001[Music] got it when [Music] like Zoom you have radium under your chair okay I'd like to call the order uh the public meeting for today March 13th Mr Jones please call the role Miss Barbie Here M bow here Mr Bal here M BR here drowsky here M serani here M Winkler here M Williams Mr M here for is present please stand for the pledge of allegion [Music] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay uh we just came out of executive session uh we had a Personnel report Hib suspension and detention and legal status report for president announcement the New Jersey open public meeting law is enacted to ensure the right
002of the public to have advanced notice of an attendance meeting it's public bodies of which business affecting their interest is disclosed discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provision of the act the scotch M family board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having date time and place thereof posted by the Board of Education offices located 313 South Avenue Fanwood such notice is also provided in written notice form forwarded to the Union County Haw to start Ledger the township CL of Scots L and the B CL of food the annual notice of regular scheduled meetings as adopted April 25th 2024 revised August 274 no additions to the agenda and I will pass the to Dr mass for the superintendent so so this evening we have two important reports one
003is Christopher Jones will be presenting the budget along with the administrative team and we have some exciting uh work that has come from Evergreen that's going to be showcased this evening but I I don't want to give away the surprise so thank student rep reports all right so so far um Matt can't be here tonight because he's performing right now at opening night of Freaky Friday um make sure to get your tickets for the performance this weekend we have Friday at 7 p.m. Saturday at 7:00 p.m. and Sunday at 2: p.m. also what's been going on at the high school there's been NJ GPA testing which is taking place for juniors which has been happening for about four days um and will continue for the rest of the week we also have our Spanish exchange
004students have arrived from Barcelona and we've had a welcome ceremony breakfast this Tuesday where the moon glowers also performed we've also had a bunch of student finalists for business Club here at the high school such as Deca and FAA and we've represented SPF very well and have several students going to Deca Nationals including Jordana silverene and Caroline louder as well as those going to fbaa Nationals Jordana silverine Gabby Frenchman who plays first at SLC um Friday sadani who plays first and Cameron Evans and Sophie supero who play second in their respective events we also have PSAT testing next week for sophomores and a bunch of spring Sports Tri outs are also happening this week we also have senior support day which is tomorrow where senior CI uh citizens are arriving tomorrow morning where SGA the
005student body government Association will work diligently to entertain and tour the senior citizens around the school thank you Grace all right we will now move to I think why everybody's sitting here in front of us sure so I will ask our principal woman can you please maybe introduce the um third grade presentations and we're going to swing around so we can see everything good evening everyone it's so nice to see all of you we are really excited to welcome our third grade representatives and our third grade teachers here to show you a little taste of the wax museum so I'm going to ask Mrs Soha to give a sum of what this project entailed and all of the hard work that our students put forth to make these presentations so wonderful thank you so much
006to the board of education for allowing us to come toight to Showcase this work and to all of our students and their families and our teachers for joining toight I'll turn it over to Mrs hello everyone student interest and choice can be linked to student engagement productivity and ultimately student achievement this all proved itself to be true when we introduced the wax museum project as a way to culminate our non-fiction reading and writing units in February in Ben three of the reading unit titled reading to learn students are introduced to narrative biographies as a genre of non-fiction reading linking this to a final writing piece in the writing to inform unit students took all they learned and linked it to many lessons in both reading and writing to create a book about a person of
007their choice who has made a positive impact or on or contribution to society students used reading skills and strategies to learn all they could about these very important individuals and then demonstrated their understanding through a non-fiction book about their person next students dressed up becoming their person and with the Press of a button came to life demonstrating their public speaking skills by reciting a speech in the first person students surpassed our expectations and blew everyone who visited the museum away wants to come up and the board members want to come up and sit in this can press this one okay you guys can start you to press his [Laughter] button hello my name is I was born on August 21st 1986 in Jamaica when I was a young boy I played Cricket I'm well known
008five and my theast asan 9 to be thank you a great day my name is I was born August 21st 198 in Jamaica when I was a young boy I played Cricket I'm well known to have five Ms some of my most Sur proud comp friends di been called the fastest man in the world and I BR my full Rec to Beijing China 9.69 seconds i' would like to be a member as the fastest man in the world thank you have a great [Applause] day my name is daav Crockett I was born in Tennessee in 1768 and died at the alamoo in 1836 I famous for exploring the wild western frontier I most part of the seven years I served in conference kids still love to hear of my Adventures thanks for coming to see
009me at the Rock Museum [Applause] byebye you want to push the button hello hello with King born in 1929 in I am I CL live anything I times did not like what I was doing I to a person who CH to [Applause] hello my name is s I was born around the year 1788 in country island I'm well known because I went on a listen CL Expedition most part accomplishments are translating during the louison park Expedition with riding F Expedition but most of all it's how much I helped him did you know when I was born America was a new country I'd like to be remembered as a girl that carried a baby on on my back all the way to the fa thank you have a nice [Applause] day hello my name is re
010b g I was born March 15th 1933 in Brooklyn New York I'm well known because it helped gender equality and peace and was a ring Supreme Court justice so I most proud accomplishments of I was a national leader for around the world when my became a Justice I changed again for women's opportunities people said that when could be suprem Court Justice by away their expectations did you know that when I was born my first name was J there are a lot of other Jones people call me by my middle name r and when I was a judge I different necklaces to sh you agreed or not I love you remember that someone for gender equality [Applause] hi my name Isa my favorite color is pink I was born in mangora Pakistan when I was 11
011girls were not allowed to go to school the talibans shot me in the head while I was riding the bus home from school when I was 15 after that they moved to Bingham England I started my blog story of a school girl I wonder Noble Peace Prize when I was 17 years old for girls education as I all say we realize the importance of our voices only when we are [Applause] silenced hello my name is Jackie Robinson I was born on January 3rd 199 in Ral Cairo Georgia I'm well known because I was the first African American to play for a major league baseball MLB team some of my most proud accomplishments are serving in the military and joining the Dodgers did you know after ITI I still in connected with my wife Rachel and
012three children one named jockie junr I'd like to be remembered as a great baseball player and inspiration to other African-American baseball players thank you and have a nice [Applause] day hello my name is Mary K I was born on November 7 1867 in war which is capital of Po I'm well known because I discovered a new metal I called it radio I didn't know that radium was actually hurting me this is because I was working with it for so many years I eventually got inflected by it and unfortunately died some of my most proud accomplishments are being one of the first women scientists discovering reading and one of the few women who went to college in addition I also ended up marrying a scientist and having two children did you know I had a pet
013tiger Nam ex I would like to be remembered as the reason we can he care cancer and one of the most famous women scientists thank you and have a nice [Applause] [Music] day they were so good we'll have some comments and questions so if you can pass the mic I am so impressed with all of you guys did you you didn't all work on your own project you had help you worked with a group of people right you did this I'm did you have fun yes all right well that's all that counts especially that you taught us a whole lot and that was amazing and awesome thank you so much I want to thank you guys guys for coming here tonight and sharing your work with us it's uh it's Brave first of all because
014you know it's like a room full of adults that you don't know and you're sharing all this information which is really cool um you represent our schools and and um and we're just so proud of you was was amazing what what a what a really great project this was sounds like you learned a lot and um thank you I just want to thank all of you I mean the courage to come up here and speak in front of all of us is cannot be easy I know what that's like the presentations are fantastic the artwork speeches and now you know if you want to get out of the house on a school night Board of Education thank you what a wonderful job and and and I love all the people that you picked and you
015I learned something new about every single one of them so thank you very much for sharing that knowledge with us I just thought you look at all of you and I can tell I could tell who you were before I saw the the posters you guys did a really great job and what an incredible variety of really cool people you represented really nice job I agree I I love your selections you picked people that really have contributed to society in extremely different ways and I appreciate that and also I mean you could have just done the posters and that would have been great I would have learned from that but this presentation was so Dynamic and engaging and your speaking skills are truly amazing and so thank you for coming to present to us appreciate
016it so I want to follow up on uh what was just said about uh your speaking skills one of the things I'm supposed to report on tonight are all the good things happening in our schools and one of the things on the list was your wax museum project and this work that you did so we're very lucky these are our favorite me when we get to actually see not just red on a list but actually see it come to life and all the people who are viewing are getting to see too how wonderful these kinds of things are and I don't know if you realize but we have a student on our board who was reporting earlier about things happening at the high school and you all spoke so well I'm sure one of you
017all might be up there when you're old enough so keep that in mind and of course wonderful things don't happen unless we have wonderful teachers so thank you for for the guidance of this great project and additionally wonderful costumes don't happen without the support the one so thank you for that get and also Christoper is going to have a tough time following this the budget present that was super that was awesome my nanny kid did this last year and she was um oh gosh yes thank you I should have known but she did H and tell her so we were practicing the whole time and we had a lot of fun moms and dad [Music] get thanks everyone thank [Applause] that's for kid yes per [Music] day yeah it's [Music] over more than just the
018usual today everybody wants to know about the [Music] budget H let they're like show some graphs and stuff got turn around I feel we're going to go right into the budget presentation U Mr Jones will present it'll be on the screen um we have to push Aon said I wear anything I just know we got to turn around so of course everything we do we try to connect very closely to the district Mission the mission of Scotch Plains Fanwood Public Schools is to educate every student to become a confident and caring lifelong learner who can communicate and contribute POS positively to the rapidly changing World The District in cooperation with the community will provide an academic environment which values excellent initiative and diversity as we look ahead to the 2526 school year we've established clear
019goals to guide our budget planning process first and foremost we're committed to using all funding efficiently to maximize our community's investment in education every dollar must deliver value for our students we're also allocating resources to successfully complete our 22 through 2025 strategic plan while simultaneously engaging the community in developing our next strategic plan for 2026 and Beyond this ensures continuity in our educational Vision despite the challenging economic climate we're all experiencing we're determined to respond without negatively impacting our instructional programs or Services we've made strategic adjustments in areas like transportation and Staffing while preserving what matters most to student achievement finally we remain focused on ensuring our schools are secure well-run and wellmaintained this includes continued investment in our maintenance reserves and security infrastructure to provide safe effective learning environments for all students and staff
020no need to push my button Mr moris um our kirkum instruction priorities for 2526 reflect our ongoing commitment to educational Excellence we'll Implement annual goals related to our 2225 strategic plan through targeted program development and professional learning we're continuing our focus on educating the whole child through the Second Step curriculum which helps students develop crucial social emotional skills additionally we're entering year three of our uh teaching for social justice Academy as part of our commitment to diversity equity and inclusion a key Initiative for next year is the continued expansion of dual enrollment opportunities giving our students the chance to earn college credits while still in high School we're proud to partner with several prestigious institutions including the University of Delaware which will be offering courses in entrepreneurship and sustainable design Kane University with a course
021on racism genocide and the Holocaust Union College which provides a course on contemporary business and we're exploring an opportunity through the College of New Jersey to Pilot advanced placement credits through equivalency courses at the college these Partnerships demonstrate our commitment to creating advanced educational Pathways that prepare our students for Success Beyond High School while making College more accessible and affordable for our families so this our enrollment as of October 15th we have seen enrollment stabilized recently partly due to some delayed openings and new developments uh and we haven't seen the impact of the birth rate rements yet which we wouldn't expect I would expect uh probably not even next year the year after wouldn't we really expect to spike with the the birth rate so you know I think it's difficult to uh time the
022time the the rment and how it changes uh but you know we are still up okay expenses so looking at the general fund over this the majority of our expenses uh of course the budget maintains programs and services but you see the transportation budget has been significant Factor over the past couple years and thankfully it started to uh stabilize we saw at the end of last year um towards the end of the year and um you know we budget a little bit higher this year so it's gone pretty much hasn't gone down it's really just staying flat but we've also had some you know uh out of District students that have special out that have aged out of our program so that we don't so the numbers are down so that what drivs your cost
023slower um and we always do we've reworked some of the routes so we've tend taken some different strategies where we thought we'd have to add a new route but um by reworking it we've delayed it for another year um so happy to report that um and you know we always go to lowest bid so as the market changes it's sort of live for us because everything goes out to bid we we're required about the state to take the lowest bid so as costs go up and or go down we sort of see it in real time terms of the salaries uh 2.8% and the reason is for that the way we can get sort of get away with that even though our contract rate is high than that it's cuz we're we spend a lot
024of time like right now once a week we're meeting and going through sapping and and making sure that any new hire that we need is absolutely needed and as students shift in between grades and schools we shift around staff as needed so we're 100% focused on that it's our it's absolute biggest cost and we make sure that we agonize over any any changes or new hires and uh it's shown in some of the numbers that we have so the pension pensions tough so the pension costs are continue to go up I think um municipality will talk about this as well and we have no control over this um they set the rate for us and they just keep increasing I think a couple years ago our our annual increase was around 150,000 you can see
025now it's almost up to 200 this is an estimate at this point we don't have the final numbers um but yeah they they keep pushing the uh pension cost down to the local level um and you know it's just sort of we have to do its mandatory I think you can see here the biggest mover on this slide is health insurance U we've really seen um a major increase in health insurance and I'll go into a little more detail in the next slide so slide says it all here um we had some we had relatively stable cost for 5 years uh in health insurance and now it's really uh spiked significantly and I just wanted to show some of the action we taken to try to mitigate this as much as possible so there's we
026can join with other schools or even municipalities to try to pull our claims and really that eliminates your variability you know as as you know one school one town has a difficult year and another town has a a positive year and so it mitigates the up and down but because the high claims that we have and they are very significant um we are rejected you know those those Insurance those they don't want to allow in um you know an organization that will drive up their numbers um another thing we did uh last year we combined our medical and dental to you know use Etna uh to increase our purchasing power but even after the one year claims they uh push back on that and uh and actually we actually switch Dental out again you know
027because because to get a lower cost and of course we we go out to bid when we have to and by doing that uh we're able to we're able to use that the lower bids to you know put pressure on our current provider and when I say lower cost it's not you know let's just say then we're looking at between 15 and 20% increase which is crazy and then maybe the lowest they're coming in at 18 we go to the lowest bid and they're like oh we'll do 15 so you know lows it like but still you know a massive um increase uh and we're doing um everything we can uh to mitigate the uh uh the cost so it's the sort of standard slide we have every year I think it just drive home
028the point that the vast majority of our expenses are fixed uh he benefits and salaries Transportation which is uh regulated by Statute and law and that's the majority cost so we really don't have uh much flexibility in terms of uh how we can change expense we can move expenses around sort of get into the other uh we like to do a lot of detail here so that people know we take this very seriously um you know we continue to see you know our service special services occupational physical therapist and also nurses as well the shortages for these positions and so because of that they continue to increase prices and I expected to do do it again next year uh as I mentioned before some of the uh Co out of District students have aged out
029so we're able to take that savings on the out of District tuition um that helps us out uh and then we switched uh to a a new custodial vendor you know we make we're always looking at prices I mean our custodial expenses are you we have eight schools you can imagine um the cost of supplies and uh we switch our vendor and by streamlining that we we got some good savings we're just it just shows we're we're looking at everything to try to push a limit of reducing costs and we increase our use server Reser maintenance Reserve this year um and that we're going to get try to get ahead that's going to be for roofing repairs um air conditioning repairs so we have you know HVAC and more than half of the district has
030HVAC right now but of course they require maintenance um and those parts are significantly expensive um by using this maintenance Reserve we can uh extend the life of the agac that we have uh and when we have to be replace a unit we have to go to our capital reserve so we try to extend the life of those as much as we can uh and this this shows that we we're constantly thinking about ways that we can get in front of it um and we also use this These funds for uh Paving uh throughout the district and we've seen a reduction in our Medical Dental waivers as well so we're able to take that Runner we saw it uh two years ago really come in we want to see another year of reduction in there
031um because is such a tight budget this year uh we really had to take the take that out um out of the room rate so overall uh you know pretty good as best as we can do here of course our technology goes up every year you know there price increases I know anybody with technology uh price increases for software um just goes up you know minimum 6 5 6% here so Revenue what's this mean so tax levy increase 3.5% um 2% a standard Levy 1.5 million for healthcare uh we'll say you know we did have an increase in state aid uh but of course that was offset by the increase uh in the pension uh costs and at the same time so the state this year what they did is they um the reason we
032got an increase in state aid is because over our enrollment because of the M dramatic changes in different districts across the state they wanted to to not hurt some of the districts have you know down enrollment so they limited their decreases uh to I believe it 3% or so so what that means is then they have to limit our increases so they capped us at a 6% increase this year but based on our our enrollment we should have really got another $250,000 in in funding and what they're saying is they'll they'll increase that over certain amount of years you know that's we have to wait and see they they say that but you know as the years go we'll see where it comes back but yeah so they C this this year but due to
033our enrollment we do expect to uh get that back over the next couple years hopefully um but this is the first time they did this so nothing's guaranteed of course continue our fund balance uh to maintain operations uh extraordinary aiders we're keeping it right where it is they did not increase extraordinary Aid this year which is really you know we don't we put don't put the full amount of potential we could get in here because they they for the past four years they've decreased it um so they're not increasing um the amount of extraordinary this year but really that's a decrease because as I you know that extraordin Aid a lot of it covers your special services was which is OT PT things like that and I just showed you on the previous slide this
034cost her up by 15% um so effectively by keeping it flat it really is a cut so um even though we received a little bit more than 2 million last year January 8 it's gone down now uh five years in a row uh and we have some interest income in in uh in the budget as well just a little commentary on re on revenue and sort of how we what we try to do this year so because our our healthare costs are so massive um State you look at that middle box there State really allows you to raise taxes outside the two 2% cap so we could have we could have gone up $4.7 million this year in terms of taxes but by taking the net expense reduction that I me that I went through
035we got the state aid increase which of course was offset by the pension increase the actual tax increase is less uh than what we were allowed to do so we're trying to keep cost down of course as much as possible get a lot of questions about Federal funding and wondering what the impact would be on our schools uh so we want to be transparent about what this is and we don't really know uh what's going to happen with that of course I don't think anybody knows but uh 2. million is what we get right now and um just to put in perspective that's a 2% tax increase so it's a significant amount of money and would uh of course affect our operations uh significantly and the last thing to think about is the inflation risk
036at this point it's hard to tell what uh what it'll be but um we know that that's something that will affect us as well so you know we know it's it's a really tough budget really tough environment we've tried to lower cost as much as we could um and because of that we were able to not go to the full amount that the state allows us to so in terms taxes um again this is include you know um the referendum we're focused tonight on the general operating budget um and tax increase here and of course this is an estimate uh sort of just to point out you know uh these things change and often come in lower than this but uh but yeah this is an estimate at this point of what the uh the
037impact will be so we're talk about some fun stuff uh you know U we got some Athletics things I want to so there's a lot of accomplishments this year that are that really cool so I think one thing to mention is you know 410 athletes per season uh that's about 30% of our students are uh in athletics you know that's a significant amount U and I'm just going to go through all the accomplish accomplishments we had because it really when you hear it right in a row it really uh shows you something um last spring boys volleyball uh watch on conference County sectional championships and State final six in a real County Championship that's a a lot boy tenic boy tennis County Player of the Year spring 24 softball advaned the county county files first
038time we can remember we look back historically first time they Advanced the county finals I mean gymnastics I don't know what to say about that they just I County Champions six year in a row I mean it's pretty crazy uh boy soccer uh Union County North 2 group group four sectional championships and the state finalist bowling Union County Champions girls volleyball Mountain Division champion sexual semifinals boys basketball Mountain division Champions third year in a row winner winter track two sectional Champions 55 Dash 55 hurdles 55 dash for girls 55 girls for boys so I think the the numbers and results speak for themselves and I think it's a you know this does include of course we had a lot of you know Esports we've had and the robotics we've had some a lot of success
039there too so um you know the investment in the sports is is paid off for a lot of our students so I think we can all be proud of that with that I'll turn it over to Dr Gary so equally impressive um is the worldclass Fine Arts and Music program that our budget provides which has earned recognition for excellence at the local state and even National levels these images showcase the depth and diversity of artistic opportunities available for our students our Performing Arts programs continue to wow audiences as I'm sure there's an audience being wowed just down the hallway tonight with high quality Productions like into the woods junr and The Lightning Thief produced this year at our Middle School game of tiaras Cabaret for a cure and this weekend's production of Freaky Friday at
040the high school along with various concerts and recital throughout the year Jazz KN and other musical performances highlight the exceptional Talent of our student musicians what's particularly noteworthy um is how our arts program create opportunities for students to connect their creative expression with Community Service as evidenced by The Cabaret fundraiser for the Emanuel Cancer Foundation or the Myriad of community performance our students dedicate themselves to for holidays and other community celebrations the Fine Arts and Music education our students receive goes far beyond technical skills it Fosters creativity self-expression collaboration and cultural appreciation these programs are essential to our mission of developing well-rounded graduates who can think creatively and contribute positively to our rapidly changing world what truly sets Scotch PLS Fanwood Public Schools aart Is our commitment to fostering success across all grade levels from
041our youngest elementary students as you saw tonight to our graduating seniors the images on this slide capture diverse educational experiences throughout our district you can see elementary students engaged in collaborative reading groups Hands-On learning and Creative Learning activities such as the wax museum we saw tonight middle school students participating in academic competitions and historical presentations and high school students representing our district at conferences and ear earning academic recognition these photos illustrate our belief that education isn't confined to textbooks and classrooms we create Rich varied learning experiences that engage students Natural Curiosity and help help them discover their unique talents and interests from model uan conferences to stem competitions from literary explorations to historical reenactments were constantly creating opport unities for students to excel the success we see across um all grade levels demonstrates the effectiveness
042of our educational approach and the dedication of our outstanding Educators who as Mr Jones have said are funded through a significant portion of our budget speaking of which we are particularly proud to share with you our 2425 Governor's educator of year recipients um this past month um in pictures here you saw them in person at the last meeting these extraordinary Educators exemplify the Excellence dedication and passion that Define our District's teaching staff so our strong Foundation is best because Educators partner with families and our community here we celebrate student students learning the importance of their civic involvement Community sponsored events such as the second annual Super Sports Saturday and color runs in partnership with the ptas project winners for the Union County L day competition creative summer workshops red white and blue day Evergreen new
043Wing ribbon cutting Emily litz becoming the Milken National educator recipient and the 100th day of school all think these these events we we celebrate well and proudly and we appreciate how the budget supports all the work that we do thank you Mr Jones Dr presentation Jones thank you for all your hard work and getting her numbers together this year anybody anything for are we doing a motion anything talk about I just um are you it's just one of those things that I think I talked about in one of the first times I joined the board which was about the D dual enrollment um and I think it's really fabulous to see that we've got so many col on board and that whether the last one works out or not but that it's on um our
044thought and when you put together everything towards the end of um highlighting all the various different sports achievements athletic achievements um Arts it's just it really is amazing to see especially after this amazing presentation of the wax museum tonight and so I'm usually not the person to say thank you to you Chris but I know it's not a small feat um I'm really glad that bosses went down a little bit thank you any other comments or questions on the tentative budget where this is not voting on the final budget this is just a post that was reviewed tonight do we have a motion second now any comments or other questions on the budget on the proposed T budget I would just Echo what you said it takes a lot of work and I know the
045finance committee um worked with Christopher and um so we really saw all the diligence that went into yeah I think the hardest part is the uncontrolled expenses right so we have the state pension the state controls how much and I think as Mr Jones has talked about over the years the state continues to push down those expenses more to both the school districts and I think the township is experiencing something similar as well um and you know funding numbers aren't where adequately where they belong as well and then you have Healthcare which is across you know not just unique to us I think healthare costs in general have continued to SP so those are the ones that you know you have to you have to try to manage you know we've been able to which
046is a matter of the sustainability long term um and then when you switch Administration state level and federal level the implications are on so with that any other comments I just like to say thank you as well and and know particularly you just get your Revenue numers like days so so they have to have multiple vers of a budget to be able to submit and because they don't we don't know until May 48 hours ahead this you know it's not comments yeah I just want to Echo what everyone has said and and really thank the business office um I think um you know for being creative and being diligent about finding ways to save money like with the custodial vendor costs instead of you know cutting important programming or Staffing you know which I know
047some other districts we've seen do things like that cut art music um significant Staffing cuts and you know so I really appreciate the diligence in in finding other ways to be phisically responsible I know every year in our financial audit they raise us um for you know responsibility andd not all those in favor I opposed motion carries we will now move on to our first public speaking portion in accordance with Scot Family Public School bylaws 0164 and 0165 the meeting will be open for 15 minutes for public comment maximum 3 minutes for speaker speakers addressing superintendent business functions or board business be first at time or meeting speakers May address other matters speaker State your full name in the town in which you reside board use a public common period is an opportunity to listen
048to C concern but not to debate issues oral question and answer session or cross-examination between the public and the individual members be aware that n issues brought before the board meeting will be resolved that evening boards May respond to public comment by seeking additional information or by delegating the authority to investigate the issue the superintendent or her designate so I'll Now open up for 15 minutes if you have a comment please come forward state your name in what you so I did pause there and wait for a second to let somebody else speak right Gary moris Fanwood New Jersey um I want to talk about uh parental rights uh regarding policy 5756 um and I want to use an analogy of let's just say for instance I had a child that I did not want
049playing football but the kid is 6 foot six 280 lbs and the the coach is just like man I want this kid to play play on the team would the school put that kid on the team without my permission of course not right like that would be that would be a violation of parental rights why is it okay for a child to change their name in school and begin transitioning without a parents automatic notification parents need to be aware of what's happening with their children and keeping secrets is something fundamentally that should be a red flag for any situation teachers should not be keeping secrets from parents regarding the children it should be full disclosure um you can't have a kid who vandalizes a a bathroom for instance you're of course if you catch a
050kid vandalizing the bathroom you're going to notify the parents you're not going to say well I don't want to tell the parents cuz maybe the parents will be upset with that child of course you would notify parents it's a simple thing keep the parents in the loop yes are there going to be parents that uh might be abusive that's a separate issue and you can't assume every parent is going to be abusive so you automatically may be hiding that information from a parent so I am all on board with notify the parents in every situation whether it be somebody a coach wants them to play on the football team or whether the a child wants to change their name the parents should be notified thank you anyone else for public comment there's another one okay
051seeing no one I'll close the first portion of the public comment section move on to additional reports letters to the board five emails are received and sent to the appropriate administrator and I believe we have a couple of committee reports this evening a finance report it's pretty redundant we did a lot of budget information but we um as Mr mentioned we discussed the same funding and we% um if we were not cive 9% instead um there's some agenda items on for tonight for the bond a bond ISS aitor will also be on the agenda for arit there's a Smalling restation Pro that on any comments or questions pleas um for community relations uh it was um an exciting meeting we had a guest Mark Fabiano who was a health M PE teacher at wrestling coach
052um adviser for pickle ball and uh smack and um he was reporting from from Atlantic City uh we had um uh Julia uh Richards who was uh down there uh and qualified for I I don't know the final outcome of where she ranked but she was going to get to she was in the top eight she definitely about and um so uh that was exciting and more and also related to that was um uh he was telling us that she um and actually uh Liz Sanford who is a math teacher but also wrestling coach are going to be uh were selected to be in this film butterfly Jam Jim uh what Jim oh okay and um and it's uh going to be filming in April in Paris and in uh Newark so we're very excited
053to have them representing our school district and uh and filming and who knows maybe they'll be at Oscars next year it's a film about a coet wrestling team right yes yes so we'll we'll see how how that goes um and um so that was very exciting uh Dr Mast also um reported on things like U meetings she's been having with parents and um uh things like that and then um she always shares with us good news from all the schools when she meets with the school liaison and there was a long list of things and each thing on the list is wonderful like what you saw tonight and and there were other kinds of of very creative uh ways students were being involved in Reading read Across America science fairs author visits I mean it's
054it was it's really impressive and one of the things we talk about is how we could put that somewhere publicly so everyone could see all the things on this list um because you don't want us to just read all these things um one of the things on the list too is athletic um achievements uh and a number of them um our business manager mentioned and um so just very exciting things going on in our schools and that was and may I don't know if anybody else who was there wants to try something I would just add that to your point the enthusiasm of our wrestling coach he should get Emy award he was so ecstatic and the story of how Janelle was cast and then how she brought the coach on board um was that
055just sort of happened naturally but it was his enthusiasm for all all the players not just the one player obviously but um and I think that's sort of been the sense I've gotten around Sports this year in our athletic and maybe we'll get a a an inperson report or update on that after the filming he did say and I know Mr Jones will be interested that wrestling is the fastest growing sport in the country any other comments any other committee rep okay um had receive the report out of District okay so one we have the out of District placement two we have the hibs from February 20th three we have the field trip requests and and we'll just block Personnel in there the Personnel report that we discussed in exec this evening we have a
056motion to approve so move dry do we have a second M bro comments or questions Mr Jones please call the RO M Barbie yes M bow yes m b yes M Brody yes Kowski yes Mr Iain from I wasn't at February I M WN yes uh M Mar yes motion carries business items Mr Jones number one staff training number two related Ser related Services three effective School Solutions so effective School Solutions we're approving now where I typically St we do in May because they give us a pretty good discount they provide our um our summer programs uh for free if we sign by certain date for next year so and it helps us too for Staffing help forment plan number four library book disposal um and just in terms of the issuing the bonds for
057the referendum these are the next ones number five is our Municipal advisor Who U issues the bonds uh number six our auditor who prepares all the financial statements details and um yeah our bond deter as well so um and then number eight Berner Gazo so this is an interesting one um we had a donation um Gazo and there are going to be some costs to do it but I would say that this is a um it's a 3X return on our investment uh by investing this money uh in this Gaza Runner um we'll get three times the value uh of the donation that we approved a couple meetings ago uh and the it's it's not just a you know normal gazebo it's a it's fairly it's very large um and uh will be used as
058you Outdoor Classroom so um pretty cool pretty cool thing here uh number nine uh yes Roofing I sort of just to speak on this a little bit uh it's comes of the cost um so 100,000 seems like a lot but really we've been really focused on in the past uh six months on and looking at our our roofs and trying to figure out uh we've done a lot of tests to try to figure out replacement versus What's this called refurbishment and the the cost of the Striking um to not only is just to replace the roof versus refurbishment it's double to replace but by going to doing refurbishing it um you won't in addition you won't have uh fees permits State and all these different things you got to do so um this is one
059where it seems like 100,000 it's actually a pretty good deal for us we'll get a a 20-year warranty which tyal roof Replacements are 30 but still on a per on an annual BAS bis this is um took a lot of work to to review our groups and this need to be done quickly and I think even looks like 100,000 it's a it's anici 100,000 toam we done over spring break uh 10 is our standard report drill drills and number 11 payment bills and we'll have the uh next month we'll have the this was such a turnover on board agenda this board meeting was moved up early because the state changed the way the Tim we do extend the budget the pressure on ort talking to uh the speed of us getting this done they've extended
060it out and so our treasure was not our financial report he'll be on the next report on the next meeting thank you Mr J we have a motion a second you have any comments or questions for Mr Jones only I uh I know we spend a lot of time talking about roofs do you do you want to like how many roofs we have yeah we have um six football fields of roofs um on our buildings and we have in terms of sections there's almost 200 sections of roofs so it's a this is one section of Kohl's and Kohl's has I believe uh there's is less than let's say the high school but I think 12 or 13 um sections of roof um so it's uh it's a massive undertaking to uh to you can do
061every year you can do multiple and you it takes a long time to get there um but yeah a lot of roofs so they've been spend uh Mr Jones has spend been spending a lot of times on a lot of time on roofs um but I didn't want people to see Cole's Roofing again and wonder why any other comments all those in favor iOS motion count policies at this time do we have a motion to approve minutes from the February meeting Mr second from anyone second second M bro any comments or questions on that all those in favor opposed extensions motion carries new board business Le on reports I don't really have a report but I just to that Garden State is meeting next week and I know it's an in-person meeting but um the
062uh attorney general for the state of New Jersey is going to be there and I I think I reported last month how excellent he was how impressed we were uh uh when we were on a zoom meeting as a matter of fact I heard him on the radio driving over here um uh talking about implications for uh the things that are going on and lawsuits New Jersey involved in related to education so uh for anyone who you know uh it should be a really good where is it um but I'll I know a reminder is coming out it's in summer it's in Somerset but I forget oh wait Franklin Township not in Sussex any other Le reps M you have just worth mentioning yeah uh CPAC is not met met again but on the 24th
063um at 7 p.m. at the um library in the high school is the parent and caregiver meeting only and um C pad's update any other reports for L up okay Workshop reports do we have anybody that would like to make a motion to adopt the autism acceptance month resolution second Dr Co kowsky you have any comments questions or all those in favor I oppos carries second public comment in accordance with Scott Fanwood public by public school bylaw 0164 0165 the meeting will be open for 15 minutes for public comment maximum 3 minutes for speaker speakers addressing superintendent items business functions other board business will be heard first if time remain speakers May address other matters speakers please state your name full name and the time which you resign um so I'll open it up again
06415 minutes Gary Morris Fanwood um in honor of uh women's History Month I thought I'd tell a a little bit of a true story um Mary was uh an 800 meter runner in high school she as a senior she ran 2 minutes 12 seconds in 1979 she was the only girl on her high school team um she went on she only applied to two schools and she actually went to the school that I went to uh Manhattan College in the Bronx she shows up first day of school asks about the track team there's no girls track team in the in the college so she she went to the school and she thought she was going to be running track in college and it wasn't like it back to the now when you could just go
065online real quick and just see hey let me check the sports it just wasn't that easy to check the things so rather than leave the school she decided hey they have a guys track team I'm going to help out and I'm going to be the scorekeeper and the equipment manager and stuff like that and take care of business she was there two years um and the coach uh on on her third year said look I I want you to give a tour for these the the new guys on the team and everything um and that day she met her husband um a man named Willie few years later uh they got married and uh the reason I'm bringing this story up is that is Sydney mclin's parents and it's an amazing thing to see how
066these these two by chance fell in love had kids all of their kidss are terrific uh Sydney turns out to be a world record holder four gold medals just ran right down the street you know local here uh one of the most spectacular athletes in the world um despite being one of the most spectacular athletes in the world she's ranked number one in a number of categories she's actually ranked third in her family because both her one of her brothers and her father can ran the 400 meters faster than she did and this is one of the things with the 5756 there's biological differences we got to take take into account here we need to base it on fairness imagine imagine if she if if her brother decided to run on the girls team as
067a senior we may never know who Sydney is we would have only known Taylor so let's keep let's keep this in mind when you you talk about these things like 5756 it's a policy it is not mandatory it should be withdrawn it doesn't make sense for fairness my daughter my daughter is a is is now a soccer coach uh in middle school and again I I saw how Athletics helped her as a soccer player in college how important it was to her and I don't want want that to be taken away let's change is your I understand no no one else is talking so let's change let's let's change women's History Month to women's future month let's get it done than any other public comments seeing none I will close this portion um upcoming schedule
068meetings we have the ask the superintendent at 10: a.m. on March 26th Terell I believe there's a sign up for that and then our regular public board meeting is April 24th at 800m in this in this location okay good to the order sure well the last night I had the honor of attending the uh unsung heroes program at Kane University with Dr Hines and we recognize TJ Rasberry as our unsung hero uh there were 30 some odd recipients from across our County and it was a a beautiful program and very well attended I also had the opportunity to read calls and begin last week for re Across America I'm very happy that I could participate in that way and I also saw Into the Woods at netting ham which was an excellent presentation and I
069hope uh everybody else had that opportunity to see it the students were absolutely fabulous the scenery the costumes everything was spectacular it was comparable to a High School production and then just bouncing back to what U Mrs Bower said the uh location for the meeting on March 19th would be at the Franklin School District Board office 2301 Route 27 in Somerset New Jersey that is Wednesday March 19th that's the next par state in the morning um yes during the day okay thank you Amer IED don't walk around school notom I like Echo I went to I did Across America at Co and just a shout out to I I think the PTA is across the board and all of the schools did things I attended at schs they had Bedtime Story Hour where they had
070an hourong like 15minute chunks and so many you know staff members came out and our kids and like I mean I could have sat there the way these Elementary School teachers read it's it's amazing and then the last reader in every room was a fourth grader and to see the fourth graders reading to like a room full of you know like the other kids in that school like the free KS were all you know it was it was just it was really wonderful the hour flew by and get good time and you know like making reading CL I think is so important so I read to school and and I have to so impressed how well beh all they ready for all sitting on the floor and waiting for and so excited just just to
071follow on that I think it's it's incredibly impressive when you go in for be Across America and I'm always grateful that the elementary teacher stays in the room because it would be a much different experience if they did not like reading to very young children is a very specialized skill and um though I I certainly did it successfully um they do it magnificently oh yeah um and in addition to to that last night was the second night of the EF fundraiser of the Harlem liards and I was able to attend last night I believe Dr McGary was there but the first evening um just the number of Staff who who come out and um you know confront that very talented basketball team and the amount of parents who are there with their kids cheering one
072is really such a good Community event and a a great fundraiser for the ef's um scholarship fund um one highlight was in as one quarter ended and the buzzer was going off Dr D through a three-pointer and um she was delighted and shocked at [Laughter] herself speak up but so you brought up the wrestling figure you know so people most people don't know I'm very biased on wrestling I wrestled in high school and college um and about I'd say 12 years ago I went to a wrestling practice with one of the uh Lehi wrestling was with his division one program and he said to me um what do you think would you let would you if you had a daughter would you let her wrestle and I said absolutely um and I really was sort
073of the the kickoff of being more accepted within the wrestling community of women's wrestling and you know about five years later that's when leehi started their uh their Olympic Training Center there at e University um and so really the growth of wrestling within the country is really driven by the women's side and it really comes through the full acceptance of the men's programs that have really uh raced it and our fundraising for it there's now four division one wrestling programs another 10 with wrestling clubs and a lot of other uh Regional training centers things throughout so um I think it's uh it's great hopefully my daughter will wrestle one day I don't know we'll see but uh um hopeful but I think it's a when we started the program here it was uh very proud
074of that you know proud of the coaches and the girls did you it could be maybe that to come out in the well after this movie we did buy they did fundraise for another map this year with like so many students out that they have practice now in the wrestling room and also in the gym and they they're able to because we the board invested in a female wrestling coach um they're able to now differentiate uh instruction to the athletes based on their levels um so it's a also our few months the first in the state anyone else really good to the order tonight is the blood moon between 2:15 a.m. and 3:45 will be at the peak of its redness so if you're up or get up or you should start oh yes please
075be sa drop off please where's the best it's in the car I forgot to bring it in anyone else otherwise do we have a motion to adjourn so move all those in favor I oppos ajour thank you everybody I'll see you about a month yes as