001e e good evening sorry j thank you the north hun and Bor Regional High School District Board of Education meeting on Tuesday March 18 2025 is now called to order in accordance with the requirements of the public open public meeting act njsa 1046 adequate notice giving this time date location and to the extent known the agenda of this meeting was published by the Hun County Democrat and the Star Ledger on January 9th 2025 in addition add notice of this meeting has been posted at North Hunton high school and Bor High School provided to the municipal clerks Clerks of betham Township Califon burough town of Clinton Clinton Township Franklin Township Glen Gardner burough Hampton bur hybridge bur Lebanon bur Lebanon Township tubry Township and Union Township as well as other interested parties and posted on the
002district website fire exit are located in the directions indicated if alerted to fire please move in a calm and orderly fashion to the near smokefree exit at this time please silence all cell phones roll call M keg Mr Chapman here Dr Den Dr Den is here sorry that's okay Miss Gallow here miss hins here M katran here Mr lordy here Mr Isaac m m Isaac yes here miss Rees Mr Spanton here misso close close I'm here okay thank you uh and Miss Selena here and can we rise for the flag please to the flag of the United States of America and to the for stands Nation God indivisible andice for all can I please have a motion and a second to approve agenda item 4.1 are minutes from February 25th 2025 so moved second so
003that was Dan Dan and Nicole so I'd like to make a couple comments on the minutes if I could so um first off I want to apologize for not being in last month's meeting I had a prior engagement for business that I had to attend to but I did have the opportunity to watch the meeting um and uh as well as follow up on the a new annual business that was done the end um the first thing I wanted to say was um I really appreciate Rich bringing up the question or the issue of the the artificial coloring and the dyes that are being banned in various States and within the federal government um as Rich knows I deal with it on a pretty regular basis but um so just so that this group knows
004just for points of clarification red red 3 has been banned by the federal government and has to be removed from everything by January 2027 um so that's the big one but there are a number of states that are looking to remove um a variety of Reds yellows blues and greens as well um I won't give my point of view on it since I do it for a living but I will say that it is before a number of states um and there are some additional ones like in New Jersey they have an act pending related to also to tit titanium dioxide which is a white color added it as well so I do think it would be beneficial for us to speak with the food service provider about what they are doing to ensure that
005they're going to be compliant with whatever those end up shaking out to be so I think it's a good idea um then I wanted to comment on a couple of the other uh things that went on during the meeting so um I was really happy to see that the RFP for uh board attorneys were posted to the website so that's very positive um and I understand that there's a call I'm going to point of order um this is not agenda uh related this we're we're voting on the minutes right we can bring that up under new business old business if you want to reflect and comment on that but I want to go on the record on some of the points that I would have had the ability to comment on during the discussion I
006understand you were absent but you can make those comments during new business or old business right now we are taking the minutes the only issue that I have with that is that the public won't be here to hear those comments so I think it's important to hear them again Beth I understand your your concerns new business old business this is the time time to take the minutes and the vote but I think there are some things that should be corrected in those minutes we can do that dur if you have a correction you'd like to amend in the minutes you can make a motion for an amendment I think the only comment that I want to make is that the comment and the allegations on confidentiality were improperly made during the discussion that took place
007at the end of the meeting okay are you amending the minutes yes I think that there shouldn't be allegations anyone I seek to amend yes you need a motion and a second okay if you were going to amend the minutes okay would you like to amend the minutes yes I'd like to make a motion to amend the minutes second okay discussion on those minutes now so I'd like to make my comment and that is that while I agree that confidentiality is important I think that there were unfounded comments made about confidentiality at the meeting and that it's not correct to make assumptions as to why the public was here the public was here at the last two meetings to talk about something that was put on the agenda that was made publicly available so I
008don't think it's right for us to make assertions about why the public was here and making comments and and therefore making allegations against the board members for having breached their obligations of confidentiality it was inappro and I also think I can make one last comment that people who live in Glass Houses should not throw stones that's it anyone else have any other discussion okay okay um you want me to do a roll call on that uh yes please okay okay what exactly are we voting on the amendment to the amendment to the minutes on of confidentiality on those minutes Doug there is no statement as to uh in public comment if you look at the minutes just basically a general Su summation it says buity but that was a discussion wasn't it that was not
009I I think that the question is though that it's on there because it was a discussion regardless if she reasing it or not it was still on there and what would you like it to say say instead of board confidentiality was a discussion item I think that there should just be a note that says that um that the there was a misrepresentation of the issue conf that confidentiality was violated and you're saying you're speaking to a board member publicly saying something was unconfident or confidential that's correct there was a discussion about about confidentiality of board members about taking things leaking of information that takes place at these meetings and that there was an assumption that the public was here at the prior to meetings because of a leak of confidential information and that is not
010correct there's nothing to there's no foundation for that that I'd have I listen I just listened to it today and I'd have again I would have to defer I know the state um Miss Gallow had made a statement of confidentiality um and I I'm not 100% sure and I have not looked at that to say that it was a an opinion in her opinion um I don't think she said it was in her opinion I recall the comments I I think that comment was said was I was reminding the board of confidentiality so if that was in the minutes and that was the discussion How Can You Mend it whether you agree with it or not that was my comment regardless who agrees with it or not not it was a new business or old
011business and I was stating something that I was concerned about I didn't call anybody out I didn't call anybody names but it was in the minutes and it was a discussion so regardless you re if you're not happy with that comment to remove it from the minutes because you don't agree with it is really that doesn't make any sense you claim I did not claim anything I very clearly I I'm going to stop I'm going to stop the conversation um and looking at it it's very generic so I I don't see if you want to continue this discussion I mean um that's fine I don't meeting I have question for clarification our meetings are recorded so although this is a you know documentation of the meeting if there werei if there was a misrepresentation um
012in the meeting then we should at in the documentation of the meeting say that those opinions were made as a personal opinion and not those of the general board um so there should be a qualification if the because of the we have a full transcript I Doug I would ask that we review that can we table the minutes then till next month sure but you have you have a motion right now on the board to to amend them to amend them so you need to clear that or you can you can make a motion to table yeah as well I would like to make a motion to table these so we can review the video and and I would uh speak with um Doug as the board secretary and then we can bring these minutes
013back to the table next month can I that one too thank you thank you we have to vote on something well she could she could pull her motion I I'll hold a motion okay and then we vote on being table correct Okay so if you pull and he agrees and we we can do that you're okay all right so so that that comes off comes out as a motion and now we can vote can we have can we take a roll call on that please sure um Mr CH I'm voting on table yes Mr Dr Dean yes did I get yes yes m g no uh Miss hence yes Miss K yes did I see it right it's see KRON KRON thank you Mr lordy yes Mr Macy yes Mr Spanton yep yes excuse me
014and Miss vato vato thank you you got it yeah like to tap say what yes yes and Miss Serena yes motion carries okay moving on to board student representative report um I'm I'm sorry do that okay my apologies um moving on to uh recogn recognition of student achievements and do we have R Mr Peterson is here Mr Peterson from Bor High School good evening everybody young man to my right is uh Christian Wren uh Christian is a sophomore at Wares high school he is act very active in his church he is also involved in our March B track Bible Club but the two things that we're here for tonight are fencing and boy scouts so um Christian came to me last year with an idea of building two carts for all the equipment if you've
015ever seen a fencing match up at Vorhees there's a lot of these metal plates that have to go down on the floor and really they would have to like physically just carry them before and so all that equipment now can be stored on carts so he recently completed his Eagle Scout project with two heavyduty fencing carts which he recently revealed at the uh fencing banquet he also thanked everybody who financially contributed to the project so far um uh where it's not going to be really of any cost of his own so many people uh volunteered money those who uh helped him building the carts he also thanked which included a fellow um fellow fencers uh the troops uh the Scout Troops and um other VOR seniors to name a few Christian worked this past Saturday
016morning uh to further reorganize the fencing closet and I'll say uh with the job that he and his uh cohort did which included uh his coach scout leader fencers a few Scouts from The Troop again and uh they all gave him Helping Hands he would be good to reorganize any of your closets or anything else that you might need to get done uh that's how fantastic of of a job he did so uh congratulations on a job well done and thank you for the uh all that work for the fencing team [Applause] all right now he's off to a scout [Applause] meing now if we that Dr Kel come north hundon thank you um so we have some a little a little bit we're going to talk in more detail about but I just want
017to set the scene uh imagine you're a teenager and imagine it's your first day at a brand new high school and imagine that high school is in a new country that you know nothing about imagine you don't speak the language well then imagine you have a student with a smiling face who speaks your language who's going to help you and that's the student we're going to recognize today okay so we're going to talk tonight about our growing ESL population at North Haron High School ESL stands for English as a second language program uh and we have one of our awesome multilingual Learners who's a part of it so as a bit of a background since 2022 we have almost doubled the number of ml which stands for mul lingual students uh and we currently have
018over 20 students at North hon High School who are either limited English proficiency or classified as multilingual Learners some of these students arrive at North har High School speak no English and they uh rely on their teachers such as the amazing Miss Naples we have Miss Welch in the back we have Miss Mr rap who helps hook them up with amazing folks um like genesis here to help navigate through the school day um and so what they do here at North is is again miss Naples uh helps them learn how to uh uh read listen write and speak in English as well as uh understand the culture here at North harer High School and our community while also celebrating uh their their home languages and their home countries students are encouraged to take what we
019have as a seal of by literacy which means they are uh fluent in two languages and we hope that they are able to accomplish that by their Junior and Senior year the students are immersed in other classes throughout the day so they spend some time with uh with Miss Naples as as well as Miss Welch but then they also have their other classes throughout the day as well uh and that is aided in part by again some amazing students like genesis here so I'm not going to steal all of Miss uh Naples Thunder she is uh very passionate about I'm going to let her speak a little bit about uh Genesis thank you it is a pleasure to introduce 11th grader Genesis palasio aralo a remarkable student who enriches our school community Through leadership and
020inclusivity Genesis was born in Flemington to New Jersey and lived there until she was 2 and 1/2 years old at that time her mother moved them back to El Salvador to be reunited with her brother who still lived there at around each six Genesis returned to Flemington and attended a multilingual program at the local dayar school however being away from her family far away was a difficult transition and she returned to elab Lord where she lived until March 2024 currently North hunon has eight students in the ESL class Genesis was part of this group when she came to North as a multilingual Learner in March 2024 she has excelled in our community and now works with new multilingual students as they bridge the gap between cultures helping them feel at home Genesis guides the new
021students to their classes shares in in and outs of campus and sits with them at lunch ensuring each student feels welcome and included next year Genesis plans to attend the polych healthcare Science Program for nursing and applied to nursing school for college she hopes to use her English and Spanish language skills there to improve more lives genesis's kindness and dedication are an inspiration to our community and it is an honor to recognize her at the board meeting this month congratulations J [Applause] if you want to I think I think we need another [Applause] congratulations okay moving on we will have our board student Representatives report tonight we will hear from Sarah schar from Bor high school as uh unfortunately Siobhan Patel could not join us for North hunon High School but we are happy to
022have Sarah here so starting off with some Club activities we've had recently Key Club just had their pancake breakfast on March 15th it was a huge hit um our student High School integration program is currently hard at work planning both the e8th grade dance as well as next year's freshman orientation um student council hosted a pickle ball tournament on March 7th it was a huge success we had 24 teams sign up I didn't play in it but I went and watch and I had a really good time watching it was all students except we had one team with two teachers uh who was fun to watch and then that same weekend March 7th our Ski Club had their trip up to OK in Vermont in terms of sports winter winter track finished up since we've
023last met uh girls track participated at the Eastern State indoor championships on March 4th the distant medley relay team play second with the 22nd PR and Abby cell tied for fifth in long jump at the meet of Champions our girls for 5400 team competed as well as Dy rowski in the 200 and for the boys at the meter Champions we had Dyan Divine and Tony jell in the 1600 uh spring Sports coming up right now we have our very first year we're having a unified flag football team uh we used to do a unified track in the spring this year we're trying out FL football along with our unified soccer in the fall and unified basketball in the winter and then our other spring sports are all off to a really strong start I know
024baseball softball girls boys lacrosse and boys golf all had their first uh mutes and scrimmages today so all the sports are off to a good start and then for our art preparations are underway for our production of Fiddler on the Roof which will be held April 10th 11th 12th and 13th and just recently on March 7th our choir held their annual coffee house with a theme of rock the night thank you thank thank you okay moving on to Chief School administrators report Dr BJ thank you Miss Leno uh first of all I'm not going to do anywhere near to justice as sat did for North hunon but I'm trying to be a little North hun heavy because shi's going to be here tonight but uh uh first of all I'd like to again congratulate our
025North hunon boys wrestling team um on being a girls boys and girls wrestling team on being celebrated by the Hunning County Board of Commissioners as state champions um they were able to show up at the um house there and get a picture of anyone saw it in paper it was nice and they actually did it with delal so we had delal and north um in the county so they did it as a joint thing and it was very nice um for those of you who were able to make it North Hunter hosted Mama Mia which Drew record crowds the first weekend of March with three soldout performances um audience members couldn't get enough of this fantastic show um congratulations to the cast The Crew the pit the production staff of North Hun's Mama Mia all
026the staff members that put their effort into it and all the kids that um put effort into it was a great presentation and um they did a great job so ador's counseling office will be hosting its annual career fair on April 17th um at bores High School uh if anyone is interested on the board um sometimes we do have board members um participate in that um it's a great opportunity to sort of host the table students come around and and ask about different careers for different um industries that people represent so on March 6th the north hon National Honor Society hosted its 21st annual trivia Bowl to benefit St Jude's Research Hospital uh thank you to all those who participated the event was a great success raising nearly $6,000 and I believe the parents won
027and I might be somebody at this table who was part of the parent team that won so parents R I won't P um North hunon also hosted their annual Spike for the Cure round robin volleyball tournament to raise money for charity um teams competed both competitively and non-competitively and raised $24,600 which is being donated to the Jason P Shel memorial fund uh for those of you that don't know Jason was a student um here at north hunland um and um so those funds go to a fund that is um helps local students the um the money raises to provide non-medical sport to area family members who have children with cancer um thank you to our girls volleyball program especially student leaders Keegan hner and Cat wolf for organizing and running this entire event um it
028went off that hitch this year and kudos to them for raising that kind of money and a lot of effort goes into it uh NJ GPA which is the graduation proficiency assessment was administered to Juniors all last week U makeup testing be happening this week but um I think we had a pretty good turnout uh numbers look good so I think we don't have as many makeups as we typically do I also want to um mention that Megan leick will be who is our um County teacher of the year for hun and county is a North Hunter math teacher uh Megan will be honored at the May 1st Hunter County school board's associ ation meeting at the Mountain Creek sh at the Mountain View Chalet um so any board members are able to be there
029that would be great to show support from Megan I know Megan was also invited to speak at the um Governor's educator of the Year luncheon for the New Jersey um county office um I haven't heard whether or not she is able to do that um commit to that but hopefully she is there because it's always great to hear her speak uh on March 5th um I was able to attend the unsung heroes at Flemington ran Middle School uh it was a great event um Kim was there and Christina was there uh and they were we recognized two students Brook Richards from North hunon High School and julana ketto from bores and basically these are students that um went above and beyond for their communities went above and above and beyond for their schools um and
030really just stuck out as someone who needed to be recognized and this unsung hero is a great opportunity to do that and um this event this year was the most well attended one I've been at it was very well run I'm looking forward to Future ones and we'll make sure we always have someone nominated I do want to mention some um housekeeping things North has uh three unused emergency closing days and Bor has two if you remember B had to close on um September 20th for a um the well pump was um wasn't working in no water in the building and then everybody closed on February 6th I believe it was for snow deck um So the plan right now I will have an official calendar for the board to approve in April because I
031don't want to do anything too soon I'm still in March um but if everything stays if the weather stays as beautiful as it was today the plan would be that um both schools would be off on Friday May 23rd and Monday June 2nd and then North would also be closed on Friday May 30th while Vorhees would remain in session so that would make up all the days um and we chose those days to have the least impact on AP testing um all the different um end of year testing and also student events um because um or he's actually has their uh senior trip on the 30th so we didn't want to close school then for that um last and certainly but not least I do want to mention that next week is our in-person stakeholder
032meetings for our strategic planning process uh Tuesday March 25th will be at North hunon and Thursday March 27th at V's both events start at 6:00 p.m. and will take place in the cafeteria of each school if you have not RSV pjet please do so um right now we have 21 registered at North and 10 at bores so we could always use um more uh if you go to our website there's a link for strategic planning and in that link there is an RSVP link that you can fill out a Google form to let us know you'll be there that way we're prepared for the size of a crowd that we'll have so um I encourage everybody to do that if they haven't yet so that we can U move forward with our strategic planning okay
033uh I also have the um report on harassment intimidation and bullying for this month there were three incidences uh two were unfounded and one was founded for all and we need a motion for to affirm instance from last month I need a motion in second all in favor all right any needs or exensions may I just back up one was that Tara yes you moved it I did sorry second sorry I forget can everybody turn their name plates to actually it was a hearing issue okay cuz I know he can't see him more it's new sorry Doug thank you okay and then the monthly school reports are there um for your information there any questions we just mention that at North is the pris concert this Thursday oh sure yes right so prison concert annual
034concert H North starts at 8:00 it's going to be a is this Thursday this Thursday at North um 8:00 in the main gy in main thank you for reporting I had a question for you you said two were founded and one was unfounded no two unfounded and one were founded okay I I'm confused because there's only two total out here am I misreading this uh these are the ones that I'm reporting to you tonight yep these are the last ones last on is what we're voting on yeah what you're voting on here is last I understand so I I reported to you next month you'll be voting on these Goa I understand okay thank you okay moving on uh School Board president report um I'd like to announce annual budget hearing and regular meeting for
035April is scheduled on the 29th at 700 p.m here in the district office and I also want to chime in and Echo what Dr Burj said about the unsung heroes um uh presentation it it was fantastic um I think I've gone I've gone every every year made my what T usually goes and this year they did a phenomenal job with the candidates I mean the students it was amazing and we I think half of that that um gym or the auditorium was filled so if you haven't gone as a board member you should go it it and to see them they they deserve that recognition so thank you um moving on we are now ready for op uh public comments during this portion of the meeting the public is invited to address the Board of
036Education with comments you are requested to sign the register provided for this purpose and to state your name Municipality of residents group affiliation of appal 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 be board members may not respond to the speakers at the time of their appearance the public comment period will be a maximum of 30 minutes in length unless there are unusual circumstances you will be allocated 3 minutes to speak and no one will be permitted to speak more than once on the same topic until all others who wish to speak on that topic have been heard please keep your comments respectful and non- defamatory and maintain the level of
037deorum appropriate for a public meeting where students may be present and in the audience so [Music] I have two things that I that I'd like to talk about this evening the first one's very short the recent opinion peace and the hunted and review can I oh my name sorry Philip Trager Clinton Township thank you so much the recent opinion piece in the hunted in review describing outside influence working to uh influence our board included Mr lordy mely for attending prior meetings with certain individuals first his votes to date have been anything but Extreme and considered well-considered and evidence-based guilt by association is a very dangerous path and should be avoided second thing is a little bit more involved um over the past 3 years the uh size of the north huntting and marching band has
038been decreasing on a year-by-year basis it used to be 50 to 60 members including support like cheerleaders and um flag be flag waivers and you know the other parts aside from the actual players on the field last year's it went down to 40 to 45 and this year there's only 30 I have to tell you going to all the football games this past years this past year 30 members of a marching band is sort of not a marching band anymore it's like a pep band that usually plays in the stands so one of the things that I wanted to point out as a possible cause but really needs to be further investigated by the the school administration is there was a a North hunter in Festival where the high school goes out to the sending
039districts trying to recruit students to join the marching band at the high school so I learned that the last Festival here at the high school the Clinton Township Middle School which is probably the largest sending School in the district had nobody attend the festival so I took it upon myself to go to a lower school board meeting and raised that issue under the false assumption that there was inadequate support at the middle school the superintendent contacted me and said nothing could be further from the truth and that the reason there was nobody from the Clinton Township Middle School is that they didn't get notified soon enough so that they could bring the issue before the board and get all of the permissions where they could get a bus and I don't have to explain to
040you what it takes to get kids to move from one venue to the next you can't do it at the last minute so for that reason nobody showed up to the band Festival so I don't know exactly what the reasons are why the marching band has gone down to 30 members but I don't think it can go lower than 30 members and still be a marching band which would be a great loss for the school and for the football program and the kids who might want to actually play in the marching band so I just wanted to bring that up to get to make sure that the board is totally apprised of what the potential situation is and that it needs to be looked at thank you sorry I have a long name good evening
041my name is Carol botus I live in the town of Clinton um I'd just like to take a moment to recognize one of the bus drivers at North Mr rich as he's referred to by my children he's a former Marine and wonderful human I'm not sure if you're all aware but one day last week on their routinely traveled route home the bus had break issues and the brakes were not working properly Mr Rich promptly and safely pulled the bus to the side of the road and radioed back to I guess home headquarters that there was a break failure and needed another bus to assist in getting the students home Mr Rich remained calm communicated to the kids what was happening and when the next bus arrived he switched over with that driver to ensure that
042each student was brought home safely I had the pleasure of running into Mr Rich at 6:15 in the morning a few days later at the gas station while he was fueling up his bus for the day I only recognized him based on the info that my children had provided to me his Marine hat I introduced myself and thanked him for getting the kids home safely and how much we appreciated him driving our children to and from school each and every day this incident hits home a little more as there was a tragic bus accident only a few days ear earlier on the Garden State Parkway please recognize Mr Rich for his dedication ability to realize and act quickly and getting our children to and from school safely thank you I don't know his last name
043[Applause] sorry know if he gave out gifts in years past I good evening I'm Amy Barrett I'm a resident of hybridge I've lived in hybridge for 37 years my children went to Vorhees and I taught for 17 years in one of the north hunter in Vorhees sending districts I care about the quality of Education in our community I'm not an outside interest since I'm one of the people who made pointed remarks last month I just want to assure Mrs Gallow that everything I said on February 25th was taken from the public board discussion at the January 28th meeting I attended that meeting rewatched portions of it on video and took notes on several occasions Kim selino and Nicole Gallow have stated during open sessions that other board members are subjects of an Ethics complaint this
044complaint was filed by Dan kimy Mr Kleinman is not a resident of the north hund Vorhees Community he's an outsider who writes a Blog attacking Librarians and Library associations he's being sued for defamation by at least one librarian you can read more about him in guy citron's excellent article recently published in the Hun in review Kleinman celebrated filing his ethics charge against our board members on his public blog and posted what he said was the entire ethics complaint I read it I read it because Mrs selino and Mrs Gallow have claimed in public remarks that some of their fellow board members may have a conflict of interest with the rest of the board because they are defending themselves against clent's complaint clent's complaint is frivolous the complaint accuses our board members of voting against Banning
045the book let's talk about it he claims they did this because they surrendered their independent judgment to the American Library Association which he describes as a partisan special interest group but he offers no proof of why any board member voted for or against the book he also accuses some board members of stating that they do not support book Banning either as board candidates or as private citizens that's it that's the gist of a complaint that mostly rehashes kimman past attacks against librarian Martha Hixon and the American Library Association so please Mrs selino and Mrs Gallow stop insinuating that some board members have violated board ethics and that the board attorney has a conflict of interest in defending them you may disagree on whether or not the book should have been banned but following board process
046by voting for or against Banning a book is not an Ethics violation thank you [Applause] good evening I'm Harin tinger I've been a hybrid resident in tax pair for more than 37 years tonight I have a complaint and a request this board's meetings are routinely contentious and protracted in February the meeting went on for nearly two and a half hours before he retired into executive session if you haven't noticed I'm an old man I can't stay here to observe your meetings for more than three hours without a restroom break and there are no public restrooms in this building when you return from executive session and much of the public is no longer in the room some board members seem emboldened by our absence to say something interesting I know this happens because after leaving to
047find the restroom I join many others watching your proceedings online board members may be aware that there's video feed a video feed recording you but I think it's important that you feel our presence in the room when you're doing public The public's business so my request I implore you to move the board's public meetings to a facility that has public restrooms thank you [Applause] [Music] Sandra marzo Franklin Township I haven't been here in a while um first I would like to say thank you to everybody for and last year I pleaded the board mult multiple times at multiple meetings for taking care of the previous superintendent who was not coming to board meetings over and over again obviously you can't say whatever decision you made but I appreciate it I also want to thank you
048Dr bakus for everything that you did in his place and for taking his place now I truly appreciated I'm a former teacher myself and for those of you who are new I am a daughter of a superintendent my dad is retired he was a superintendent in North Carolina of like 2021 schools so I have a very unique perspective here um and I I agree wholeheartedly with Amy um Barrett with what she has to say the stuff that happens here I get school boards have there's School Board politics there's School politics I grew up as a child listening to it so when I became a teacher I fully expected that there would be you know School politics within schools administrations would be different from one school to another it's on a whole other level some of
049you know I help campaigns in my area if you don't realize it by now I do I was offered when you ran videos of you bullying students I didn't take them up on it when you were running now I wonder if I should have I know of somebody watching a private Facebook Facebook group that our President seleno and Vice President Gallow belong to with the board President of Franklin Caroline Linko and her husband belong to with oh what's his name the the Reverend who shows up here during book Banning now I don't watch it but somebody else in Franklin has access to your private tiny little board your Facebook group where you guys chitchat before book bands come up and has taken screenshots I'm aware of this now you can look at me like I'm
050crazy but I I asked this person last summer is this person on the board in the group is this person is this person is this person who shows up at book Banning meetings that speaks are they in the group and they said yes yes yes or no no no so you want to talk about potential ethics [Music] violations really really come on and I watch the meetings online and you guys argue with your fellow board members and that you want to be treated with respect you got to you got to treat them with respect I mean it's like it's like teachers with their classrooms they got to teach it's a matter of how you command the room you can't just do it with an Iron Fist and expect every everyone to bow down it doesn't
051work that way it just doesn't you're going to make enemies on your own board in the public and then when they laugh at you or Heckle you or get mad at you that's what happens you want to be respected act in respectable manner [Applause] are there any other public comments Jennifer cusac of hybridge uh I also want to speak on the lack of access to public restrooms during these meetings these meetings are supposed to be open for the public and it's almost impossible for the entire public to sit through I I have multiple time I mean you've seen me here on a regular basis you know um you know as parent of a kid who used to go to Vorhees you know um it's important for the public to have an option the option to
052actually listen to these whole meetings you know here and yeah we can do it online but these are supposed to be open to the public they're supposed to be ad you know like Ada accessible and not having an option to go to a bathroom when a meeting takes 3 four hours is basically making it inaccessible to the public thank you [Applause] good evening my name is Marina bartelli I live in Franklin Township um I just want to say that it is inspirational each time I come to a board meeting and I hear the students being recognized and the activities that they're up to and they are teenagers they're miners teenagers don't always get the best rap um I myself having been a former teenager many of us here having been former teenagers right um but
053but truly when I get to hear and the community gets to hear what our teens our community here at north4 Hees are up to and the good that they put out into the world the the basic moral compass they exhibit of decency to other human beings with a baseline of respect um the young lady who played a part in welcoming other students who were newcomers to a new place it's it's inspirational and I would encourage all of us as adults in this room and I do not exclude you board members certainly to take a page from from the book of those kids who are really up to something in this world and to not only pay attention to the fact that they are leading by example and checking ourselves and seeing how we are leading
054by example that's the way it's supposed to be because we're adults we have more life experience but honestly I I and I'm not saying that we don't but um it's always good to be self-reflective and the kids in this community and this High School are just amazing so I just wanted to say that and the faculty and teachers too and the advisers I don't want to leave them out but really it's this is more of what we need in the world is the Baseline of compassion respect and caring for one another thank you [Applause] do we have any other public comments at this time um I would like to um note to um Mr uh Harlen ener and that was Miss Jennifer cusac we do have restrooms here um and they're accessible they are just
055behind us and you are welcome to use those restrooms um we have to have those we have to have that in order to hold the meeting here so I just wanted to note that okay um we'll move on then if there's no more public comment uh we will move on to curriculum instruction and Technology um Mr macac um so the curriculum committee met on the 12th last week um there a few different topics that we discussed um uh we did talk a little bit about the advantages of having the video and transcripts that we've been employing at committee meetings that allow folks to go back and and review information or answer questions uh the topic then shifted to absenteeism uh there had recently been a district notification to parents about reducing absenteeism as part of
056the district's broader policy to bring chronic absenteeism down there was some discussion about a change in practice over time that was allowing parents to submit notes um for student absences where in the past it was solely a doctor's note um it was a ship that the district had made to sort of be more accommodating uh to diverse needs but it is just a topic of conversation as the district tries to strategize um what can reduce overall absenteeism and those parent Communications were part of that strategy uh next we reviewed enrollment Trends um and some questions were addressed about how we list Rising ninth graders uh because one of the things we see is that we have students de enrolling or transferring out at the beginning of the year uh and that was sort of explained
057that there are instances where students who are eighth graders in our ascending districts initially um en go or a signal even if they maybe had no intention to come to the public school uh because they're going to private school or doing something else so there tends to be a little bit of a surge in students being Deen rolled or transferring at that time it was also noted that students who are not part of our ascending District but are eligible to participate in our Sports programs uh once those Seasons end those students also must be unenrolled so some times what looks like uh little spikes or surges in students transferring out or being de enrolled um is often explicable through those phenomena um we also looked at home instruction data uh and really the biggest outcome
058of that was continuing to explore strategies and to understand and ultimately address chronic absenteeism the next topic was about uh this seal of biliteracy uh rich brown presented data on the Seal of biliteracy uh explained that that seal is promoted through the world language program and in recent years we've seen a surge of student uh students achieving biliteracy because their native home language uh makes them biliterate and actually we had a great example of that tonight with someone like genesis uh who's working in who is a student in that exact capacity um as uh Rich was explaining some of the biliteracy trends uh we had seen a drop during covid we also uh looked at the fact that there's a discrepancy between the two buildings with Vorhees um having a lower uh number of students
059achieving the Seal of biliteracy but part of that phenomenon was explained by the fact that because Vorhees has very high uh enrollment of students in our cies uh upwards of 25% of that building I believe the number was uh and theem because of their rigorous fouryear science curriculum uh often makes it more complicated for those students to potentially achieve that high level of secondary language attainment um a third complicating factor is that our K sending districts often struggle to provide World Language instruction um struggling to get Staffing or maintain programs which then often hampers the subsequent attainment that those students can achieve if they're having to start here as like a level one language learner um and again as as I think um Dr catrell talked about it we've had a lot more uh native
060speaking students in recent years getting recognized for those sealed biliteracy numbers which is a great recognition of of that skill set for sure um the administration will continue to articulate with the sending districts uh exploring shared service opportunities where students can build capacity in that secondary language and and obviously continue to review that data as well the last item was a review of the standardized assessments happening currently and ahead that includes the access for L's testing that's done each year the school is monitored and is required to demonstrate uh demonstrate that their ml students their multil language learner students are in fact improving year upon year in their in their language um development um as was shared by Rich just last week we had the ngj GPA for the juniors um if you recall there
061had been in Prior years some debate about that cut score they are maintaining a 725 cut cut score uh also if you recall I think last year we had a 92 93% success rate um in that NJ GPA and so hopefully those positive trends that we've seen there continue uh additionally um though we'll get a separate report on AP um participation and achievement we did have over we have over 500 students um I guess this is looking at the last year Rich was that okay so we had over 500 students um 287 at North 233 of Vorhees uh who took over a, exams um I believe we we did get a level of recognition for that participation I don't remember exactly which level of was um I think it was both schools okay both schools
062yeah and then uh one other shifting phenomenon is the exams are in the process of being all digital uh starting this year and then looking ahead we have the NJ SLA coming up for freshmen uh that's in ela and Algebra 1 and one of the things the district will continue to look at is the structuring of our algebra uh sequencing and the shift from a two-year course to a one-year course as well as some uh algebra extension courses that are affording opportunities to students who um for whom math is is more challenging and move a little uh more gradually through the sequence um the last item was that the common assessments have now rolled up to grade 10 uh and that's something that we'll continue to look at and follow the trends of those cohorts
063and correlate those performance data to these other external assessments that we monitor as well um beyond that I think the committee was recommending accepting all of the there I don't know if there's any questions on anything okay thank you thank you thank you um we will have um I need a motion at a second to approve 10.1 home instruction so move second that was Beth and Ryan got it all in favor I any n or exensions thank you okay moving on to policy and school security committee report sure so the policy and security um committee met on March 10th um all were intendance except for Brian Chapman um we as this you know were reviewing the New Jersey Schoolboard policy reviews we did 300s and 4000s we had some discussions um specifically about 3515 in
064detail um we're going to review our code of contact it was the um the [Music] policy um it was just I'm sorry let me just read this out comfortable with wording that the contrary to how we run the district we discussed policy 3515 in detail and we're going to review our code of contact and our acceptable use policy um if necessary um it was surrounding cell phone pictures and taking videos and pictures so we had a discussion on that we brief ly discussed um uh regulation 613 uh 6163 but decided that we were going to talk about that next month since it was in the 6000s in addition we also discussed 4123 from New Jersey school boards in regards to two um it was the policy that we were changing the language because it was
065um the policy stated completed years of higher education institution to be eligible for employment as instructional Aid We're going to change the language to 60 credits from a higher institution as a requirement for substitute certification we're also uh retaining the language that would allow us to employ an instructional Aid after successfully passing the state power professional test and obtaining that certificate in lie of substitute certificate um so the action items are the change of language in 4123 uh research AUP and a code of conduct it related to 3515 there was other business regarding um the security portion of our committee Clinton Township ctee was notified that we would need we would need an officer at every meeting just upon request um the Clinton Township Police did offer a a pres an officer to be present
066for free of charge for two hours but it was decided that it was better to have the officer there when necessary upon request one of the reasons that this decision was made because two hours offered was not part of the proposed contract this was an offer made outside of the constraints of the contract that is it any questions can you elaborate on PO what you were talking about for uh 3515 I wasn't sure what you were saying it was code of contact and cell phone and pictures I wasn't quite sure what you were referencing it was a it's a the name of the um it's a personal electronic devices uh it was the wording in there that specified it was kind of um contradictory or not contradictory it was also covered in the code of
067conduct when it came to the cell phone use so we were looking at the language to see if it coincides with our code of conduct just I could add to Jessica we were talking about um there's a lot in there that's very outdated about pagers that nobody uses pagers anymore and it was really there when drug dealers would get in touch with kids via pagers um but as it relates to the other kind of devices there were things like um discussion about essentially drones and things like that too so we were just kind of want wanted to do is just see if we could eliminate it cover it with the code of conduct as well as the acceptable use policy uh as it relates to the various electronic devices that was really the point of
068the discussion and then um when we talked you talked about the security portion um what are I know there was the article that was referenced in theun and review where someone took pictures of our librarian and and there was a reference to the security I'm going to the article that you were speaking to that you sent an email to me that is not an agenda item she reported out on policy you had a question on it's security you she reported out on 3515 she you just asked about the code of conduct and our acceptable use policy right that's now I'm asking about the security portion of the meeting where we had someone of the public state that we had unauthorized access to our building and that's again I'm going to deferm we are speaking to
069the agenda items only if you'd like to speak to that you could speak to that at during New World business and you can also speak to me I'd be glad to speak to you about that conversation because you and I had an email I know we had i' like an answer to it absolutely we can discuss that that is not for the board table it's not agenda item then I'll bring it up in new business after the fact so are there any other discussion on policy uh no I do just want to thank the committee for putting together it looks like as you're working through uh policy by policy uh I see you have the opportunity to sort of add notes or clarification there which is very helpful for someone not on the Comm to
070be able to come in and sort of read those things that are sort of surfacing to that level of questioning or exploring so thank you for doing that it's very helpful um and I don't know if you've gotten I suspect it might be a later portion of um school board's policy manual but perhaps um do do we know if um School boards has a guidance policy just regard in artificial intelligence um I know Strauss Esme had pushed out some model guidance documents I wasn't sure if school boards had something equivalent and I know sometimes those policies can land under acceptable use code of conduct and other places and and maybe it's just you you may not even be to where it might be um in the policy manual but that would be something I'd be
071curious and learning about I will not that we have not gotten to that point but I will note that and I'm seeing Dr Burj is noting that as well thank you moving forward on finance facilities and transportation committee report Dan okay um the first agenda item was the um was the budget uh we talked about um the bud the budget and we review the um the um breakdown of the budget um so uh one of the items was the um state aid was released at the end of February February and it was uh favor favorable to us in the district we got an increase of 217,000 above the prior Year and that um we were expecting it to be flat um so that was a good thing um um there was a small decrease in
072the is it semi or semi funding um from 20,000 to um which is minimal impact but um based on that um the we reviewed the budget and based on uh us using a 2% tax levy and then the uh Health Care waiver which allows us because of health care costs of that increased 10% for medical and 7% for prescription and please chime in if I'm saying something incorrect uh we are able to increase that tax levy to 2.66% based on that with the 2.66 we are um still anticipating a shortfall of $216,500 Provisions in place to um to manage that shortfall um there's some attrition there's a couple of positions that are um people I guess retiring is that that um and then uh we're we won't be needing those uh positions to be replaced
073um and the discussion was around uh this the budget was to um present it to us and what we're voting on tonight is to um allow Doug to forward this to the county for for their review next month will be a detailed presentation and breakdown of the entire budget and that's when we actually vote on the budget this is just to forward it to the county for their uh review and see if they have any comments or any concerns uh about the budget itself um one of the things that uh you know the the Major Impact to our budget is the um salaries and healthc care that's about 70 or 75% I believe of total expenditures um and uh you know with our Personnel increase of 3.5% um and also uh increases of from Transportation
074uh that's why we uh the administration felt the need that we need to um uh increase the the tax levy to 2.66% the additional thing and something I had requested that uh we might potentially have next month is uh I think you'll remember um years ago when we uh when they reduced the um the state reduced funding to to the district kdf prepared kind of a um looking out into the future you know five years I believe it was a projection into and pointing out that because of those reductions you know if we don't take the tax this is the impact as we move forward year after year and so you end up three four years out you hit this fiscal cliff where you you end up rashing and and having to make some severe
075um programmatic and uh uh potentially Personnel ISS you know changes to to avoid that um that's that's the point of this tax levy no one likes the fact that we have to raise the taxes as much but to keep ahead of um any changes in the future or reductions in Personnel or programs uh this is this is what the uh Administration is suggesting um the at the meeting we were a little short on on uh Cynthia had to leave because of personal reasons um and Brian wasn't able to attend he had reported that he wasn't able to be there so um also Rich U um had uh asked for some additional information um he wanted to before he could actually um so we didn't have a consensus at the meeting um because obviously we were
076a lot of us weren't there um but um that is uh the suggestion of the administration and uh that we vote for um approval of the budget as is to send it to the county um and again remember we have next month um to see the full detail work through that and and and actually we still have the opportunity to make changes next month if needed I just have a question um in looking at the budg for next this is for next year so um have we gotten any feedback from our food service provider about impact on the of the tariffs on the cost of food and whether um they're going to push that back on the district or onto the students so we haven't had any information from them um what I telling you
077is Food Services runs um as an Enterprise account the right word correct um so basically it's a separate um set of accounts right and so there I the idea is that the company that we contract with yeah a certain portion of our profits comes back into our coffers that's what we use to buy equipment and things like that in the cafeteria as they need to be um and we always try to keep that about even so whatever profit the district makes off of that um you know if we weren't going to make as much profit it could affect purchasing some of our equipment things like that for a year okay but we haven't had any impact as it to that okay um I mean I know they're still kind of up and down but I
078think it is something that we should try to monitor especially if you're counting on profit to pay for certain things that you know were outside of the budget yeah Y agre and Dan just to be clear so the 2% cap um I recall I think was put in at about around 2011 is or something like that that the idea was that if districts could maintain 2% or lower they wouldn't have to go out for a vote but in recognition of the fact that since since 2011 and um certain expenditures and just the cost of living and so many other things have obviously are more than 2% um the law allows for certain allowances that allow you to flex above that 2% while still meeting the state's definition of fiscal responsibility and thus still not having
079to go out for a vote right and then from the materials that were in the folder um I know there were a few expenses that were shared there specifically I guess we had gotten notification of um uh what was it the electric utility going up $200,000 well it's it's a 20% increase 20% increase and the impact but it is a 200,000 $200,000 ticket right there yeah um and then obviously um uh Personnel Staffing and benefits often The Lion Share of the budget uh and obviously a lion share of this budget um I know even though I didn't participate in the uh negotiations proceedings um there was a sincere effort on the part of that team and we we voted on those contracts um obviously with an eye towards keeping and retaining and attracting staff I
080think there was also some recognition that um we were starting to lose staff to other districts and that the salary guide needed to be a little more competitive to Stave that off a little bit um the transportation increase I I don't I I didn't know if I couldn't find the number on that like is there a percentage increase in transportation that we're aware of 10% it's 10% okay that was the one I knew it was out there I couldn't remember exactly what the um what the percentage was and then I guess the other thing that if I recall correctly from last year it was the first time I sat on the budget process I think last year was the last time that we had any banked cap to use and so we have expired that
081and we currently no longer have any Bank cap that's correct which I know at that time was was part of the thing that enabled us to um deliver that that budget last year um I don't know like going forward when schools have things like Bank cap or when schools have things like um uh C you know significant Capital reserves what become the strategies to put the district on a sound fiscal footing um because I think all of us have probably been paying attention to what's happening just down the road where they went out for a 6% increase it didn't pass and now you're looking at massive staff layoffs school security officer layoffs the removal of sports programs um just a lot of painful decisions so I guess I'm just sort of from a business administrator
082standpoint strategically what are the moves that we can make in the next few years going forward to to put us in the best position I think Mr span's you know uh view of having the fiveyear look ahead is is a is a good tool to start with but then is as we operate because in order to regenerate that capital reserve because that that's a real critical part for you avoiding referendum down the road and but the way you do that you you must generate Surplus and uh which means and and surplus is a good thing from a standpoint is that you're pushing a lot of what you generated last year into this the next year and you hope to continue to do that because then that gives you some opportunity to potentially put that into
083Capital year depending on what your other expenses are and as you know special education can go through the roof one year and the next year it it it it D so you just you take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves but be mindful that they are out there and they can occur so that you can be in a position to board to make those deposits into capital reserve and the bank cap that that has to do with you know if you have a healthc care waiver and you don't use it all then it goes into bank cap if you have an enrollment uh increase that's the other place where you can uh generate some additional uh tax revenue and if you don't use that that goes into bank cap then you have a threeyear
084time period where you can utilize that before it expires well it's just I because I was um watching uh and and obviously being at hun in Central and aware of um their presentation and two of the things they specifically highlighted was the fact that they were still able to employ Bank cap and that they had massive Capital reserves earning interest that I guess are being employed sort of strategically I guess with like the building the capital reserve um it you're talking about that like a fiveyear lookout sort of process where you're trying to do it a little bit each year right look at your revenues and and which you anticipate your expenditure going to be over the over the next five years and see if we reach a point where those you know intersect or
085if you can keep that Revenue growing then you can you can um um you know make deposits in capit which will then help you avoid referendums down the road right and then in terms of student enrollment I mean I know across the County student enrollment has either tended to be flat or declining um I think it's somewhat similar here except for the fact that we have um the uh Academy programs and the launch of the Polytech program that potentially promises to bring students from all over the county here but is does that work in the the same way that you're saying in terms of Revenue being potentially gained or that's different because that's an agreement with I mean you would have revenues for those incoming students but but they don't necessarily add to your your
086student count that that we report in the state for the purposes of funding right so uh there's you get the revenue coming from the other school districts when they when they come into our aies um but but you don't get to count them which could potentially lead to additional state aid or a and then Rich I guess not having been here during the Dan was referring to you know the seven years of state aid cuts that sort of every District knew were coming um I don't have the look back Sense on that rich to know the degree to which deliberate things like the development of the academy programs or deliberate things like the Polytech program or bringing in bloomsberry as in a send reive relationship and am I right in assuming that each of those
087was somewhat strategic in terms of um managing all of this and and attracting new populations so yes I would be it it wasn't done for fiscal reasons to be perfectly honest it was done for what was good for our kids you know having the programs in our buildings we thought was better for our students for our home students exactly yes you know they they could take advantage of these programs that were run through Polytech so it was really student L to decisions but it has had a financial impact um and that Financial impact has been positive in some areas and you know it's always a fine line of we get a percentage of the tuition that Polytech charges um credited back to us if it's our student and again whether or not that is covering
088all of our expenses that's what we're currently negotiating with polych right now so we can make sure that we have a you know a clear um delineation of the expenses between our district and their district and because it's interesting seeing it from this side because I know the other County high schools are viewing it is they're losing students and they're losing Revenue that follows the student to us uh which is a challenge that that they face um I guess the challenge we face is we get these new students we're pres we're providing the The Lion Share of the instructional program for them and as you said at a negotiated rate with the polych regarding theems and the the programming but it's always a fine balance of every expense and Staffing and everything that goes with
089that yeah and those programs we have been fortunate enough that they have um helped us fiscally and helped us keep our numbers up um you know even though we don't get that state aid our numbers are still about the same able to maintain the level of Staffing and things of that nature um but the seven-year look back that that did hurt that um Surplus roll over that we count on every year you know we expect a certain amount of money to be rolled over from this year's budget into next year and our budget starts there if we don't have that um as we talked about there comes a point where you know again we're eating away that slowly no matter what because you know even 2.66 is not going to keep up with the expenses
090next year right so that has not at a 20% electrical he so that is going to be you know part of that is going to be eaten up with some um creative budget cuts that we're doing and trying to just move some things around and make sure that we're being fiscally responsible the other part is going to mean that there's going to be a little less of that budgeted Surplus but the more we eat into that budgeted Surplus the harder it's going to be in the quicker we're going to hit that spot where we're going to have to make some very tough decisions or go out for the ref or go out for a reference um you know but again if if we can if we can avoid that for six seven 8 years the
091you know funding models might be different right so it might not we might be able to survive this and get through it if you know we eat away that too quickly and we end up using up that Surplus in three or four years we're not I don't I don't anticipate that we'll um be able to survive that without a referen and I thought I had and I don't for for some of the folks on sort of the legislative counc where is the conversation on the on the 2% cap and legislative reconsideration in recognition that districts are up against increasing costs in everything yet having to like operate within this sort of 2% squeeze I feel like and Tara I can't remember if you reported out on anything like that or Kim if there's anything that
092you've seen on the county level where where boards are advocating to the state and saying you know we need to look at this it's it's discussion I know it keeps coming up it keeps coming up but nothing definitive so the state does put Out programs like last year um there was a program where we were able we would have been able to as our district um after the budget was already passed if you remember um there was a discussion about I can't remember the name of the bill but the state allowed us to go out and raise the tax levy by a certain percentage based on how much you lost from S2 right that's um I believe it was in between 8 and 9% we could have increased our tax levy on top of what
093we had already increased it last year um we we talked about it as a board and decided you know we didn't want to do that and and again it was after the budget was already approved we already had things balanced we didn't need that then but you know there are mechanisms that like that that you know might come out in the future okay and that's kind of in recognition of the shortfall districts have been receiving for X number years as a way to at least give you an Avenue to try and access again this was last year so um it's not an option this year but last year it was an option after the budget season because there were districts that were drastically C with State a and they were trying to basically replace that
094state is okay and then one of the things we did do to minimize the impact was we had monies left over from a referendum that everything things came under budget and we opted to to give it back to the taxpayers as opposed to putting it towards Bank cap or anything else um with the thoughts that we were being phisically responsible and if we ever have to in the future go out for a referendum for things the public knows our taxpayer base knows that we're only coming out if we need it um and we that's what we did that time we were under budgeted on a lot of the projects that we went out for the referendum and we have money back and that's what allowed us not to have to have a higher um uh
095tax levy was it two two years ago was it yeah I think two years I remember so um I mean we don't want to have to ever go out but we when we went out in the past uh they did well with the the the rfps we came on your budget we didn't spend it all we got the projects done and then we returned it to the taxpayers so we didn't have to do a tax increase because of State funding and federal funding being cut but I gets the other strategy that other districts may have employed is to not give it back right to maintain it as as um Capal capital and then to earn interest and to position themselves more favorably okay which is my question um Doug I don't know if you can
096you could state to this it could I don't know when the last time it has been when have we moved monies C from our capital reserve to our interest you know to capitalize on income interest rates I'm seeing a zero bounc and that's what we're talking to and I I happened to attend 100 and Cent's presentation last night um it was an hourlong presentation um and it checked every like every box and there were it brought up stirred more questions for me um you know we don't have we we're out of bank cap our we're looking at our capital reserve I'm looking at in the interest there's none have we been doing that are we yeah here here's my my my observation of how your District R is that you you have one account that
097all of the funds are aggregated and that account does draw interest and it draws a significant amount in fact Kitty put $150,000 of Interest into the revenue side of the the budget for the for the coming year so it is me you may have looked at a report that it wasn't um allocated to that book account but it is in the bank account and that that's we do have the money it's just not necessarily recorded as coming from Capital do we do multiple Investments where we might do pull out monies and we might have a six Monon CD a year CD you know where we can make money on that I'm aware we we had a discussion I remember with Katie and I I don't remember exactly what it was I know there was a
098lot of concern about risk obviously we don't want to risk the money so there's only certain things we can go I don't so I don't you know maybe we can find out what what well we we can invest in CDs but we cannot you know go into mutual funds you know it has to be very what's that Bitcoin there you go that's real danger so um it's very restrictive because it is taxpayers money that we're you know uh responsible for and so we're not allowed to to take a lot of risk with that but we try to maximize our earnings but CDs would be an Avenue that we could look at as uh you know for that's just a timing issue then is to make sure you do we have the fun available for us
099to operate pay our bills on an ongoing basis and I just noted that at you were you were saying Brandon at 100 Central um for the last six years they've been under the 2% cap um they've made some significant changes um she does project the VA there does project as what um uh Dr burx and what um Dan is speaking to making a projection um it was really spot on and they got about don't quote me I don't have it in front of me the number was a little bit more than our 217,000 that we got back from State they got a little bit more than that yeah and they're losing they're Lo like we are the students with they're worrying about Polytech now being coming here they're they actually have 171 students so you
100know there there's there just ways of doing things differently and I'm just questioning what we what well that's yeah that's kind of why I was asking Tara about the the capital reserves and the decision I guess you know you can look back on the decision and say we could have rained and earned or we could have given back to the community we chose to give back to the community which makes it a little more challenging right now to not have the the cushion and I don't know enough about like where each banked cap stream is coming from other than they are they are still able to to work with bank cap as did they say how much how much on the bank cap no no no their Capital res no no it I think the
101work was used was huge or significant massive I also think it's um while they're a neighboring District they're running one school we're running two exactly we have two full staffs we have two full uh pieces of uh property to maintain two full buildings and um all two full schools of equipment we can't compare ourselves um with hun in central who has one school one staff one uh one building to operate I think there's some great differences between um Central and north um and Vorhees but I think it's unfair of us to use their meeting as a point of reference to compare ourselves against while we're two separate very distinctly separate districts yeah there was a discussion at our caution that I was uh I I got to say that what I really appreciated about the
102presentation was that actually had a presentation that was able for the prelim to be available to the public and to the board members to be able to really and they really broke it down I mean they they talked about in committee so when the ba did their instruction I mean the board members were used to it they had questions most of their questions were already answered um and I thought that was great because it you know a lot of public had uh questions and the public were informed of where they were getting their numbers from um and so were the board members so well it it it helps you clarify things these are like that ability to say transportation is this electric is that Staffing is this it becomes and there was another one too
103also Westmore Central that also is the same kind of District like us same kind of community same kind of two high schools same situation theirs was uh also really really good too in the past have we I don't I last year was my first year so I'm not remembering when we were at the preliminary phase I I can't remember if Katie did the presentation only at the No it's it's in ail the final budget presentation in April in April no but you're talking about like the preliminary preliminary budget I believe has always been dealt with in committee um because the committee supports the um whatever they decide in committee and brings that to our board meeting for recommendation for prelim and when we go to final is uh when we go through and Katie breaks
104it down as where the money is being spent also after the Count's reviewed it yeah right because we have to have approval from the county as well so that's when Katie does the detail and I'm I'm only I'm only saying that from the perspective that looking ahead the op like the more opportunities we have to sort of message the specifics I think just I think it's a great I think it's something we can definitely look for in 20 you know when we do this again next year if there's a if there's a way to take away from a better practice then we should but I don't think we can sitting here and comparing last year you know other School District's presentations to our presentation tonight isn't going to make our vote any different tonight and
105I'm not I just don't want to spend time on other school districts when we're I was actually responding back to you though but thank you for your questions about some of those things very similar questions regarding it because we're not able to see because we don't have the prelim Mike on the anticipated increase of electrical utilities which is Big so do we know what what that demand is because I know we worked on solar so I was hoping the ratables we were putting into place something that would mitigate I think the solar is already in place so we really it's 20% on top of what what we last year and then what's the increase is that the tariffs again about 200,000 so our usage is it going all through the roof it's just the ratables
106are increasing yeah it's the portion that we're paying am I correct it's the portion we're paying that is not generated by solar I believe our um and again I'm using round numbers but I believe our electrical used to be closer to $3 million a year solar panels have mitigated that and now it's okay but it's no unusual increase or anything it's just from the rbl that yeah and it was everywhere it wasn't just usual I got the letter at home as well um that my electric bill was going up 20% I was W okay y so so just just one last thought on the budget um because Rich already had mentioned it um during the committee meeting and that is you know have we undergone a measure in which we start to look at where
107there can be Savings in our purchasing too like you know in a company you have a procurement Department that will evaluate you know are we buying things at the least cost but still at the same you know same value or or um that the product is as good right I mean I don't if we do something like that but it may be something worthwhile to do if we're really starting to for money versus the need to do a referendum and that's one of the things that we would plan to do this year um you know again this year was this past year was sort of fractured right I know here and there um trying to catch up trying to make sure that we don't make M make a decision that's yeah not fiscally responsible right
108um but purchasing and um procurement will definitely be an issue that we look at I know we are a member of a lot of consortiums you know so that gets us some better pricing but maybe there's more that we can be a part of um we're always looking for ways to cut and again if we do our job this year yeah and we raise the tax levy by what we're recommending we'll have that much more next year to be able to offset the budget next year and maybe I don't have to ask you for the full that next year because we were able to get those efficiencies but right now based on what we know you know if we don't go up to this percentage something's going to give okay so I do notice that
109the football field lights are on a lot when there's nothing going on you know there's at least some practice or something there yeah there's usually something that's coming they turn them on you know when they're coming but she she's not here to get the the comment but Katie I mean we all should recognize the work that Katie had done to get us if our colle bill used to be $3 million and now it's 20% on that well even the hbac grants that she was able to get us last year and save us closer to $10 million I mean there are so many things that we could point back to that our business office has been helping us and making us you know has has been fiscally responsible for this district and again most of this
110budget Doug has helped with the last you know few weeks and and we've been you know tidying things up but most of this was you know Katie's work going into this understanding the projections that um what we're going to need for next year and when she comes back in August she wants this to be a budget she can support and maintain and so I am supporting her as well as you know Doug's you know experience looking at this he agrees with everything she has been doing so good job I think she's earned that respect with what she's done she's the one that kind of drove the don't go take ad you know we don't need to take advantage of that those extra the special offer from the state last year yeah last year yeah we
111can give back the money before we can get these grants I mean she I think she's if she says we need this I think um I believe her I trust her and Doug you second the motion so okay is there any further everyone has had an opportunity to speak Doug I had a question for you so the next stage would be for the budget to go to the county correct for their review correct is it is it common for them to ever reject it and if they do what would be what normally what happens is they they or make changes I should say request changes what they're clarifying is that it's been submitted in in compliance with statutes you know and reg they're not actually reviewing it well they're they're not looking at from your
112perspective correct no they're looking at that as like you know do do they have everything in the right box you corre that's that's their role and then once that we met that criteria then it comes back to you for approval to say hey uh U taxpayers we're going to you know pass this budget and there is an impact to your homes M and that's your authorization you have here is is that level mhm thank you sorry is there any other board member that would like to say something okay um I need a motion a second to approve uh 12.1 so moved second a roll call vote okay Mr Chapman yes Dr Tey no Miss Gall no Miss hind yes M K yes Mr lordy no Mr macis yes Mr Spanton yes Miss the he V
113yes did I am I still messing me up I'm sorry and finally um Miss Selena no let's check my ma there because I only have I only have 5.7 not counting fails be as well it has to be from the full major the full majority of the board not the board president or a bunch of vote I'm sorry can you say that again it the the vote has to be the majority of the full board not the full board that are present so 5.7 does not pass the resolution okay so can we have now can we have discussion on why yeah I mean I'd like to know I mean I didn't hear a lot of negatives and and a lot of people voted no I'm curious as to why I'd like to know the process
114Doug what is our next step I can't submit to the I had a I had a question before we I'm sorry we could speak to that what is the process now that it has failed what is the next step you can't submit a budget to the county so we have to have another meeting for another vote so would anyone like to I I I I I can speak to you I don't support this budget and I I have sent in questions I've asked for information um and I don't feel comfortable going out and asking my constituents for above 2% Levy I'd like us to see where we can make savings and I and speaking to the giving back to the taxpayers I could speak to my constituency uh that you know when you give back
115in my years sitting on the board when you give most people don't want you to give back that small amount because they'd rather see you use it and apply it and not ask use it and that's what to what Brendan was saying and we had done that I I I I just there's a lot of clarifications there's some things that are missing there's I I just don't feel sound in my decision can I ask you a question um what are you looking for clarification on and um what is it uh that you're looking that you don't support again I can tell you I am not comfortable I have concerns about this budget right but what are those I have I have sent the concerns to the ba and the administration okay but we're discussing the
116preliminary budget would you mind sharing Kim's concerns about the budget for us that is not appropriate at this time every every board member has their right to their vote understood and not to be scrutinized by other board members we are talking though about you have that you don't support the budget that you're looking for clarification on items if you as board president has identified specific issues with the budget shouldn't you be sharing them with your fellow board members I've been sharing them oh I haven't gotten anything about I sent my my request to Administration and I have serious concerns and I don't want there's certain things that are I don't think we can talk about that would related for policy or security there are numbers that were run but we could you know there's there's
117concerns with legal with legal bills there there there's um cons there was questions in our committees asking where we could cut and make savings and I we did not we did not receive that or and I did not receive that is this um a little late in the game at this point shouldn't we if you had concerns about the budget as a board member um knowing that we do this every January don't you think it would have been responsible to ask for th those questions prior knowing the the order of events that we about to take place from January to now we had adequate time we talked about the tax Ley love Yeah excuse me Jessica one person just to clarify on that is I there was a point time when I was asking for
118some information and we just recently got it so to answer your question there was a series of questions that I had asked what are your concerns rich I was just unconvinced by the information that I was provided that this was the best way to go what is what I'll have to defer to what we can say what we can't say but based on what was provided to me I didn't feel that this is the the appro time to go above and beyond the 2% based on savings that I believe are there that we're not taking advantage of and I'll def first Rich I'd like to know what we can discuss or what we can't on the budget and what the concerns are I advise you not to speak to that those numbers that's why we
119should have we should have lawyer here because it's not up to you to decide we should understand what we can and can't talk but I think the question [Applause] is that's a problem the question the question Dan had posted and now Jessica is asking each individual board member can State their reasoning why they also do not have to State that's fine but I am stating my concerns you can't tell him not to answer you can't inv I just spoke with the superintendent it's regarding safety and and and our uh that's fine so it's so if it's security that you're looking into then that's Jessica Jessica it's one board member at a time understood Kim thank you so much for clarify we ask you to be thank you theorum ability thank you Kim I appreciate it
120thank you Kim so let everyone speak thank you so what I was saying was that if it's as to security and safety then Rich should be able to say that that's fine and then we all know that we're not permitted to talk about security and safety fine but I agree with Jessica the only way we can potentially address someone's concerns about what's missing is to discuss it and see if we can put those concerns at ease but if we just don't discuss it then we're never going to get something done so now you know we're moving ahead without a proposed budget what happened with that and if we're going if we could vote on it again tonight and address some of the concerns that that there are here that maybe we could dispel and put
121to rest maybe we could move forward and get a budget to the county but if we don't know what people's concerns are and some of us don't have them we have to meet Kim I was speaking I'm sorry so Kim I was speaking I'm sorry I'm asking for guidance from our Administration I'm sorry I didn't realize you I was in the middle of speaking was that potentially what's the question what is the question you had stated to me it needed it need to be in it needs to be in tomorrow correct no it or is it 21st it has to be on Friday okay so I I I suggest that we delve into um committee and we anyone who has sent in questions and ask for material that we have those discussions and then we
122come back as a board are we going to have a special meeting then to vote on this before Friday because if you waiting on answers and you got them and we're at vote tonight um we won't be able to vote on this again by Friday have to be a special meeting well I mean how is that going to be possible we're all we have to we have to adver we have to advertise yeah I mean we're not going to have time so we'd have to call the county office to find out what happens with this cuz I've never experienced it Doug has never experience it yeah it would be nice to have an attorney to advise us we also have the opportunity to amend the budget next month exactly yeah so why are we yes
123we do we can have a discussion about um accepting the budget tonight and making amendments to the budget it goes into the county to as Doug said to be checked to make sure everything's the the eyes are dotted teas are crossed and we can amend it and we could all each of us who voted though we certainly could ask the things we'd like to see are are we worried I mean I I feel like some of this might be overstepping our role as a board and um and delving into um board into administrative business that is and I and I'd like to adjust that good thank you spoke to the attorney and that is not we are which attorney you spoke to Jessica I spoke to one of our councils oh and I am asking
124you and telling you you're asking me it is not an overreach it's not overstepping it is our fiduciary responsibility to vote on a budget but we need to be clear we need to be concise we need to be aware what we're voting on and there are questions that are are are lingering are hanging that they're not clear the material we received was not clear there was and we have to be able clarification real quick no I no I'm I'm stating my point and that's my point okay we have to be able to make an informed decision and that is our personal purview every board member represents their constituencies can I ask um what presentation was done in finance in in the finance committee was there an extensive presentation of the budget that was gone over
125in committee that we because as a board we meet as committee we read our notes or we we we trust that our decisions that are made in committee and discussed in committee come before the board with administrative recommendations um but what kind of presentation was made that there was um that there's so much left where we can't pass a budget or pass a preliminary budget what was left out perhaps I'll answer it from my point of view great Rich we received one page so if that helps I mean that kind of goes the page yes there was a whole bunch ofation that was in the folder to review along with it right there were comparisons of spend during the first prior year there a whole bunch of documents that I reviewed that showed what we
126had spent on different things and what the difference was going to be going to this year versus next year so I'm confused about what wasn't provided because I saw a whole bunch there's a budg of comparison there's a whole thing about admin salaries and benefits there budget projection I mean there's a lot here yeah short short of you know this presentation went through all the numbers why these numbers are the way they are what are the decisions to be so short of us the board going into the administration and making programmatic changes Personnel changes is that that this is the budget so is that what we're suggesting that we're going to go in and make changes to what our professionals are are we we don't go in and make Chang changes when we had our
127committee meeting it would have been uh fiscally sound and prudent there would have been to come to that meeting and you was being a chair in and our Administration to say this is what we're proposing as a budget and this is what could happen Okay this is what we'd like to happen we didn't see any propo any other proposals any other discussions and and that was brought up in the committee what what happens if we talked about this and so and I can understand Rich's concerns because he hasn't been here so he hasn't been here for past years and known that this is this we've had this discussion every year knowing that if we do not you know make these you know these changes we we're going to we're going to hit a wall and
128we've known that going forward that that's that's what we have to do to to stay balanced you know and then to to Rich's concern he hasn't been here so he needs to get that information but you've been here we've all been here we know this this is like I said that's why I suggested that five-year projection when we had that five-year projection in front of us and we were voting on whatever the budget increase was that year say it was 2.5 we there was no question we have to do this or else you know three years from now we're going to have to start cutting programs Personnel like there there's going to be major problems so for us to to you know come at the meeting at the final meeting to review and approve the
129budget to go to the county and say oh I think we need to change something here I'm not going to comment specifically but um to make you know small changes to it it doesn't make sense it's maybe in the future going into next year but to do it now is is preposterous I'll just say this on my point that I made it clear coming out of the committee Where I Stood yeah so I I did this is not a surprise to the administration or to or Doug where I was on it and again they they know my concerns my concerns are still here today and it's not a surprise because I told everyone in that meeting where I was so they've known for a week plus now where I was on it so that's that's
130me and and but for those of us who weren't at the meeting at the committee meeting and the concern and those of us who hadn't heard the concerns that were brought up in the meeting um and being through this experience before and knowing Administration and understanding how Katie puts together the budget if there are and my my questions were if there were specific concerns that as you know an a tenur board member that I'm not aware of I would appreciate understanding that because as far as I'm concerned and as far as you know in years past we've worked lot in lock step with Katie and Katie's recommendations have been spoton for our district as far as what we need and and and conservatively how we spend it um and if there's a if there's items
131that you're finding that are um uh out of the ordinary uh cost excessively cost effect you know excessive cost or things like that but if I'm under if I'm looking and we go to the the 2.6 what is the actual difference from 2% to 2.66 I'll tell you what it is it's $428,000 $2,444 out of how much of a total budget a 60 $5 million budget so we're we are splitting hairs over $400,000 when the when we can't pass a budget for $400,000 because of a because we need a 66% increase and the and and everything that that we're here is all nitty-gritty picky things when we're here for the education of the students and not to make and while yes we are here to be fiscally responsible to our constituents but we're looking to
132save $428,000 and split hairs over it so we can't go to budget is that really what we're coming to blows about on a $65 million budget that there's that there's 428 that you think we can cut yeah I don't disagree with I don't I don't disagree with what you're saying and I would have felt comfortable going up to the 2% cap we are going to the 2% cap we're using additional funding we're using additional funding to give us the extra money that we need so that we don't go have to go and be fiscally and pull money at a greater rate like if we're comparing ourselves to 100 in central they're doing um but but this is where we we're now not we're voting no because of $428,000 out of 65 million really does that
133even equal a dollar per house a year no yeah I mean you're not talking about I mean we won't know that until we get all the budget software fied through buy County and then we get all that information we have more 400,000 houses but still $428,000 out of 65 million and we can't come to a decision come on guys we're better than this our children deserve better than this last year the original proposed was 3.3% and that's why we looked at the bank cap and we realized that we were being fiduciary um our responsibility um and that's why we brought it back down and that was at 2.2 so that's we were originally budget last year was 3.3 um and we we were still over the 2% we brought it back down as much as
134we could because we understand the impact on our our taxpayers so um you know I like everything we're behind the aall here we can look and we should be looking at not us but the the the administration that we have to manage the district on cost Effectiveness going out to better pricing um so we could put that make that one of our board goals but right now I'm not sure how or like what are you going to pull this from so what where's that 400,000 what are we going to who's going to make that cision what are we going to cut um I because my our students come first I just don't know what does what do we have to cut to get to $428,000 to 2% the football program we could cut the football
135program there you go yeah oh then we don't need to turn the lights on exactly oh there we go then we can bring down expenses we're going to do is impacting our students so we need to and to do it at the last minute really makes me uncomfortable because our students deserve better at this point um my question when this budget has been last minute that part I don't understand this is the process correct well actually one board members one at a time and I would ask public to stay quiet please this is a board discussion he asked me a question no not I'm saying oneon-one he's asking you a question that's what we were just doing that pounding so in January or even now we should be looking each year each time our committee
136meets on finance facilities and transportation we are looking at everything we reported last month that it was 2.7 yeah or yeah so but you know Transportation has been a big one and that and every time you guys meet you guys report out because we're constantly looking on how we can pull those costs down uh the health insurance is something out of our control we did go and Katie did an outstanding job when we were looking at switching over to the group that we're with now because where we had been before they were looking at a I don't know 15% it was crazy but Horizon that that grouping was giving Rising but we're constantly looking at these things and that's what that committee is doing so it should be starting now but right now we're sitting
137here with a budget that has to go out Friday so proposal to the county um so it is feels like it's last minute even though it's been in the works we should have been focusing on it clear come January I agree with that so the other thing too is and you know this budget comparison document I found to be very helpful and if you look at the original budget versus the proposed the original budget of 2425 and the proposed budget of 2526 there are a number of items on this list that we are reducing already as part of this budget so again it comes back to where are we going to find $400,000 so that we don't have to do a 66% increase which again is not going to be a huge amount to taxpayers
138it's minor again if it's 50 cents for each house in this in this in this County in the district I'd be surprised well to be fair to that I mean respectfully I mean minor to you might not be minor to somebody else respectfully no I don't I I I understand I to totally do um but even thinking about my constituent 50 cents is what on a house is what what we're potentially talking about so I don't know versus the was did you say it was 65 million yeah that's y the nut that really is of significant so yeah so at this point we can do one up two I think oh sorry Brandon yeah and I think I'm going to what you're perhaps about to say I guess I'm I'm I'm wondering our process forward
139because this is a preliminary budget I I thought you said something before to the effect that in theory we pass a preliminary budget it's going to go to the county for review to make sure we put everything in the right boxes it sounds like some material may have been provided I don't know that would give folks time to have questions answered ultimately we we vote on it next month it gives us time to have questions answered um rather than putting ourselves in a position of having to urgently do something in a rash manner between now and and that's why I said we can make a motion to amend okay and we can have that discussion a motion to amend or a motion to just a motion a motion a motion to do what are we
140motioning we can take a motion in a second to um go around have another uh vote with the understanding as we're as I was stating I mean you know to motion to amend but that we have an open discussion moving into the Preparatory for the final budget um I have a question we we go to vote now we vote to submit we go to next month and the discussion comes up and people don't like the way the numbers ended up and now we don't have approval of our budget what happens then what help me out what happens go well one thing you you um you you won't be able to submit uh to the municipalities the request for tax levy to operate your schools you you you that that'll stop um you you will uh
141and I haven't been through this before so I'm I'm kind of drawing on different aspects of my knowledge here as to what could happen uh you you may get a a q finding because you haven't you know met your financial responsibilities as as a board so there there's there's a lot of downside to uh to the board U to not move it forward you know but as as president has said you know if you approve the budget tonight got a lot of time between now and April 29th for other questions vet out some things like you know how much is this going to impact our taxpayers on an individual household that's I think that's a key component to this as well and if it uh things of that nature should be forthcoming then with the
142additional time that we would have I have a followup question um if as and I don't I don't honestly don't know this is what I'm asking if there are emails and discussions and paperwork that's being passed around is it possible to put it on our drive the answers thing so we can review them before we come into the meeting because I know we can't send to each other right we can't do that but if it's in the drive and we can do it is that something that we're able to do so that we're all educated on it prior to coming into meet it I don't know well we have emails that come in to through chairs to the Committees right okay but then you have emails that go to either the administration or Doug and
143I will say that the process through our board is not it's not consistent it's it's consistently inconsistent when people send emails they send emails to um Dr burjack and he's busy doing other things and when there's things that that could be vetted and come to the board president and then submitt it to him or and Doug by all means we have to learn to agree to disagree respect each other at the table no that's totally fine and I would vet those there there was would be no email left on you know not I guess uh attention of the administration but there seems to be a disconnect so in you saying that I would say use the chain of command but those but when someone sends questions they're sending questions particularly pertaining to a committee they
144go through the committee process are you talking about that or are you talking about any questions in general talk about the budget right and as paperwork comes in that's been requested for review it'd be helpful if we can all see it I I think and see the question that actually asked and prompted for that work as well because we don't know like I said I don't know what your concerns are I don't know what Rich's concerns are the questions would be in anything referred to fft and then questions that we're having with Administration we could put request to put in the fft folder that's what I'm asking can we like it's specific questions but so specifically the the so rich you know had a lot of questions in the meeting just you know and so
145there was a lot of information that um Dr BX Pro provided to him that was put into the to the drive but what your question is is you want to see the question that SP yeah I I would like to okay I would have no problem with that I would like to see what know you you asked great questions I got no problem with that and I don't and I would like to know what you're thinking because you do come to the table with some really good thoughts and I can't I can't read your mind I don't read anybody's mind mind here but I assume that if you're finding and uncovering something and as a board we rely on each other to convey information that if there's a concern that is relative to the entire
146board and our constituents as well as the importance and the and the of our students because that's where we keep forgetting this isn't it's just not about $428,000 we have a school to run we have a budget to pass and lights to stay on and we need if there's concerns about what's going on in the school and how we're spending our money then we should all be engaged in that conversation but as far as and I will interrupt we all are to accuse anyone at the table that they're not here I didn't accuse any for the purposes of children education exuse anyone I here for the same purposes Jessica I never said that but it's important that we remember moving forward Kim I can't I would really like to finish my sentence as you like
147to finish your sentences I like to finish mine so thank you um Rich it would be really it would be really interesting to see what you have to say and I'd really like to have it shared because I really would like to see it I have no problem um and if it and and as I said we need to be we need to be conscious that this is a school we're running and not just a piece of paper with numbers on it um what we cut impacts our students um these expenses are there for a reason they've been justified through our ba and our Administration and if we're looking for savings for waste or Surplus I'm all for it but if we're cutting services like uh you know our our officers in our school um
148things that affect our children's safety the fact that we can't employ the right districts in our school because we don't we can't employ the right teachers in our school because we can't attract talent because we don't have a budget to pay them that's a big problem and and if we can't get something passed tonight I don't we don't have anyone here to guide us as to what's going to happen to us we don't have an attorney here to tell us there's the last here's the ramification of voting no um so we don't really know I think we know we do we don't know we do what is it I just stated what what that was we have to come to special meeting we either come to a special meeting or we take another vote and
149we have this open discussion which we're having which is a positive we're all we're discussing it and we go back knowing having this discussion we know now and the administration is is is a breast the ba is AB breast of what Rich has been asking certain people are asking myself and we can have those candid conversations in depth in our committees that we have plenty of time before the meeting and then going into the budget and there shouldn't be a reason why anybody here doesn't support the budget in April good um I'd like to post I'd like the motion to uh revote on um 121 12.1 please second that was a motion um and a second from Dan you're ready um yes is just as a point that's allowed you can just have a motion
150to revote it's a new motion because it fail I renumbered it the first one failed the new number I have a couple questions for how do you want to address Jessica's concerns because if she wants access to my information she could have anything she wants I just don't know how you do it I we're going to put in the drive yeah if you want my emails you can have them oh I don't want your emails I don't care I just want to know the question so that when I see the when I see the data I know what it's referencing and if if you have a concern about a specific item and you're getting and you're getting details I'd like to know what it is we can put those questions compile all the questions from
151any board members that had budget questions with with the admin's uh responses and we can put those in the drive then we'll have that for discussion and anything else that was in your prie that you've had discussions with outside of that and I know there have been other board members that have had discussions asking questions um regarding the budget I I'll say this if it helps you answer your question about the timeline it kind of feels late right I I can empathize with that um a lot of the questions that I posed were were questions that I asked when I first came out and to give you context of when we got the answers it was the day after the fft meeting so it was more of like these are some overarching questions that I
152had regarding the entire organization that I kind of asked a lot of times but then it didn't come until after we had already met so it was hard to digest all of that material then have additional questions on top of that and then be prepared to move forward above the 2% tax ly tonight sure that's for me yep and you know I just on your point and when we ask what we can do if you look at the comparisons one of the areas that's up 15.85% is transportation and we've been and we talk about this a lot and we've really looked at Katie had gone out to do surveys with somerson County it's an area that we really need to figure this out because this is one of the areas that's huge it's also that's
153an area that's going to go up again because if tax if ta if tariffs are going and our fuel prices go up that means Transportation goes up again and with a and with the shortage of drivers month we understand try and figure this no I understand it's from my from what i' from the information that I asked for and from the information that we receive that I receive back and to ask to answer kind of Jessica's concern I believe that there's efficiencies that we can take advantage of that would not impact students in any way that's why and I am 100% for that rich but I'm not for heart endangering the safety or the welfare or the education of the children I'm align with you on that we there's no disagreement on that at all
154well but I mean we all I mean if we're talking security or things like that so there's no disagreement on that at all yeah all right can we go to vote we have a if you want to vote procedurally to move it forward I'll just say I'm okay with that but obviously and that's what we're asking I I think this discussion was in fact healthy and it tells you where everyone stands I mean um but yeah I'm in I'm in favor of moving If It Moves It Forward avoids a a land mine sure and I I also would like to say that one of the things that I liked about that is the fact that there are concerns about the 2.66 over the two two I think the taxpayers um you know are are interested
155in trying to keep it at the at the cap and I think that there could be an a good medium between cutting some things without affecting the student so to speak there's probably be spending there's different things that we probably can do to bring that back down um and you know from Lebanon Township we we pay a pretty significant amount towards the high school budget and um I think this was actually a very healthy conversation because a lot of the stuff was aired out publicly and I think that was a great thing and another thing I just want to touch upon that we we have to take into consideration is that we're just looking at this school district you have to be mindful of what's happening in your local school districts like I'm in Union
156Township and I think four six is on the right now so it's not just you know it is it a dollar per house like it's it it's it's our local school districts are in the same position so we have to be mindful that but Rich we got to pass we got to worry about our budget at because we're at this table right now we got to let the we have to let the board who's passing those local budgets worry about that budget with your where you can voice your opinion as well but we got to come to the table tonight we represent the same people we do and I I completely app but tonight is about our budget and how we're going to move forward I believe that our local towns are important too because
157you know again we're representing the the taxpayers and and and if there could be some cuts that can be in a school district which I'm pretty sure there can with all kinds of different spendings I trust the admin can make that change as far as a local District I reach out to mine they don't have a preliminary budget yet so I don't know what they're coming in at and I am concerned for the taxpayer and as much as I'm trusting that the the administration will be able to readjust and do some come up with a better percentage of the cap so moving for we have a motion on the on the floor and a second correct correct okay can we have a roll call Mr Chapman yes Dr de yes Miss Gall yes Miss Hinds
158yes Miss colron yes did I get that right it's close enough Mr lordy yes Mr macis yes Mr Spanton yes Miss V yes thank you Selena yes and that I'm happy that we're coming to um an agreement to have an open Earnest discussion tonight and to continue that before the budget in April thank you uh moving to I need a motion in a second to approve items 12.2 through 12.8 one second I didn't I just want to finish reporting out that was just sorry that's okay the rest of these items on the agenda are all standard uh items moving forward uh was our consensus to move forward with those I did want to report on we did have a discussion about the um the board attorney and when the board attorney should attend the meetings
159we did talk about the costs related to that there was a cost it ranges depending on how much prep they do um so the costs were anywhere from 16 to 18 some somewhere in those ranges depending on the meeting um so upwards of $24,000 in a year and um we we did decide that um the um although this is not something vote on is it's just basically setting up a standard practice um we felt that um Rich should be the person to to uh report out to uh to the board president if he thinks that there's something coming up that we need the board attorney at the meeting um and he would he would be the one that makes that decision moving forward so you're going to be making the decision as to whether or
160not to have the board attorney at the meetings now I will recommend my decision to the board president but it will still be Kim's decision not yours it is a board decision it's the purview of the board president and you have reminded me can you can you let me you reminded me quite nicely that it is a president decision finish my statement okay let's I meet with the superintendent and we have a dialogue and we discuss this was on the a recommendation in committee from the superintendent as well I'm not I didn't ask for recomend I'm asking for clarification that is your clarification so it is up ultimately up to you as board pres I just want to make sure and I do ask Dr BX and and we keep uh contact with the attorney
161if there's any updates we need that must be done they will be here can I ask um are we using special counsel or our standard Council are using both councils when needed okay so how do we again Jessica we are both are using that's all I'm going to answer okay it's not an agenda item it's not an action item on the agenda thank you oh God but I do I do just have a clarify question and that is if a board member believes that there is something that is going to be raised on the agenda can we put forth the um the rationale for the recommendation that the lawyer attend and can it be considered or discussed before you can certainly if there's something an issue personally or other yeah you send that email to
162me copy the superintendent and there's an open Earnest discussion including the board member that asked for including it would be response to your to any individual but it won't include the board member who makes the request the discussion will be held between you and Rich and then you will make just said okay just want to clarify and there that has happened that that doesn't change it with any one of you we agree to disagree but at I follow process and I spoke to Dr BX I brought the attention there was an email period it will be addressed okay I just wanted to make sure that there was still that iterative process that's fine send it through me copy Dr bjack and it will be addressed and one other thing I'd like just to add that
163if Rich is recommending to you to that we need to have the attorney at the meeting if you disent if you disagree with that I think that should be something that should be shared with the board I have so you know I have not I requested and we talk about what the need is are we getting specific updates or not and and yes of course there would be not that would be senseless why would we why would I do that if the board the attorney needs to be here for specific updates he'll the attorney will be here okay great so richel let us know I got a question on that front yes if an attorney is coming here because what you say was 16 1800 it it depends it involves yeah but because it involves
164how much prep they need to do I don't if it's travel time things like that sure is is it possible to maybe rearrange the agenda to put topics that the attorney would have to address at the front so they don't have to sit here for yes so that was actually going to transpire if if the need be we would move we can move exec session to the beginning of the meeting so the attorney can come give exec session and then we could come right out into um our public yes absolutely we don't want the attorney coming and sitting and waiting for us so absolutely thank you Rich yes is that roughly the annual estimate is that for attending this or is that all legal fees no that is attending board meetings and prepping for board
165meetings we should talk about that we shouldn't be paying for transportation to oh I didn't no I said I don't know if I don't know about I didn't speak to travel time I said I said it I said it and I apologize that's I don't know that to be true so mentioned it is it true do we know if that's true so if you have any questions I I tell you if you have any questions you can send them to me and and copy uh Dr BJ um let's move on to the uh agenda items we are now um we need a motion a second for uh 12.2 to 12.8 so move second that was Tara and Beth okay thank you and all in favor I any Nays or abstentions all good good motion passed
166excellent um moving on to community relations and student affairs uh committee report we didn't meet this month um in light that we were strategic PL so next month we'll have more um to discuss and I'm hoping that everybody has RSVP in coming to at least one of the events um and if you talk to constituents in their districts um the areas to come um I you said 25 have rsdc more than 10es 21 21 if we can get any way we can publicize that any more or get better sent that a reminder yesterday and I feel like with the population size of each School the turnout seems really low especially if people have opinions and they want to they want to make change um I I implore anybody who's listening to this meeting to encourage
167your constituents and um parents in our in our sending District to attend we really want your feedback and we need it well I made a suggestion to Dr burjack I don't know with that small set of numbers right now at bories do we pull everybody together and go to no but and still have the both days but pull them all together so we're all we're all a community I think they're covering both things and there are very school specific I know but maybe we look at that and offer that because you only have X number one meeting and you're going to have a double that but then I was also thinking though if somebody can't meet meet one they can come to the other so in other words like make it known that if somebody
168can't make Nords and they want to go to bores even though if it pertains to North they'd still be able to ask it at the Vorhees give thatt at bores because of travel you know our district the Norther Calon Tu work penwell all of that so just to get down to North is another 15 you know minimum to get back down here but at least it's an option for somebody if they can't make it and they do want to attend a person oh yeah I mean no I think we I think it's known that you can go to either high school it's just oh no I was just saying to pull them together at one in one venue that we'd have more participation because you do at both meetings you'll be talking about it'll be
169ex adding on building on different I I understood that but I'm saying for my especially local you know minutes down to from Califon or parts of tubry to Boris is a lot closer than going all the way another 15 minutes to North hun so I would like it in the northern part of the the district as well just so that people won't you know add another half hour onto their evening just to get to the other school so maybe we just keep sending blasts out can we do that that's what just on that point can you in your there's a lot of words in that email can you just do an image and put that as the email text so that it focuses their attention on that and maybe some maybe you know hone in
170on the um title and some keywords yeah and and honestly if we haven't done it I would hang signs through the schools because the parents are in and out for events too is there the the survey is done though right the survey is still out there okay but another thing that maybe we can do too is talk to our town councils and see if they can put on the Town Council website like on the first I'm looking for any and all ideas on how we can get out there the more you can help me with that the better I think it would be I remember earlier we talked about getting it to the sending District we did to the superintendence and do we know if they put it out to their parent Communications there we
171asked them to you know most yeah most of them are very um helpful in that matter so I'm assuming they did um do we have a sense cuz Rich was just asking cuz not having a child here he didn't get a email from this building but but you also didn't get it from Township no okay you got the one from that that we get copy from though yes but nothing from your sending and I didn't get it I don't have a child you know I'm not a parent for yeah tap into couns I got I got the one from the rich my point is if it was cascaded down to some of the lower grade schools that maybe you would have gotten it done as a parent of a let me ask you this we
172used to do this all the time on the local level have you you know given out to Municipal clerks that they can put it on the municipal website that's what I was just saying I'm not sure I don't know if you can do that and then you said emails yeah moving so so Dr bjx has done a great job doing that it's been it's posted it went to the suit the sending districts um the survey the emails but to point like Beth saying put the blast out put um you know C the title with some catch you know phrases words and we need to utilize our at this point our town councils so yes we can reach out to that is there is there like a ANS service like do you guys like you have
173a tech service have you done that that's a great idea can we do that through the like the the mergency broadcast or whatever it's called so again we we try to limit that to just emergencies that's true feel like they're being inundated and marketed towards and as much as we that's anery line the text message is something that we try to say for an emergency kind of situation um but the emails are it is an emergency our number well 21 and 10 are not terrible numbers be perfectly honest actually wouldn't be um you know I'd like to see in that 30 40 range um but even if we you know end up hit 30 at North and we end up with 20 at B I think they're they're good numbers yeah we we want the
174Community participation we want as much as we can get but there would come a point where it become too big right and just not as effective and that's but 20 how many kids do we have 20 attendees is just if feels we have 20 at respons I'm being optimistic with 20 at Boris I said if we ended up with 20 at bores and 30 at North so we have right now at bories we have how many 10 and North 21 yeah we we don't I mean it's almost I mean they kind of have and that I checked today we sent the blast out yesterday it didn't remind the blast okay all right well let's send another reminder blast out tomorrow and then I will also ask the sending district superintendent to also um if they
175haven't already sent this out can send it out um or if they have sent it out if they wouldn't mind sending it out again okay that's great all right okay and uh Tara do you want to tap in and remind uh the delegate upcoming delegate meeting in May the date um oh good one I have't sorry you put her on the spot know I'm pretty sure it's May 19th that's what I thought but yeah it's um I'm pretty sure it's everybody referred to njsba um for the delegate meting but I'll I'll send you guys an email but um yeah I'm pretty sure it's that Saturday um the 19th okay and um well that'll be a report up for So Christine is not here it'll be the 17th it's I think what day of the week
176is that it's always on a Saturday but let me go look it up the 17th is a Saturday or the 24th so let's find out and for those of you have who have not attended that is really informative so it's 9 it's 9 to 12 yes at Mercer County Community College is where they hold it so it's an easy trip to get down there just go down 295 um and that brings me to um 100 Christine is not here the hund county um school boards uh we attended of course the unsung heroes that um that was fantastic and you all missed out hopefully you guys will tap into that next year um and as Dr burjack um stated on May 1st we will have our um teacher of the year uh Miss luck right uh
177she will be recognized at the um uh dinner and that is at the Chalet and again I recommend all of you go I've going I go every year Tara goes every year and it's it's just it's wonderful there's and you'll see other teachers come too and supportting it and it is our teacher are students allowed to attend no no just just board board members and you you attended last year I think yeah no I yeah and just so you know I was at the unsung hero at grma with me it was pouring and there was no parking and she was like not having walking in the Dr BJ mentioned it was pouring that night know I was like okay yeah no I one day a year that we had that much rain yeah it was
178buckets and everybody was trying to park on top so I went around back and we were going to get Dred forget it no we knew you were there Tara okay so SC I was there in spirit thank you moving on to uh Personnel committee report uh Christine is not here so Nicole will report out on the Personnel sure the Personnel committee met on March 12th um board members were in present um Tara was unable to join us that night um we were doing we're doing job descriptions uh we reviewed obviously the Personnel agenda um which we would be discussing and um the job description we reviewed the the committee reviewed the superintendent of school job description and compare the current version with the language recommended by New Jersey school board much of the language was
179the same but there were parts that the committee agreed should be retained while other parts um added language from New Jersey school boards the decision was made to review and modify job descriptions each month then present them to the full board for approval at the next scheduled board meeting um action items or revised job description will be added to the current month committee folder for final review by the committee members and presented to the full board on April at April meeting any questions no um the will you show old and new or or like a Redline version of the changes to I guess we could do that right because the other one is still on there yeah I mean we we could put them both on there it's not a Redline version because what we
180did was took the version from New Jersey School Board Association yeah and then some of the verbiage that they liked from the previous job description was moved over that but the majority of the language is what NJ School Board suggest can we see the I'd like to see where the where we started and they're in a committee foldo you can always look at both of next month it'll be like agenda item to vote on as opposed to correct addition to the stuff we correct we're reviewing and then the following month it'll be part of the personel agenda next month you that are miscellaneous I think item was looked at in that process oh yes and the um current um job description my another one last looked at in 2008 yeah it was looked the last
181job script yeah that's true yes and and even uh as Dr bers we referred to Dr bers on there were many questions and verbage and what is he what what's used what's unnecessary did they match and it was great having that again open dialogue going to give the um sort of facelift if you will to the title not yes that's true Miss that's true superintendent because we have a superintendent and not a CSA correct uh moving forward uh call for a motion in a second to adopt resolution 0 31825 2 for executive session to discuss matters as reflected in the attached resolution the board expects to be an exec session for approximately 1 hour and upon return to public action will be taken no it's not a roll call it's all in favor any n
182or extension e e e I have a a motion in a second to reconvene public session so moved second all in favor any Nays or extensions okay um I would like to move 18.1 through 18.3 except for 8.2.1 and 8.2.2 I need a motion in a second so move second who second okay thank you that was Nicole Gallow second and I got I got you got okay and then can we have a roll call Vote Yes um Mr Chapman yes Dr Dena Dr de says yes sorry I'm gonna get it Scout yes Miss H yes yes M cortran yes is to 181 and 18.2 and abstain from 18.3 okay okay and then Mr lordy yes Mr macis yes Mr span yes yes but I need to abstain from 18.3 okay Mel yes car okay moving
183on any old and new business uh new business uh the delegate assembly is on the 10th of May oh it's the 17th is mandated training government one so our new board members haven't done their governance one there's a in person in Trenton on the 17 but I'm done good and then um I did want to bring up new business and I guess would be to um Finance facilities transportation we talked about this before but transportation and um I know we've looked at you know we went to the survey to see Somerset County because this has become an issue over the last few years so I'd love to be able to put maybe if we could focus on some creative ways because that's a huge hit to our budget and um we have to be able
184to get our students to and from school um in the cost effective way yeah just I was is there an ability also I mean I'm assuming I know we spoke about this in the past but consolidating bus routes like where they're doing they're doing the morning then they're doing the afternoon and anything else like tearing I canot think of the name of it yeah I think because we outsourced to ESC that would be something to look at in detail and then some districts are doing where parents can opt out um but they have to consent that I'm not going to like I'll drive my kid every day so they have to opt out for the year and happens if there was an emergency where they would have to op back in that's that's the question
185although I mean here's the thing I mean North hun I I can't speak for bges because I'm not over there regularly North hunon there are students coming in and out of that school until 9:00 like every night so if a kid had to stay late it's not like there would be a safety issue if they had to stay at the school and do their homework necessarily I don't know what that means from Rel liability and having it you know people there observing them whatever but you know there there is that fall back right um and you know the question becomes if you consol consolidate is there a way to have like a one teacher or a somebody that just sits in a room not not an after care but like in case kids have to
186stay because they don't have a ride home I don't know but I just think that there's there's a potential there for transportation the number of students that are being dropped off by their parents is is crazy and a lot of it is because the buses have to come early in order to make the route right to get the kids to school on time but it's unfor unfortunately hands are tied it's the district has to provide that service so even though every day that Mom and Dad is in line I come come up and I'm like oh my God it's out on the highway to get in and get out and they might have a bus that runs with 10 kids I know but but yet but they have to have a seat for that child
187no I know but if we have if there's a way to look into to I agree opting out offering and then the other thing the other thing too to add to that I mean with fuel costs going down um what about what about the other chances of the buses like smaller buses wait fuel costs are going down well the problem they've gone down over the last two weeks the the uh when we we talk you talk about tearing I mean I don't I think everybody except for tberry has their is service through ESC they have their own buses don't they they have their own buses for their K through tberry does have their own buses um there machine take the snow off okay girl it's a combination of um Hunting County ESC and delal delal
188actually has a pretty good a pretty nice size nice size Fleet and um hun in central also so I know particularly we use ESC as our trans for transportation services but some of the runs that ESC is Contracting for us are coming from Central coming from Delow coming from Craft coming from a lot of different vendors but it's unfortunate because there's no real pure competition and they're charging right outrageous costs for these Services yeah it's like you know almost wanting to get our our sending districts and you know aligned in other I don't know there's got to be ways to I like tera's idea let's refer to fft so we can have more in depth discussion we can look at Cost saving initiatives see what we can Dan can you take that for agenda item
189okay any other new business old business yeah I want to bring back up the article um and the security concerns that are addressed in the article um and know and to know ask if it's been addressed you want me to tap into um yes so that situation was a situation where um there was testing going on for Polytech placement testing there was two assistant principles was in the library um the library door was open to allow parents and students to come in a gentleman walked in took a couple pictures the assistant principal said uh can I help you and he said nope and walked out so how did he get to that place how did he get to the library meeting what he was at our board meeting across the hall and he just walked
190over yeah I mean again there was two assistant principales there monitoring they were there for a particular reason we we don't you know so it's not like he reach there was a it was maybe 10 15 seconds that he was in there he was questioned immediately um he said oh no I'm good walked out I would say let's not discount that the gentleman was in a place that he wasn't supposed to be but there was really nothing that yeah that I can see that the district could do to prevent something like that I mean it was handling what it seems to be a reasonable amount of time dealt with but how would you ever prevent something like that yeah I don't know how we would yeah I I find it a nerving that you know
191I mean there's parents and kids in the school I guess I know we're having a board meeting in the same school and there are multifunctions that you know happen but to have someone be um who is not even associated with a child in the school and is at our board meeting as an outsider and is you know allegedly being paid to be here to spy on us and do and take notes on us then to have them be able to wander our schools and violate comment so I would just like to say I don't want to get too far into what our security Protocols are in school or no I that's why I'd like it addressed in finance but again I think if fft you're going to be busy D um security or actually no
192I'm sorry policy and security policy and security so we can refer that to policy and security talk about um can you take note of that on the security conversation believe I believe that yes that's why I that's why I closed it down with Mr lordy I believe though that the article um has that there were other pictures associated with the article that he posted um about from the inside of the school I wasn't able to see any of those because I don't pay for so Jessica if you'd like to forward any of that to Dr burx um and and copy me please do so but we cannot talk about um security any of any oh it wasn't I was I'm I'm only repeating what was written in public so but I will say that is
193why when we when we meet here it's in a closed environment and those kind of things don't with bathrooms yes that those types things are you know AR aren't occurring and yes it you know things like that like Dr B said there were administrators there um you know we were having a board meeting in the cafeteria so um they're a breast of it it was addressed and hopefully you know Public's more mindful so um any other discussion anybody else have anything else I had just one other thing to address from the meeting last last month um there was there's some discussion regarding the survey the winter you know well I guess Wellness survey um and the suggestion that it be an opt in versus an opt out for parents and my concern I don't know
194where we ended up nting out on this but you the the importance is getting information from students if they feel they have no other way to communicate their feelings and again come back to the fact that there are a lot of mental health issues that students have that they may not feel comfortable going to their parents and if that's a way that we can find it um I think it at least raises a red flag for the administration to be able to help the students so I wouldn't want to opt in because in that instance then if you have somebody just check their emails then you got this the survey when you go out to everybody right whereas with an OP out a parent always has the ability to say that their child um that
195they don't want their child to do it and honestly if a survey saves one child's life one child who is hurting themselves one child who feels that they have no other person to go to because they're dealing with sextortion on their phones to me it's worthwhile um and I think it's it's not about parents rights it's about what we're doing for the kids if they need help um and so I'm not sure what we're afraid of in in allowing students to do that and if you're a parent that doesn't want their kid to do that you have the ability to do it but I don't want that taken away from my child is there any other old and new business I'm sorry wasn't there information on that there was information on that right there is
196yeah I can you want to address it address it so yeah um a board member had expressed concerns about the um legality of that survey particularly um we sent it to our special counsel our special counsel um did inform us that it would require an optin permission because um of the feelings questions um and it could be considered a psychological examination and so we U we stopped doing it unbelievable so that's a good win for you so the next time have a suicide first of all let's talk excuse me are you threatening me right now on the public table that something happens to a student it's my fault first of all I wasn't the one who questioned that thank you very much for paying attention ladies so what's the point Miss Gallow Miss Gallow Miss
197Co this is shame on you this is a board meeting and I expect Civility and decorum you agree to disagree you've stated your points and we don't have to cackle and laugh it's more disagreement let me finish there's a disagreement but you just accuse me if something happens to a student that it would be my fault shame on you well you have shame on you you have taken other that's terrible how could you even say that to somebody and you don't know if those surveys at all have done damage to a student you don't know that and I don't know that you don't know that and I don't know that so you can't speak for the rest of the district I would like to know how it could damage a student attorne want control kids
198when we're supposed to be supporting our children who have issues so you should be happy Dr BAC has reported out okay we've heard every and is Bush law right to be clear correct that is correct thank you for that so is there any other new and old business to discuss I I just have one question with um you said you're not doing that survey at all or is it just going to be for opt-in only now the effectiveness of the survey I think as we already mentioned if it's an op in the effectiveness of that this is to find a student that doesn't have somebody they can talk to their parents them in it wouldn't have the effect exactly so now we took that resource away I mean again I I want to make sure
199everyone is very clear we are still taking a proactive measure on identifying students our teachers identify students our counselors identify students we have a lot of other ways that we do that so very difficult but we are doing everything we can to make sure we are identifying and providing services for students that need that so thank you Dr B one for parental rights um okay I'm call call for a motion and second to adjourn so Mo second that was oh Beth and Angela no no I think it wasth it was Angela first have toote oh yeah we haven't gotten there we're establishing who was second and I stated it was Beth kran with the motion Angela was a second all in favor I any NS or extensions thank you have a good evening