anything specific on home instruction or out of district placements to draw attention to? So I guess we'll vote on those next week, but just standard >> standard standard. >> And I think the idea was again those things come in, >> you know, daily. So waiting until you can actually vote on those, that's when those things will be put in there. Um so again, even though next week is a voting session, that doesn't mean that there's questions on something that gets added as an attachment. We can't discuss it. >> Okay. >> Maybe we could just for our new members describe what those things are. >>
087Sure. Yeah. I mean, I could do that real quick right now. Um you know, home instruction. So there there will be a list of home instruction students. Student numbers will be listed that are on home instruction. So the board is required to approve those. Those are students who are typically out for medical reasons that we're providing instruction while they're out for those medical reasons. There are a few other varying um reasons that we could be providing home instruction, but the majority of those are usually for medical reasons. Um out of district placements is also um again this is a running list. Students that are either going out of district or um coming back in district. A lot of times you'll see people on students on there that are being accepted into our programs. So there's
088both um it goes both ways and that's usually if there are any new placements that month, this is where the board would approve them. And added district placements are typically again for special education reasons. Uh we have a lot of programs. Um at some point maybe we'll have Jen talk about all the different programs and Bobby um you know so that you understand what we have in district and um you'll have a good understanding of how we try to keep our students in district whenever possible. But there are some times where we don't have the ability to educate them based on their disabilities and so they have to go to a school that specializes in that. >> Thank you. >> Okay, I'm going to move forward to policy and school school security. Um, interestingly, uh,
089one of the things I was going to share and, uh, actually it it came up in public comment tonight is that we did at the end of December receive from school boards their um, draft on the Freedom to Read Act. So, that policy will be shared with you after this meeting. Our hope is to have a first reading of it next week. Uh I believe that you'll see a version where it's sort of redlinined where what's different and sort of another version where it's the uh the final version that would go in. Uh it's you know I'll just say it's unfortunate that our policy vendor uh got that to us at the end of December. So we're only in a position now to be able to to to process that. uh we would have our
090first reading next week uh the opportunity to discuss and then we would be voting on it the week after in terms of putting it into place. I think the legislation was that we were to uh yeah um have had it in place by the end of December. Um on that note, I am uh going to ask Brian to uh chair sort of our policy ad hoc committee. Uh that was one of the pieces of feedback I received is folks recognized that there are these certain committees such as negotiations and policy that just need to shepherd certain work forward. Uh uh Brian was on the policy committee. Uh and what I'm asking really for anyone who's interested in that work and if you are interested let me know. Uh and we'll see if there's a small
091cohort of folks. It wouldn't be so much as um evaluating the way you would in committee, but really just sorting setting up an agenda to keep us on track and moving policy to us so that we can move it through a first read and a second read process. Uh since we made the switch to school boards, I know we have those documented policies. Uh Brian has a lot of housekeeping notes on there. Um, so I'm asking him to continue with that work and he agreed. Uh, if you're interested in being part of that process, uh, shoot me an email and we can coordinate from there. But like I said, you wouldn't be expected expected to be having deliberative decisions about the policies, but rather, you know, identifying these are the ones we're going to bring
092forward. uh perhaps identifying places where the district may have to make a decision or uh address a note that might be there but then that becomes the fodder of our discussion in the first read process. >> Yeah, I would love to join in and just so you know um I have been on policy in the chair and I I was a part of the process of writing 2530 and 9130. So, um, we worked really hard on that years ago and >> since it came up in public comment, just so you're describing the approach that we're taking right now, we haven't taken a vote or anything, >> correct? >> The process you're describing is take school board's suggested revision to those policies that would comply with the law, >> right? the the the draft that we
093received from school boards at the end of December was their um their attempt to make that policy now compliant with the law. And so it would be us looking at okay this is what they are saying our new policy around this essentially needs to be uh as per the law >> and that's one of the things on the county meetings that we have. We always have legislation if there's any changes school boards will bring that up in our county meetings. So, it's great because you can ask questions right then and there, too. And if it's something that needs to be acted upon where there's revisions to policy, you know, we kind of are ahead of the game on that. So, >> okay. >> When did you say by law it needs to be in place?
094>> I think we were it was supposed to have been in place in December, but I believe school boards did not get the policy to us until the end of December and not in a timely manner that we could take that we could act upon it. So basically we overrode our own policies by accepting school boards. Oh, >> all right. >> That that might have been Sorry. Um we we had uh over a series of years revised Strauss Esme, you know, policies to some extent. Maybe some of them were verbatim Strauss estimate, other ones were 90% them, 10% us. I don't remember if this is one, >> this was us. They they took so they took that kind of uh modified Strauss estate. School boards did. We paid them >> to take a look at
095our policy manual and kind of translate it to theirs. >> Oh. >> So, for example, when they fed us back, we have the weighted voting. Well, that's not a normal school board s NJSBA. >> So, we didn't accept boilerplate school boards. They did a review for us. >> Many of them were boilerplate. Some of them were modified >> so that the Strauss SMA and their version didn't clash. >> One way to say it and so I don't remember if this is one that >> got >> well it wasn't >> had some flavor of our own our own flavor in it at all. >> School boards didn't have their policy version of it yet. Uh and then so what we would have is sort of our old strauss with whatever notes were sort of there to
096be addressed going forward. I can say at the time that you know we were converting from stress testing to school boards there there was um you know at the time the board said we want to accept what school boards is recommending. Um and so there were you know the changes that ours was a custom policy and school board said well we recommend this is what we recommend to people and I think we went with what they recommended. Um that was before the Freedom of Read Act was um signed into law. Now that it was they have now The Department of Education developed guidance. The policy services draft me school boards um took that guidance and developed their model policies to adhere to that. And so our policy that we will be adopting is going to
097be a very similar to what we created in this district as a custom policy and because that really was um instrumental in the state law, >> right? And theoretically school boards did this policy bust this policy out to all school districts. So many school districts are probably in the same kind of compliance uh region that we are right because of the timing. >> Yes. I mean you know when it comes to policies um >> right because you have a >> majority of schools have stress estimate at this point you know there's few have school boards >> right but to adopt a new policy we have a procedure for first reading second reading it takes you know it takes time for us to approve a new policy we can't turn around a new policy in >>
098three days it's just a standard school board operating >> so we'll be a little late but we're going to get done >> and do we we still have the opportunity to to customize it even more if we wanted to >> well that would be the discussion as we look at it into next week. Um, you know, I don't know if we have sort of the legacy policy. Um, >> so yeah, we still have access to our old policy manual online that I can get the um all the different versions. That policy, particularly 2530, I think went through like multiple revisions. There was >> one revision, you know, there was like three revisions in a 12-month period. Um, because of the controversy that was surrounding it, we wanted to make sure we were addressing all the
099pieces. Um, so that was, you know, I can get all those versions or we can just look at what the last version was that we had before we decided to move over to schools. >> And that legacy version, we might find it syncs very nicely with with a lot of our requirements. >> And I think in that policy committee, that odd health committee, that's some of the discussions we're going to have is, you know, looking at um, you know, where we were, where we're at, and where we want to be. So, so the policy committee, the ad hoc committee is going to be, you said you're creating a structure to kind of push these policies forward, but will they also be informing us or kind of >> I think it really what happens is they
100as a first look have the opportunity to draw our attention to like details as per Brian's notes or in the cases where there's a policy where it's asking the district to make a decision on something to decide. Um, it's really bringing those to our attention so that in that first reading, it opens up the floor to those discussions. Do we want to go this way or that way? Do we like it phrase this or hey, maybe there's something from this legacy policy that we like that maybe isn't in the new policy and we want to add that to it. And then the second read gives us the opportunity, >> right, to do. >> And we're still working through some of this stuff with school boards as well. Like Strauss had a way of giving us
101a good product that we could just put up for everybody to review. um last month or yeah I guess it was last month if you remember we um we did accept some policy changes and it was there wasn't a redline version it was just the the language that we wanted the board to accept um they were very minor changes so it didn't make much of a difference but in this case these are substantial changes so there will be a redline version um so you'll see what's added what's deleted what's modified um in that first reading then discussion will happen with the board once that gets um finished then it will become a final product to vote on in the second reading without the red line because that will be the language that you want in
102there, >> right? >> And to the the position of the voting delegate is um that's what you work on with school boards. So these policies will come up before and then a school board every voting delegate views and then they're voted and that's when those changes come out of school boards um twice a year on policy. So um it's a it's an interesting position to to hold. >> Okay. just just in general, how how much more do we have to go through through updating the policy? >> Well, we adopted those schoolboard policies sort of in mass and um the intention was we would now go back through them and sort of section by section >> um go. >> And just just out of curiosity, are we like how how far through that are we? >>
103Uh I think we're like one policy through it in terms of like the bylaws that we addressed at the prior meeting or the one before. So, this will this this will be >> it's all ahead of >> us. This is really going to be >> it's going to be it's going to be going up. >> Just real quick, um a number of the districts that we represent have have changed either from Strauss Esme to New Jersey school boards or New Jersey school boards. Strauss Esme. every policy in Strauss estimate is can be found in New Jersey school boards. So there's nothing that is left out that the board has to worry about in that regard. Secondly, all the policies um that that the board is discussing or many of most all the policies are based
104upon statutes that the legislature passes that specifically say in those statutes that boards of education will promulgate policies consistent with what these statutes have to say. Strausses ESME and New Jersey school boards are a service to help the board develop those policies that that the legislature requires. So while I don't see how school boards could possibly uh develop that we could develop all of our own policies based upon the hundreds of requirements from from the legislature. There is nothing stopping a school board from developing its own policy. And I'm sure at the delegate assembly, many of the policies that come up may have nothing to do with what the legislature is necessarily um thinking of, but that boards are organically thinking of on their own. >> Exactly. >> Question. Sorry. um two actually. So with
105the freedom to read act policy that is there any kind of grace period because the policy was given to us solely that we have to comply. >> I don't know that it's so much we have a policy that is in place and is still acting at present. It's just a matter of us having something that is now in compliance with the law. I don't know that that turns into anything. Phil or Katie with CQAC. I don't know. The board doesn't have to worry about anything because at its organizational meeting it uh reratified all of its policies and you already have policy in in the books that address this and now you're about to amend that policy. So, no no worry to think that that the board isn't in danger of any kind of sanction for
106not timely um uh updating updating that policy. >> But it's still not in compliance with the freedom to read. >> Correct. all of the specific details. That's what the new draft will >> entail. But we also, just to be clear, um our local policies, um if there's a state law that governs something and is more restrictive than what our current policy is, we have state law, >> right? >> Yeah. So, we would have to be in compliance with the freedom to read Act whether or not we have the policy for it or not. We're just policy up to date with it when it happens. And then my second question is the ad hoc committee would basically prioritize what policies need to be amended and adjusted and then bring it to us. >> I mean that's
107definitely a possibility and I would see that in consultation with Rich to sort of say like here you know this is the order in which we might want to do it or to say uh you know there's an urgent need to prioritize some before getting to others. >> And it really comes down to updates. Um, you know, our policy manual is what it is. If there was if the board felt like there was something that needed to be improved, you know, we look at that, talk about language in the policy committee and then bring it to the full board for consideration. Uh, but most of what we change in our policies is based on the recommendations of our powers service. So whether it's school boards or stresses, stresses for good or bad, you know, had
108a lot of updates. You know, every month, you know, we would have something that they would be recommending. Um, school boards, their philosophy is a little different. They don't recommend as much. Um, so we might it might be a little less frequent, but when they do have that, it might be three or four policies we're talking about at the same time. >> Okay. And do we have like set timelines where we'll go through and review policies like after three or four years to see if they're still up to date with current things? If nothing comes around, do we have like a >> We don't have that currently. We have done that in the past um where we would review all the thousands, right? go through to thousands and you know we have this thing in
109our district that um if you again I don't think it counts now because everything says adopted last June 24th 2025 but prior to that when we had stresses me we had stresses for so long that if there was any policy that said it was adopted in 2001 that means it could have been 2001 or 1962 because it was that was when we digitized them right so everything was readopted then >> and then so we really had no context and there were policies that we would go through and clean up because they were no longer relevant, you know. Um, you know, things that >> pagers >> Yeah. Well, unfortunately, um, you know, as crazy as that is, but there was other things that just, you know, there were school rules that were in policy that weren't
110in effect. >> Okay. Yeah. real quick. Um, also the board and the community will will be assured that the superintendent possesses the authority uh from this board to promugate what are called regulations and regulations do not follow the same process unless required by law that board policies do. The regulations are kind of the howto of the policies and the superintendent may uh promulgate regulations with or without court votes whenever he sees that it's appropriate. So if you look through our policies, you'll notice that there are a lot of policies that also have regulations attached to those. Those are your administrations telling the district this is how we do this. This is this is the howto. >> This superintendent won't do that without notifying himself. >> No, no, not not not without notification. >> We would
111definitely Yeah. make sure everybody knows what those um procedures are to make sure that policy is being implemented correctly. >> Okay. Uh I'd like to shift to the uh finance and facilities or what may evolve into the school business administrators report. Like last week, I did ask Katie to sort of um with so many new folks just briefly sort of explain what each of these items are. Obviously, you have access to the documents themselves. Uh but it's just a way of getting acclimated and certainly an opportunity to ask questions. Kate, >> um I do have a a presentation to do first and she's helping me get set up. So, I'm planning for the committee the whole structure. You know, Rich and I have been discussing the best way for us to get out information to
112the board in the best fashion. And although I typically would have shared um some nice Excel worksheets and I love Excel worksheets with finance committee, I decided to go presentation style because of the makeup of the board now to provide some history and some background on our district. So, every year our budget season presents its own challenges and this isn't any exception. Um, I hope this presentation helps the board have a greater awareness as where we've been, where we are, and where we're planning to go. So, we're going to focus on the expenditures and the cost containment side of the budget and focus on revenues at the next meeting. So, there's going to be a lot of meat and potatoes at this meeting to hopefully offset maybe some of the conversations that typically would hit
113the March and April meetings when we do preliminary budget approval. So, it always begins with assessing our long-term and short-term goals of the district. So, these bulleted items are always what we focus on and strategize around when we're preparing the budget, which is always focusing on the strategic plans and objectives, providing an efficient education, keeping all the current level of academic courses and co-curriculars um um and athletics, safe, functional and clean facilities, and that is a big task with two large high schools. contractual obligations, retaining and you know attracting the high quality staff members, meeting the mandates and also preparing a budget that's fiscally responsible. So the chart displays our district budget as segments of a pie. The largest segment of the budget being salaries and benefits of 67% of the budget. the next largest
114areas and items we'll be discussing tonight in depth are also transportation out of district tuition facilities and also a piece of liability insurance. So to start with salaries they're also the largest part of our budget. The blue bar represents the amount the district has spent on total salaries from 22 23 all the way through the projected next um school budget year 2627. The purple line represents the the collective bargaining unit increase for each year and comparatively the red line is the actual percentage of increase in our total salaries. So the difference between the red and purple line is how we consistently reduce salary increases annually by some cost containing strategies such as breakage, hiring replacement employees on a lesser salary than the employee leaving, evaluating retirements to determine if a replacement of the position is
115necessary or if the work can be dispersed, and retaining highc caliber employees by increasing the student population with polytech programs during a time of declining enrollment in the constituent districts. So the 2526 school year is still in progress and so is obviously next year of projections. So you can see that line kind of flattens out as we you know get firmer numbers when we complete the school year. But this is a huge budget challenge knowing that you know our revenues are bound by 2% tax levy cap and also flat to declining state aid. So the next lar next largest budget driver is health benefits and it's important to understand some of the legislation that impacts our district specifically related to employee contributions towards health benefits. So chapter 78 legislation was implemented in 2011 and that
116requires school district personnel to contribute towards the cost of their health insurance premiums. The contribution schedule that the state developed is based on the employee salary which establishes a percentage and then that percentage is then applied to the premium cost to arrive at what is withheld from their paycheck. So, chapter 44 was then implemented in 2019 and it was enacted to provide alternate health benefit plans that were already that are in addition to the already existing plans in our collective bargaining agreement with the union. The theory was to provide school employees additional plan options that could save both the employee and the district money by reducing the plan designs and the offerings. So however, at the inception of the implementation, it was very clear that all districts, most districts are now paying more for their
117employees that are enrolled in the chapter 44 plans. This is due to significantly less employee contributions for these two plans that were enacted, the EHP and the GSHP. And just another item to know, chapter 44 also requires the mandatory enrollment of all of our new employees. And it does sunset in 2028. However, we're still waiting to hear if it's going to be renewed. So the next chart depicts how these health benefit costs are incurred per employee. The blue line represents the total premium cost for the employee. The green line is the employee contribution out of their paycheck towards that premium. So as you can see this has remained nearly flat only a very slight increase and the red line is the district cost of the premium. It's also evident that the rise in the premium
118cost of the health benefits is impacting the district significantly and the employee contributions are nearly remaining static. So the district is fully is bearing the primary burden of these significant health premium increases and it's bound by state legislation. >> So that's the important part is this is bound by state legislation, you know, so and collective bargaining. And so these are fixed costs that we don't have much control over. >> So how does the NHV annual health benefit increases compared to the next largest insurer in the state which is the state health benefit plan? So the blue line is the NHV annual increases and as a member of the school health insurance fund and the red line is the SHVP annual increases. So although we've we've experienced very reasonable and predictable increases over the past few
119years, the health insurance market is very volatile going into 2026. And as everyone has seen, the overall health insurance marketplace is experiencing significant increases. And we are no exception. The state health benefit plan is expecting a 33% increase for 2026 and an anticipated 29% increase in 2027. So although our plan increase of 20% that is projected for our next fiscal year budget is less damaging than the state health benefit plan is also massive and a significant impact on our annual budget. And again we are limited to a 2% tax levy increase and a flat to decline in state aid unless of course there are certain exceptions where you can go above 2% like a health benefit adjustment which we do anticipate due to these high level increases. So on the topic of insurance, I'll just
120have one quick highlight slide for um mitigating our costs due to in our liability insurance. We are a member of NJ Sig, New Jersey school's insurance group. So just as we're in the school's health insurance fund, um this the NJ SIG is also a not for-profit entity and without the motivation of generating profit. So surpluses are returned to our district or any district that's a member if they're generated. So our broker will shop our plate aggressively at our renewal to determine the lowest cost option and provide while of course providing the same coverage. So we're looking forward to a year where this increase is not as significant in liability insurance due to the favorable reinsurance market currently transportation costs. So these costs happen >> if I can. >> Sure. Uh I believe wasn't there a
121fairly recent finance committee meeting where like you you had the broker >> I did >> attend who sort of projected out sort of where and I guess this is all the results of that various projections and uh the plans wherein versus what's happening to some of the other >> the market in general. >> Okay. All right. two >> two slides ago, right? That broker was talking about health benefits, not >> he was talking about health benefits, not liability. Correct. >> I I I wanted to ask a question about that, too, because he told us we might expect up to a 30% increase. Is it now? >> Now, he thinks more like 20. >> We are looking at closer to 20% because we're in that school's health, you know, the school's health insurance fund versus the
122um state health benefit plan. >> Okay. At the time, we knew the state health benefit plan increase, but we weren't sure about our increase in our district. >> Sorry. Theoretically, if we have a relatively healthy uh group of of people remaining to the plan, we get more favorable rates than Right. That's another thing. So, that's like a a component that that's unique to us, right? We bring >> healthy less expensive. >> That's what allowed us to enter into the school's health insurance fund because you have to be a healthy district to enter it. So >> which is claims experience. >> The school health insurance fund is basically a self-insured program. But so as a district, you know, if you have a budget like we do, you can do what's called self-insuring where you you hire
123someone to manage your insurance, you know, on on claims and things of that nature, an Etna or a Blue Cross or Blue Shield, but you pay the claims out of your out of your pocket, right? But there's exposure with that. And the exposure is if you start getting really high claims, you know, you don't have the money, you have to find the money. um what the health the insurance fund is is a bunch of people doing that together. So a consortium. >> So you have >> and so we have the the power of the numbers but we're still able to um manage that without going to a private insurer. And so if if we have a healthier population like we were allowed in because of our health our population because of our what do they
124call it utilization rates you know you know I learned a lot about insurance you know being in this job that more than I ever thought I would. Um, but you know, insurance companies charge you based on how much you use them. You know, if you have a high utilization rate, your rates go up higher. You know, it's not they don't lose money. Um, and so we're fortunate that we're in this funds. We were able to get into it when we did when we had a very healthy population. Once you're in, then they have, um, I love Jim F's term. It's he calls it a collar and a cuff. um which is you know you if the average is going to be 20% and your your organization is doing really well as far as claims you
125might be 18 or 18 and a half but it can't go below that. >> And then again conversely if you are doing you have a high claim ratio you know you can go up to maybe 21 22 but they can't raise you up to like 30% and while everyone else is at 20. So the there's they have these like um >> small little increases buffers there. your share of it. It's all >> exactly correct. Which protects us from unexpected, you know, even more unexpected expenses. Um, but it also protects the fund so that they can actually, you know, divvy that um out to to protect all the members. >> Do we have to apply every year? Every year are we re-evaluated or is it every year? >> And what year was it? Because this came
126up when we were I was on financial facilities. >> It started in 19. So it was by the spring of 2020 we decided to start shifting. >> Yeah. because Horizon remembered the premium on that time a roller >> coaster. Yeah. So, thank goodness that you were proactive and got us in this >> and we've gone back and forth over the years with um between state state health benefits privately using Horizon or Etna and then SHIP and I think so partnership has proved to be >> good. Thank you. >> So just just for the clarification because of that meeting we did have. So while 20% is much bigger than 2%, >> it's less much bigger than 30%. >> Yes. >> Okay. Is it is it kind of getting solidified now or are we still haven't we
127really don't know? >> That's our broker estimate for right now. So has the ship actually issued their renewals for the year? No. But that's what's coming out of the ship as far as what's to plan forward. And and when is that kind of when does it get locked? >> It'll most likely be after we adopt preliminary budget. Usually it's April. So we just have to go with our preliminary estimates for the best. >> We have to plan for the worst. But >> yeah, >> hopefully the best. >> Okay. >> So transport they have been rising significantly past few years. You can see that on this bar chart. um why it's been caused by the bus driver shortages and that really drove up the cost of the hourly rate for bus drivers. It's also an increase
128in the cost of gasoline and the significant cost cost and increase in buses. So what are we doing to contain the cost? We do our best to renew renew our routes at CPI whenever possible because that is significantly cheaper than refitting a route every year. We coordinate our transportation with Hunter County Educational Services Commission. So, we stack our routes with neighboring districts. This provides significantly reduced route costs since bus companies can then complete more routes efficiently among the participating districts with them. We're consistently reviewing regular and special education routes to determine if there are further efficiencies to be gained in route planning and remapping. And as we'll discuss shortly, we're also mitigating out of district placements. So this our district will save significant funds related to tuition with those but also with the associated transportation
129costs with those district placements. So these routes are significant in cost and also typically only transport one student. So looking forward to future cost containment. The utilization of bus waiverss um would be a cost savings and reducing the number of students that need to be transported and we do have a policy um that supports this if we do move to that. Um, this would have been a great idea to implement in conjunction with the waiver of senior parking fees to gain participation. However, alternate options will now need to be explored. >> Can I can I just add something to that just because we have a lot of new members and I just want to point out in the past because of this has been a constant issue. Katie's done um we've had like independent studies
130outside of the district to to look at our routing and everything to see if there's any efficiencies that could be and we basically are have the most >> as efficient as you could be >> as efficient as we can be. Yeah. So it has been looked at year after year. >> We keep looking for lowhanging fruit and finding >> it's a I mean it's all taken given the size and the you know the diff between just sending districts know it too. It's >> we're one of the largest geographic in miles from >> in order to cut a bus, it would make the other routes so significantly longer in time that it's just not feasible. So again, unless you were to have students that wave their seat on that bus, so that way then consolidate the
131the routes. It's really only feasible option. >> But the waiver is really the only way a waiver is really effective is there's some kind of incentive for it, right? And so that's what that's what our issue has been over the years is because somebody can say, "Well, I'll wave my seat on a bus." But then three weeks later they could resend that waiver and then you have to have a seat on a bus for that kid. So you have to be careful what you do with that. And that was one of the things with senior parking that we thought about was, you know, if you, you know, you get free parking if you wave your seat on a bus, >> then we can cut bus routes, right? Um, and so that's something we're going to
132further bring to the board consideration. >> I I ask Yeah, I endorse that. Um, it's a new board. >> Yeah. >> I think what we should try to get what what in my opinion we should have done in the first place is ask for some optionality before we just went down that road immediately. So, um, if you're willing to give us the board, the new board some optionality to think about, um, >> we will. So please >> without doubt >> consider I I would say we should consider that student parking can be on the table again >> the board decides to tackle it in January but it's coming >> with options attached. >> Yeah. What was it wasn't going to be right now as as the board decision stands right now that it was not
133going to be implemented until 26 27. Correct. Right. >> Right. That's correct. So you're saying theoretically if everyone who got a parking spot waved their seat on a bus, we would see significant transport or some sort. >> Well, let's say, you know, again, our total income from student parking, I think we talked to around $38,000. Um, you know, if we were able to save one route, that would save $35,000. >> Oh, more than 50,000 about 50,000 now. So, um, so even if we could save one bus just by half of >> the seniors not take, you know, >> Right. Right. I'm just I didn't Yeah. I was just trying to really understand like how big an impact that would have. >> And it comes down to that incentive, right? And so that incentive is, well,
134if I save 75 bucks for the year and I give up my thing, well, if you you know, part of that waiver would have to be that, well, if in the middle of the year you come back and say, "Oh, well, I don't have a car anymore. I need a bus or or I want my bus seat back just in case my car breaks down." Then you got to pay the 75 bucks. >> Yeah. I'm just wondering, do we have have we asked students in the past to wave the you know, whether they want to wave or not? We have not wavers has been something we've talked a lot about, but it's a again there's a lot of complicated um nuances about it. Um but I think we're going to try the >> legislation is
135still fairly new. I don't think this is for very long. >> And the senior one would be an easy one. You know, underassman would be a little harder unless we want to. Not that it can't be done, but it's just a little harder to >> All right. So, the next couple slides I had the privilege of working with Jeff Kabarowski and um what are out of district costs? I think that's important just to talk about what does that mean? If a student has a need for a specialized learning program that can't be met in district, they may require the enrollment in a special school that specializes in the need of that student. So these schools require us NHB to pay tuition for that student to attend, which is a cost that will far exceed the
136cost of educating the student in district. So it also requires our district to provide individual transportation to that school. So again with the help of Jen the data on the chart displays the reduction that we've seen annually and the number of added district placements which is the light blue bar. The dark blue column is the tuition revenue generated by students that we are receiving from other districts into our district special programs. So these are programs that we created at NHV and they are highly sought after and other districts are now showing increased interest in sending their students here which provides our district funds to offset the cost in running these programs. So what are the reasons for the success in the special programs at NHV? So again, I would say it's the amazing special services
137staff that we have here and the administration. But Jen gave me these three other points as well. Program expansion that's happening at the special student needs that will evolve and change. There are now several programs that meet the specialized needs of district students and have been adapted over time as you can see here and that are listed. Um, collaboration among sending districts is a key to success in transitioning eighth graders into north 40s. The articulation happens frequently, so our student services department begins to determine upcoming needs of seventh and eighth graders. And on a somewhat regular basis, we receive eighth graders into our programs on a tuition basis from one of our constituent districts. This also helps to acclimate those students prior to high school. And also a commitment to inclusion. NHB has a consistent
138focus on educating students with the least restrictive environment. So, as you can see here, this is just another chart that she was providing to us that is really great comparative look of NHV placements with students with IEPs. So, the first bar you're going to see is nationwide. The second one is statewide. Third is a local pool of districts and then the fourth is NHV. The dark green bar represents students with an IEP in general ed classrooms over 80% of the day. The light green is 40 to 79% of the day. Those IEP students are in general ed classrooms. Red indicates IEP students in general ed classrooms less than 40% of the day. And orange represents a separate setting and blue is for parentally placed in a private school. So you can see here that the
139special programs created in NHV have a primary focus in the least restrictive environment keeping more students in general ed settings with peers far exceeding all of the peer groups shown. So, thank you again, Jen. So, I'm going to transition over into capital projects, which is usually one of the largest expenditure items that we have in the district. Um, so there's going to be three different ways that we've been able to use kind of district um non-district funds or other people's money, let's say, um that are not taxpayer funds over the last five years. So, first we had the referendum of 2022. So, just to give everybody a highlight and a debrief on kind of what it was and what we included in there. Um, it did not incur any long-term debt, but allowed NHP to
140receive over 30% of our project costs with state aid funding. $6.5 million of projects listed in the slide were completed. And with the approval of our constituent districts, which we thank you, we were able to submit these projects to the state and receive $2.2 million to execute the projects. They were completed under budget and remaining funds have now been returned to our capital reserve account for later use on other projects. Referendum campaigns were really require a significant board involvement and the time spent communicating the benefits of those positive referendum votes. The communication of our board was successful in 2022 and was well worth their time and investment due to the $2.2 million of the state aid funds that were required. >> So before you leave, this is where I get to talk about Katie a
141little bit. Um so you know again this just to explain what this was um this was you know Katie gave up this idea which was um if if we um go out for referendum for these projects the state will give us 38% of the money back. If we didn't go out for referendum if we just said we're going to take this money from our capital reserve and we're going to pay for the projects that would cost us $6.5 million. What Katie said we do is float a one-year bond so we've incurred minimal interest but hardly any. Um by doing that, by the voters um affirmatively, you know, um voting for the referendum, we were able to get the 38% from the state and then take from Capital Reserve and pay off that bond in one
142year. So it really only cost us $4.2 million, 46.5 million worth of work. But again, there's a lot of work behind the scenes that has to be done to make that happen. you know, this is the hard way to do it, but the better way to do it financially for the district. And that's how we've been able to, this is one example of how we've been able to contain cost so that when the taxes can only go up 2% and everything else is going up 20 and three and a half%, you know, the reason we can contain that is because we're doing other costsaving initiatives like this and her office is always looking for ways to do this. So, I think there's more examples coming up, but she's going to fly through things and I
143know she >> um the second way that we've used other people's money. In 2019, we had an energy savings improvement plan, an EIP is another way of saying it, and is supported by state legislation that allows a public entity to implement an ESIP that can be self-funded over 15 to 20-year period. And of course, in accordance with that legislation, this started with a full energy audit to assess our buildings for areas of energy efficiency. The audit inventoried all light fixtures, boilers, HVAC units, etc., and provided data on the age and efficiency of the units and also potential cost savings provided by replacing those with new fixtures or equipment. So the audit is then verified by an independent engineering firm and the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities or NJBPU. This data allowed us to take
144the next steps of acquiring financing for a two-phase ESIP project. The first phase addressing inefficient lighting that would be upgraded to LED light fixtures. So LED lights were installed inside and outside of the schools. We installed destratification fans with UV lights in select areas with high ceilings. Upgraded our building management system software, replacing old pneumatic controls with new automatic temperature controls and also a ceiling upgrade in the high school calf new the or high school cap as well as installing a new ventilation system in the cafeteria. So the second phase was roof mounted solar as you can see in the pictures. The district entered into a solar PPA or a solar power purchase agreement. The district now purchases clean renewable energy produced by the photovalttaic systems at a substantial discount through this long-term solar power
145purchase agreement with New Jersey resources who is the financer and long-term owner of this system. So in summary, the ESIP reduced our total energy consumption electricity consumption and provided solar energy for a portion of the remaining energy consumed. So the first chart you're going to see on the left, the electricity usage in 1718, which was our base year for calculation. um is also compared to the last fiscal year for 2425. So we consume 450,000 less KW per year and the remaining consumption is approximately 40% of our building usage is generated by renewable solar power indicated by the red orange section of that bar. So the solar power is at a fixed rate with small escalations divi defined in our solar PPA and it's at approximately 1 cent per kilowatt hour whereas the market rate right
146now is approximately 19 cents per kilowatt hour. So this translates into our annual electricity bills in the next chart, chart number two. And the baseline is the top bar which was the NHP total utility cost for 1718 baseline. At today's utility rate, if the EIP was not done, electric cost would be approximately $930,000 annually per year, which is the second bar versus our actual, which is 529,000, the third bar, and a difference of over $400,000 annually in electricity. So those are the dollars and cents behind. >> So so currently 40% of our energy >> 40% of our energy is solar. >> That's awesome. >> So that is something that we've been looking at is what do we do for the rest and there is a lot of options right now that are soon to be
147expiring and something that we're looking into. So the third way for capital projects that we've used other funds is the utilization of grant funding. So I have this in a very brief synopsis but in 2022 we became aware of the grant for school and small business ventilation and energy efficiency verification and repair grant. So the timeline shown on the right hand side of the slide describes the process of when we became aware of the grant funding and how quickly we had to move in order to secure the grant application quickly. So Honeywell, which was our district esco, you may hear that term. It's our energy savings company that we work with, completed our full energy audit in 2019 and was able to take that information and translate that into a comprehensive grant application that then
148um turned into a $6.5 million recommended energy improvements and submission. So the application was successful and the figures shown are the real results of that grant. Over $6 half million dollars of repairs or replacements were completed in several areas of both North and Vorhees high schools and recently finished just this past summer of 2025 with the cost to the taxpayer of $1.6 million. So the other portion 4.9 was funded by the New Jersey Clean Energy Grant or the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities. So if you'd like more information on this grant, there's a a whole lot more behind the scenes. I did a pretty comprehensive presentation in September of 2024 and I would just direct you to that presentation. >> And again, just to reiterate, that was something that came quickly, right? It was
149one of those things like, you know, here's an opportunity. It's going to expire two months from now. Do we have the board support? The board supported it. Katie ran with it and was able to get, you know, again, $5 million that we would have not been able to get. So, um, just again, she puts a lot of work into making sure that we find these savings and issues and when we do, sometimes they're fast acting to explain it, but you know, >> so last but surely not least, is our partnership with Hunter County Vocational, the new building that you're going to see right outside of our window. Um, our partnership has been in effect for almost 10 years. You can see on this timeline just kind of like how things have progressed. beginning with the
150first on-site full-time academy program for Hunter County Vocational. So, prior to that academy, Hunter County only had part-time programs. Um, and it required students to complete their core curriculum in their home district and be buffed to the vocational school for a few periods of CTE classes. This resulted in significant travel time and lost instruction time during the day. So the full-timemies currently biomed, animal science, computer science, and environmental sustainability offer students a full day in one of our high schools. They complete their core core curriculum classes at either north or vorhees and CTE periods are on site as well. So this allows students to be a full-time vocational student while remaining in our building full-time. So 2019 2020 we worked closely to develop land leases and agreements to support Hunter County vocational in in applying
151for their securing their children's bond act to construct their first vocational building devoted to full-time CTE programs. So they were subsequently awarded that grant and although there were many challenges along the way it included significant building cost increases during their bidding process. they they successfully completed their north campus just opening in this past August of 2025. >> And again, I can speak quickly on that. You know, with all these partnerships that we entered into with Polytech, um we did with a student first, you know, lens. Um but also our enrollments were declining and we saw this as opportunities to keep our kids here in our school and also bring students from other um high schools in the county to our district and and keep our enrollment flat because you know at if our enrollments are
152declining we we'd have to reduce teaching staff. We have a great teaching staff. We don't want to reduce our teaching staff. So the only option was to figure out ways to increase enrollment and or keep it flat at least and that's what we've been able to do in our partnership. So that's exactly speaking to this slide. So over the past few years, the declining enrollment um shows that the partnership has provided the stability for our student population. These students are full-time vocational students attending our school on a tuition basis as I'll discuss in the next slide. So the first chart shows the Vorhees high school population with the largest piece of the bar as our district enrollment for Vorhees and the smaller pieces are the academy students attending their programs. So you can see it
153kind of helps level out the top of the chart. It's our two um total student population in the the school. The second chart displays the north population which is the green piece in the north section along with the orange bar which is the biomedical academy students and the blue section which is the new north campus building students. So these programs are only just the beginning and we anticipate these programs to eventually have four four cohorts of students which is freshman, sophomore, junior, senior. So on both charts, the total enrollment per building is stabilized by the addition of these programs. So how does this partnership equate to funds in our operating budget? North Forge is responsible to pay hunter and county vocational for every student that we send to their programs both full or part-time. So
154that expenditure can be significant due to the increased interest of our students wanting to attend CTE programs. So the first bar is an example of how much North's North Warhees district spent on vocational tuition, our expenditure for our students to attend their vocational programs last year. The orange are the NHB students attending their full-time programs and the blue is the cost of our students attending shared time programs. So in total, our annual expenditure to pay for our students to attend their programs is approximately $3.4 million per year. However, this expenditure is offset by our partnership with Hun County Vocational. So, they pay us a portion of their tuition revenue for every student attending their on-site academy programs as well as the north campus buildings. So, the second bar represents the offsetting revenue that we received
155from Hunter County Vocational for those student um amounts. So, displayed in the green bar is approximately $3.1 million annually. So, as you can see, the expenditure that we would be paying for our students to attend county programs is significant. However, our partnership with them has provided a way for us to contain those costs and see the benefit of those programs. >> The data you have here is from last year, >> correct? >> So, that doesn't reflect the north building yet, >> correct? >> And that will lower the >> it should provide us more revenue back as a tuition credit. So, you should see that green bar come up and then hopefully They would concern to almost balance it inequality. Yeah. >> Okay. >> So, say you had a student that was a going to be
156a Bory student and they go to the either the computer computer academy or the environmental science academy. Is that like a wash in terms of the money back and forth or is it still >> because we still have to pay them their full tuition rate which is like $10,500 >> and they're only paying us back >> they're paying us back a credit of X amount that we've decided upon. Depending on what program that they're in could be 70%, could be 60. >> Okay. So it's not a wash but there's still kind of it's still a loss sort of a loss but >> yeah and but again we're not paying the teacher for them so they have to pay for the teacher they have to pay for the equipment for the program so there that's what
157that anywhere from 24 to 30% difference is that that's their revenue source and then we get the rest of that back. >> I think what's one one of the things that Dr. said first though was it's the student first you know we we're even though this is money losing let's say not quite offset it does give our students that opportunity that they would have would not have had >> I was just yeah curious about the economics of it if you know then you encourage do you encourage students to >> you know >> so and that was again our original idea was we wanted to keep our students in district you know we didn't want our students to leave our building because they wanted to pursue a 4-year, you know, biomedical academy somewhere else, >> get
158on a bus. >> Yeah. And and and so, you know, and and I think it by having a programs in our district, there are students, you know, that might make a decision on whether or not they're going to be in one of themies based on well, if I'm in the academy, I'm not going to be able to take play lacrosse at North or something like that. if having it in district they might say oh yeah I'm going to do that take advantage of that because they can stay in district if they had to leave they might not decide to do that so I think that's the advantage that we've had is it's good for our kids um economically you know the numbers don't lie it's good for us economically as well even though there might
159be a few situations where if we compare just this group of kids we might be losing a little bit of money but we're gaining money over here and so it sort of offsets so I think we're we're in good shape on both sides really >> how How many of our non students? How many students are we bringing in from other districts all said and done across the four grades? >> Approximately 55 to 60% are usually north students already that >> I was going to say I think 40% of outside >> right and then it's from central or delval or south right it's really it's within the county it's not >> it is but we're starting to see some people from out of the county because they're offering things that now aren't being offered in others.
160Yeah, that's the county vocational system has its own set of rules, right? Like if Hunter County right now, we sent students to Somerset County for a dance program um because we don't have one Hunter County. They're developing one at South Hunter and when they do that, >> those students that wanted to pursue it the performing arts um academy >> would have to go to the one that's in county because we offer it. >> And similarly to that, we offer some things like an environmental and sustainability academy that Mars County might not offer. And if a student, you know, on that fringe of Hunter and Morris County wanted to come over here, they do. >> And is this representative of all the programs? So the like full-time programs, both schools of full-time program and the and
161the share time. This is districtwide. Okay. >> And that's that blue and orange part here. You can see the the smaller part is the share time. >> Yeah. And that's again that's it's that's only a junior senior program typically. So that's why you know you can see smaller numbers there also. And again students are hesitant to do that because they're out of their home school for half a day. You know it's important enough to some kids to do it but it's it that bus ride you waste 20 minutes there and 20 minutes back every day. So whenever we keep the kids in our building better. >> Okay. So just to wrap up, hopefully you're asking how can we do more of the things that you're seeing on the slides. How can we continue to make
162a significant positive change in supporting the students keep as many dollars in the classrooms as we possibly can. Um so we as administration need to know that we have your support. Strategic initiatives and planning is required of us through administrators to continually produce these types of results. So it requires the board support of these initiatives as they're being presented to the board for approval. Our initiatives are only impacting this district if they're supported and encouraged. And it takes several administrative hours, if not days in some instances, when we bring one contract or one resolution to the table. So when it's voted down, it's wasted time, it's wasted resources, and a waste of opportunity. So we're extremely proud of this district and we've provided a balanced budget annually, generating surplus every year to fund capital projects,
163all without making significant program cuts or staffing cuts. This is largely due to the several cost containment measures shown tonight and the previous support of the board of ed. So next month I really look forward to discussing the revenue side of the budget along with the progress support of the capital projects that we have going on and I look forward to working with this board this year. >> Thank you. You're welcome. >> Thanks. Thank you for that work. Uh and then just in the sort of in the spirit of community relations, would it be possible at some point going forward to potentially have that presentation and subsequent presentations on the website? >> Um and possibly if G could link the portion of this presentation so that somebody who wanted to see it could see the
164slideshow, they could hear your explanation of it at the same time. Uh I know the dashboard the finance dashboard was something that out of the strategic plan that the community was interested. They're supportive of what we do. It's just it's it's complex and they want to understand it better. So I think anything we can do to make these resources and explanations available are a benefit. >> Yeah, we can get both of these presentations from the agenda. >> Okay. >> For tonight and then future like you said. >> Yeah. I was going to actually ask this because I wanted to take that. There's a lot of information you went through real quick but but wonderfully explained so I appreciate it. >> Uh so Katie, not to not to test your speaking limits here. Um but if
165if you could just give us again that sort of brief walk through uh as folks are new uh and many of these types of items uh appear regularly. uh giving a little insight as to what they are and certainly the opportunity to ask questions would be great >> of course. So starting with the amended budget summary CA grant is an annual grant that we receive directly from the state. Um we're amending the budget summary because we typically have rollover funds from the prior year that need to be included. So this is the amended funds to include rollover funds from last year. So this is kind of like this year's aortionment plus um the prior rollover funds. So then it allows us to use last year's rollover funds along with this year and expend them before
166the end of this school year. >> A little bit of housekeeping basically. >> Just housekeeping. Yes. And they'll allow us to do this until this time year. >> 10.2 is a resolution to award our bid for HBAC upgrades to Environ. Um you'll notice on the resolution there was one lower bidder. They are not the responsible bidder. Um the lowest bidder came in extremely low. So we knew that there must have been a miscalculation on the bid of some sort and they did or send their bid the next day. >> Um so then a buyer con was the lowest responsible bidder. We did have a few other bids um all within the scope of how much we were projecting cost to be for this project. So luckily the environ bid came in at the low end
167of our expected budget. >> Yeah. and and in my position on the on the FFT committee previously and that this is in my realm of business this is what I my experience doing and that that's come up where you have someone come in who's very low and you obviously don't want that person because they missed some they've missed something in their bid and you want them you want to allow them to pull their bid because they just completely miss something and would not be able to do the job for that price. So, it's good to have multiple coming at the same time. So, it's good. >> Um, just one real quick question. The Hback upgrades, is that >> office? >> That Okay. So, does that coincide with the forgive me if I have it wrong,
168the EIP? >> Uh, so the district office was not allowed to be used for in the within the EIP or the other grant funding because it's not an educational space. Okay. >> So, that's why this is being used out of or funds to fund this product separately aside from those. We knew this would eventually have to get done. We've kind of been dragging our feet on getting this district office updated for that reason. >> You mean we won't have thermostats on either side of the column? That just >> the building is split in half. >> Yeah. >> It's ridiculous. You some history. This building was constructed by um the construction program at Polytech in 1991, I believe. Um, and so, you know, over the years we found a few things that, you know, there were
169some learning curves. I was exactly. Um, but >> be sure to tell my brother that let's hope he wasn't on the HBAC portion, but um, >> well, I'm wondering if any of our former attendees >> can tell us a little bit more about what was here. So the board did previously last year approve our architect to do the plan design and then we subsequently went out to bid and this is the approval of the bid so that they can um start to do work hopefully over spring break if not over summers. Um the revised contracts with county vocational you have already seen these contracts and they are subsequently being approved again because they typically have revised enrollment numbers. um they wait for their ASSA account at October 15th and once that is finalized they give
170us revised tuition contracts that finalize and solidify how much we owe them. >> So that's why you're seeing it the second time >> is the enrollment is a person or is it an hour >> like a class >> per person per program that's attending >> and so full-time obviously there's full time. So if the students attending biomed, it's one student at x amount of tuition rate, >> right? And the shared time one, which you were describing a little bit, fewer attendees, but it's also cheaper. Is that simply because they're not in >> because they have to >> they're not working they're not in their in the votech ecosystem for as long of the day. Part time or they're not. Okay. >> Right. >> The agreement with ramp health is for the execution of staff wellness
171program. This is the first time we're using this vendor, but they have been recommended by the ship to us to conduct things that could be more beneficial to our staff population, which is including biometric screenings. Um, so they requested that we have this contract through in order for them to get off the ground and start their program with us. >> 10.5 is our budget calendar and I can bring up something a quick um one thing you just wanted to fill in probably is the you need your email on page 14 on that of that contract. Um but the more important question that's just a housekeeping more question is let's say so now we can based on my experience working >> that this actually had implications like >> on your how much you could as an
172employee you might end up paying for your health insurance if if you participated it is does this have any implications >> it does biometric screening for as a specific example >> so it doesn't have any impact on the healthcare cost Um what this is this is actually paid for through a wellness grant that the shift um gives us every year. They I forget how much money we get per year from wellness grant but they give us a a chunk of money and they say you can spend this on programs that are wellness programs for your staff. So for instance I think um next Tuesday um we have our inservice um we actually have massage therapists coming in that we pay through this wellness grant for 20-minute massages for staff in between sessions right like chair
173massages and things like that. Um so we we run other initiatives on top of that. Ramp Health is a new vendor that we want to also be part of this and that's what we're hiring them to do biometric screenings >> and we want the so the outcome of this is we want uh the staff to be more informed about their health >> perhaps an issue >> and they get a little coaching you know not a stick or anything like that it's just a little coaching hey you might consider doing this what this this this to and then we get a better healthier population >> we get a healthier population. See, I think that's sort of like the thinking behind it. >> An investment in future >> um improvements in our health of our staff population.
174>> Absolutely. And I think that's why the shift gives this wellness grant for programs like the idea is that if we take care of our staff's wellness needs, right, that they will have less medical needs, which means that our claims coverage is lower and the shift does better. >> Right. Right. >> Right. So that's the whole >> like walking challenges or things like that. Those are I mean I've seen those and those you know are supposed to help reduce >> we have done those I don't know if you have those on the on the docket this year because I don't know if they were well utilized last year but you know the first time we put those out there everybody did it and it was great and then you know as with everything sometimes people
175lose interest in certain things and we try to come up with some creative ways to buy the same thing. There's two other dimensions and I know one comes up during negotiations because you want to afford staff um opportunities that keep them here versus having them look to go to another district and and things like this uh generally make for a more enjoyable workplace. Uh and I'll share it with you. I was actually reading some research this morning that staff wellness actually there's some research starting to indicate some academic dividends that in other words a happier staff is a more successful learning environment. And so it's it's significant. >> I agree with that 100%. >> You know, that's that was one of the reasons, you know, one of the district goals we had this year was
176about, you know, staff health and wellness and and making sure that um school climate is, you know, positive throughout the year because again, if our staff feels like they're being taken care of, they're going to take care of their students. It just common sense, right? I'm glad the research shows it. >> I'll share it was out of England, but I'll share >> that goes along with the thought process. a happy worker. It's a good worker. >> Sure. >> So if you take care of your people, they take care of you. >> Absolutely. >> So 10.5 is the budget calendar. I'm asking the board to approve. That's one of the CUSAC requirements is that the board does approve their budget calendar for the year. So you'll see that attached later on the week and there should
177be many changes to that now that the commissioner has solidified our um budget calendar for the year. And >> I think I shared that one of my updates with everybody just so you know what those dates will be, but then it'll be official when it comes out here. and the rest of the items are typically um standard monthly, but I'll kind of run through them just for the benefit of the whole board. Um we do accept donations on a rolling basis. The board does approve those donations. So you may see something monetary, you may see something that's a tangible item, but anything that rises over a certain dollar amount, usually anything over $500, I try to make sure the board is apprised of what that donation is. Training and travel requests will be attached as
178soon as we have that report final. So again, anyone that wants to go to an event outside of the district and it's professional development, you will see that before approval, the board has to approve any monetary costs that are associated with travel, such as mileage reimbursement, registration fees for an event. Um the property that we are disposing of, which would be 10.8 this month, is technology equipment. So again, G has a certain amount of items, let's say Chromebooks for example. Once I get the board's approval to dispose, typically we'll take anything that has a monetary value left, I will put it on gov deals and allow that to kind of go through um that process to see if we're able to get anything monetarily back for those items. If no one bids on the item,
179it is kind of like a public bid that closes so that we'll get the highest available um funds for for what's at out on gov deals. If no one bids on the item, then we typically do just um dispose of the item after that. Is there a market for the Chromebooks after the four years that the kids have them? I just know that there are companies that do >> Yeah, that's what I >> selling them in bulk. I think we usually get people that pick up the bulk stuff on technology just because of the metals and stuff in the devices and they'll >> Yeah. And when we have to dispose them, say nobody bids on them, do we dispose of them through some sort of recycling? I mean, we don't just throw them in a
180dumpster. >> Yes. >> Does that tend to the process of going through that is takes work? >> It does >> on your side. >> Is administrative work. Does it tend to make sense? >> It's only worth it when you get something out of it, but you know, we have an open and active um login and everything. So, kind of all the back end works already been established. Just uploading pictures. >> So, it's not now >> we just make sure it just says at your own risk, you know, we don't >> now it's working >> after you've done the leg work. >> Yeah. >> Can't be worth it. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> 10.9 is the bills list. I know there was a discussion at the last meeting about putting in some additional description and it's
181funny because when we have looked um in my office at the attachment prior to my maternity leave we did have a description somehow it was lost over the past you know few months of last spring so I can just put that detail back on and not not a heavy lift. >> Um so that'll be attached later on this week and we'll be certifying monthly financial reports. It may be November and December. It may just be November, but that'll come later on in the week. We'll have that attachment. >> I think that covers it. You have any other questions? >> Anything at this point? >> Thank you. >> Um I don't know. Do is there anything we have to address? I know we have the field trips list typically on community relations and that's something we'll
182approve next week. >> Just so everyone knows um the field trip is key club which is the student um arm of the Kuanas club. um you know service organization and this is their um state conference where there's a lot of professional development they get keynote speakers they have elections they have proposals it's just a great experience for kids and key clubs >> all right we don't have any delegates reports for this meeting so I will move to a call for a motion second to adopt resolution um 01 12026 for an executive session to discuss matters reflected in the attached resolution. The board expects to be in executive session for approximately 45 minutes, though we'll try to be faster. And upon return to public session, action will be taken. Can I get a motion? >> All
183right. Motion Tara. Second, Andrea. Uh, all in favor? >> Opposed? So, that was our first motion. Soon as I get the thumbs up, I can There it is. All right. All right. Uh like to get a call for a motion second to reconvene public session. Can I get a motion? Dan, can I get a second? Stephen, >> uh thank you. All in favor? >> I Any abstensions or nos? All right. Uh, can I get a uh calling for a motion and a second to appoint Meil Mesaka for the Califon Bar to Sperry Township Board vacancy through December 31st, 2022 6. Can I get a motion? >> All right, that was close. I'll take the second. >> All right, Brian can have the motion. Andrea will take the second. >> Um, so open for discussion. I
184think I would just like to point out that I think we're fortunate to have Merryill as a candidate. Uh some of the things that she uh highlighted was really her desire to see this district thrive. Um her value that she places on education in terms of her skill set, the ability to synthesize and summarize complex information, which I think as evidenced tonight is something we're called upon to do at every meeting. uh as well as the importance of consensus building in uh emotional situations uh making and explaining difficult decisions. Uh her advocacy for students uh stood out to me. Um you know obviously familiarity with the law is also an interesting dimension and and something to another perspective to bring to our work as well. uh and she seems to understand our role as setting
185the policy um and setting the superh superintendent and administration to see that the district is wellrun. Uh and I was thankful to hear that despite her competing demands that her two day Tuesdays are free and will will work for us. So that was certainly some of my takeaways. Her final comment was that she wants to come at this work with heart. So that certainly struck me. um other observations or comments? >> Um I think she was uh very modest in in talking about uh herself. She didn't mention I mean she did mentioned lightly but that she spent decades as a prosecutor with the Somerset um you know county and that she has you know she really does care about um you know law and order and uh and brings a lot to the table. Um
186she did mention her deep roots within the community and you know as alumni of Borhees and and sending um her son there. So, um I've known Merryill personally for a few years and I I think she'd be a great addition to our board and as I said um as I said I think you know Tixbury and Califon are looking forward to having um represent consistent representation on the board going forward. So >> any other comments? >> I appreciate the very shortly the very modest response to what do you want to do here? It's I want to give back. I don't have an agenda. >> Yes. Um, I thought that's a that's a very honest answer and and appreciated. >> I agree. >> And just, you know, highlighting we seeing her resume and seeing the letter
187that she wrote and then hearing what she said here, I could make the connections back to what, you know, what she's done on her resume and she but she was being very modest and wasn't, you know, highlighting those things on her own. So, um, very impressive and I think she'd be great. And as far as I know, there's no rule on how many uh former district graduates you can have on the board. Whatever it might be, we might be getting close. Okay. Um All right. Uh so we had our motion, we had our second. Any other discussion? All in favor? >> I abstain or opposed? None. All right. Well, uh, Rich, if you will communicate that to Romero so that she can >> move her process forward and then, uh, I guess we would be
188swearing her in next week. >> It all depends on when fingerprint background checks come back. So, I I'll be in touch with Mel. I'll make sure as soon as that um happens that she lets us know and then if it's before next Tuesday, we can swear her on Tuesday. If it's after next Tuesday, we can swear her in that first meeting in February. >> All right. >> Wonderful. >> Uh, old and new business. Um the only thing I'll say under oldnew is um I had indicated thank you for all the feedback on the um the restructuring ideas. I will try and synthesize that in a way that I can push uh maybe some summary of that out so that it could be for conversation next week and we can begin to make progress on some
189of these structural decisions um liaons um board norms um legal conversations all those things that we want. Um that's it from me. Anything else that anyone would like to surface or bring up at this time for potential new business going forward or old business to resolve? >> Two two old business items. We can get an update from the administration next meeting next week. One is um we what is the status of the arrangement we have with with the votech on ground maintenance? We we >> had a proposal. We voted there was a proposal brought to the board were voted down. So just what is what happened as a result of that? >> So I can >> I think we got an update on that. >> I can fill you in on that real quickly if
190you'd like. Um Sure. Sure. >> Uh when when the board declined to um contract with them, they went with a private contractor. Um they had had private contractor quotes, which is what we developed our >> Our estimate um and but um so they're with a private contractor now, I believe, through the fall. Um, but I'll check with the timelines, but as soon as they're done with that, we told them we'd be reopen to negotiating that with them and come up with another solution. And we'll we'll bring that to the board at some point. >> Okay. So, they've got a contract >> snow removal and it was also for grass cutting. >> Yeah. >> One of the things we were concerned about the snow removal was the private contractor just throw the snow back onto our
191property. >> So far, they've been okay. We have we have no complaints about what they've been doing. So okay. Um so that's good news at least. >> Okay. >> We would still prefer to have it all under our control if possible but >> yeah that'll be in the fall maybe. >> Exactly. >> Okay. Other one was um status in next weekend or sorry next week is find um of the SRRA contract or relationship. >> SR Oh, thank you sir. Um, that's that's a a hangover acronym for my old job. Um, >> yeah, the SRO contract or our relationship with on that would be good. >> I will definitely get you updated. And I have one new business. An idea for the board to consider would be um on the policy front. Uh you know, I
192know we didn't want to have the working meeting be uh very um vuloriented, but we could consider first readings followed by second readings. You know, first reading in the in this working session and the second reading in the in the action session, whatever we're calling it. and maybe we could process a little bit faster that way than in the past which would require you know January and then February before we could change anything. So I guess throw it out as an idea for the board to consider kind of goes goes away from our idea about what this first working session would be but um maybe it falls into this kind of makes sense. Why don't we take advantage of it while we have the chance? >> Well, and actually when I was on a board
193of the whole previously, that's exactly what we would do. It would be a working session and then a action session that could move those things when needed. Um, and I guess you're saying it >> I'm saying we like if if it was in place now, >> correct? Correct. >> Potentially vote on passing a first reading of a policy. >> Correct. during the work is a little different than other things is because it doesn't the first reading doesn't make it >> binding >> right so I'm just suggesting we consider first readings in the working sessions if it's um you know doesn't doesn't rob everyone of their own way >> yeah I mean that could even be the thing that if there were let's say a policy where we felt like we just needed more time information
194deliberation, you could move everything and still work that one uh if it were needed. Uh but I think to the point of given the number of policies that we're going to have to work through, uh it's probably going to require that kind of pace. >> So to understand this correctly, you would have the first reading at your working session >> like tonight. Yeah. >> And vote on that. >> Yeah. It's only something different than a normal session because we have we're using it that way. We're not we're we've decided not to take votes or many of them. We did take a vote just now. >> Um but we are doing everything that's required of us. You know, we have public comment. It's up. You know, it's in public. Uh we we could vote as much
195as we like this meeting. >> Good. >> Um I don't advocate that we turn it into two voting soft call hardcore voting sessions, you know. one right after another, but where it made sense. >> Yep. >> We had already discussed if like an emergency thing came up, hey, uh Katie's got this thing. It's due on, you know, this Friday and we can make $2 million, right? >> You know, we, you know, we probably would go, no, we're going to have to pass. >> Got it. >> Anything else on older new business? Oh, I just want to let you guys know I when the delegates next Thursday it's virtual as our Hunter County and um we have two experts coming in and the topic is hib and mental health supporting safe and healthy schools. So you
196can do it from the comfort of your living room and just register through New Jersey school boards and then at 6:45 just log on and you can participate. Um, but it should be a good um, program and it's one that is relevant for all the work we're doing, especially when we were talking about him >> earlier. So, >> and I'm sorry, Brian, did you have one more item? >> Okay. >> Real quick, uh, FYI, Governor Cheryl has uh, recommended Dr. Lily Laauo, L A UX. I think that I I I'm not sure how to pronounce Lux. Lao as the next commissioner of education. She is the principal of the ILO group and hails from she is the former deputy commissioner of the Texas Board of Education. Lily La FYI. >> Thank you. >> Uh all
197right. If there's no further old or new business, can I get a call for a motion and a second to adjurnn? Can I get a motion? >> Rich, can I get a second? >> Sure. Andrew. >> All right. All in favor? >> I abstain. >> Stephen, that wasn't enough. >> That was a way