BOE Meeting 8 19 2025

001that I can't Thank you. This is Ber. >> Alissa, can you pop in Anthony Chumalo's office? >> Can you pop in Anthony Chumalo's office and let him know that the board meeting starts at 5? >> Anthony Chumalo. Yeah, >> he's presenting tonight. I think he stayed. >> He was in his office. >> Yeah. All right. Welcome. Welcome everybody to today's board meeting. The board of ed education will be meeting in person Tuesday, August 19th at 5:00 pm. Members wish to attend the meeting virtually. There's a link you need to All right. I'm going to do a call to order. The meeting is being held in compliance with the open public meeting act and is open to the media and public. Notices were duly posted and the meeting was advertised in the Hunter County Democrat and

002Courier News. Formal action may be taken. We get a roll call. >> Mrs. Cassidy >> here. >> Mrs. Fury >> here. >> Mr. Lopes >> here. >> Mrs. Ner >> here. >> Mr. Fieros >> here. Mrs. R. >> Mrs. Ryan >> here. Mint >> here. Ma >> here. Thank you. To the flag of the United States of America to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. >> Good evening everybody. Um to start the superintendent's report this evening uh I'd like to invite Mr. Tumulo uh to come and present the HIV uh self assessment that we'll be discussing with the Mr. Tulo. Hello everyone. How are you doing? I'm glad to be here. So um as many of you know, I serve as the

003uh the district supervisor for special projects and anti-bullying coordinator as well. Um and I'll be presenting our results from 2024 2025 um uh harassment intimidation and bullying self- assessment. So for all schools um and also there'll be identified areas um of strength and focus for next year the upcoming year. So just to kind of go through the be the process for determining and submitting the scores. Um our our process for for the the assessment is detailed and collaborative. Um each school climate team is led by a building administrator and completes the self assessment with the team. Uh these results are then reviewed by our anti-bullying specialists, our principles and and myself. Um, and once the data is compiled and approved, uh, it's presented to all of you, um, at the board of ed meeting. So,

004following tonight's presentation, just so you know, um, the scores will be entered onto, uh, New Jersey's, uh, Department of Education's website for official submission. Uh, finally, once that the state releases the official grade report, we post it on the district's website. So, that takes a little bit of time to get that. So just to kind of break down the actual assessment, there are eight core elements um that are included. There's HIV programming training on the DOE uh approved HIV policy, other staff instruction training programs. There's curriculum instruction uh specific to HIV uh related skills, HIV personnel, school level HIV incident reporting and uh the procedures for investigating. And then what does that look like for reporting that out that information out from the investigation takes place? Um each of the 26 total indicators are scored

005on a scale from 0 to three with three meaning that we exceed requirements. The highest possible total scores is 78. Meeting all requirements for each in indicator results in a score of 52. Just so you have that understanding. So anything above that reflects areas where we go beyond the standard. questions so far. So, um I I've explained this piece already, right? We talked about the breakdown. So, here are the results. So, for three bridges, um there was a score of 78, White House 78, Holland Brook 78, and then Readington Middle School 76. And that again is out of the total possible 78. Um so this means that all of our schools are performing at or near the highest possible level in the state's assessment framework based on um their reflection. So some areas of strength

006um which I'd like to highlight. We have from core element one um our programming, our approaches and our initiatives um are are fairly strong. They've been in place for for several years. Um, of course we can always improve. Um, but but they are having a strong effect on our kids and and in our schools. Um, uh, core element number six, school level HIV incident reporting procedures. Our procedures, again, we've come across some some glitches um in our procedures. We've identified those over the over the course of the la last couple of years. Um but I feel like we we have really streamlined and tightened our procedures even more so than before. Um core element number seven the again that that investigation procedure um and then our reporting procedures um are areas of strength. There are

007two areas that we identified for next year or for this upcoming year to really focus on. and one is specifically to strengthen training um particularly focusing on preventing HIV on the basis of protected categories distinguishing characteristics. We haven't really targeted that lately. Um and that is something that I think that we can focus more on. Meaning training for our staff but also our students. What does that mean? Distinguishing characteristics. Let's break that down. So in the lessons that we provide having that conversation with them and what does that mean and look like? Um, so we're going to look at um some of our uh lessons from the counseling um department and how we can tighten that up. And then core number three, which is um enhancing professional development for our school safety and climate teams.

008We've done training for anti-bullying specialists, which is wonderful, but now I think just providing training for the team itself on what do we do? What is our purpose? What are we focusing on? So that's something that we're going to do um as well. And that can include procedural changes. So I believe I I believe you have the access to is that was in the memo? >> The memo. We have the memo. >> Correct. Yes. So that's access to um just our history of um you know our our cases, our investigations that took place um numbers of conflict versus numbers of actual findings of bullying and HIV. Um so that is in there. um you'll see the that comparison. So basically our timeline for submission um you know we'll enter our self- assessment scores. As I

009said the deadline is due October 31st but I'm going to do it tomorrow just to get it in. It's all done. Um and once the data is entered we'll certify the results for the state of assurances and then once we get that official district score um we'll upost it on the website for public view. >> So thanks I'm proud of our work. I feel like we we work really hard. It's a it's a difficult um it's a difficult task I think that our intent specialists have to have and um I think we take it very seriously and we're always open to making changes and making it the best for our district that we can do. >> Thanks. Any questions? >> Yeah, please. Uh so I was reading through the history and the way the table

010is presented at the very end it says the total number of district-wide HIV cases which is both the investigated conflicts and the confirmed HIV and I was just wondering if that language is mandated because it seems like it's the total number of investigated cases. >> It's not that was just scrum that this was homegrown that was we never had this before. I just kind of started doing it but it it could be we can call it whatever we feel. It looks like it's the total number of investigated cases because the ones that were findings of HIV are a subset of that and I just don't want it to be misrepresenting >> what the findings for. >> Perfect. I can make that change. Thank you for that. >> Same question. Yeah. >> Anything else? Well, yeah,

011just to add to that because um when I was looking it over and like she like was just saying the last column says total number of district wide wide hit cases looks like they were going up throughout the years but when you really look at it most they were not confirmed hits they were conf it's it's exactly and so and that's what we've known is our our trend and this is statewide actually they're finding that the number of um investigations that the conflicts are it's more Scott, there's more conflict versus actual findings of him. Um, that number is decreasing and has been since CO. Um, and we're finding that in our district as well. Um, the other thing I'll mention, Mr. Tulo, is we talk about this all the time. We don't necessarily I mean

012it's good to have fewer reported cases, >> but sometimes the amount of reported cases is a healthy indicator that at least children are reporting or they're noticing or staff are noticing potential bullying cases where they they require investigation. So while we, you know, sometimes joke like don't jinx it if we haven't gotten, you know, a report in a month, we know that there will be reports. We know that um we want to identify any cases that need to be investigated. So I I don't want to set the expectation for the board that they're going to trend down to really low numbers or zero. >> I think it's a healthy expectation to say we want children to report. We want adults to report. We just want to kind of balance how many cases are conflict versus

013how many are truly HIV. And if there are more that are truly HIV than we have, >> then there's something to be done. >> Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And I think that as we're if we're if we're educating and providing this language to kids, then yeah, they might be using it and be more aware and that's kind of what we want, right? So I agree. >> Yeah. >> Thanks everybody. >> Thank you. >> The next item on the superintendent's report is to uh give you a very brief overview of the referendum. We have begun our launch of our public campaign for the referendum. Uh this week it included my newsletter that went out to all parents and families uh on Monday. Uh it also included we welcomed the new teachers Monday as well and I

014definitely put in a little plug as I was doing my address to the new teachers that you know the referendum is going to be big work this year. Uh we have some new teachers that are also community members. Um, but we're really launching our public campaign with the start of the school year. We're coinciding with the start of the school year. We have some big events coming up. We welcome all teachers back next week. We have back to school nights. Uh, our key communicators meeting. We have some community events. Um, so if you didn't see outside the board conference room is a a table that's set up and this is a prototype table of a kit that Jason and I have put together. Any public event that any of us go to, Jason, myself, any

015board member, my office, and Jason's office, each has a kit with our tablecloth, the Readington logos, the posters, the um two pages that you have in front of you, small business cards, a laptop computer with the video, and instructions on how to set it up in case you're going solo to an event or something like that. Um, so you know, whether we're at a back to school night, whether we're at a key communicators meeting or something like that, we have a table that we can set up, uh, and we can talk to community members and families about the referendum. Uh, so that's really what as you, if you didn't see it, as you leave, make sure you take a look. Um, we have the Jason, let me just borrow this. We have our two-pager um

016that, you know, has our key key talking points on the front and then it has a partial list of projects on the back. Um we've ordered plenty of these, but we can always go back to our printer and order more. Um and um if anybody if if any member of the public hasn't taken one, make sure you stop at the table on the way out, grab one of these, and you can grab a little business card as well. If you want to grab a few, you can grab a few and bring them home and hand them out to friends and family. Um, remember board members, remember our key key talking points, and I'll type them up and put them in the the kit as well. In order to unlock the funding from the state, the

017$12 million of state aid, um, the referendum has to pass. Otherwise, we don't get access to that $12 million of funding. And remember, the balance is we unlock the funding, we get 83 projects with a net zero increase to the taxpayer. In fact, taxes according to the calculations we've done on an average assessed home will go down by $17 a year. Um, so those are some of the key talking points. You know, you get 83 projects and you don't have to necessarily see the tax on that, which is our real selling point for the referendum. Um, so stop at the the table on the way out, take a look at the poster, um, take some handouts, pass them out, and just remember those key talking points. In addition, you'll start to see over the course

018of the next uh, couple of days. We have large banners uh, for the outside of each school building. Um, the fence in front of RMS, which is a key traffic area as cars pass by. Um, you know, we put have a big banner uh that says unlocking funding for the future. and the date of the bond referendum vote. Uh we also have posters and banners for each of our uh four preschool private providers who have all agreed to hang up uh referendum materials and Jason and I will be visiting their open houses over the course of the next week to hand out any materials to our parents at the private providers. Um so we are ready to launch. We're we're really launching our it's on the website as well. Our referendum page is linked on

019the website. It's one of the tiles on the homepage. Any questions about the referendum before Jason and I talk about capital projects and uh the EV bus grant? >> Just quickly, this looks great. They did a really nice job putting this together. The other piece for the uh consultant was the videos. >> Yes. >> What is that timeline? What is that looking like? Because the vote by mail will be going out, you know, later September. >> Uh I should also Thank you, uh Beth, for inviting me. I should say to the board to the mailer, there's a mailer that's going to go out to every home in Readington. That's due to go out the week after Labor Day. So, a mailer should go out. I think that's I want to say about a week, two

020weeks before the vote by mail ballots should arrive in mailboxes. And then the videos, um, I reviewed the scripts for the videos. Jason and I made sure that the numbers all worked. Um, we reviewed the scripts. We cleaned up a little bit of language, but video production is underway. And uh Lori, our communications consultant, has started to time um Facebook posts. So, we're going to start with Facebook posts about open houses, back to school, everything like that, and then start to sprinkle in referendum events, ideas, um you know, big videos, things that are coming up. Uh we in the newspaper, you should see at the September edition an advertisement for all of the board meetings where we'll be doing referendum tours at Three Bridges, White House, and then Holland at Ara. That's going to be

021in the newspaper as well. Thanks for that reminder. >> Is our second mailing getting closer to November? >> We didn't plan a second mailing. We planned one mailing to go out right before the uh ballots come out. >> Yeah. Um >> and do you have ads in the newspaper? I'm sorry. >> We do. Yeah. Yeah. So we >> So that can go also out >> this um we took this I want to say for um that's okay. >> Um September's chronicle will have uh the dates for all of the board meetings and tours. The October chronicle will have I want to say a half page ad with this front and back. Then the November chronic will have this half page ad again front and back. So the chronic will have this each time as well

022until November. >> Just something to consider. I think the vote by mail end September. There's only a smaller percentage of the people that actually vote on October 25th. I think right around the end of October. Don't know if there's budget for second that might be beneficial. That's when the majority of those people vote. >> Yeah. I'd have to um get the price quote. I don't know it off the top of my head, but it's it's a couple thousand dollars. You know, if it's something that the board wants to invest in a second mailer, we can just take the production that we have of the first part and we could just resend it again the last week of October if that's something that >> probably 80% of the voters are the first 20 are going to

023be in the book by mail roughly. So, >> yeah, >> I don't know what everyone else thinks. We've got time. >> Is it already like scheduled to go out or >> I think it's scheduled, but I can look into delaying it. >> I don't want to miss the vote by mail folks, too. Like I want to do >> the other communication that'll be going out between the mailer that goes after Labor Day and then actual election day um will be the ads in the Chronicle. You know, the chronicle usually times it arrives in your homes. Let's say November 1st, right? November that first day, like a couple days before election day, >> but it's possible. I mean, we can >> have any >> I don't want to delay the mailing too much because I want

024to get the vote from the first. >> There's going to be quite a bit of other mail coming around the same time. So, I worry if we do another mailing, it's just going to get caught in the junk mailing. I wonder if the chronicle ads might be more effective targeted for us. >> Plus, I worry about our budget as the chair of finance. >> Yeah, the the ads in the newspaper are considerably cheaper. So, I would go all out on a bigger ad or two ads. >> We actually were going to do like a whole page and then a whole page, but that was I think it was a little too much. Um there I believe we might even be able to we might have time to take this. Let me look into it to

025take this and it can be an insert in the chronicle as well. Something like this. That would just be a paper insert. I have to look into the cost as well. Don't forget we'll have a Facebook presence. We'll have those videos. Um Chronicle the back to school nights. I mean, hopefully folks will take all of the information and hold on to it for election day or at least have a knowledge of it when they go to the the ballot box on election day. >> We also have a couple of months of fe You can't hear? >> No, >> it's it's loud. So, >> sorry. >> Thank you. >> Uh we also will have the other thing I was going to mention too. We have we'll have a couple of months of feedback as well. So,

026we'll start our board tours to different buildings. I'm hoping the community is engaged. We can put some FAQ documents out on our website as well. If we find that there's I don't want to make a commitment now because I want to see what feedback we might receive and if there's a move that we may need to have a different approach uh to our marketing materials by the time we hit election day. We might want to just wait and see how our community receives the marketing materials as is before we decide to make a change. That's fair. We've got time. We have another We have two board meetings in September and then we have October before we have to make any kind of decision. Everything is done. So, it's just a matter of generating another purchase

027order and printing more materials. So, we can turn it around within a week or so. Any other questions? Take a look at the um table on the way out too and there's a computer set up and everything. Um Matt, let's go to the summer capital projects for uh Jason and I are going to present summer capital projects. Uh so at the end of every summer uh we take time in August uh to celebrate the work that our maintenance and facilities crew um as well as our technology crew accomplished over the summer in terms of our capital projects. So these are capital projects as well as maintenance projects um that we accomplished over the course of the summer. Uh so a huge thank you first to our facilities and our IT department. Um and we even

028had some volunteers and some vendors from the community that really do help um refresh, revitalize uh and provide maintenance for our schools. So here's our facilities department. All their I don't know, do they know that we have this slide in here? I hope they do. Um so here's our facilities department. um our both our facilities folks as well as our custodial crews in each of the buildings. And here's our tech department. Matt's here tonight. So, thank Matt for all of our tech work uh tonight as well. Um we have accomplished a number of not only facilities projects but maintenance uh but uh technology projects over the summer as well. So, to go through them in brief, um first I want to want to point out process. Um this time last year, the board and the

029administration began some discussions uh with going around and gathering feedback from district staff, the administration, the HSA, the RTEA, the township committee about renovations, projects, enhancements that we can make to our grounds and our physical plan. Um, and we had a very inclusive process for developing the projects and prioritizing projects for the referendum. And members of the board know that there was no shortage of of ideas that came from teachers, from staff, from community members and parents uh for for projects to be included in the referendum and and not everything made it. But what was great about this process was Jason and I were able to look through is along with the board and prioritize what really needed to be in the referendum and take any other ideas we had and put it on a

030maintenance or capital project list and make it happen uh for the teachers and staff. And we haven't made everything happen just yet. Um but there were a lot of there was a lot of feedback that we received from the staff that we've been able to make happen over the course of the summer. Um board members may remember that um the principal at RMS talked a little bit about the art room. The music room the music teachers really wanted some new storage for instruments. Um that happened both at RMS as well as um the music uh rooms here in Holland Brook. Uh you'll notice when we did our tours, remember Holland Brook school, we talked about enhancing the bleachers and then the gym wall mats. things that were in disrepair and and and not only functionally

031but aesthetically we wanted to improve. Um three bridges we enhanced a water boiler. We installed water filling stations. There's a retaining wall. We have some pictures for you. Um and some stage lighting and sounds. We also renovated kindergarten and first grade rooms to accommodate the additional sections of teachers that we added at Three Bridges. Uh in the summer, uh we did some uh garden drainage at White House School. We did the stage lights as well and we enhanced the staff bathroom and we also expanded our preschool program. Um we set up a new class at Global Pioneer and a new classroom at Berry Patch. Um the other thing about Berry Patch as well um is we they were able to do some work to their parking lot to allow a footize school bus to go

032into their parking lot, turn around so that we didn't have to stop on the county road uh to let three and four year olds off the bus. So we can have a bus pulled into the parking lot now, which is great. And then we did some um IT switches, some wireless access points, painting around the district. Uh we made some serious movements on our solar project and much more uh that we'll go into detail on and show you in some pictures because pictures worth a thousand words. Do you want to add anything to the slide? The accountant and a few words. We're going to get them talking about it. Uh status of project. um majority of projects have been complete or they're nearing completion. It's, you know, August. We will do some punch list items

033um over the next week or so. Um there are some shipping delays that we encountered uh with some of our uh projects. Um it upgrades are were not only planned for this summer, but there are some uh projects that will continue through the school year with very little like no disruption to kids. so we can do them on, you know, days off and, you know, holidays and things like that. And, um, solar expansion. Um, Jason has been really instrumental in working with our vendor as well as our attorney to make sure that we had a commitment to get solar completed by July 2026 um to make sure that we have are eligible for the federal tax credit. And I believe that we're in pretty good shape, >> right? All four schools um are moving forward.

034they've been they've been submitted all so all four schools have been submitted to the state um to move forward. So the plans um are on the BPU um to be approved and then uh once that gets approved and we get the permits from the township uh we'll move forward with construction. So um but just to go through some some photos of the major projects um first we do a lot of uh painting every summer. So, our custodians and maintenance um basically have repainted most of almost every single school. The principles have a list of priorities of what to paint, but um we always show off the RMS hallways because if you ever had an older child, uh we had chipped tiles and discolored missing tiles. Um so, they have completely renovated the entire middle school,

035painted the lockers over here. So, looks fantastic. Um going along with this, we've replaced some doors and um some of the things that the music department was asking for have not been done over the years, which has been other priorities um with reserve money. Um so we've been able to create a music lesson room at Holland Brook uh for individual lessons. So sometimes you see the children doing individual lessons outside or next to another classroom and being uh very loud and noisy and disrupting. Uh there is now uh an instrument um one-on-one area in Halbrook. Um so they were able to put a window and a door um to make that happen and clear out that space. Um which is great. Um access points. We talked about this. This is for internet stronger internet uh

036which pretty much everyone wants at all times. That's the way of the future and how everyone uses everything nowadays. Um, so it is working hard on that. That's the project that will be over the course of the year. Uh, they started this summer with the critical places that they needed to and then they're going to do ancillary over the years. Uh, this is something I really want to highlight. Um, so our maintenance department we sent out for training um, so that way we could start working on HVAC in house. So um, it took about a full year to get a couple of the guys trained. Um, but this is saving us money. I mean, they're literally just buying parts and repairing things and making sure the heat and AC are continually running. Um, so they

037sent me this photo and I thought I would share it. It should pay long term because um, it's hard to get those vendors out now. Uh, so it's been quicker repairs, cheaper repairs. Um, so it's fantastic that we were able to accomplish that. Um, staff bathrooms, you know, we always look at bathrooms to refresh. We refreshed most of the student bathrooms about three or four years ago. So, um, now we're looking at staff bathrooms, which are much easier to update because usually they're smaller. It's usually just painting vanities. Um, so this is an example of one. Um, Gaga pits. Um, I know a lot of people don't know what Gaga is, but um, kids are obsessed with it. >> Um, it's basically like dodge ball below the knee. Um, so, um, if you fall out

038of bounds, you're out. If you get hit with the fall below the knee, you're out. So, um, you know, we have now these at every building and the undermat. So, that way if kids fall, it's on a rubberized surface. So, that's what we installed. And this was installed again in house by custodians maintenance. Um, White House School. I just had to include this photo again because uh, Arvin's local vendor did this. gardens. Um, phenomenal Ruckers master gardeners come out and volunteer their time. Actually, it's a former board member and former staff member also that come out and do this. Um, we improve the drainage on the one side to see where the rocks are on the left side of this code. Um, so that way the runoff from now the impervious like surface um goes

039into a French drain and out of the building. Uh, water heaters. So that we this was part of the referendum. There was projects that didn't make it very small dollar amounts. Um but we just wanted to make sure that we were replacing being kept up to date. So here are some water heaters and there's also water boiler um that will replace retaining walls. I think there's one retaining wall left at three bridges that needs to be replaced. But this is right at the front school. Um so this is where every parent sees looking good for the start of the year which is great and now safe. We replaced the concrete in the front about three or four years ago. Uh stage lights and sounds. So we have been redoing this the stage lights and sounds

040at the middle school and at Holland Brook for uh performances for the um parents. So Three Bridges in White House got jealous. Um HSA has been um performing arts committee has been talking to us about redoing things. We finally hit the last two schools which is Three Bridges in White House. Um, and there was a couple parents that said that the lights in the back were not bright enough. So, the kids were in the dark, you know, so we want to make sure that uh we enhanced the lights so that way all the kids get the shining light. So, that was uh just enhanced at both places. Um, as well as microphones and performance. Uh, water bottle colors. We do this every year. Um, but we're getting near the end of replacing all of the

041old porcelain with water bottle fillers. That's pretty become the norm that kids just carry around stainless steel containers now. Um, they get bought and um, that's what they drink, which is good for the environment, good for the kids. Um, and all of these for the most part have we we not only have filters for the water coming in, which most of ours are from well, but these also have filters on them and some of them have cooling. So, it's not just it's good clean water that's cold, which is um just something to note. And a lot of this we use cafeteria money for. So, it's not even taxpayer money. Um we're just using surplus funds, which is really federal government, kindergarten, first grade room. So, um you know, we added a kindergarten first grade room

042for this coming school year. Um so, these were uh renovated by the maintenance department, ready to go. Teachers have to set them up right now. Um, so should be good. We have a little bit increased enrollment at the 3:30 side of town. A lot of people moving in. Um, so there's not really a lot of new housing in that side of town, but there's people moving into the existing homes, which is actually increasing our population on that side of town, which we did not anticipate. Um, we've been looking more at the White House side of town because that's where the construction's been happening, but we've actually been seeing the increase more on the free side. Um, despite not having housing over there, we talked about another Gaga pit. Um, and then bleacher repairs. So, these

043are some more referendum projects. Uh, we repaired the beach, the bleachers. Um, uh, also with the bleachers, there's wall mats and things like that that are being repaired. Um, the middle school art room, I don't know if anyone's been in the art room at middle school. It's amazing. So, the entire ceiling is removed so you can see all the back end of electric, plumbing, HVAC. Um so it really is like you know inspires you to like be an engineer and architect and um the the tables are solid wood. So our team refinished them uh you know lacquered them. Uh we also put in the the art teacher was asking for electric drop downs. So we put them over the table so that way they could uh do some heavy construction art projects. Um so you

044know if the child comes back injured uh it's probably because of this electric cord that was installed. Um but we also have some other stuff later on. We we redid most of the art room cabinetry which is uh second week of September. Music department uh we did some safety enhancements um as well as shelving for more storage. We replaced everything in the middle uh music room at RMS. There was actually three rooms there and this one is for private lessons. So this space um is now available for students to do one-on-one instruction. This was a storage space for the most part. Um so this has been completely cleaned out. Um all new furniture. Um and this is where the lessons will happen as well as the music teachers now obviously having storage for their um

045music sheets and um ability to create. Um stage four at Bington Middle School got redone. Um they chose very dark so to I guess make it pop um it was a selection based on the committee over there performing arts. So that just got redone. Um we previously redid uh sound system and um some light work over there as well. So move for middle school. Um so that's getting new tile that's actually finished at the middle school. So that's um good for Hera purposes. Preschool um we're now at 16 classrooms. And this is just another photo of the classrooms that we renovate. Um it's fantastic. I mean parents, there's such high demand because the parents see the classrooms and it's all brand new, beautiful, safe, secure. Um we had partnered with the police department to walk

046through, enhance security everywhere. Um, so this is the teachers that are selected for these new rooms really appreciate everything because basically they can just jump in, start teaching. Um, and it's a great way for parents to get into the district, see the hard work in the district, you know, and then continue the rest of their time frame here. Um, so this was another space in global that um was redone. This is actually where kids come in and out and parents pick up. Um and then we obviously put in um some new hardware for lock purposes. Um most of the daycarees actually do not have locks on their classroom doors. Um so we uh that was one of the first priorities of the police department at the Walters. So Barry Patch, this is nearing the end

047of them setting up their classroom there. Um so um we did some bathrooms. Um this is an indoor play area. So, this was actually all storage in their basement. Um, but there's two um doors that go right to the playground. They emptied out the entire basement and made it the indoor space. So, when it rains, the kids have somewhere to play. So, they'll put down um toys and other things for them to utilize when it's, you know, wet or cold outside. But this is the big one. um buses were parking and and letting kids out on a main road for the past year and a half at Berry Patch. Um so we had three to four buses emptying out, three and four year olds on a main road stopping traffic for a year and a

048half. Um it caused not only delays in town, but obviously it's not super safe. Um we've been have we put in fences as a temporary thing. Um but now we were able to get a wire lifted um which allowed us to get the buses in and we removed part of the um front um gardens to allow the bus to make the curve. Um so the buses are now going to get in let off right in front of the school. Um safety 100 times better. Um and this this was a a major undertaking for the past year um to finally get that water lifted. Um got some new school buses. Um so you see those right there. And um what wasn't accomplished? There are cabinets. These are second week of September. They're going to deliver the

049first week of September. Um they're actually going to work at night. The cabinets are already gone. So it's really just installing new ones. the storage. The art teacher already packed up and moved storage to um an area right next door and on the other side of the room. So, she's ready to go for the rest of the year. The gym wall mats, if you've been at RMS, these are the gym mats there at the client uh the whole room. They're beautiful. Um, we don't have an ETA on when those are coming in for Holland Brook School, but those when they come in should be um, they're from the same vendor, so they should look just as beautiful. They were designed by um, staff here. And then obviously we touched on solar. Um, I feel like

050every solar project takes three years here. Um, that's everywhere. Um but uh this has to occur by June of um to get the large dollar amount credit for the vendor um to make this happen. Uh and this is going to be a flat utility rate which will help us perpetually for the next 15 years. um while everyone else is increasing their utility rates 20% that you've seen in personal level we will be flat and after 15 years uh we generate our own energy for free. So the the loan is paid off after 15 years and our existing one which does 40% is paid off in five and a half years. So, we should have free energy for 40% in that period of time. And the panels are inverters a 25-y year warranty. So, even after

051they're paid off, we have another 10 years that um they can be repaired under warranty. And the degradation is actually almost non-existent. That was one of the big things we were worried about when we first put them in. um the data actually we sometimes generate more energy in one year than previous years. Now obviously that's weather related but um we haven't really seen any degregation for the most part um which is fantastic which means that the quality equipment is being sold talked a lot any questions I want to I want to add uh one other thing related certainly related to the referendum uh when communities or districts go out for referendum often there's a question that comes from members of the public and that question is we understand you're going out for referendum but why

052is it that you don't build in capital maintenance project into your operating budget. Um, so I would arm the board with a couple of answers. I would say several things. One, we do and presentations like this are evidence that we build in annually summer projects that keep our facilities safe and healthy for the students and for the staff on an annual basis. The second thing I would say is, you know, we Jason and I talked about it today. We put money back into reserves at the end of every year and that's where our capital maintenance reserves are. We've done over the past couple of years, there were some projects bigger than others, but things like the Holland Brook roof, the RMS main office, the three bridges boilers, we've accomplished these things through our capital reserve

053funds over the course of the past several years. So, and if let's say we do a million, let's use just a million for to make the math easy. A million dollars worth of projects every summer. The bond referendum is $38 million. It will take 38 years for us to accomplish without escalation or inflation, right? 38 years to accomplish the amount of projects a referendum will do in just a time that it takes to do a referendum. And then the third thing that I would say is that when we do projects out of capital and maintenance reserve, as much as there are reserves that come from the taxpayer and don't impact the taxpayer, we've already raised the tax levy and paid it. It's money in reserves. When you do a project through reserves, you're paying 100%.

054So if you're doing a million-doll project, it's costing the taxpayer through what they've already paid a million dollars and you do it through a bond referendum, you get 30 to 40% of unlocked funding from the state. So when we were approached about well build build the projects in the budget those are some talking points for the board. One we do two um and we have over the past couple of years. Two a million dollars a year will take us 38 years to complete and we can do it in one shot with a referendum. And then three when we do it through capital maintenance reserves we don't get the unlocked funding from the state. So those are the three benefits that I see of doing a referendum at this time. But you know this presentation is

055example of the the planning the preparation on the board's part to make sure that we keep up with our physical plan on an annual basis. So anything else about our capital projects? I'll just share as a thirdyear board member I continue to be impressed at the number of projects that are done. They're done on time, on budget, which in my personal experience is very rare, >> and they're done very well, and it enhances the atmosphere of these schools. I just want to compliment the administration on that >> and I would pass those thanks and compliments on to the IT department and facilities department that really make all this happen on an annual basis. They really do great work. Um, and every day they're here doing everything for us. So, thank you. I appreciate it, John.

056Anything else? Um, Matt, can you flip over to our um, EV bus presentation? Excellent. Um, so Jason and I put together uh, a summary. So, we started our conversation at the last board meeting um, regarding the regarding the EV school bus grant, the timelines and the deadlines that we were up against. So, we thought it would be good to um bring this conversation in this board meeting to um hopefully some sort of conclusion about our direction of moving forward. Uh so, we'll walk walk you through the presentation, this presentation just like we did with the last one. Um but we will start um with um some history and from where we came and how we got here, you know, today. So, for several years, the district has been researching cleaner fuel transportation options. Um, and

057we have been applying for school bus grants for EVs um since 2020 with several goals in mind. Um, reducing our carbon emissions uh for school bus school buses, improving the air quality for our students, which means protecting um the student staff health and well-being. Um and certainly looking to for some sort of financial benefit and viable ways to replace the aging fleet that we have. Um buses right now um our fleet list um is extensive. We looked at it today. I can't give you the exact number but 20 some odd buses um school buses, vans, other school vehicles like maintenance vehicles and our food delivery vehicles for the private providers are all on our fleet list. School buses operate. Previously they operated for 15 years. The state government has extended that to 20 years, but

058in reality um it's tough to get a school bus to 15 years. You drive them every day in all sorts of weather and it's stop and go um every day in all sorts of weather. So it's a lot of maintenance. Um but we can keep them operating for about 20 years. Um even prior to 2020, my arrival year was 20 here in Readington was 2018. Jason's was 2017. you know, we looked at option. We looked at even propane buses that they had at the New Jersey school board's convention in years past. So, this is something that's been um something that we've been researching for a while. Um we applied for the first round of grants um were unsuccessful. Um there were um grants provided to local municipal entities. Uh we were not successful for a

059number of reason reasons. Um the the the the most that I remember about our lack of success and I'll talk to have Jason talk to this a little bit more was most of the grants did not go to local school districts and surely not rural and suburban school districts. The initiative of the state government at the time was for those grants to really go to to places like Jersey City or Newark where there was a large mass transit population and they were converting some of the local buses and lo local transportation over to EVs. Right. My my recollection is fuzzy on the um Volkswagen settlement, but I know that they got in trouble. I remember that much that Volkswagen got in trouble um for their their vehicles and um that may have had an impact

060on the grant. people talk about trouble. We'll say we'll call it trouble. Um we weren't successful. Um however uh since 2020 we've continued applying uh for these grants. So we did receive the federal uh clean school bus grant. This was five billion in federal grant funding over five years. And the goal of the fed federal government there was to have schools apply for grants, receive EV buses, and then put out the part of the grant was to ensure that you discontinue a diesel bus uh or a gas bus with electric fuel buses. So that was our first grant. That's the electric bus that we have uh on property and in use right now. And then we were successful with the New Jersey D grant grant which was 15 million over three years. And again, the

061same uh rules apply. Uh we've received enough funding for two. Um but that means that we would have to take two gas or diesel buses out of service and replace them with the EVs. Um so here's our history in brief. Um so from I would say the past year uh we received the formal NJD award and remember anything that was embargoed or confidential means we couldn't announce it to the public at the time. So there was knowledge that we as a board and administration had but we couldn't publicly announce anything. Um and these are a listing of the discussions that we had about our EV um vehicles from July 2016 um to the present. Um, what I'll note here, find something. What I what I'll note here is that there was a timeline here between

062February and June where you'll notice that the green committee or finance committee didn't necessarily spend considerable time talking about our bus fleet or uh EV buses. The reason for that is because the focus of the committee at the time was truly on prioritizing projects for the referendum. if every everybody was here for it. If you recall, we engaged the public. We developed a list of referendum projects. The board took over the course of several days tours around all four buildings. And we had a several hours meeting looking through all the projects and rep prioritizing prioritizing all of the projects that we received. Um and then um you know moving that forward, moving the referendum forward was clearly a priority um February and then by the time and and we we've had to do architectural drawings.

063We had to go to the couch committee for um our public hearing to make sure that everything with the referendum got on the ballot for November. Um so that was priority at the time. Um trying to think there's anything here Jason No, and then just before this this timeline's specific to the state grant. Uh the federal grant happened before this timeline. So you know this this particular part of this screen is really the state grant. The federal grant uh we had already purchased the bus prior to this. Um and that was just the lead time when we got it in December January. >> And that's a good point. Um I don't want the board to forget that through this timeline we knew that we received um federal federal grant and we were working on protocols

064to put the the EV bus from the federal grant into service between the time it was awarded then the time we received it and then the time that we put it on the road. So we that boat that bus has been on the road since February February he's been in service. Um so that kind of that timeline was kind of working simultaneous to this. Um Jason had the opportunity to talk with the bus driver. I know that um the bus drivers talk to parents and kids about some of the more anecdotal feedback that we're getting from our community because you want to talk about this because you had a conversation with the bus driver. >> So we we asked the bus drivers who wanted to get trained on it. Uh they were trained primarily in

065November, December. Um and then in January and part of December, um they were basically driving the bus without kids on it. Um seeing how it operated in cold weather, um and the feedback that we were able to get from the two drivers who primarily drove the the actual bus, um was that, you know, it's a brand new bus and anytime you have something brand new, it's great. Um, so you know it was quiet, it was smooth, you had the heating, the AC, um, you know, um, really, you know, the the regenerative brakes were a highlight because they could actually leave and almost get back with the same percentage battery because they would be recharging from breaking. Um, so that was some of the the highlights of the positive. Um, you know, the kids and the

066and the parents on the exact route um were all positive. Uh, nothing really negative. Uh, the training was pretty intense. Um, we had manufacturer training as well as um training from fire and police um on site um to make sure everything was safe. And then um that took several months leading into before the pilot program existed. Um, some of the things that they did also find was they saved on fueling uh time because you have to drive to a gas station, fill up, and then drive back. They didn't have to do that. They just parked the vehicle, plugged it in. Um, so that saved some time. On the negative side, um, they realized that the extreme cold on the really cold days, um, the battery just was not charging. And, um, there was a few

067days that they could not operate the vehicle. they actually had to take a diesel or gas bus in l um just out of concerns that they wouldn't make the double loop. Um there was also, you know, a learning curve with learning how to charge and start and stop the vehicle. Um all of those have been resolved and about half of those were probably a driver learning driver error. Um so, you know, those those are things that happen when you have brand new um technology being implemented in a school district. It's kind of like changing smartboards. If you change from one Smartboard to a touchscreen smartboard, the staff have to learn it. It's going to take a little bit. Um, so that was the the main um feedback. The big thing that came out of the

068uh pilot is that the bus um likely cannot do midday runs or afternoon runs. So, it's only suitable for our morning and afternoon uh double loops. Um, and it's really just because the um, battery doesn't last long enough when it's not suitable weather. Um, so in the summertime it could probably make the the three runs in the morning because we have three runs in the morning. Um, but in the winter or colder months um, it just is not doable. Um, so some considerations um, besides the feedback from the pilot um, gas savings. I mean, this has been brought up um over the years in committee as well as the public. Um you know, on average, we took the actual cost of our gas and diesel, which we partnered with the township for until they had

069issues with their um gas and diesel storage. So, now we're buying directly from a co-op. Um those are exact numbers. So on our average vehicle cost $6,000 um to fill up um versus the estimate on electric was calculated about $3,000. I actually compared this to the California estimate um and we were right online. It's slightly below free G. So you have savings per year about $3,000 um if you transition to electric buses. Um and our rates are pretty stable now because of how we are doing our solar. So, this would be in perpetuity um because our rates are not going to go up for the um but we don't have a monitor on the actual charger saying how much it's using. So, um this is an estimate maintenance. Um our facilities uh maintenance mechanic um

070basically said that there's not that many moving parts in um electric vehicle. So really what you're looking at is tires. Um and mostly everything else is covered for um the eight years on the warranty, which is the same warranty as a regular diesel one. Um but you still are going to have wear and tear that you're going to have to repair. Um so the numbers there about a thousand, you know, $2,000 in savings per year on maintenance. So you know, substantial savings. If you think about our buses, we operate around 17 a day. So, you know, per vehicle, that could add up um if our entire fleet was replaced. Um on the flip side, battery replacement cost um and degragation um and replacement feasibility. So, over time, batteries will degrade. And right now, we cannot

071do a midday or an athletic run with the existing bus in inclement weather. over time it should shrink the range um which will make it more challenging. So the the concern is in year 9 10 11 12 because we need these vehicles to last 13 plus years um how will that battery hold up and if we need to replace the battery? Will the manufacturer still be producing the battery that we can put in there to replace it if we wanted to? um and what would be the cost of that or would we have to um potentially get rid of a bus early um which is talking about the lifespan of the vehicle. We just don't know the lifespan of the vehicle. Um but the warranty period is the same um very similar and um you

072know there's warranty issues with all buses. We actually probably have more warranty issues with the diesel buses to be honest with you. We send them back and they sit um at the manufacturer for two three months. Um, but because there's a lot of parts here, we really aren't sending it back. They just come out and look at things. Um, other considerations, manufacturer bankruptcy. Um, so this is a real concern. If you've been following what's happening with the Canada EV bus manufacturer, uh, that pretty much need the government to save it. Um, if that happened, uh, there could be issues with, um, manufacturer, uh, repairs as well as, um, getting parts or service. Um, we purposely chose Bluebird because it is a major, um, diesel, gas, and electric company. So, we shouldn't have that issue specifically

073for Readington. Um, but I just want to highlight that. Uh, insurance and registration, similar. And then obviously the community benefits we talked about with the CO2 um you know wellness, air quality. Um on the flip side, we talked heavily about fire and safety in finance committee. Um we had the police um and fire actually come to committee for um to review things. They went to training. Um you know, they've been fantastic to partner with and um you know, we put in some security measures relating to the existing bus. Um there's more but that's just the high quality here. So this is the actual grant financials. Um this is specifically the state financials. Now if you're looking at this we wrote our grant for two buses. So that's the left column. Uh to break even uh

074that's what I put on the right side which is five buses. could be rewrote and changed the ground. The financials really reflect the fact that our existing electric cannot support more buses. So the buses draw a lot of electricity. So if you think about like having a lot of things on your house and then you turn your hair dryer on and you you turn on the microwave, you turn on some other things, blow a fuse. Well, the same thing will happen uh with us. So, we would need to redo our electric switchboard as well as install a transformer to accommodate mass more vehicles. There are other ways to get around that, but if we do it properly, this is what it would cost. If we do it the other way, we could blow fuses and

075cause um electric issues in the building, which is not ideal from a safety perspective. So these numbers are specifically from an engineer um that works for our architect record. Um and that is driving the negative that you see is really that onetime switch forward transformer update of 225,000. Without that, every bus we would buy would actually save the district money. So because of that um it is a net loss per bus until you get to five buses or more than five buses. Obviously the more buses you buy the higher savings you have and without the transformer update um all that would be positive. Um but that's the actual upfront financials excluding uh the maintenance the gas and the other considerations battery uh replacement repairs um that are really more hypothetical because it'd be future um

076things that could occur non um over the lifespan. There's also discussion of cash flow. Um Michelle brought up um that our finances are a lot tighter than they have been in the past because of inflation um and us only increasing taxes of minimal amounts to be fiscally prudent with the taxpayers. Um, we've also been doing a lot of projects ourselves without going out for a referendum and we've depleted our reserves um to below a million dollars and uh the township um has also been paying us intermittently because of their cash flow problems. So, we monitor cash flow very carefully to make sure that we have enough for payroll. To put in perspective, our payroll is $1.2 million per payroll. So we have $750,000 sitting in the bank. We don't get our tax levy. Payroll is

077not possible. So we we monitor cash flow really carefully. It gets tight around May and June every year. So um we're very careful about the timing of that. But it's just something to be aware of that if we decide to move forward with this, we have to be very mindful of cash flow because we do pay for the grant upfront and then get reimbursed. So if we're paying for the vehicles and we are paying for the chargers and for this, it will deplete our cash and we will then get reimbursed later on. So there's a cash flow differential plus the other things that we just talked about. So something just be mindful of as well as obviously um you know the board decides where they want to spend the money which is part of adding

078the budget and building into reserves where we want to spend our money on that. So the big concept is um you know what do we want to do with EV buses moving forward? Um you know does the board want to prioritize EV bus grants and continue with the bus grant uh or other initiatives. Um and most critical is do we want to file an extension for the existing grant or reapply? Um and I listed the deadline there um for everyone and um thank you. But also if you ever want to know where I got all the information from that's the last um so what I'll do is I'll ask Mr. Riz of the board if there's any questions and we can take questions from the board. Um and I don't know if we should sit

079or go through our presentation. Go ahead David. >> Thank you. So thank you Dr. Hart and Jason for a thorough presentation. Can you guys hear me back? All right. Cool. Thank you. Since not everyone watching this meeting will be familiar with board processes, I would like to add some context for how items get actioned by the board and what items get discussed by the full board. The Readington board is made up of six committees. Prior to items being added to an agenda, the item is discussed in one or more committee meetings. If there is a consensus among the committee members, an item can be added to the agenda to be actioned. Other times, if an item needs to be discussed further by the full board, it'll be added to the agenda as a discussion item.

080I'll use the EV bus grant as an example of how the process works. In the July DOE meeting, we reported that the state EV bus grant was discussed at the July finance committee. The committee will report it back that there was not enough time to submit the acceptance in the two-eek window given by the state. That the committee would like to evaluate the current inservice EV bus and that the committee is committed to utilizing district resources on green initiatives outside of expanding the EV bus program. Prior to June 30th, there's no deadline the board had to react to. You may be wondering why the committee and not the full board first discussed the expiring grant. I'll provide context using the committee process I just explained based on our processes. Since an item did not get

081a consensus to move forward out of the committee, we could bring the item to the full board for discussion. That is what Dr. Harsh's presentation was tonight. We will now have a full board discussion in public on the topic. Please note you will not see a state grant. You will see that the state grant is only a discussion item and not an action item to vote on. This is because the grant did not get consensus to move forward from one of the committees. This is also following our processes. The board follows Robert's rules which provides guidance on how a board operates. One of the tenants of Robert's rules is no surprises at the board table, but a board member is also allowed to make a motion for a non-aggenda action item. This is rare. So,

082occasionally discussions can involve into an action. To summarize, the board uses committees to decide what items get actioned and if no consensus is reached, items can be brought to the board as a discussion item. This is where we are today. An additional item on Robert's rules. It is up to the presiding officer to ensure which rules that the rules are followed and to moderate the discussion according to the rules. You'll see be doing so during tonight's meeting and all meetings. [Music] Since I'm discussing board processes, I would like to discuss a policy that is up for second read tonight. Policy 1210, board superintendent relations. The policy governs how the board and superintendent interact. The opening closing sentences of that policy are key to remember. The opening is the board of education believes that is the

083primary duty of the board to establish policies and the primary duty of the superintendent to implement and administer those policies. The closing statement is in evaluating the effect effectiveness of board policy and meeting the goals of the district the board will request the superintendent to make appropriate inquiries investigations and reports. So once again using item from the last BOE meeting is a good way to highlight board practices in action. The board requested Dr. heart to investigate and report back on success suggestions for classroom book users. Dr. Hart implemented a task force of teachers and and the edtech committee was provided with a recommendation from the task force. This is another example of the board functioning well and in cooperation with administration. I'll now open the discussion and ask if any board members will have any

084comments on Dr. Hartz and Jason's presentation. Do you want us to sit or >> I have a clicker in case we need >> question um this out the I have a question where how we pay for our fuel. I know we used to get it from the town. I know we have to go outside of that. Do we actually pay pay road tax now that we have to get fuel from other sources? Are we paying tax on it? >> So the the rate we pay is based on the bid results of another entity. So we don't actually go out to bid ourselves. So it's it's an incorporated rate based on bid results. So technically, we're actually just paying whatever that entity submitted to the co-op we joined. And unfortunately, because there's not too many stations

085our buses can get into, um, we had to find there's only one actual co-op within a five to seven minute drive of our fleet location for us to fill up. Um, that is on a co-op. Because we buy so much fuel, it goes over our bid threshold. We actually looked at actually bidding it out ourselves. So to answer your question, it's it's not really defined because um of how we're just joining another bid. If we put it in ourselves, that may uh be directly answerable. And then um I know that diesel vehicles actually make fuel additives to add that they allegedly increase 10% miles per gallon and you also help on wear and tear for like the turbo and other parts of the vehicle. Are we adding those or do you know if the fuel

086already has those additives in it? That may be something we can look into. I am aware that um if Mr. Pri and Marcy Cole were here today, they would be able to answer that question. And I believe the answer is yes, there are other things put in to make the vehicles operate well. But I am not an expert on it. So I I would defer to them to answer that problem. >> There is there is >> And then I have one more question. I'm uncertain about solar and our meter. I've I thought that the EV plug charging station is on a separate meter other than our buildings. Is that true or is it join? >> No. So all the meters in our buildings um that are attached to solar are net metered. Um so basically

087they run backwards if we overproduce and then they if we say went down um we would be drawing directly. So it's a it's a net metering. So the the meters that are attached to solar are net in nature. Um we have about I want to say seven or nine different electric um areas. So, um, not every single one of our junction boxes has a net meter. Um, there are two at RMS. And one of the things we looked into for this grant was actually whether the referendum upgrade of our electric panel could be used for this and offset the upgrade we already have to do, meaning the 225,000 would be incorporated into the referendum. However, that electric panel is in a different wing of the building. So, it's two totally different um electric panel upgrades.

088>> So, the bus is not hooked up to solar. >> I would have to look at the specific JCP on records to see if that one is or is not. So, I don't have that direct answer for >> I have a few questions. Um thank you for putting together that presentation. Um the one thing that I spoke I was going to ask the same question about you know RMS. So that that scenario was the electrical upgrades at RMS. Did we also look to other the other schools to you know if we didn't have to buy a transformer at that 225,000 housing the buses at other schools was that looked at also? >> We we did look into that. Um the the major issue that came up with that is the electric load at some of

089the other buildings would have been only part of our bus fleet and parking more than two buses at any location is just not feasible long term. Um if you see how large our bus fleet is, the only place we can park it is at RMS currently. Um, we did specifically look at Holland Brook School for maybe one or two buses, but knowing that anything we would have to do long term with this would be more than that, um, we we stopped investigating it because we couldn't get information from our electrician. >> Okay. And then my other question, when you look at this side by side and you said the two buses, the five buses, um, what is the cost >> to replace a diesel bus? because I feel like that is something that um should

090be considered when we're looking at financials. >> Yeah. And you see up there it's 154,000 um per vehicle. That's the cost of a current diesel bus. Um right now obviously these numbers change every year. I mean put it in perspective. A diesel bus used to cost 115,000 a few years ago and a small bus used to cost 60 and now that is costing 115. So the numbers have jumped dramatically. Um and it's not just inflation, it's also manufacturers moving away from diesel buses. So we just you know we don't know where the numbers will be probably two years from now. >> Okay. And then in terms of the um when you were talking about the capital projects that we completed for this summer, uh there were two purchases of buses where there was the 54

091passenger and are they replacing? So I'm looking at the fleet list. So I'm trying to I'm trying to look to see um what how many these EV buses could potentially replace in terms of what diesel are on the road and will be coming off the road soon. We So we just we did one 54 passenger >> an additional van. >> Yes. >> That we just received this summer. But if that's the fleet list um that we we use, we provide the board with a fleet list every time we do the budget. If that's the bud, the fleet list that we provided to the board during the budget, there are two additional vehicles that are not reflected on that fleet list. Is that correct? There are two additional that are 54 passenger buses that from two

092years ago because that's how long it took to manufacture because the manufacturers had switched over to mostly electric at this time. >> The lead time is 18 months on a diesel. So, there's four buses on that list, three 54 passenger, and one van. At the bottom of the list, that should be 2025 manufacturer dates >> that we have to add to that fleet list >> to take off because the the next four to replace are from 2008 and 2010. Um, so there's four buses that are definitely in need of replacing at 154,000 each. And so, yes, there's costs to lay out for this EV grant, but we're looking at the full cost of these diesel, are we not? That's what I'm trying to get at. >> So, two two of the vehicles on that list

093that you're looking at have been disposed of. Uh, one had to be disposed of as part of the federal grant, and the other one was donated to um the local fire department for uh training purposes to dismantle. Um, so two of the but I believe there's still multiple that are 15 years plus um at the end of the school year. >> Do you know Jason that those are the two 2008 vehicles on the fleet list? The the oldest ones? >> One was 2008. The other one I don't believe was it had a transmission um issues. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Anyone else? Something that stuck out to me was the the current EV bus that we have is not capable of doing the full amount of runs that we need it to do. We have

094to get rid of a diesel for that bus. What's absorbing those extra runs that the EVs wouldn't be able to do? It almost seems like for if we have to get rid of diesels to take on these PVs then we have missing runs and then we have not able to handle field trips and athletics and things like that. So the other fleets are absorbing those. I mean the other buses in the fleet are absorbing those. How how difficult is that? >> That's a good question. Um it we can accomplish correctly if I'm wrong Jason. can accomplish a Holland Brook RMS run, a White House three bridges run, bring the EV back to the lot to charge and then do White House three bridges, I'm sorry, do Hallebert RMS in the afternoon and then White House

095three bridges in the afternoon. What we cannot do or we have not done I should say have not done we haven't really tested the limits of the charge uh would be an additional preschool run which is right after the white house three bridges run nor midday um runs like let's say you know the the life skill students want to go to white men's or something like that shopping. So what is what could be missing or lost with an EV bus would be the third tier which is preschool and um any midday field trip that we have uh during the day. So, um, field trips, those sorts of things, >> right? Right. >> Yeah, correct. Mostly in months of, um, we tested in December, January, and February. That was the feedback for those months specifically. I

096just wanted to um mention, you know, that being on the finance committee, we had discussed this many times in meetings and we had a member of the fire department, our local fire department that came. So, I think not only looking at the cost, we have to look at some of the risks to it. And I could be wrong, but I believe they required us to not park another bus next to it. I believe they required a camera. Correct me if I'm wrong. um and possibly access to water because of the risks of these EV buses. So, I think that's something that we really really need to be cautious about when we're considering this. plans that you have. >> Um, I was curious when we were planning for the referendum, did we include any of these

097electrical upgrades um or transformers to support electric vehicles? When we were planning there, >> we knew that we needed to upgrade the electric service that's in the older R wing of the middle school by the gold gym in the front. So that entire um panel and service requires an upgrade. Um beyond that upgrade there was I don't recall if there was any other anything else that we needed to do. I know that that was the most outdated that was because our um electrician is so old that we are we are struggling for parts. Um, beyond that, there was no other requirement. And while we knew that the EV buses were a potential, I don't know if we fully knew the plan during the time of the referendum that we would run into the issues with

098the transformers and the electric services that would. So, um, really not specifically for EV buses. >> All right. And I know you probably can't answer this question right here, but the rate the rate of the of the diesel bus breakdowns. Um, I know as a as a parent that we would periodically have strange buses pull up and I think the diesel buses it's more unplanned event versus it sounds like here that it's predictable about when the buses are are not available from a electric vehicle perspective. But I just want to weigh that it it sound it sounds like having a a mix of both would provide um the kind of diversity of transportation that we we could use. Um and I just want to say from a a personal perspective when I moved to Readington

099it was like a breath of fresh air like coming from you know parts east of here and and coming out and feeling it could finally breathe. um and the green space that we have that we're so proud of in our in our township and I believe that the community is incredibly committed to these green initiatives. You know, noticing that we are a silver certified sustainable Jersey school. We're one of, I believe, six gold star recipients. I feel like we are a leader um in New Jersey for these types of initiatives. And I really want to recognize that we've been at the forefront and that sometimes that can be a challenge can be difficult, you know, with the with the solar panel um installation and all of that, but we've really been at the forefront. So,

100and I believe that's in alignment with our community's goals and our dedication to to green space initiatives. Um, I can't answer your question, Pam, with any kind of mathematical accuracy as in terms of the rate of bus, you know, breakdowns. Uh, do they happen? Yes. I know that Jason or I will get calls in the afternoon and afternoon run that there's a breakdown. We need to transfer students over to another bus or we have to send the police out. I know that there are times when bus drivers get in their buses in the morning. Um, and maybe there's, you know, it won't start. I don't have any kind of percentage or rate or anything like that. I think it would be different for bus. Um, we do have some older buses in our fleet. Sometimes

101we have to we need to use a spare. Um, it happens. Yes. Um, but I can't give you any kind of mathematical accurate percentage. Linda probably can. I I was just going to say as a previous bus driver um well one thing I was going to say is that do you know I mean they do have additives that they put in buses and I believe I'm pretty sure it's also to affect the admission when it comes the pollution control. So but I don't know if you could find that out I thought that's one of the things that the additives did do that they put in the buses. That was one of the things. The other thing I was going to say is that because the routes are a lot of the routes are really long.

102I I I really don't know if you know to me it seems like these buses are more for city uh because the routes are shorter. The routes in this town are longer and I just think that the electric buses they're they they can't do two routes a lot. They would be doing routes to confform with the buses. I believe that's just one thing. I could be wrong. Rich, >> my my concern would be with with Mirror Ellens is if if the buses can't make all the runs that are required that you might have to have a spare bus. If you're going to go EV and you're going to say this is the greatest thing since sliced bread, which I'm not saying it isn't, but I'm just saying um it would seem you may have to

103have more. And right now the cost is double of what a diesel is. And to answer your question, it's it's called deaf is what they put in all the new diesels and they will have to have them and it's just after certain year all the diesel motors had to have the deaf flu which is supposed to be more environmentally friendly. But um I wouldn't be concerned about of creating a fleet of vehicles that you're getting a grant now. So it's it's wonderful. There could be come a time if you want to switch all the way over to EV. You know, I don't know that you're going to get a grant every year, but you could get yourself into a bind where maybe they don't perform to what we thought they would. We've got one now

104that's 7 months and we could have time to uh to really try keep that bus in service and see how we do before committing to adding more. That's another question I have. Do do you know in um this area is there a lot of towns that have switched to AV buses or is it mostly more? >> I don't have that information. I know we talked I know that you do. I know that there's some districts that have moved over, you know, several buses in their fleet. There are some districts that also received the grant. Um but I think Jason did some research with other districts. Okay, this was part of uh finance uh asked that question. Um and we went to every I called every single school district that got this specific um grant um

105to get feedback from them. So the closest um were South Hunter, uh Princeton, um there was a couple um east on Route 78, um Summit. Um so those um when I called them which was you know six seven months ago um were just starting the process versus us we were receiving our vehicle so we were ahead of them at that point they also opted for more vehicles. Um, when I spoke to Princeton in particular, they're planning on redoing their almost their entire fleet with EV vehicles versus the other districts are slowly moving forward similar to what we were doing, which is one, two, three vehicles at a time. A lot of them also have larger fleets than us. So, when they replacing four or five vehicles, it's probably around the same percentage of our one

106to two. Um, but the feedback from them was the grant money was available. um they didn't really need a transformer or switchboard update. Um so they were looking to just secure more vehicles given 18 month time on diesels. >> Thank you. >> So I wanted to add um I actually want to touch on what Justina said about uh the safety of the electric vehicles and EVs in general. I have sent videos out to the board for review just to see that there's as a fireman we come into hard times putting these fires out with the electric vehicles. Lithium ion batteries are not perfect. They actually need power to keep them cool and there sometimes they just catch on fire. So I brought that up in the past and it is a concern that we have

107to take consideration. We have to park these vehicles away from the fleet because god forbid there is a fire in the middle of the night. No one's around. It's going to take out the whole fleet. Uh I also want to touch what uh Ellen said. Um I did lose track what were you mentioning about the bus the range. >> Yeah, the range. So I and also what Linda was saying, I feel like these buses do better on flat flat roads. I feel like the hills around here make the batteries use more power to get the full load of buses up the hills. And I I know we didn't talk about it much, but I think these buses I have to double check way heavier than the diesel bus. I'm not sure. I found that I

108tried to look up some research. They might be heavier and they could potentially um you could be exceeding the the road limit like the weight limit on the road, but I'm not sure. I that's something I've heard about, but I haven't really looked into it because it was hard to find specs on weights of the vehicle when I tried to search it up. >> 4,000 lbs. >> No, heavier. 4,000 pounds. Was it two tons? Two tons heavier. So you could be exceeding weight capacity potentially. >> I I'm not I'm not I don't know the weight of an electric bus versus a diesel bus. I know I know that in our bus garages I know our lifts can accommodate the EV buses. Correct. When we did all of our work on them and we did one

109underneath the So I I just don't know the answer but it it could be. I didn't do the research. Jason >> Yeah. No, the the bus the bus does weigh more. Um, Ray Cree actually provided me that information specifically because it's actually part of the federal grant. Um, and our lifts can handle lifting. >> Jason, I did have a question for you. Um, in cash flow, I saw on this slide it's I guess a little over $1 million we would have to pay up front before we got reimbursed the 640. So, how from a cash flow perspective would you handle something like that? It looks like the reserves are pretty low at the moment, right? And then you just made a presentation on capital projects and how would that impact our ability to do other

110capital projects. So how would that handle that? >> So it's pretty easy for the board to even look at when you look at the financials that you approved. There's a treasures report. It's one page and you look at the cash that's sitting there. So what we do is we look at that versus the bills you pay. So the cash is as at that point in time things we would do if we got tight would be delay paying bills. Um so put less bills on the bill list so that way we don't lose that cash. Remember our bills are paid now by a wire. We're like the only school district in the county surrounding area paid by a wire. So we send bills out and it's instant. The issue is that we lose the interest on

111that and we lose also the cash instantly rather than the delay. Um so we would do that. We would also uh time things based on when we collect the tax levy because tax levy represents the vast majority. Um so knowing the time of collection for the the town and when uh they still need an additional month to collect which happens based on quarters, we would make sure that um we monitor carefully that or delay paying the vendors to the extent possible like the Bluebird vendor uh until we knew we could get the grant back quicker. So we'd have to put in a lot of mechanisms to make sure that um it was appropriate particularly April through June. In the summer we have very few uh dollars on payroll because it's 12 month employees and we

112get the full tax of the check. So we're cash flush right now but in April we're cash close. Um and you can't delay payroll. >> Any other comments? Okay. So, I'm going to go back to the comments I started with. There is no action item on the agenda for this. It was a full board discussion which came out of last meeting and that it was only discussed in finance and the request was discussed in full board which is what we did today. We have a full board discussion. The grants there's two things recognized on a long basis. We're given a very short period to accept the expired grant. The state allowed us to do it. If we let that expire, we could reapply in September if the board chooses to. So, right now, as of

113this moment, there's no action item for the board to take. I don't know if anyone has questions, thoughts, Jason, anything correct me on that? No, I mean that's uh you have the deadline which is uh the near the end of September. Um so that that's the deadline to reapply. Um the latest information you have is you know whether or not we want to extend the grant. They just want us to be in communication. >> So then what do we do moving forward as a member of the finance committee? Do we only discuss it in finance committee? How are typically is how we run things or is this going to come to full? Well, that would be thing like a finest security meeting. It's not on our agenda, I think, for Thursday, right? >> The topic

114is on the agenda. I thought it was a deep from the prior meeting though. It wasn't specifically to revisit this. I suppose we can make adjustment. >> This I would be thinking like do we discuss in finance and push it forward or does the finance committee not do it? Um I don't think then it would have to go to the next meeting if it depend on what the finance says at that time. the deadline would have passed on the expiration and it would have to go for the reapplication, right? Somebody reapplying >> because that is typically how our committees run. I mean, if something is not come to an agreement or if we do come into an agreement, it's not typically brought to the full board. >> I'm sorry. >> Yeah, I think >> Yeah,

115>> I understand what you're saying. >> Like if we come to a full agreement within our committee meeting, then it doesn't come to the full board. >> Exactly. which is what happened at our exact last >> and then we brought it to the board this time as a discussion item only because we can't add it as an agenda item because it didn't come out of a committee as a move forward which is where we're today. So maybe bu building on your comment, Justina, um if I understand correctly, there's a new deadline in September. >> Correct. >> What is the process for us to decide whether we will try to meet that deadline or let it pass? >> That would come down to the finance committee again. So then would go through and finance committee would

116make a recommendation to move forward or not. And if they chose not to move forward, it wouldn't come to the board for a vote. kind of like what happened in July. >> Oh, I was gonna Sorry. I was just gonna make a comment. Thank you. That's clear. The only point I'll raise is there's there's quite a bit of energy around the topic and so I wonder is there a report back to the green committee or some kind of how do we make sure that the people that are interested in the topic can stay briefed beyond what we normally do which is share minutes just because there's a lot of energy around the topic. include >> I might have an answer to your question, but I'll say this. Um, if the desire of the board is

117to have this topic go back to the finance committee, what I would advocate for the board is that the finance committee come out with a recommendation prior to the deadline which is 9:26 to apply for the grant. So, and and this is a little bit of a different kind of protocol for us because typically, for example, last meeting we put maybe it's even this meeting um I think it is this meeting um acceptance application for an acceptance of the ESSA funding which is a federal entitlement grant that we're receiving. So, typically this board has applied for and accepted a grant in a simultaneous board resolution. I think that in order to ensure that the recommendation from the finance committee is something that is agreed by the board is if we are going to apply rather

118than just the direction to the administration being let's go out and apply I think that if that's what comes out of finance meeting I think that we should start a practice of resolving to apply as a precursor to then accept in in other words if we do a resolution to apply it almost implies that we're going to accept rather than just there be a recommendation to the administration that's not on the agenda that says go ahead and apply for the grant. I'm not sure if I have all of you. In in other words, um I think we're in this situation because the desire to apply for the grant was something that came out of discussion, not board resolution. Rather, I would say if we're going to move forward, let's resolve to make application by 9:26.

119We don't have to do it today, just by 9:26 so that we're not in a position where we're moving to accept, but we haven't had the previous discussion and resolution to apply. Do I have to? Am I making sense? >> Um, I just want to add committee chairs can call for other extra meetings if you want. That's just another option. top of my list. >> Thank you for that. >> So, does that does that does at least the process make sense? >> I think part of Michelle's question was how the green committee is moved in and that was not >> I haven't I haven't gotten to that yet. So, >> I don't have a suggestion. I just wanted to put it out there because I feel like we owe it to each other as board

120members. >> Right. But I'll just jump. This goes back to my opening, right? It has to come out of the committee to be voted on as forward. Right. >> Exactly. >> So, in theory, it it did not come out of the committee. In fact, the committee said not to move forward and we just chose not to put that on on the agenda. Theoretically, you could put on the agenda. The finance committee chose not to do. Should we vote on that? That goes against our processes. So if we meet as a finance committee and we come up with the same resolution over seven forward, it still would not make it to the agenda for a full board to vote on. Which comes down to do you want outside people to maybe join the committee. So from

121the dream committee, you can have people join if you want to possibly give input to the finance committee. But you're in the same situation if we meet on this and it doesn't come out of the finance committee this September 26th. >> And I'm and I'm fine with that. Like I I I'm in agreement with the process. I think in order to have the fail safe, I think that we should think about process in terms of resolving to apply prior to being up against a deadline. That that's where I'm at. We were I think we were up against a deadline in this instance, but we had no prior resolution that said this is an initiative of the board and and absent that the deadline passed. >> But how could we put that resolution on the board

122now if it doesn't come out of committee? >> I agree before a kind of thing. >> I'm not I'm not asking that. I'm just saying that there's two motions when it comes to grants. One to apply and then one to accept. And I would separate them from now on rather than having one motion to do it all at once because we had one we were we could have had one motion to do it all at once. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. Um if a member of the green committee wishes to join finance, we would just need to make sure a member of the finance committee was not present. That's the trouble because then we're having right Do we have a finance or I'm sorry a green committee meeting scheduled prior to the 9 to

12326 deadline? I don't think so. >> I'm sorry about that. >> No, I was Let me just look at October 1st. >> Okay. So, we're about time. No resolution. No resolutions. >> Actually, I I have I I have one thing. Um I'm I appreciate your opening comments. Um and I also am familiar with Robert's rules and it is well within my authority as a board member to put a motion on the table. >> Um and I understand that it's a rare occurrence. You don't want to do that in practice and have surprises at the board table. I understand. But I'm only doing this because this was an agenda item um under the superintendent's report. So the public was aware that we were going to be discussing this in public. Um generally that's why you don't

124make motions from the table without notice to the public that you're going to be discussing that. So that's where that comes about. Um but I do feel that since it was on the agenda and the public was aware. Um, I would like to make a motion for us to reapply for this September uh deadline to reapply for the grant. >> Okay, we actually kind of were expecting that. So, Mr. Bow actually, in case it came up, Mr. Boom actually wrote a motion. So, if you'd want to maybe pass this to us, >> we thought in case you wrote it just in case. >> This is like such a big circus like we're dancing around this whole thing. Let's just take a vote whether we want to go through with this or not and then we

125can just move on. Let's move on as a board. >> All right. What's this? >> So I don't know if you're if that motion would satisfy if you read it. We had a second possibly. >> Um yeah, I agree with that. So, the motion is a motion to apply for and accept NJ EV bus grant in the amount of $640,000 and to authorize the business administrator to apply for an extension the 2526 school year. Do I have a second, please? >> Anyone have a second? >> I have a second. >> Okay. Well, for all motions, we have to ask for any discussion. I know we had a lot of discussion on it, so I'm going to open it up. Any discussion? >> Um, I have a question. Do we do it now or after the

126public has an opportunity? >> No, I think we can do it now. Basically, once a motion's made, um I think we have to do the motion. Motion's made now second. So, we're just going to go forward with it. >> I I want to remind everybody, you will laugh at me. Uh from a risk perspective, I do feel obligated to mention that risk is a calculation of both severity and probability. Um, and when we look at the data on the risks around buses, it the risk of fire in a diesel bus is 20 times higher than electric vehicle. Um, so I just wanted to put it out there that it's highly unlikely. It's the same thing as saying, would I fly in a plane or drive in a car? You know, the actual rate of uh

127failure of failure modes in a in an airplane are much much lower, but it is much more severe. But we still we still do choose to >> use air transportation. So that's my example. >> I just wanted to add to that that diesel buses only catch on fire when they are running and EVs will catch on fire when they are charging and or running. So the 20 times doesn't actually is not a good number especially when you have I don't know I had this number a few months back. It's like millions of diesel buses on or trucks on the road, tractor trailers, buses, regular light duty trucks, millions. And there's only maybe now a tens of thousands of EVs. So those numbers are constant. >> Okay. Any other comment? Um, I feel compelled as a

128finance committee member to restate what Jason said earlier, which is our reserves are under a million dollars. We don't have a referendum plan or approved yet, and that is an uncomfortable margin. Thank you. >> Okay. All right. So, we have a motion that wasn't on the agenda. Um, so I'm just going to read it again. This is what we're voting on. It is a motion to apply for and accept the New Jersey BP EV bus grant in the amount of 640,000 and to authorize the business administrator to apply for an extension for the 2526 school year. So this is basically the grant that expire that was going to expire last month that they gave us till our next meeting to accept. So we would be voting on either to accept a grant or not. So

129based on that, Mr. vote. Do we get a roll call vote? >> Miss Cassie, >> yes. >> Miss Fury, >> yes. >> Mr. Les, >> no. >> Miss, >> no. >> Mr. Pier, >> no. >> M R. >> No. >> M. Ryan, >> no. >> M. Deto. >> No. >> M. >> No. >> Does not pass. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. So before we move to the open public items, anything else in the superintendent report? Dr. >> Yeah, I would just ask um Michelle when we I know we have finance on Thursday. >> I I just feel like we got the sense that there's closure to this matter. I know it's on the finance agenda, but I So I think that when we go into finance, if there's any any other loose ends that

130maybe come from the public, we can discuss at that point. But I know it's a finance agenda item. I don't know if maybe we should discuss if or how it's communicated, but rather I I feel like we have our closure at this point and >> agree. >> I don't know how lengthy we need to go to communication and discussion of finances. >> I mean, one thought would be if there are no additional public comments to consider tonight, we could remove it from the agenda. >> Welcome other feedback from committee members. >> I I we're open to the public in just a couple of minutes. I think we'll hear from the public and I think if there's any unresolved comment from the public perhaps we want to put it on the agenda um or we can

131remove it depending on comments. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Everybody okay with that? Just kind of seeing how things go? >> Yeah. >> Does that conclude your superintendent report? >> That concludes my superintendent report. >> Okay. The next agenda item is the open to the public items that are limited to the agenda. There's a second open public's forum at the end of the meeting. So if anyone would like to speak on items specific to action items on the agenda. Technically this wasn't an action item, but it is because we added it. So we'll allow any EV bus comments to come in because we did a ad hoc motion. So any comments? >> Hi Carol writing some sound. Um, first I just want to say taking action on an item in the superintendent's report is not

132fair to the public because the reason for having the first public comment section is so that members of the public can potentially influence the decision makers. Um, so taking that right away from us is really unacceptable. Um, so any of us that had comments to be made are, you know, feudal right now. So, you know, that's really not acceptable. Um, I'm going to read the letter that Eric Swirling asked to have read so that it's in the public record. So, this is Eric Rowling. I don't know if you want me to write his name in, but I am pleased that the state has extended the deadline for the application for the EV bus grant and in fact extended it to an opportunity to receive five buses. Unfortunately, I believe that put to a vote, given

133the tenor of the board's discussion so far, it will fail to pass. I have read the superintendent's presentation on the issue and could engage in hours of discussion regarding the many points raised, but to what end really? The board will reject the initiative. The lost educational opportunities, the overstated fire hazards, the minimized environmental benefits will all be ignored in favor of keeping the comfortable status quo. The superintendent asks the question whether the board wants to prioritize EV buses over other green and district initiatives. In the minutes of their July 2nd, 2025 meeting, the finance committee answer that question with an affirmation. The committee reiterated our ongoing commitment to green initiatives for the district and the additional funds needed to support any new EV buses may be better allocated to other green initiatives. So now with

134the board about to make the clear choice to reject the grant, I call upon the board to fulfill its ongoing commitment to green initiatives and fully fund position number 3044, coordinator of green initiatives and sustainability and direct the superintendent to advertise and fill the position. The educators fill in this position in the past and the positions that were its predecessor made a meaningful positive contribution to physical plant operations and education within this district. They changed the trajectories of the lives of some students and influence their future courses of study to help improve the world around us. Please fulfill the promise and reinvigorate this position. Thank you. >> Any other members of the public? Hi everyone, Jody Betterman from White House Station. I had a statement to read as well about the electric school bus grants,

135but since we voted to not do this, um I feel like stakeholder input is extremely important. We were all elected here by the voters and I appreciate that and I appreciate your service. But I feel very disenfranchised and I'm sure there are people like me who do as well that we prioritize our beautiful township, our green open spaces and I feel like my voice was not heard tonight. I'm quite upset about it. So I will just say what I said at last month's meeting. The state already has allocated this funds. They will be used for EV buses in the state of New Jersey. In fact, this specific grant allows three school districts in central New Jersey to get this funding. So, this money will be spent. It will now be spent in another school district

136and that is up 17. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else? Okay. So, that concludes our first open public item. We received four correspondences as noted on the agenda. Those are with the board office. You can noted there. So now we're going to actually move into board actions. The first item is a for approval of administrative reports. It's a motion to adopt the HIV and affirm superintendent decision. It's motion 1.01. Can someone please give me a motion and then a second? >> Motion. >> Second. >> Okay. Any discussion on it? >> M. Cassie. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Fury. >> Yes. >> Mr. Lopes. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Mener. >> Yes. >> Mr. Pierre. >> Yes. Mrs. Ry. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Ryan. >> Abs. >> Mrs. Dependo. >> Yes. >> M. >> Yes. Passes. Good. The next

137one is approval of minutes. We have items 201 through through 2012. Someone please give me a motion in a second. >> Okay. Discussion. Mr. >> M. Cassidy. >> Yes. >> Miss Fury. >> Yes. >> Mr. Lopes. >> Yes. >> M. Mener. >> Yes. >> Mr. Pier. >> Yes. >> M. Rat. >> Yes. >> M. Ryan. >> Mr. Depto. >> Yes. >> M. Yes, it passes. Okay, the next one is finance and facilities. We are meeting this week, so we do not have a committee report, but there are nine items to review. Items 301 through 309. Can I get a motion in a second on the items? >> I I have question comments on the first if I may. >> Sure. >> Um on the uh agenda item 3.07, 07 the bus routes. I want to

138just talk to the fellow board members about this. Um so I wrote to Dr. Hard and Mr. Riza just this is something we approve annually. Um in my experience what I've noticed over the years is that the length of time that students on buses has been increasing and I know that at least my family in particular we were on the 45 minute bus from three bridges you know home. Um, as I look at the routes, I see that they're they seem to be growing longer and longer. And it's not and I I Dr. Hart explained, um, the it's every student is planned for, but not everyone is a pickup. So, those routes can actually be less than what the time says. Um, my concern was really mostly the preschool. If anyone else looked at those

139times, I mean, they're on the bus for a very long time. Part of my concern was, you know, they're breathing in diesel at every stop. So, that's another discussion. But, um, I had said to Dr. Hart that maybe this is something that should be tracked in finance after the school year starts. Look at the times again, see how long students are on the buses, and if it's something that the board needs to address, maybe with a policy. We have protocol that we try to keep bus routes 45 minutes or less. I think the state gives us like an hour. We have to be under an hour for the bus routes. Um, but it's just something to that I feel very strongly about that we should keep an eye on because, you know, obviously it's it's

140that's a long time to start and end your day to be on the bus, you know, as a little as a little one who's mostly unsupervised other than the driver who's trying to drive the bus. Um, so I just wanted to give a heads up to finance and a heads up to policy that this is something that we should probably keep an eye on. Um, and it is we're very geographically large town. Like that's just the reality. Um, so I know and Dr. Hart, you may you answered it very well in all of your comments. I don't know if you want to add to any of that, but just wanted to mention that. >> Okay. So, so you're just you're not from the approvement of the you okay with us going forward and approving it

141or >> Yeah, I just had comments around it. Yes. >> Okay. And that uh then we could theoretically always revisit this in a future meeting if they're longer possibly get new routes if needed. >> Yeah, I would I would make uh two recommendations to the board u moving forward uh in regard to bus routes especially because we have now we have preschoolers riding the bus with more frequency. Um, one, uh, I did write an email to, um, Beth and CC David on the email about, you know, the bus routes being created and ensuring that every student that's on the bus route has a stop. And that means that even if you know that you're a parent that's going to drive your child every single day, you still have to account for a stop for you.

142So in reality those routes that are you know 45 46 minutes in reality are shorter uh because not every child takes the bus every day so they do shrink a little bit. Um but I would recommend uh the following two actions. Um first I think once uh Jason we can talk about this offline. Once the routes are established and we get into the school year, like the last week of September, October, trying to get the bus drivers to give us a more realistic estimate uh estimation about how long the routes are so we can report that to finance and actually compare the reality versus what comes out of the system. Um the second thing we should look at is preschool. We have a lot of parents that sign up for preschool, hold the spot on

143the bus, and a lot of parents choose to drive their three and four-year-old. I mean there we we we oversee enrollment with uh preschool parents who want transportation and then there's underd delivery of how many actually board the bus every day. Having the aids on the bus really do help strap them in. So those routes should hopefully shrink, but I think we should get some realistic numbers on those. Um report that back to finance before the end of the school year this year if it's something of interest to the board. We can talk about the protocols that are around our transportation. We do a lot of great things here in Readington that accommodate parent work schedules, different drop off and pickup locations to daycare centers, things like that. Um, we have courtesy busing, busing within

144two miles. I would I would not recommend eliminating that. I think we should keep it just because of the nature of our community, but there is something called a transportation waiver that parents can fill out, which is basically a promise that an identification in advance that says, I as a parent will drive my child every day. And if we get that waiver from X number of parents, we can remove those children that we know are not going to get picked up every day off the route and get more realistic numbers of how we can create routes. I think no act I mean two weeks before school. I would not recommend any action right now, but I think Jason, we should put this on for finance in the future, maybe midfall, try to get some realistic

145numbers to report to the board and talk about any changes we want to make in the future. And I can getting the data would give me and Jason a solid recommendation to give the board of any changes that need to be made. >> Fair. Okay. >> So Jason, can we get a motion and second? >> I don't think so. >> No. >> Can we get a motion on 301 and then second 309? Is there a motion? Second. >> Second. Okay. We had some discussion. Any additional discussion? Sorry about that. >> It was me. I'm sorry. I just had a question. um 3.09. What are the different titles? What does that reference? >> Um so the this funding is ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, formerly known as NCLB, No Child Left Behind under the Bush administration,

146formerly ESA, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Those words might be mixed up a little bit. um Lynden Johnson, president, you know, the 1960s um you know, movement toward Camelot in the Great Society. Uh title one are are funds that are set aside for student and student programming um that target our uh low-inccome population. Uh so those things are like title one meetings occur every year by building and we allocate title one fundings for primarily math and language arts instruction programming um for students that that are target that we target with um that are low income identified as low income. Title 2A is professional development for teachers. So that grant is used uh primaril solely um solely for professional development primarily to send teachers to conferences that are uh local within the region or within

147the state. So that pays for their travel and their PD. Title three is uh funding for our multilingual learners. The entire consortium um gets $5,000. I'm sorry. We have a a consortium that receives I don't think we have the total amount yet, but Readington, we do have the total amount. >> No, we don't. County office. >> Uh the county gets allocates the money. We're part of a consortium. Readington gets $5,000 for their ML population students. Uh title three immigrant are students that are identified um as a port of entry and title four is technology. Jason, >> yes, it also used on music, art, >> technology, and the arts. Uh, so these grant funds supplement our existing programs. So they're add-on programs to current academic programs. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Okay. Any other

148discussion? >> M. Cassie. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Fury. >> Yes. >> Mr. L. >> Yes. >> M. Spencer. >> Yes. >> Mr. Harris. >> Yes. Mrs. Ry. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Ryan. >> Yes. >> M. >> Yes. Yes. Passes. >> Okay. The next item is edtech. We do have a committee for it, but before we go to that, we have four items and we get a motion and a second. I got five items. Items 401 through 405. Can I get a motion and then a second? Motion call. >> Second. [Music] >> Yeah. The edtech committee met on August 11th. Uh the first thing we did was welcome Richard to our Mr. heroes to our committee gave a and Dr. Clark gave a brief overview of the role of the edtech committee. Um, next we discussed

149the website rollover. Mr. Belski gave an update on the roll out of the new website which took place over the past weekend. Um, that was probably two weekends ago at this point. Um, the district had to migrate to a new site because our vendor merged with another company. The tech department will continue to clean up any pages and links that were affected by the rollover. The major website enhancements occurred approximately four years ago and with this migration minor adjustments were the only things that were needed. Uh next curriculum review. So and you all saw the curriculum documents that were in the board portal. Um I'll just give you the brief summary. So for science K through five, the revisions to the science curriculum take place in grades four to five only starting on page 41.

150The revisions include unit pacing and change in primary source materials to amplify science for the health curriculum six through eight. The revisions to health grade six through 8 reflect the updates to grade level content that were were required due to the new schedule and new primary resource, a textbook titled teen health. There have been no changes to units related to sexual health, puberty, pregnancy, and sexually transmitted diseases. Those are unchanged. Teen health is one textbook for all grades, but teachers will pull out units aligned to the respective grade level standards. Um, for ELA, the all grade summary, uh, the documents were reduced to about 150 teaching points. Uh, combined, they combined teaching points and removed others guided by teacher feedback. Uh, mid lesson teaching points were added to grades six and seven for writing and

151grade eight for reading and writing. Teaching points were added to balance subjects within the document. Uh for kindergarten removed unit seven tackling hard words. First grade removed unit six reading non-fiction. Uh sixth grade added teaching points focused on reflection, shifted unit five from non-fiction to fiction and non-fiction work and created more of a multimedia focus. Seventh grade added more specifics to teaching points. Replace more basic teacher points with more complex ones. Moved lessons related to speaking and listening standards to be a second part of a reading focused lesson. For eighth grade changed unit one, previously contemporary fiction and American teenager will now be life stories unlocking the big ideas in book clubs and memoir structuring personal essays. The unit was contemporary fiction and now focuses on memoirs, personally reflective writing styles, and an understanding of

152the human experience through reading. And lastly, for eighth grade, ELA, moved lessons related to speaking and listening standards to be a second part of a reading focused lesson. Uh, for ELA, grades three through five, change previous wording uh to I don't know what that means. Um, added mid-son teaching teaching points to grades four through eight for writing. adjusted the pacing guides. Um, those I think we went over. Uh, grade three removed certain lessons or combined with other teaching points. Added additional lessons for pronouns, figurative language, and point of view. For fourth grade, removed certain lessons or combined with other teaching points, added an additional day for complicated teaching points. And fifth grade, writing unit two, feature articles to passion projects. um removed certain lessons or combined with other teaching points, added an additional day for

153complicated teaching points. Uh the the curricular documents are on our agenda tonight for approval. Uh next, we discussed the reading practice review committee. Uh Dr. Hart reported the outcomes of the reading practice review committee that was formed after approval at the July 22nd board of ed meeting. The committee met on July 29th was comprised of teachers in grades K through middle school as well as staff members from intervention RMS library and administration. The committee reviewed the resource materials policy 2530 as well as the homework policy 2330 with the goal of establishing a process for a more stronger for a stronger more communicative process between home and school on independent texts that students are reading. They considered several mechanisms such as classroom inventories, book permission slips, and reading logs. Their recommendation was to implement a reading

154portfolio that carries through the child's school career grades three through eight. This portfolio would be a shared Google Doc where students input the books that they are reading. It is the parents responsibility to check the log. The reading portfolio would not be graded. The edtech committee members asked several clarifying questions such as would the portfolio have anything on there indicating grade level of book? Dr. Hart said no. Parents should refer to sites such as Common Sense Media or Mac and VIA for content and reading level. Is there a loss of instructional time? Dr. Hart mentioned that it may take more time to get this protocol started, but once it's up and running, teachers can have students add it to their reading portfolio during a do now. He also mentioned that teachers could use this reading

155portfolio as an instructional tool. Uh, another question, can there be a checkbox for parents to opt out? Dr. Hart indicated something like this could be added to the drop-own menu where parents mark the document as reviewed. Uh, another question, can we track how often parents check this log? Um, Dr. Hart and Mr. Bellski thought the activity dashboard feature in the document would be the best tracking mechanism. The majority of committee members were pleased with this idea and feel that it will serve many purposes. Uh next we discussed upcoming professional development new teacher orientation uh is going on this week. Mr. Tumlo shared the agenda. Um the district is excited to welcome these new staff members. Board members have been sent invitations. Actually the lunchon happened yesterday. Um the I was going to say was partly

156sponsored by the HSA uh for the lunch and that was yesterday. at the HBS library. The welcome back in service which takes place next Wednesday. Uh Mr. Tumalo also shared the agenda for that. The board members are invited to breakfast provided by the RTEA, the HSA and administration followed by morning kickoff meeting in the Holland Brook School cafeteria. And then the last thing we discussed GT honors and advanced programs regulation. Dr. heart briefly mentioned that the gifted and talented students regulation 2464 has been updated to reflect current selection criteria. The previous regulation referred to assessments the district no longer uses. We scheduled two meetings uh September 22nd and then October 6th both at 8:30 a.m. Any comments or discussion? >> I have a quick comment. I just want to note that during um the number

157four the reading practice review in our minutes that we did have a member who was strongly against this but I wanted to thank Dr. Hart and the staff put this together because the majority did want it. So, thank you for you and your staff for >> I wanted to ask and I had emailed you about this. Um, so we, you know, you did sort of answer it, but I'm just curious if there's a way that the parent can be notified like can it be through Genesis? Like how does a parent, you know, kind of like when you check your kids grades on Genesis, you go in and you can check off. >> So, the log will be shared. It's a Google. >> It's a Google. Yeah, it's a Google shared form. >> So, uh, in

158committee I I think I illustrated that the best way that I would recommend a parent, you know, check the log checking periodically would be once the log is shared. URL should never change. That URL can be bookmarked in, you know, parents computer or laptop and then, you know, when you're online paying bills, checking bank statements, you know, Facebook, I don't know, just have a tab open and log into the uh just click the URL, bookmark it, and check periodically. >> Yeah. >> No, thank you. I I appreciate that that being put into the place. >> Yeah. >> I just have a question about instructions home for it. I I don't think we touched on it um in committee, but would it be districtwide instruction or is the teacher responsible for the instruction to the parents

159regarding the loss? >> We created um the a back to school night presentation that's in a Google shared Google folder. I'm going to talk to the leadership team meeting the leadership team on Friday about it and about implementation um during our leadership meeting on Friday. So coming more coming, but it'll be discussed at every back to school night with every teacher that teaches literacy grades three through eight. Any other comments? >> I would just like I just want to thank the eight teachers that are part of the committee, the administration and the edtech committee for meeting and reviewing and coming up with our recommendations. So, thank you very much. Okay. On that, can we have a roll call? >> Mrs. Cassidy, >> yes. >> Mrs. Fury, >> yes. >> M. >> Yes. >> Mr. Pierre,

160>> yes. >> Mr. Brad, >> yes. >> Mrs. Ry, >> yes. >> Mrs. Bindo, >> yes. >> Mr. Yes. >> Okay. Next item is personnel. There's not committee report because we're meeting right after this for our meeting. So on that note, we have 30 items to go through items 501 through 530. Can I have a motion and then a second on the 30 items? >> Motion. Second. Any discussion items on Mr. B? >> Miss Cassie. >> Yes. Pure. >> Yes. >> MS. >> Yes. >> M. Menson. >> Yes. >> Mr. P. >> Yes. >> M. Rad. >> Yes. >> M. Ryan. >> Yes. >> M. Pinto. >> Yes. Okay. Next item is our policy communication. We do have a committee report on it, but I do the motion first. Can I get a motion and

161second for item 61? >> I'll second him. >> Okay. Um, the policy communications committee met on July 30th at 8:30 a.m. The first thing we discussed was the RMS discipline chart. Mr. Charleston joined our meeting to update us on the revisions he and Mrs. Money made to the expectations of behavior and discipline procedures for RMS. A statement was added to the discipline procedures that says, "One of the tenants of RMS is to value the individuality of our students. Living up to that core belief, each incident will be taken on a case-by case basis and the administration reserves the right to make decisions be beyond the scope of the following guidelines. They reorganized and recategorized the infraction section to make the document easier to follow. Minor changes were made to language throughout to bring it up

162to date. For example, lunch detention is now referred to as opportunity period detention. New items were added such as cheating, plagiarism, copying, use of AI for cheating purposes, possession of provocative material, use of cell phone, smartwatch, use of any form of technology, school or personal to create and/or dist distribute any audio, video or images of students or employees without prior approval. The committee reached this consensus that the document can be added to the student handbook at this time and does not require full board approval according to policy. The second item we discussed was the gifted and talented program regulation. Dr. Hart reviewed the regulation for the gifted and talented pupils to make sure it aligns with policy 2464, ensuring the right students are selected for the right program at the right time. The third item

163we discussed was our policy tracking document for review of the 2000 series. The committee began discussing their notes on the 2000 series. The following policies were discussed. Policy 2110, philosophy of education, district mission statement. This policy will remain as is for now. A revision may be needed once the new strategic plan is created. Policy 2132, school district goals and objectives. This policy will remain as is. Policy 2210, curriculum development. This policy will be revised to include statements regarding our curriculum meeting the needs of all students aligning with the state learning standards and having a development cycle that include stages of renewal and evaluation. Policy 2220 adoption of courses. This policy will be revised to include that we will adapt and revise existing courses to meet the changing needs of students and community. No course of

164study shall be eliminated, revised or implemented without the approval of the board. Adoption of courses shall be by a recorded roll call majority vote of the full membership of the board. A copy of our courses will be available to the public online. Policy 2230 curriculum guides. This policy was recognized as one that we do not currently have, but some surrounding districts do. Dr. Hart will take a closer look at this policy to see if we will add this to our manual. In policy 2240, controversial issues. Suggestions were made to add similar language and organization to the NJSBA policy to further define controversial issues and to include a section about inviting speakers. Further research and discussion is needed before making revisions. Um the fourth item, advocacy teacher certification legislation. Dr. Hart informed the committee that he

165is a part of a working group for the teacher certification reform act of 2025. Um, item number five, discussion of policies that need more immediate attention, tabled until next meeting due to time constraints. And number six, chain of command sample and discussion tabled until next meeting due to time constraints. Um, the agenda items are revisions of the 2000 series. And our next meeting is scheduled for Friday, September 5th at 8:30 a.m. >> Thank you. Any comments or discussion? >> Mrs. Cy, >> yes. Mrs. Fury, >> yes. Mr. >> Yes. >> MP. >> Yes. >> Mr. Fur. >> Yes. M. Rad. >> Yes. >> M. R. >> Yes. >> Mr. Pinto. >> Yes. >> Okay. Next item on the agenda is unfinished business. We have three items and I think Dr. Hart, you're going to cover

166the first two and Jason, I think you have the last one. So um so uh if there is and we don't have to talk at length now but we had our board retreat last meeting um if there's any overall uh feedback um you know certainly we can discuss it at this time but the retreat um related to the second bullet is really preparation for setting board goals. Um Judith Wilson was here for our retreat. She provided us with some information some handouts to consider you know the board's governance role. Um, and the purpose of that is to set us up to have a, you know, healthy discussion about board goals come September. I've asked, uh, Maryanne from New Jersey School Boards Association to attend our September 9th board event meeting. Um, this is the meeting

167that's taking place at Creek Bridges School um, to come and walk us through the process of talking about board goals. Uh, we may wish to make some substantial revisions to board goals for this coming uh, year. we may wish to keep things relatively similar, you know, things related to the referendum and safety and security, academic achievement. Um, but I've invited her to come. So, um, any feedback about the board retreat, um, you know, either now via email or in a committee, however you'd like to discuss it, um, first and then second, come to the September board meeting with ideas for board goals. We'll review our previous goals and then decide how to move forward with the next set of goals. But, I'm open to discussion if you want to talk about anything now or >>

168um I'll just before the meeting Dr. Carter and I talked about the board retreat and the self-evaluation. We really haven't discussed it too much as board um board retreat more we received information from Judy we didn't really share. So one of the items we thought about is maybe each of the committee chairs added as an agenda item they think it's possible to talk about the self evaluation as well as the board retreat any comments. So if you want to take that up as an item. So get the feedback from the teams. >> Any other comments? >> Um I just have one. Um one of the things that was mentioned was regarding policy making and um we've been following the policy tracking document and we've kind of been going through it in consecutive quarter. Um, but

169seeing that we're now in August and we're just finishing up the 2000 series and about to start the 3000, I I went ahead and I populated the rest of the tracking document with all the titles and policy numbers and the dates that they were last revised. Um, so I don't know if as a committee we want to just go through that before our next meeting to um maybe highlight some that we think should we should prioritize that not aren't necessarily in the 3000 series. um this way we can get to there maybe some that are important for this year that we should tackle and we might not get to them by the end of the year. So I just wanted to make that suggestion to see if we kind of rearrange the way we're going

170through the the tracking document. um we can still go through it um consecutively but add some important ones in there from other sections that we might not be able to get to as soon as we look at it. >> Um what I can do is move our table agenda item about you know reordering some of the policies up to our first one so we can discuss some policy first. The other thing that you should know as chair of policy and the whole committee should know is I'm starting to receive more alerts from Strauss. now. >> Yeah, they're coming through the portal and actually pure coincidence like there's several in the 1000 series that now we have to go back and look at the Strauss uh revisions as well. Um so we have to tackle some

171of those policies that are coming through Strauss and I, you know, I think I'm thinking similar to you that maybe we want to rep prioritize things. I don't know necessarily how how we want to rep prioritize, but my fear is that we're falling behind in some of our policy work. Um, so, you know, we should talk about the alerts and talk about some of the behind me policies first before we decide we want to tackle the entire 2000 or 3000 series, but I'm okay with that if we want to rearrange things a little bit. I know that was a goal that came out of our retreat last year and, you know, this year a little bit too. So that is I mean that is a very large undertaking and I appreciate the policy committee doing

172this. Um if there's anything that maybe another board member can help with just reach out you know I'd be willing >> I I would I would also open it up to the full board since we're talking full board like if you're perusing some of the documents. I mean there are some things that even came to my attention is you know issues come up right things come up um you know that I add to my list of things that we should tackle. So, if any board member happens to be looking up a policy because of a question you get or something we're discussing and you think that it might be worthwhile putting it on our radar, just email us and let us know that maybe we should look at, you know, gifted and talented or look

173at promotion retention or something along those lines. That could be helpful. >> Could you share the tracking document with all board members? Would that be okay? >> I think we haven't done it before. Um, >> I don't if it would be helpful. Yeah, only because it's I know David, you have it. Um I fear that like too many >> too many people on one document, especially with its size. >> We'll just email you if I have access. >> Um >> no, it's fine. That's fine. >> I just if it was helpful. >> Yeah. >> Board goals. >> Oh yeah. uh board goals, just come with ideas based off of your reflections and even look at the self-evaluation on September 9th. That'll be a meeting where we're going to tour three bridges and do boards and

174district goals as well. So, the leadership team is meeting on Friday. We're going to have a discussion about, you know, uh district initiatives for the school year. Um we talked about this when we did my evaluation in June as well. O just expect that some of the things we discussed during my conference would show up as goals for the district for this coming year. Um so that's where board goals discussion will happen September 9th and I think uh with a convention September 9th another key date um Jason you know certainly jump in with any more details but I think that we in looking at it we should have the agenda the more full agenda that board members can peruse so you can look at targeted dates that you may want to go down to Atlantic

175City whether you want to go for a day or whether you want to go for several days and then I by the September 9th board meeting, we need a commitment from board members on their attendance or not. September 9th, the date we discussed. >> Yes, September 9th, uh, we need to run a bill to send down. So, um, if you're able to give me an answer before September 9th, um, it would be more helpful, but I can guarantee you housing by that date. Otherwise, if you come down last minute, you have to look your own up. Can you give just update on what the housing is and so on? >> We have a block of rooms at the Hard Rock. Um so anybody who wants to stay over uh we have the rooms, we block

176them off from Monday night through Wednesday night. So Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night. So you can stay that long or you can just pick a day and drive down for the day. Right now um our conversation, we go every year. Our conversation has been to be there for all day Tuesday, all day Wednesday, week Thursday. So Jason and I will likely do two overnights, Tuesday and Wednesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Um, if that, you know, speaks to you and you're like, I want to go and hang out with Jason and Jonathan, come down Tuesday, stay till Wednesday or Thursday. If you want to come for a day, that's fine, too. If you want to, you know, come down Monday night so you're there early Tuesday morning and then you leave Tuesday after a sessions, that's

177fine as well. So, whatever, however fits into your I know everybody works and has families and lives. Whatever fits into your schedule. Excellent. All right. Any comments? Next item is new business from the board. I know we have a green committee report. >> Yeah. So the green committee meeting uh this was the uh annual meeting that we have in the summertime to set our strategic focus areas for the upcoming school year. Uh Mr. Bow welcomed Mr. Piro to his first green planning meeting. Uh he gave an overview of the green committee scope which is essentially an idea generating committee. The green committee is unique in that members of the public serve on the committee alongside principles, teachers and board members. The goal of this planning meeting is to set the focus areas. Uh Mr. BME

178reviewed the 2425 focus areas and shared a presentation of the district's accomplishments. Uh Mr. Bone also shared the brainstorming minutes from the April 2025 meeting which were ideas generated by uh committee members proposed as possible projects to work on. Uh board members gave additional project ideas and from both of those sources the group discussed which initiatives would be feasible and attainable for the coming year. So the following focus areas garnered the most support. Uh it's broken out into three pillars. The three pillars are the uh green ribbon schools pillars of sustainability. Pillar one, reduce environmental impact and costs. Uh the committee decided we should focus on the referendum construction. Identify referendum projects that save energy and reduce environmental impact such as HVAC units, window replacement, and window treatments. clearly identify which projects fulfill sustainability goals

179by marking them with a green leaf. For example, uh the committee also suggested uh five-year strategic plan development. The district will include sustainability goals when updating the five-year strategic plan. This would fulfill requirements to receive credits for an action item through sustainable Jersey. For pillar two, improve the health and wellness of school staff and students. uh outdoor spaces. We should establish outdoor classroom spaces at each school and support projects already underway such as the RMS trees for schools grant, a potential TVS walk in the learning woods, uh Hollandro school scout tree planting project around the track. Um also referendum communication on wellness and well-being. Similar to pillar one goal, the district will communicate how referendum projects such as paving, playgrounds, walking paths encourage outdoor use and support sustainability goals. For pillar three, provide environmental education,

180STEM, civic skills, green career pathways. Um, this the solar expansion and education falls under that pillar. Bring data and key learnings gathered from out from on-site solar panels into the classroom. topics such as production levels, consumption fluctuations and degra degragation over time. Um, and then biodiversity audit, school grounds recommendations, more habitats, native plantings, less lawnmowing, and perhaps putting together a maintenance plan. Uh, create opportunity for studentled biodiversity audit with the help from green committee members to identify plant species currently on school grounds and make recommendations for enhancing and maintaining a diverse native landscape. Next, we discuss discussed the electric school bus grant. The district was notified by D that if more time is needed to implement the grant for two electric buses, the board could reapply. Um the committee discussed how to move forward with

181this new information. Green committee supported this project over many years and still supports it. There was discussion on next steps. It was decided Dr. heart would include this grant opportunity in the August superintendent report along with financial analysis which we saw um about the electric buses acquisition infrastructure upgrades needed and fuel costs. Uh next we've discussed the solar array which I know Mr. Bone gave us probably even more of an update than we had at this meeting but it's moving along albeit a little slow. um the costs and uh vendors ava a availability to secure financing has been a little um slower than anticipated. However, they are confident they will find a solution to move forward and we do have till summer of 2026 to complete this project. And then the green committee uh scheduled

182the next four meetings I believe. I think we did the full year just uh it's only um four times a year and those meeting invitations really sent out to okay sent out to everyone. So that's our report. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any discussion items? >> I have something else under new business just to report on for the NJSBA for the if I if anyone else had any other green things otherwise move on. Okay. Um on September 29th the Hunter County School Boards Association the county meeting is happening. It's going to be at the My gosh, I just forgot the name of it. Is that Chalet? >> Mountain View. Is that right? Mount View Chalet. >> Um I'm so sorry. I was going to say so Dr. Hart is one of the presenters for the

183evening and Mr. Bellski is also um it's about AI uh uses acceptable uses in K to2 school districts. So point out that Dr. Hart will be attending the date >> um September 29th. It's at 6 PM and you can do virtual or in person. So, I know that they send out a lot of emails, but that one did come through recently and it's free register. You just go in, log in, and say, "Yes, I plan to attend." So, I just wanted to mention that. >> Thank you. >> Any other board? Okay. Next item on the agenda is open to the public. Once again, if you have any comments, please step up to podium, say town and your name. It could be any item on the agenda or off the agenda? >> No. Shaking her head

184in the background. Anyone online? >> Okay. So, we'll just move on to the next item. It is adjournment. Can I get a motion to go ahead? Can I can I just remind everybody I I just want everybody to know I emailed the personnel committee of the board um to stay after this meeting so we could hold our personnel committee meetings. We have to convene tomorrow. So personnel is tonight right now. So as soon as we adjourned personnel can stick around. >> We'll stay right here. Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. And Yeah. And everybody else free to go. You're the lucky ones tonight. Chair finance second. >> Yes. >> Mor. >> Yes. M >> yes R. >> Yes. >> M >> Ryan. >> Yes. >> M >> Yes. Impressive