001You do such a thing. Welcome everyone. Thank you for coming to our meeting today. Um the meeting is being held in compliance with the open public's meeting act and is open to the media and public. Notices were duly posted and a meeting was advertised in Hunter County Democrat and Courier News. Formal action may be taken. Can we please get a roll call? Mrs. Cassidy here. Mrs. Cury here. Mr. Lopes here. Miss Vener, Mrs. Borski here. Mrs. R. Mrs. Ryan here. Mr. Deto here. Mr. Riza here. Okay. Please stand for the [Music] To the flag of the United States of America and to the stands, one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Mr. Good evening, everyone. Uh tonight for my superintendent's report, um I have two presentations as well as um
002a few announcements. Matt, if I could ask you to to bring up the district goals, uh presentation on the screens. And if I could trouble you to bring the clicker this way, it'll save us like 10 minutes across the room with my crunches. Thank you. I appreciate it. Um uh so at around this time every year uh I make a preliminary report. I know it's not quite the end of the school year. We still have two months left of the school year, but um progress toward district goals. Uh an opportunity for us to take stock in the work that we've accomplished over the course of the year. And the the second goal with um the district goals is that it helps the board to be informed when it comes time to do the superintendent evaluation
003as well, which we kick off tonight. Um uh I found this quote about uh transitions um should be marked milestones commemorated um and pits filled and that's the essence of thinking in moments. Uh those of you who recall the beginning of the school year, the welcome back in September, you'll know that the inspiration for this school year was uh Chip Heath's book, The Power of Moments. And I found this quote because I think what today's presentation does is it commemorates the moments of triumph and accomplishment that the district had over the course of the school year. So if you think about the welcome back, we talked about the power of moments um and we talked about building meaningful moments over the course of the school year. And I did the math and there are over
004the course of a 181day school year 76,020 memorable moments or opportunities uh for teachers and staff to create memories for kids. Uh what I believe this presentation does is it commemorates all of the work we've done over the course of the school year. Um so think about it. Those of you who were there uh back in September, 76,000 moments sounded like a lot, but we're more than threequarters of the way through. So we've accomplished a lot over the course of the year. Um and then these are just some pictures from our welcome back uh from September. So I'll begin with a few reflections. Um this year our three strate strategic goals um were summarized uh and this demonstrated significant achievement for the district over the past five years. We set our goals back in 2020
005and even through the pandemic, we were able to be tethered to our goals uh with significant achievements in the areas of partnerships, inquisitive learning and social awareness. The academic goals that we've set have shown positive progress of growth of our students, but even progress toward um working with students and special populations like our multilingual learner population, students that have reading disabilities. Um, our communication enhancements. Hi, Michelle. Our communication enhancements were made through SMOR's newsletters and even print media. Um, advertising the great work that the district does uh through the Chronicle, through our newsletters, um, as well as the township newsletter, um, and hugely successfully for the board. a referendum project or referendum vote took place in February that includes I think Jason I have it right over 80 projects um districtwide which is a huge
006accomplishment for this board um with a vote to happen in November. So you'll recall we have three goals for the district uh that are not strategic in nature. These are our annual goals. Uh we focused on academic achievement. Uh using data to drive instruction, developing special programs such as our multilingual learners, uh enhancing our protocols for students with reading disabilities, specifically dyslexia. Um and implementation of new standards in language arts and math uh as measured with I Ready. In communications, we launched and developed protocols to enhance district communications through our newsletters and other outlets. and then referending plan. Uh we determine district capital projects, our needs for the referendum. Um we've engaged the community and we have a comprehensive plan moving forward to be voted upon in November for uh referendum projects for the future
007of the district. And our fiveyear strategic goals, I'm going to miss them when they're gone. Um we've we've talked about them for five years, but fiveyear goals of inquisitive learning, social awareness, and partnerships. um creating an inquiries-based framework, bringing in local um and even national partners to help kids explore their passions and their interests. Uh creating opportunities at the middle school for uh more electives for students to um investigate some of their interests and passions during class. And then of course social awareness, building and bringing in a sense of community including awareness of behaviors oursel others as well as the environment. Um so just a a brief update on some of our progress. Our academic achievement goal um is connected to the academic achievement board goals. So the nice thing is all of our goals
008talk to each other. The district sets goals, the board sets goals, and then the principles and supervisors and administration will tell you they use those goals to inform their goals for their evaluations every year. And in teachers professional development plans, all of our goals are listed there and they link their professional development activities over the course of the year to district goals uh which are connected to board goals. It creates this common thread among all of the employees here in the district um from the board to the administration and to the staff to make sure that we're all connected and we're all achieving the same goals and working toward the same goals. Um some actions completed. We implemented the new math and language arts standards that were updated from the department of education. We piloted
009new programs in grades four through 8 focusing on math and science instruction. Uh specifically the amplify program in science grades four and five and then edge gems um math materials which will be adopted in the middle school next year grades six, seven, and eight. We provided enhanced dyslexia training to our staff. We've developed um dyslexia resources that are in a share drive for employees, for our teachers. Uh we purchased a new dyslexia screener as well to be used districtwide and um Mrs. Beagle, uh Dr. Brown, and the child study team were really in instrumental in helping us um move our dyslexia portion of our goal forward. Uh we continued providing uh training for sheltered instruction uh to provide enhanced learning for our multilingual learning population. And um at midyear, I'll show you a couple slides
010in a minute. Uh our math and language arts ready diagnostics showed growth beyond the 50th percentile at midyear, which means that students are on pace to uh reach or uh reach their target goals and even achieve their stretch goals for the school year. Um and we've um collected more comparison data between Readington and surrounding districts. We even looked at how our students are performing on the PSAT at the high school and reported that out in edtech. And now we've expanded preschool from seven classrooms in January last year to 14 classrooms September of this year to 16 classrooms starting September of next year, servicing virtually every three and four-year-old in Readington that wants a preschool program. Um here's our achievement in math. Um the progress toward annual typical growth, the median midyear through the school year,
011we would expect 50% to be the median growth for a student by midyear. So a child should grow about halfway halfway through the school year. So there's about 50% learning that happens from September to January. uh we've exceeded the 50% typical growth benchmark um with 61% um of students making progress. This is aggregated across the entire district K through 8. And then similarly in the language arts again we would project that 50% growth would be the target midyear uh we have 89% growth. We are on pace uh to show in both academic and reading as well in math that our achievement can and should go beyond 100% by the time we get to the end of the year. Which means students are achieving what their typical growth would be which is one year of growth
012in one year. But if it's above 100% that means that students have made one year growth and then beyond that one year of growth in one year. So anything above 100% by the end of the year means that students are closing achievement gaps and they're meeting their stretch growth targets. uh which is great. Our communication goal uh again it's connected to a board goal which was communications. Um we've developed a new newsletter format um through S'more. Uh we now have more community outreach with the Chronicle which is a local newspaper as well as the township newsletter. Um we've even worked with the township to get our board briefs and announcements to be pushed out through their list serve. Some of you community members may have received uh the local Readington Township list serve and they'll
013have a blurb in there about the board of education meeting and it includes links to our board briefs. So the community can read about what happens uh at the board of ed meetings. I've noticed when we send board briefs out districtwide, we get about five or six00 viewers on the s'more. The s'mores can give you some data, some feedback. When the township pushes it out, I can see and track from 600 viewers, we get eight or 900 viewers. So there are folks in the township who may not be connected with the schools that are able to see the board briefs and they can see what's happening at the district level which is really nice. Um new communications protocols have been put in place with the district and shared with the leadership team. Those are the
014s'mores protocols. You may notice in Genesis blasts you'll see at the top of the Genesis blast bold and red should said says new for any new information. That that means that that's the new information in the Genesis blast and anything underneath are just reminders for parents. so we can really focus in on new announcements from the schools. And then the key communicators have been identified and the meeting for the key communicators um is next week. I just sent out my reminder today. It'll be in this room and we have, you know, community members, folks from all over Readington Township coming to this meeting. I think we have about 20 participants that have confirmed. Um and this will be an engagement between the community and the schools to get members out there, business owners more involved
015in our schools. Um, and it'll likely include a presentation from our civics students and Mr. Charleston from the middle school about how community members can get involved like today if they want to be part of our civics projects and uh, the Viking visionaries day. Uh, referendum planning. Again, this was connected to the board referendum goal. Um, a timeline of action steps were created. Community input was sought um, in public forums with the RTA, with the HSA and all staff meetings. Jason and I went and visited every faculty meeting back in the fall to solicit feedback about projects that should occur. Uh board tours occurred in each building. I thought that that was a really great use of board members time to come and actually see for yourself some of the projects that were proposed. Um
016a successful board uh resolution appeared in February and we have over 80 projects uh included in the referendum. I spoke today with our communications consultant and we talked about some plans moving forward this summer and into the fall for communications about the referendum in anticipation of a November vote. Um this was really a huge effort on the board's part and I want to thank you for your work and I want to thank Mr. Bow for everything that he did in putting together and organizing uh all of the projects, the presentations, the website. Um Mr. Bow was absolutely instrumental in organizing everything together and creating a timeline for this as well. Um and then our strategic goals. Um at the uh this is uh connected to the academic achievement goal for the board. We developed a
017survey. We surveyed parents, staff and students. Uh our strategic planning subcommittees came together at the March PD day. Uh and then the final presentation was last last board meeting uh back on April 8th. Um and I look forward to uh developing some new strategic goals as we move into next school year as well. Other things we accomplished, uh, sustainable Jersey for schools reertification is underway. It's in process. We've received some feedback from sustainable Jersey, but we are well on our way to achieving, um, silver status hopefully again and some, um, digital stars as well. Um, the board has accomplished quite a bit of governance and policy work. Uh, we've made it a priority on the board to review our policies. Um, thanks to Mrs. the Pinto and the policy committee um and everybody that's reviewing
018our policies and we've revised some of the orientation protocols for new board members as well. So, we've done a lot with governance. We had some presentations about Robert's rules and I think that's go good. It keeps us a highly functioning board. We had a very successful budget cycle given budget constraints. There's a reality that um you know local in our county and across the street state as well that uh budgets are getting tighter and it's getting more and more difficult to balance budgets every year. But uh thanks to the board and to Mr. Balm and and some careful planning uh we were able to tonight vote on a successful budget. Um and we took some final steps in our retention recruitment efforts. We'd had a task force about two years ago and we continued that
019over the course of this year as well. So, um, I Ready data, the academic data shows, um, you know, 50% growth, if not more, over the course of the school year. Our communications planning is is underway. Um, we've, uh, referendum was was a unanimous v vote by the board. We're moving forward with a November vote. Um, and our strategic plan was celebrated this year. So, we've accomplished quite a bit. Um, and, uh, it's been been a fantastic year. And I think that this highlights in brief all of our accomplishments. There's a lot more when we talk later on during executive session of documentation in the folder that you all receive from me. But um a huge thanks to the board uh for your support in these goals, to the administration and to the teachers and
020the staff um who really owned these goals for the past five years and each annual goal um and has really looked to improve the student experience for all of the children of Readington. So excellent work. Any questions from the board? Yeah, I just wanted to comment on the academic achievement. It looked like there was significant improvement from the prior year in terms of the above and and meeting uh grade level expectations. Is that typical? I mean it's like 20% higher maybe. Yeah. So if you look at the the right hand side, if I'm this is math, if you're looking at the right hand side, you know what we want to see is a lot of green. And if you can see that midyear, right? So if you look at the top part of the bar,
02135% and 26% are students in the green from 17% and 22 in the prior year. No uh mid early in the year. So that this is same students se from September to mid year if that's the growth. Yeah, we would have to show you. In fact, I think um if you look back to this time last year, the same presentation, I think the same chart is in there. It's a steady progress. Okay. Because I was like, if we advanced that much year on year, it would be phenomenal. But okay, that's good to know. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Thank you. Any other questions from the board? Okay. Maybe just a comment actually. Um I think that the fact that we have all of these accomplishments to celebrate is amazing given that half the board is
022new this year. So it's really a thank you to you and to Jason for helping with onboarding and to all of the the board members for really just diving right in. This this is impressive. We should celebrate this. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you. Appreciate that. Okay, let's um I'm going to hand it over to Jason to summarize the budget. Um and uh really no changes from uh the county office. The budget remains the same from when we presented earlier in March. Um but I'll have Jason give some highlights and just an overview of uh where we stand as of today. And you'll be voting on this tonight under the finance portion of the agenda to finalize our budget. Thank you, Dr. Art. Um although you stole my thunder. So um welcome everyone. Um budget
023update. So we gave a very thorough budget presentation in March which is also on the website as well as the userfriendly budget for the public um to read through. Um and um what is our budget comprised of? 86% like normal increasing every year is salaries and benefits. Um we are in the people business. Obviously you need teachers and principles to educate students uh which is the purpose of our existence. Um so that represents the vast majority of our um budget and a lot of the mandatory things are in the other color. So blue represents the vast majority. Uh and the shrinking red 4% is where we have been trying to tighten the budget over the years to afford the larger increases due to inflation. Um and I shared this last time. I mean this is
024really the pressure that is on the budget and you see this in surrounding districts and statewide. Um health is over 80% in the past 10 years increase. Um insurance as a as a whole is up dramatically. Um pension which we are required to uh match for PERS members is up dramatically. Um salaries are even just a nominal increase. Um but you can see over time the compounding nature um has risen well above the tax levy. So the tax levy really has um the board has really commended over the years of keeping the tax levy extremely low. Um there was years where we went up 0% um even one year we went negative. Um and unfortunately due to the pressure of all these things that you see here in non green in recent years we've had
025to increase the tax levy not only to not impact student programming. So what does that mean from tax perspective? Um this just gives an a highlight of the past 10 years. Um the district has done a fantastic job of keeping the overall taxes low. We've even refinanced bonds several times to also lower taxes for the public, return tax money to the taxpayers a few times since I've been here. Um, but for this coming year, we're recommending a 3.2% increase. I'd like to highlight that the finance committee originally recommended a 3.7% increase, but state aid came in higher than anticipated and the finance committee uh decided to push the tax levy down by that exact amount that the state aid went up. So the 3.7 proposed was actually lower to the 3.2 which is on for
026vote tonight. Um, so just wanted to recognize how the board is being cognizant of the local taxpayers um while balancing um making sure that students receive the best education possible. And a little bit more on uh state aid. Uh our state aid has been uh generally increasing uh with there is an election in November and there has been times when state aid has been cut. So something to monitor next year onwards uh with a new governor potentially coming into the office. Um but the big thing that has occurred recently which we've mentioned several times in the board meetings recently has been preschool aid. So this chart just shows that um we've always had a preschool program um for general ed kids as well as special needs children. Um, special needs children are the district's responsibility
027from age three and up. Prior to that, they're an early intervention, which is handled by the state. So, in the local tax levy, we are responsible for students with special needs from age three up, which is why we've had always preschool program. Um we've incorporated general education students into an integrated preschool um for years uh decades and that really has been one classroom sometimes two um with a few maybe a dozen general ed children um 20 when it gets high um prior to a year ago and when we were able to secure um the preschool aid with the board voting to go for that funding. You can see how much money we receive extra from the state. We are receiving more money in preschool aid than in our regular state aid. And all of that
028money is going directly to servicing preschool age families in the community who now can have preschool for free. Um, and we've scaled up, as Dr. Arth mentioned um from basically one or two classrooms to 16 classrooms next year servicing close to 90% of our uh universe. Um what has also happened is we still need to provide an education for the three and four year olds with special needs. But I wanted to show this chart that because of the state aid, we've been able to reduce the impact on the local tax levy for the students that are special needs that are integrated into the general ed classrooms. So you can see the number had been escalating and in recent future budgets we have it declining and we're hoping to decline that number further uh moving forward.
029Um, outside of this, there's also a self-contained classroom on occasion, which is separately budgeted in the city. But I just want to show um the diligence of the board to apply for this money, which has dramatically impacted the local community. And we see that with registrations, with people moving here simply for this program. Um, which has been increasing our kindergarten population, um, compared to our grade 8 graduating. So, what does this mean for an average taxpayer? Um, pretty much normal to every other year we've had this. It's a $103 increase on an average assessed home of $453,000. Um, if you have a home that's 900,000, it'd be $26 to put that in perspective. Um there was a reassessment a few years ago which dramatically shifted taxes in town from corporate to residential. Um which coincided
030with an increase to the local taxpayers during the reassessment process. Um so the corporate in town is paying for less of the school than um in previous years. But tonight's the vote uh to finalize the budget. Um, is there any questions on the budget before the vote? I have a question. If you can just go back to the preschool slide just because I'm trying to understand it. Why is such a jump from 2019 2020 to 202021 like 54,000 to 210? It could be um I don't know off top of my head, but I I believe it could be that there could be a shift of students from self-contained, which are not is not on this chart, um over to integrated classrooms. So there could have been a program change, a desire to have more students
031with special needs with their peers in classrooms rather than in separate and in self-contained classrooms. And the district has done um a phenomenal job over the years that I have been here in developing programs that have students with special needs or needing services such as speech or other integrated into the general population. um who they see at home, play with. Um so the coinciding of Stacy Beagle um coming um probably relates to that number increasing um and shifting money from a self-contained expense line item here. Okay. And then why the decrease of 100,000 from last year to next year? So this is this is an interesting mechanism. Um, the state of New Jersey requires um that the local taxpayers pay a specific dollar amount that they determine for every special needs child that's in our
032PA classrooms integrated. And we noted that in the first year um the impact of that which is the $235,000. What we have done is we the state is basically deducting that amount of money $235,000 this year from the amount of aid they would be giving us for PA. So if you look at the 3.3 million that's there, that number should actually be 3.6 million. The state is deducting that amount because of special needs students that we've decided to put into an integrated classroom. So they're penalizing us and saying that the local taxpayers need to contribute to it. Um what we learned is that because of that um impact, we have decided to um lower the budget for the amount of special needs students in those classrooms, which will resulted in us benefiting $105,000 this year.
033Our hope is next year that we will adjust even further and the 130 will get below $100,000. And it's all based on the number of special needs students that we decide to submit to the state of New Jersey to integrate into general ed. If we kept all of the special needs students in self-contained, that number would be zero, which is not optimal for their uh programming. Um, but we learned the penalty that the state was imposing and adjusted this coming year and we're going to continue to adjust moving forward. Uh there's a separate penalty besides this that the state's imposing if you don't spend all of your preschool aid. They um impose a 25% penalty on the leftover funds as well. We learned that this February. So we're going to do it just at the
034end of this year to spend as much money as possible. And so we can't so we can't apply that money to the special education. We cannot apply any preschool aid to special needs students in any capacity. Um and um if we don't spend our money, they penalize us. So there's an incentive to spend every penny of preschool. Okay. Interesting. We we've also learned that this is an estimate. We've learned when we submit the application in November, we have to estimate the number of integrated students into the preschool program for special ed. We learned last year when we overestimate, they withhold the money. If we underestimate, it's better to underestimate because then we would get the money and we can adjust. So, we've kind of learned how to estimate more accurately. Thank you. Any other questions
035on the budget or taxes that you're voting on this evening? Thank you very much. Thanks, Jason. I have two more uh quick announcements um that I want to highlight for the board of ed and for uh those that are here in the public. Um and f both are a lot of fun. Um the first is staff appreciation week uh starts at Readington next week on May 5th with National Teacher Appreciation Day being Tuesday, May 6th. And as we celebrate teacher appreciation week, I want to take a moment and recognize and honor the dedicated professionals in our schools um where we have places of learning, growth, and safety for all students. So, our teachers are at the heart of our education. They're skilled, passionate, and committed to helping every student reach their full potential. They spark
036curiosity, nurture resilience, and guide children with wisdom and care every day. But our schools thrive not only because of our incredible teachers, but because of the entire team of professionals who support students and keep our buildings running. Our school counselors and child study team provide invaluable care to the emotional and social well-being of our students, often serving as the first line of support during difficult times. Our nurses ensure the health and safety of children, treating injuries, managing chronic conditions, and offering reassurance when it's needed most. PAR professionals work tirelessly to support students with specialized instructional needs. But we also owe a deep gratitude to administrators, school secretaries, custodians, and maintenance personnel, often the first to arrive and last to leave school every day. Their hard work ensures our schools operate smoothly, remain clean, welcome, safe
037environments for everyone. Our technology crew ensures that our network is secure, giving students access to enhanced digital technologies, and they come to board meetings and make sure that we're all online and working too. Pablo Picasso said, "The meaning of life is to find your gift, and the purpose of life is to then give it away." So, I want to thank all of those who cultivate the gifts that we have in our children and teach them how to give it away. A resolution appears on tonight's agenda, item 5.18, recognizing the efforts of all of our staff. And I'll take this little blurb and I'll make sure that I send it to the staff tomorrow as well, uh, or Monday for staff appreciation. So, um, a fun week. I think next week is in store through the
038HSA for all of our teachers and staff. I think each day is a themed activity. I don't know, lots of food and things like that happen next week and games and giveaways and things like that for all of our staff. Uh my other announcement tonight too um is back on at the March board of education meeting uh this board approved uh the appointment of a new director of pupil services, Mrs. Rebecca Burns, and she was unable to be with us um back in March. Uh but she is here tonight. Uh so I'd like to take a moment to introduce Rebecca to the board now. Hello everyone. How are you? Very good. Welcome. Thank you very much. Hold on a second, Rebecca. I've got a whole bunch of nice things to say first. Can I do
039that first? Yeah, just just listen and wait and it'll be great. You're going to love it. Um, the first thing um that the screening committee noticed about Rebecca's resume is her experience as both a general education and special education teacher as well as a response to intervention coordinator. She's also earned her certificate as a reading specialist. This shows us shows us that Rebecca knows education from both the general education and special education perspective with a focus on literacy. During her screening interview, we were very impressed with how she discussed the multi-tered system of support she implemented at Flemington. She also spoke of collecting data and using rubrics to make the most appropriate programmatic choices for students. When she talked about data, it just goes right to my heart. Rebecca is also a strong advocate for
040the for a parent's voice in special education. She demonstrates this through her commitment in her doctoral studies, which she where she's currently researching ways in which parents can be more involved in the IEP process. She has experience with supervising preschool programs, which the screening committee was thought was an added bonus to Rebecca's candidacy. During her final round interview, Rebecca answered a question so thoughtful with just five simple words. She said, quote, "Invest in people, not in programs." End quote. This was her way of telling us how she supports teachers and their work to ensure the best of possible outcomes for students. Rebecca's current supervisor could not speak highly enough of her. She used the following words to describe her strategic, genuine, and resourceful. I'm thrilled to welcome Rebecca to the Readington Township Schools. Her vast
041experience and deep knowledge of special education will serve our students well. Congratulations, Rebecca. You know what I can say? I feel like you said it all. Whatever you want. I didn't know I was going to be quoted from the beginning. I surprised you. Um, and I'm really excited to be getting Readington. I born and raised in Hunter County myself. My children attend Delaware Township. I've been in Flemington Raridan since 2005 as a teacher and an administrator. So Hunter County is definitely where my heart is. Uh so I'm excited to join the Readington team. I've been here about five days already and I feel like it's such a welcoming environment. I've met with a lot of people already um prior to my July 1 because I think it's important to just understand and just absorb all
042of the information that I can from, you know, Miss Bele who's leaving. But I know that she'll be on a speed dial when she um you know finally enjoys her retirement. Um but I'm excited also because I think it's a perfect time to start as a new director with the new strategic planning coming up. I'm excited to be part of that um and to carry on that work for the next five years. So I'm very excited to start July 1st. Thank you. Thank you, Rebecca. Welcome. That concludes my superintendent's report. Turn it back over to you Mr. for any questions from the board or anything like that? [Music] Okay, excellent. Thank you, Dr. Hart. You're very welcome. Okay, our next item on the agenda is public comments. Um, it's for items that are on the
043agenda. There'll be another section for public comments for anything on or off the agenda later on. So, does anyone wish to make any public comments? [Music] Okay, next item. There were no correspondences, so we're just going to go straight to approval administrative reports. We have one item, um, 101. So, can I get someone for a motion for item 101 as well as a second? Sure, Justina. Second. Okay. Any comments? Okay. Get a roll call closer. M. Cassie. Yes. Mrs. Fury, yes. Mr. Lopes, yes. Mener, yes. Miss Borski, yes. Mrs. Ryan, yes. Mr. Pendo, yes. Mr. Yes. Passes. Next item is the approval of minutes. We have items 2.01 to 2.02. Can I get a motion in a second? I'll move that one. Second. Okay. Thank you. Any comments, discussion? Mrs. Cassidy, yes. Mrs. Fury, yes.
044Mr. Lopes, yes. Mrs. Benson, abstain. Morski, yes. Mrs. Ryan, abstain. Mrs. Pinto, yes. Mr. Rosa, yes. Okay, next item is finance and facilities. There is no committee report for this month. There'll be one for next month. So, we're just going to move right into the three items. Jason covered it in detail the budget earlier today. It's five items. Items 301 through 305. Can I get a motion and then a second? So, move Michelle. Thank you. Any discussion on the items? Mrs. Cassie. Yes. Mrs. Fury. Yes. Mr. Lopes. Yes. Mener, yes. Mrs. Borski, yes. Mrs. Ryan, yes. Minto, yes. Mr. R. Yes. Passive. Okay. Next item is EdTech. Once again, no committee report for this month. We have four items. 401 through 404. Get a motion and then a second. Motion. I'll second. Any discussion? Ms.
045Cassie. Yes. M. Fury. Yes. Mr. Rose. Yes. M. Ner. Yes. M. Porski. Yes. M. Ryan. Yes. Mrs. Deinto. Yes. Mr. Dizzo. Yes. Next item is personnel. We do actually have a committee report that Caroline will be reading out. There are 21 items allowed. So before we do the committee report, can I get a motion and a second on the 21 items? I'll move Allen. Second. Okay. Yes. So, we uh met last Friday, April 25th, and uh we discussed a personnel matter uh administrative structure, shared services agreement for the business department, and additional staffing updates. And uh the agenda items uh are new hires, resignations, renewal of contracts, and transfers. Um, at the time of the uh notes, it was TBD for the next meeting, but I think it's been set for 30th. May 30th. May
04630th. Excellent. Thank you. Any discussion? I I have a comment. Uh, I wanted to acknowledge the resignation of Mrs. Ganguza um since section 5.21 and want to thank her for her contributions to the school district. She was a sub for two of my daughters and has been a a fifth grade teacher at Holland Brook for the last two years and I know many of her students. Um I wanted to acknowledge her enthusiasm and her joy that she uh was such a bright spot in the fifth grade hallway. Um and I feel like her absence will be noticed by you know future Holland Brook students. So thank you Mrs. Gibson. Good luck. Thank you. Any other comments? Mrs. Cassie regretfully. Yes. M. Fury. Yes. Mr. Lopes. Yes. Mrs. Mener. Yes. Morski. Yes. Mrs. R. Yes. Mrs.
047Pinto. Yes. Mr. Rosa. Yes. Uh, next item is communication. Um, I do know we have a report. Before we move to that, there's three items. 61 to 63. Can we get a motion and a second of that? Second. The policy communications committee met on April 16th at 400 p.m. Uh the agenda included uh the first agenda item was policy tracking document for review of the thousand series. The committee has worked through all of the policies in the thousand series of the manual and made their notes. The committee will review these policies and edits during our next meeting in May. We also reviewed the um bylaw folder. The committee reviewed the updated bylaws to ensure they reflected the suggested edits discussed in previous meetings. Um a summary of those revisions include um for bylaw 01 adoption
048resolution, we just added the date and updated the address. Uh for bylaw 0110 uh identification, we updated the address in there. For bylaw 0132, executive authority, no change needed and it was removed from the board agenda. Um for bylaw 0134, board self-evaluation. Uh this reflects our commitment to our board self-evaluation for our own appraisal to ensure accountability to the public. For bylaw 0141, board member number and term, we added language to clarify that a vacancy shall be filled by a roll call vote of the majority of present board members. Uh for bylaw 0142, board member qualifications, prohibited acts changed uh 3 years to one year to match state and county codes. for bylaw 0142.1 nepotism. We added language regarding PDM substitutes and student employees who are relatives of a board member or the superintendent of
049schools which makes this policy consistent with the updates in code for bylaw 0143 uh board member election and appointment. We removed language regarding type 2 regionalized districts and replace remaining with present were appropriate in a few places. For bylaw 0145, board member resignation and removal, we added voluntary resignation of a board member to the list along with examples of good cause. For bylaw 0146, board member authority, we added statement added a statement that board members shall refer all public complaints to the superintendent. For bylaw 0153, uh annual appointments, we added a few types of annual appointments the board can make. Examples include attendance officers, school positions, etc. For bylaw 0155, board committees, we memorialized our current practices, listed our committees and rules of our meetings. We added a statement that recording committee meetings is prohibited,
050and board of education members, current and past, shall respect the confidentiality of committee meetings. For bylaw 0164, conduct of board meeting, we added the order of our board meetings, including board actions and committee reports. For bylaw 0167, public participation in board meetings, we added the following language. In order to provide sufficient opportunity for the public to be heard, a time limit of three minutes for each participant may be observed, and no participant may seed their three minutes to another participant. Every effort will be made to allow all members of the public an opportunity to speak not to exceed three minutes per person. This may be adjusted as the board president sees fit. For bylaw 0168, recording board meetings, we added the following language that board of education members are prohibited from recording board of education
051meetings and committee meetings. Board of Education members current and past shall respect the confidentiality of committee meetings. For bylaw 0169, board member use of electronic mail and internet. We added a paragraph that states, "Board members are reminded that as elected officials, they are held to a higher standard and bound by their oath when engaging on social media. When making posts on social media platforms, the member shall be guided by the code of ethics for schoolboard member regardless of the use of this of the disclaimer. For bylaw 0171, duties of board president and vice president, we added more specific guidelines that match what we do in practice. For 0174, uh legal services, we added language to define who is responsible for reviewing the legal bills to ensure prudent use of legal services. for by one 0177
052professional services. We made minor changes to the language. Um a sentence was added regarding RFPs. Um we then reviewed three uh bylaws that are to be abolished. 0131.1 Education Technology Committee we abolish because it is included in another policy. For bylaw 0147 board member travel expenses, we abolish this because it is included in another policy as well. And for bylaw 0155.01 board member participation of board meetings using electronic devices. We abolished this because it is no longer needed as it was as it was created for co error purposes. We then reviewed the referendum communication. Um we went over brainstorming. There will be a mailer. Dr. Hart will discuss this with the communications consultant. We also discussed board meetings in the fall. There will be two in September. um one at three bridges, one at White
053House School. The board meetings will take place at these schools and there will be one in October at Holland Brook Schools and RMS. The purpose of having these meetings is uh to open up the buildings and allow walkthroughs for the public. Uh there will be two informational meetings in September and October. These meetings will be public forums with Dr. Hart, Mr. Boom and the architects to provide an opportunity for the public to um ask questions. Community events um and tables. The committee made suggestions of some community events such as the summer spectacular at Summer Road Park, National Night Out and Touch of Truck event. Um and then the school calendar for 2026 2027. Um Dr. Hart is going to reach out to the high school to see if it's possible to align our calendar with
054theirs. and the committee discussed the pros and cons of both calendar options. Uh this is still under review. There is an option one for kids starting after Labor Day and option two for students to start before Labor Day. Um agenda items are bylaws listed above and our next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, May 28th at 4 p.m. Thank you. Any discussion? I have a comment and a question. First, I just want to say thank you to the policy committee because that is a huge undertaking to go through all these policies and I don't even know when the last time that was probably done. So, huge thank you for that. Um, my only question is on 0168 about um recording committee meetings. Would would that conflict at all if we find a way to do the
055meeting minutes? Yeah, I think we um discussed in committee to keep the minutes um handwritten manual notes being taken um for confidentiality. Yes, that was Thank you. That's why I was just like that would conflict if we did. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Did you want to review the minor change? It was to 0155, correct? I did have one suggestion for the board to consider. One of the items for 055 is that um we're saying that the public could join committee meetings at the recommendation of the committee chair. So I just thought we may need to put a line in there just to remind the board members that to be cognizant that the public's present and not to accidentally disclose um confident information. So just more of like a reminder line that the public's there. Um
056and confidentiality still remains. So something for the board to consider. Wait, for which meetings? The board I mean it's for any committee in within 155. It says the chair can now invite public. It's in 0155. Yeah, for committees. Okay. And that currently happens with the green committee now because that's open to the public as well as the board. So it is easy to accidentally disclose something. And so I just thought maybe memorize it in the uh in the policy was really up to you guys if you think that's worth putting in. I'm just curious. Um I know for the green committee that makes sense because of the way the committee is constructed, but for u finance and personnel that seems like it wouldn't be appropriate. Can you just I'm sure you guys talked about that.
057How are you thinking about that for committees where often confidential information is you know the primary agenda topic? Do you mean like for inviting public Is the intent public to come to the finance or the personnel committee? It be up to the chair to invite it. Right. So if you didn't invite the public, they wouldn't be there. There's also an item I think for representatives, right? So you may have that. Yes. You may have at the last finance meeting there is a representative from the um I think insurance company. So along those lines so the chair can invite a representative probably for finance won't invite public but uh it was just added to the policy that one specific statement. Okay. And the statement would be just to be cautious of confidential information. Just as a
058reminder thanks for clarifying. Yeah. I correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think the intent intent of the language is to invite the public to participate in committee meetings if that's your question. I don't know that. I thought that might be your question, right? Do I have that correct? Like we're not looking to engage the public in coming to committee meetings on a regular basis, but it's just if we have um like Dr. Moss was a guest speaker at edtech, in fact, all of the supervisors are at edtech. If our insurance broker is at uh finance, um if members of the public, the actual public are at Green Community, but I don't think the intention was to open them up to the public on a regular basis. All right, that's helpful. Thank you. Plus what
059I was just thinking if you do invite them just to be cognizant and just as a reminder in the policy don't disclose anything accidentally you know that's confidential and I I think um just making sure people hear the process that we've used in finance is when we have a guest we do that topic first and then we thank them and ask them to depart. So I think that works well. Yeah. Okay. Thanks for the clarification. Any other comments? A lot of policies. Okay. Roll call. Mrs. Cassidy. Yes. Mrs. Fury. Yes. Mr. Lopes. Yes. Mrs. Ner. Yes. Mrs. Borski? Yes. Mrs. Ryan? Yes. Mrs. Pinto? Yes. Ma? Yes. Okay. Um, next item is unfinished business. Is there anything a board member wants to bring up? Done. New business from the board. Um I don't know if
060there's any delegate reports. Yes. I have a report from the Garden State Coalition of Schools meeting from April 23rd. Uh Victor R. McDonald was present um from the New Jersey Council on Local Mandates. And this is a little known uh committee that's formed from nonpartisan appointments uh from the governor and other judicial nominations. They're unpaid. They have judicial powers without judicial oversight. Basically, uh what they're there for is if um in our circumstance, if a board or superintendent or municipality identifies, um a state mandate that has been issued, if there is not adequate funding for that, you can submit a complaint and to this committee and they will review it. They said it doesn't happen often. In 29 years, there's only been 25 challenges and nine of them resulted in a nullification of the law.
061Um, it's very effective as a deterrent power and it's not common in other states, but they wanted to make sure that we were all aware of it because some of the examples of the challenges that have gone forward was around radon testing in school. Seems like a great idea, but a bunch of districts went through and did all of this testing and then it was challenged and it turned out it should have been funded by the state. Uh, same with HIV initiatives, special education service expansions to three-year-olds, charter school funding. there was a a lot of these state mandates that were coming through without funding. So, it's something for us to be aware of. Their advice was it's better to hold off and challenge and spend the money because you will never get that money
062back. So, that is my report for today. Thank you, P. Sure. Any comments? Okay. Next item is the second. I'm sorry, Mr. President. Can I interrupt for just one second? Uh this is under uh new business and it's just uh I wanted to talk just very briefly about the next board meeting in May and I forgot to put it on the agenda. Um next board meeting is a board of education meeting where we honor all of our governor's educators of the year and our retirees. Um I'm would like to plan on using the same process we used last year like the um reception will start at 6:15. It would be about 45 minutes. Um and you're it's optional for board members 45 minutes of coming you know talking with teachers honores staff members there'll be
063plenty of food we've worked with Machio Mashios to host the food um I thought we would do the same thing as last year have the board come back to this room open up the board meeting put a sign on the door that will continue the superintendent's report down in the cafeteria where uh we'll have the speeches honoring all of our retirees and our um governor's educators of the year. Um and then we would return back here for the duration of our meeting because this room just gets too crowded with everybody who's here. Plus, all the food is down there, too, which is nice. Um is that okay? Is that reasonable for everybody? Just so just remember if you're coming at 6:15 or before 7, go to the cafeteria. I'll have Jason gather everybody or at
064least a quorum to open the meeting here and then return back to the cafeteria. um rather than doing everything there. We It's difficult to live stream and everything from the cafeteria. So, we'll start there um food there, come here, open the meeting, and then return to um the cafeteria. Sound good? Do you have that date off hand? Sorry. May I say May 13th? May 13th. Thank you. May 13th. That's all I have. Excellent. Thank you, Dr. Okay. Next item is open to comments from the public. It could be for any item on or off the agenda. So open it up if anyone has comments. Okay. Please step up. Just write your name, state your town, and um turn on the mic. Okay, good evening. Uh, my name is Mike Kim. Uh, I live here in
065Readington. Um, I'm not sure if this is the right place for me to discuss this or not, but my wife and I aren't getting a lot of solutions uh for my four-year-old, sorry, my three-year-old that's going to be starting the prek program uh this coming September. Um, she was placed in Berry Patch. Um, however, we would like to have her be switched to White House Prep. Um, and the reason is my older daughter, uh, who's six years old, who's at White House, no, excuse me, Three Bridges, uh, previously went to White House prep. And when we enrolled my six-year-old, um, we were under the assumption that because she's an alum, our, you know, the three-year-old can also attend White House prep. Um the responses that we got from board of ed was that she can't
066switch schools uh due to whatever reason but um you know we're willing to provide transportation and whatnot. So you know there's like no liabilities from I guess your perspective again correct me if I'm wrong. Um, so you know, I again I don't know if this is the right forum to to to talk about this, but I just we weren't getting any resolution. So we'd like to see what I need to do next, you know, in terms of who I need to speak with in terms of trying to make this happen. Okay. Thank you for your comment. Um, so Dr. I guess you'll follow afterwards or do you want to uh Mr. Kim, I'll I'll you do you have contact information in Genesis? Can I contact you, reach you or do you have an older child
067here, correct? Yeah, you have an older child. Okay. At Holland Brook at uh Three Bridges. At three bridges. Yeah. Um we have not spoken. So, let me let me talk with I'll I'll talk with you try to understand. I don't know if you've spoken to Mrs. Beagle who supervises the preschool program. Okay. Yes. I called, left message, and Okay. Not much has happened. Okay. Um so, yeah, we can talk about it. I I will reach out to you directly. I I don't know if we can make that accommodation because um I I think all of our centers are full right now, but let me look into it and let me give you a call. Okay. Well, I'm just going to add when I spoke with Miss Sarah also, I you know, I was also told
068that there's children moving back and forth between different schools. Apparently, a spot opened up. Okay. So, that's kind of how the reason why, you know, like, oh, if we could make the transmission that that'd be great. There are a lot of moving parts, I will say. Yeah, there are we've got six locations for preschool and we have to we we only have a certain capacity, right? Um so let me look into Mrs. Beagle and I'll give you a call. Great. Okay. Appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. C. Thank you for your comments. Anyone else online? There's no online. Okay. Excellent. Okay. Next, we'll be moving into executive session. Um, so we're going to have a motion to adopt the following resolution. Resolve to adjourn to executive session in accordance with the Sunshine Law to discuss HIV's
069student matter and a superintendent evaluation and training for approximately 45 minutes at which time the board expects to return to public session where action shall be taken. The matters discussed will be made public if and when circumstances require under confidentiality no longer exist. However, it is not presently known when such circumstances will exist. Can I get a second on this motion? Second. Second. Thank you. Can I get a roll call? Miss Cassidy. Yes. Miss Fury. Yes. Mr. Lopes. Yes. M. Mener. Yes. Miss Borsy. Yes. Mrs. Ryan. Yes. Mr. Dependo. Yes. Siz. Yes.