Noe really I had to but had to the New Jersey Public's meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meeting of public bodies at which any business affecting their
interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with this provision the provisions of this act the beler board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted With The Star Ledger and The Express Times
and submitted to the town clerk of the town of beler on January 15 2025 the meeting will be live streamed at www.bar sd.org flag salute please I to the flag the United States
of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible lice for all the mission of the beler school district is to celebrate our past and Empower our future while focusing on the four cornerstones of our district
tradition Excellence academics and Community we strive to build confidence and promote collaboration we encourage an equal partnership with our students and staff as well as its community members we Empower every everyone to develop the best version of themselves
the Bel school district is committed to shaping students into Global Citizens who take Initiative for their successes and contribute to the continued Excellence of the district our students are leaders in the decision-making process of their education and will be prepared to excel in the 21st century
Society roll call please Mr Blum here Mr bone here Dr zith here Mrs Duckworth here Mr Scott here Stefan here miss Walton here Mrs wner here miss white here Mr chiarelli here
Mrs Gardella here Mrs Robata here we're going to shift a little bit off the agenda we're going to start we have with us tonight coach O'Neal and Karly gubitosi Karly is the now second player this season to score her thousand points we want to honor Carly so coach I
know you love to say a few things about your students so first of all thank you for uh having us here tonight to honor Carly um it's like Mr kba said it's very unusual you get 1,000 Point score in a season let on
two it's a tribute to B High School on the girls basketball program uh just a little bit about Carly if you watch her play I guess the the one word that comes to mind is excitement um because she's very sneaky getting her points so when I
tell people Carly was getting close to a thousand you know she's just relentless on defense sometimes she gets the short end of stick she's always on the best defender on the other team sometimes too aggressive at times she gets in foul trouble but you know a tribute to what she did I mean she scored her a th000
points on February 8th uh 2025 down against boys in Hunter War County tournament and people were asked me you know do you think Carly's going to get it today I said I don't know she needs 20 some points and she's been IR riching 13 14 so I said you know I don't know and when did you know she had a heck of
a game and she scored 22 points that game or something like she needed 21 but she achieved it on against Warriors which was a tough team to play so of in behalf of myself I want to congratulate corly I am going to present the ball for you to give the Mr carabinas and she'll
be forever Remembered in the trophy case out here for achievement of 1,84 points Carly we have a little award for you so thank you for your contributions and by the way five follows is fine you can't go home with them coach so she
gets use thank you for all you do for the school you're a great representation and can't wait to put this in the trophy case so congratulations also coach is a very good singer he sung the National Anthem at one game and he was put your certificate up and down there you go yeah nice nice job coach
okay now we got a little treat for everybody tonight we're going to take a field trip going on a field trip going on a field trip I youi is there snacks is there snacks on this field trip we're going to the theater are you
missing yeah aquarium here in the auditorium of Bel Elementary High School um I appreciate and get excited every year to show off a little bit of our production so we will be doing the opening our production um 5 years ago
this was actually the only time we ever performed our Wizard of Oz was for the board as you know Co hit and you guys are the only ones to have ever seen our production of Wizard of Oz so I love doing these performances for the board and I hope you join us April 4th and 5th
I have 32 or so friends behind me who have been working very hard and who are going to continue to work very hard um our show is in about two weeks so we don't have much set yet but I promise you if you come back to our aquarium in two weeks you will see quite a dazzling
space so please sit back enjoy and my fish will be ready to go nice and quietly will look at it on the open ocean best you in the great barri oh yeah n
yeah what really really I like you I do this besides got you like my jokes what are the oan the nothing wait will be funny too and dancers
get inside cor Coral Oh Oh no you're cracked there there I've got you you're safe now I promise I'll never let anything happen to you neo
first school school come on dad wake up all right I'm out firstar get some now what's the one we go out and back in we go out and back
in come on dad SE tur sea turtles I don't to be 100 if I one us I please hang on ask the parents where you're supposed to
be excuse me is for me teacher y sure is fin it's smaller than your other weird dad actually than all my otheres I'm H and tall I got not you know this afternoon was very
first day of school dad on my first day of school I saw a te it was awesome oh be cool if maybe we should start at school no here they Happ are
many in the world creatures in the Big Blue that's afraid student I'm hi there one thing you begin you
know that you you I don't know what I this I'll be dad get ready ready in the blue
world in the world for me out there the world
well what are you going to do you got to some I'm coming you thank you April at 7 p.m. or April 5th or I should or and you loved it so much coming 12 and April 5th at 1 thank
you so much everybody okay back to our regular scheduled program that was awesome that we need more field trips like that um we are on to our student student representative report Andy please
so it's been very busy in this upcoming month is going to be very busy so I have a lot to say tonight so bear with me um the Flor culture class is currently having their annual Lily and tulip sale if you're interested email Mr Duckworth um they are also preparing flowers and
vegetables for the May Greenhouse sale the drama club alongside the Art and Wood Wood Shop students successfully put on the High School production of Joseph in the amazing technical color dream coat over the course of the three shows almost a thousand people watched four
members of the math club competed in a 14-hour math modeling competition on March 1st the Leos Club will be helping with the harmony lions with their annual Easter egg hunt on April 12th the NHS hosted a blood drive on March 4th and
enough blood was donated to save 60 lives bringing this year's total to 150 lives saved on April 11th the GSA will be participating in the day of in the annual Day of Silence lastly the environmental Club held the campus clean up on Tuesday that's everything thank
you great thank you okay I have a few points just to make before and then I'll do my goals uh review um I want to thank Mrs kpat for having us down there and getting that ready to go I think sometimes it's refreshing start a meeting seeing one of the re another reason why we tend to be
on the board the good things that go on in the school which sometimes get lost in conversation but they did an awesome job um Andy mentioned Joseph and a technic Dream Coat I thought it was an outstanding production Mr zrom and the students did did an outstanding job um
some of the some of the performances I thought were probably some of the best ones I've seen in the 15 years I've been you know been here um I'm just going to mention one not to single anybody out but um Vincent endik I thought as the cowboy character was excellent um I just loved
his accent and even when I was talking to Mahal about it the other day he was actually still talking in the accent which was funny to me but uh not just him so I'm not singling anybody out but he did an awesome job they all did great um so I'm glad to hear that over a thousand people came because it was well worth it folks that I talked to after performance were really really impressed
so thanks to them so uh so you can see our drama is going well our musicals we have another thousand Point score which was really impressive we've been singing the the accolades of the bowling team we're trying to we'll try to get them here for the next meeting um coach of the year uh coach Tac was it's just
tremendous that in a program that just started last year two seasons we had the coach of the year for the state and then um Landon Stout being uh First Team all state was is tremendous so congratulations to them and again the mentioned that they won the overall group one Championship so that was that
was great um regionalization meeting I just want to say it again publicly the regionalization meeting will be April the 9th uh at 6:30 here at the beler High School auditorium the report is up on the website right now if you want to
look through it um it's been up I think we put up on Monday so it's there so give everybody a few weeks to take a look at it we will advertise that as a special meeting for badier um it'll technically because all of you will be there so we need to advertise it that way but it'll only be about the regionalization study so Dr Green and Mr
magard will be there they will answer as many questions as they can uh they they're figuring about a half an hour presentation and then leaving it open to to questions that may come out of the report so if you had a chance please take a look at the report um couple of follow-up things just to mention um at the end of the last
meeting and I think it was in new business we there was a question about study hall and and sort of the the ground work on that um for our April 2nd committee meetings we'll have that kind of put together for everybody to take or at least the curriculum committee to take a look at just to see what's going on in the study hall and then we'll report back out on on the 16th meeting
um there was a couple of parents couple who are here tonight that had some concerns and rais them at the last meeting had an opportunity to meet with them about two weeks ago we sat and we had some conversation also followup meeting is coming next week as well just to try keep that conversation going and making sure we're addressing some of
some of the concerns that were raised at that meeting so want to put that out there um my perspective it was a very uh fruitful meeting we had had good conversation and and got some things going um and you'll even see tonight on the add-ons uh the special ed teacher
will be specifically for the ER program we'll talk about that in Personnel but that was one of those one of those things and there's nothing else question wise I'm going to just do my presentation real quick I have to go too too long I don't want Maran to walk out
on me like she did the other night sorry yep so the the presentation itself is only a couple of slides but um since Ai and in the AI T course is one of the initiatives um once I put my notes
together I actually ran it through a couple of AIS um and in fact dror mckenny today was looking at what I'm going to hand out and she ran it through her AI that she likes to use so the presentation is is helped by AI it's mostly my input but what I do is now and
um I did this for the harmony uh evaluation too take everything through AI run it get some some talking points and then I create a podcast so if anybody's interested said this podcast is 13 minutes and it's two voices that are there and you would think they were absolutely real people um the only
problem with the podcast is is it's um there's a few things that are like they get it wrong but it's okay but it's actually fun to listen to uh for some reason the harmony one was only six minutes I don't know why this one was 13 um but with that I have two things to hand out to you number one is frequently asked questions that were generated by
the AI That's What Dr mckenny help me today we we we clean that up a bit and then second is uh what they call briefing document so this way you have some paper of oh thank you you can just send them down kind of R around you have some different paperwork for the actual uh
progress report and just a sort of a backup so it's kind of fun getting to use the AI um within that so you can see we're going to talk about the three things that are are the goals for the year the AI task force um chronic absenteeism reduction and student
growth so we start out with the task force um we've had I believe it's five meetings I think we have six teachers right now we're looking to add students shortly but we we are big work over the last um last meeting and then the meeting that unfortunately I had to cancel today so I apologize to the task
force was we're going to have surveys we put together uh we have a staff survey a student survey and we also have a parent survey so the staff survey will go out right before break the student survey will follow up not necessarily right when we get get back but within two weeks when we get
back and then we're going to send a parent survey home towards the end of the summer to try to see if we can get you know what what the parents understanding of AI and how it's being used in the classroom um we will analyze the results of the staff and the students by May 15th and we'll finalize
that best practices um document that we're going to put together by June 1st and then our goal is and we talked about this within the within the task force is to have uh a policy ready to go for the beginning of the school year next year um it's one of those things that
when you look at my actual when we wrote the goals back in September is whenever we did that it's in my mind I keep thinking that we probably need to twice throughout the year actually adjust the dates because they can be very much moving targets like I think in my actual goals we
wanted to have the surveys done and completed by March 30th which it's not going to happen but at least it's in progress and it's ready to go okay next up is our chronic absenteeism reduction um so there's a few things
that we've been doing uh we still have the the parent survey is still open um at this point we have 48 um belad Elementary School parents so that's really pre- to five and then 59 from the high school and the middle school which I actually think are good numbers for
surveys it's probably if you look at how many parents and you know parents have multiple children it's probably about at least close to half of the parents took time to respond um we will keep that survey open until uh a week from Friday
so March the 28th so if any parent still wants to go on and and fill that out they can do that um Dr mcken shared the results with me they today got a chance to start to look through that so we'll break those down and we'll review what their results are and in talking about
that parent engagement piece um with that then we'll just go through and review what the state guidance is which I don't know that the state guidance is particularly strong in this area it's more you need to be below 10% so figure it out um so we'll work on that one of the things we want to do is have a
virtual parent Workshop we'll do that before May 15 and we we'd like to work with our SRO to have home visits for those students that are really chronically absent and then we're talking probably more of 25% and and more try to figure out what's going on there and our positive reinforcements we
are getting to um celebrate students that have been here I know Mr carabina said that in the high school specifically and working its way down to the elementary school um but it's really nice and I think we have actually seen I think he had said to me maybe about two weeks ago that there were still about 30 or so students that
had perfect attendance so far which is good to hear at this point in the year with all the in this year particularly with all the sickness that had G on uh it's good to hear that so keep that up and and hopefully we have last year we only had one student in high school that had perfect attendance hopefully we have
more than that this year and then the last piece is the student growth initiative we looking at those njsla scores um and all the data that we have um we are working on the data law I shouldn't say we are uh give credit to Dr mckenny and Miss Kane and Mr Highland
because they've been doing the line share of the work with that um it's impressive to see what they put together especially uh when you look at a student that's going to be in kindergarten by the time they finish in 12th grade what we'll be able to look at you know things like attend
um their test scores whether or not they have a 504 whether or not they have an IEP uh it's really really impressive I know Dr McKinny talked about that with the curriculum group um so we'll probably put something together for the May meeting where we can share it publicly we just got to make sure we're not sharing too much information and and
identifying kids that way um the other thing that's been really good is the Renaissance Learning we had a meeting yesterday with our Renaissance District success manager which is I still think one of the coolest titles I've heard education and uh we had a great meeting and she gave us some some ideas helped
us set some goals and really showed us how we can start to really look at scores to scores and one of the things we're going to look at real shortly hopefully maybe even before that April 2nd meeting Depending on time is they have a predictability on how the students will do on the njsla test um so
we're looking forward to seeing what they think our kids are going to do when it comes to take that test uh I mentioned I believe a couple meetings ago the other piece that we really like is the reading level assessment starting to see what where our kids are actually reading at uh we know that more than
half the kids are reading above grade level and now our goal is to to get them the supports they need to continue to push well beyond that uh on that Mark um and then finally the data Review Committee meets we we meets weekly generally meet on Thursdays Thursday
afternoon we make sure that there's coverage the next step for us will now to be bringing in individual teachers to go through all of their um students assessments and all of the data that's going along with the students so it's going particularly well uh really
excited about that um I know I can speak for Dr mckenny we both came away from the meeting that we had with Renaissance yesterday very excited we met with the K to8 staff today to review uh what we're looking for and what our vision is for the next couple of months and then you know we we find that over the summer for
next year so that's my goals update questions ready or like um are we good for the year or do and we purchase for next year yeah we're stay yeah we stay okay yeah we've had it all year so
yes what are some of the recognition programs for the uh attendants recognition programs for attendants that was a question from Mr K I know I know that's what he was talking I'm trying to remember because we were we had that conversation just the other
day I know he said he' spend some money on it and the kids were responding a long time ago we spent money on it and it seemed to work asking the question yeah I mean go back to when Mr Kitz was the vice principal think uh he had a he had a drawing and one of the at that time was a big deal was like 171 18 was
a TV for the kids yeah wow and somebody w a TV and the kids were great and then he had a you know $100 gift card to Quick Check and a couple other things yeah so it worked out it was good incentive okay um with those initiatives in place have we seen Improvement in in the the rate the
numbers oh okay definitely looks I mean the fact that we have that many kids that aren't have been absent at least once I think is impressive at this point in the year that's good yeah I think by this time last year we identified we were down to probably like three or four yeah it was it was a low number is that 30 with
perfect attendance just in the high school or in the whole in the high school okay do we know how many we haven't looked at that we'll look at that the the elementary school tends to be a little different because and and again children are sick keep them home so it happens a little bit more at the elementary school so we can have that
ready for the next meeting we we'll bring that out is absenteeism is that considered a um with the doctors not or without or do you do it all collectively so it's one of those great questions Miss wner um the state of New Jersey does not recognize doctor's note to
excuse an absence it's only really religious holidays is the only thing uh in take a child to work day I think or college visits too but for the most part doctors know excuses it that the student we know the students not here but we are still supposed to count it as an absence
okay interesting yeah yeah because I always figured that was your kind of yeah that's from the state point of view from our point of view like if a student has you know they're in high school and they have 14 absences but they have six notes then we we knock them down that way but as far as the state reporting goes those are
absences and when when was this implemented like how is this to the kids so we started at the beginning of the year um Mr carabus I know talked about it at the high with the high school kids when he first um took over in that position you know those class meetings and just let them know what was going on
we should probably give reminders you know what I mean like with if it's going to be a teacher in the classroom or put signs up you know don't forget you know or work toward something like that just yeah because there's with this electronic world there's no visual right KS you know what
I mean like and for me I put notes all over now that I'm older especially I put notes all over the place because I'm like I need to oh yeah that's right yeah it's funny to say that I think there's a there there's a little bit of a push to go back to some of the old school signage in the building I noticed today somebody was putting up some signs yeah I think it would it would help I noticed
that was that Mount Olive high school and they actually had a chart with all the top attendance like the kids who had the best attendance out in the hallway good idea great idea yeah that that's my report yeah I have a
quick question about just the Renaissance and the for the uh six through eight you just started implementing that right so we don't really have a good database on whether or not we're seeing it measuring up to we have uh we definitely have they did
the first Benchmark assessment and then when one of the things we talked about today was that second Benchmark assessment and it's actually a funny conversation one of the teachers misheard what we had said uh they thought we were going to push the njsla testing into April said do that second Benchmark I said before break because
when the kids come back from break then it's almost that push to the standardized test so hopefully we'll have that so again for that M meeting we should be able to have that data to be able to just give a quick comparison okay and then for the K through five we're seeing that they're Measuring Up in the Renaissance as they are in the
class room where mhm being a pretty equal not a huge discrepancy of below or really high in than what the teachers had expected yeah great that's all I got any other
questions last chance till next time okay correspondence no correspondence on okay so I need a motion to go into executive session for personnel and Hib can I have a motion motion second all in favor I
any knows any extensions no okay so we will go into executive session um any discussion held by the board which need not remain confidential will be made public as soon as practicable minutes of the executive
session will not be disclosed until the need for confidence poity no longer exists the board will reconvene in public session at the conclusion of the closed session in approximately 20 minutes okay we're gonna stay here we're
gonna stay here okay bless you it says it okay I know you guys good okay we need to go back to correspondence because there was one that we didn't know about so we're going
to go back to that before public participation I have one letter Dear Mr kruba and the Bader School District Board of Education I writing this letter to formerly resign from my position as the Director of special services for the Bader cluster effective March 14 2025 I
have had the chance to grow exponentially while serving in this role and I am truly grateful for the opportunity to serve the students at Bel Harmony hope and white Township school districts in the coming weeks I will do everything possible to ensure a smooth transition in order to maintain continu continuity in programs and services once
again I extend my sincere gratitude for the experience and hope for the continued success of the Bader school district and the surrounding Community sincerely Ryan begelli that's it okay thank you all right we're going to go to public
participation this public participation is for agenda items anybody have public participation for agenda items no okay then we are going to go on to our
agenda we're looking at personal items it's going to be one and two also 2 a 2 b 2 c 2 D on our add-ons tonight can I have a motion for one
through 2D motion second any questions on any of them just comment on uh the resignation of Miss beg it says March 14th because that's the day she actually submitted her letter right no questions okay can we have roll call
please Mr Blum yes Mrs bone yes Dr zeppi yes Mrs Duckworth yes Mr Scott yes Miss Stefan yes Miss Walton yes Mrs wner yes Miss White yes Mr chiarelli yes Mrs
Gardella yes and Mrs ratham yes okay so we are on to educat education items education I'm a beler graduate Leave Me Alone um three through
8 and we have um an add-on for eight seven oh yes sorry eight seven and eight and it goes on to the back for eight okay can I have a motion have a question
wa can I have a motion for 3 through eight second now any questions um I just had a question on four with the shared service agreement um because I didn't get a copy of it so I didn't so it says we're
approving it so I don't know it so pulled up from last year and the numbers are a little bit different so I don't know if we have to have that amended first before we approve it or we could just approve it as is in this so the numbers are probably different because this year we're
involved in in a larger share we have another District I don't know I don't know how that I didn't look at last year so know what the numbers are last year's higher yeah this year's a little so it's different because it's a different person and it's a percentage of the person's um salary benefits and their
total costs but should we have that list before we approve that so we know how it's written down written out yeah I mean my question was similar like if we're approving the document from last year then it's not the same
but it's not the document from last year so then would we need a new document new shared service agreement yeah is that assuming it's a document it's the current years's agreement it is just it's retroactive
it's just finally making it we had some some trouble over time getting we the preschool Master teacher um we we previously did differently and then last year in the 23 24 school year we started having a master teacher that was hired through pacon that they shared across with us
and then this is the second year that we're doing that it is a different person this year the previous person retired um yeah so so I apologize that it hasn't made it to the agenda till now but it just surfaced when I was doing the
preschool budget and as I was trying to find out where is the information on the master teacher who is it um and that's when I found the agreement because I needed the information what is so then I said please put it on the agenda okay can you just explain what that is um to
be part of the preschool Grant you have to have what they call a master teacher so someone who has x amount of years experience um that comes in we share with um I think I said carollyn Mr B had as the same question we say we for other District so that person's here one day a week and basically works with all three
of our preschool she tends to spend time in one of those classes a little bit more I don't want again nobody's riced but because the teacher's newer um it has a little less experience but it's a requirement we had originally when we started the grant six years ago we worked uh predominantly with Washington
when that person retired and uh expansion happened within the county we started jumped down this group so have to have it person has to be here uh it's part of the Grant and um that the reason why the cost is down because like M tra said I'm not questioning the need for
the person or the I just find it kind of unusual that we would have to approve a shared service agreement that we don't get to see like is there a written contract I think is what yeah it over right did did
you you requested a copy and got it I did but the the copy that I got was from 20 it was from last year I don't have I don't have this year's copy okay I didn't realize you had gotten a different version yeah I don't have this year's copy there is I believe the 2425 version um you should have gotten it in
the summer of last year I apologize it it surfaced because I was doing the preschool budget for that was due March 12th or something I'm trying to remember at justess because we're working on it new this year um that's when it came up that's when I dug for it to find it and
said let's get it board approved it should have happened back back in the summer this coming year hopefully you'll have it this summer for 25 26 but I will find the correct version and give that to you there is no reason to me that we can't table this until next month the
person has been doing it already but I agree with you that you would want to see the agreement so let me find the right one get it out to you but it's she still has been in place the person has been doing what she needs to do but this is procedurally we need to get it board approved okay perfect thank you so sorry
for the confusion and the delay and then I guess because we all come in like some of us come in in January if there is someplace that we should be looking for these agreements just direct us no there's not anywhere specific this is just something that got emailed and then
we switched who was in charge of preschool kind of move maneuvered around a couple times this year so I just this is you know it's definitely an influx year but we we're working on it okay no problem thank you so let's table number four how about
that motion you don't need a motion if everyone if it's consented everyone consent can ask ask if everyone consent to does everyone consent to table the number four yes yes okay all right and I'll get you the
correct version and we'll put it on the next agenda okay any other questions on 3 through eight no okay so we're going to do 3 through eight without four because we're tbling
that so all in favor I I I any nose any abstentions okay okay so now we are on to business items 9 through 15 and we have um an
addition on 11 and 15a can I have a motion for 9 through 15a motion second any questions
I have one um is this ratifying Thea then for negotiation did we get a copy of the the mo MOA no don't have a cop no never officially signed you sent the email out that it
was yes I didn't sign anything and one of us either president was Will table that until next time hold on we're still having conversation oh all right because once we get it then we can
see what the CH yeah I wasn't given anything that come from you or who's that come from but where does it come from I don't have the
documents who creat because we didn't have a last meeting with them correct got it but regardless we don't have it no they didn't get it no they didn't get it number
okay okay all right yeah okay all right that's what you want me to do okay so we will be looking to table number nine since the paperwork has not
been given out is everybody okay with tabling number nine yes yes yes yes yes it back yes I have a question on 15a Grant is there any
um I apologize the correct term is is slipping my mind but does this school board or the district have any obligation sometimes with a grant you have to do some sort of matching does this have any or is it
okay I do not believe there is any matching but I follow obligation maybe or is it just a thank you note contribute tribute that the word conversate too contributing like kind or
something like that yeah like yeah like kind I'm just going to read you a little excerpt from the um the award and it I'm going to read it but I can say on behalf of the cugus region Community Foundation
board of directors I am pleased to send you the enclosed Grant check for $1,148.31 from the wolfinger family Donor advised fund this grant is designated for Mr Matthew Duckworth's agricultural mechanics welding tools Replacements and updates
um so there's no matching or anything to it it's a a check that was sent and I believe that he receives this he's received it definitely in the past and sorry for messing up the name there um I would like to make mention
something about the budget if I could yep yeah so late in the game um while as I put all the budget information into the extensive budget software it popul ated that we are no longer above
adequacy which we tend to always be so this year we are below adequacy what does that mean yeah the old getes to I don't remember this goes way back so this is going to be an off-the cuff not great explanation but basically quite some
time back they developed an adequate School District which was like a school district of 5,000 students and then what would what that school would need to run and then if if you didn't fit into that mold then your costs were either over or under that and since we by no means fit
into a mold of a 5,000 um uh student School District we've always been way not way but considerably over adequacy just because we don't we can't run the same way like our efficiencies aren't going to be the same because every single class doesn't have you know
25 kids in it Etc um so I've just gotten used to that then this year when I ran the budget software we're below adequacy and honestly I would have loved to dive in and I actually had spoke with the County VA today about this and this
is why I wanted to bring it up and I said to him you know I'd like to Deep dive a little further into that I just had to meet the deadlines on what was there and it wasn't affecting what I was turning in so he agreed with the with the approach but the other thing that
popped up was that they were saying that in our state aid print outs that we were going to have a weighted average enrollment of like 365 kids when this year we were more like 320 so it was like this huge enrollment growth so with that you'll see in the
add-ons they we are approved for um it's a tax levy adjustment of $300 and some, which I put on there we are by no means using that since we're about a our penny is say $15,000 if we increased our tax levy
for the $343,000 that we're allowed to that would be quite a tax increase so we kept the tax increase at 2% um I also would like to Deep dive into why did they have this great projection that our enrollment is
growing so much that we now qualify for that I did want to get it approved regardless because that does give us the ability to have banked cap for the next three years based upon this enrollment adjustment so if we do need for some reason over the next few years to utilize any portion of that we now can
because we're approving it tonight so that's I just want to explain why that's there that's a good thing then it all a good thing that's what I mean so these were not bad things yeah I can't explain them because they don't make logical sense to me with sounded POS the 16 years that I've done bel's budget but
this is what happened this year in addition though something came out from the state on Thursday that was called um a tax levy state aid incentive which if you were below adequacy you could qualify for so we qualified for that and it would give us the ability for
additional state aid up to I believe it was 5% of I think it was your Tex I didn't print it out because again it could give us and I wanted to let you know this publicly or at least so the board knows
that if we did use and increased our tax levy all through our adjustments that we could be eligible to apply for this tax levy incentive Aid which would give us probably another $200 some, in aid but we'd have to first charge taxes
up through $343,000 of the enrollment adjustment and then we could apply for this and we would get this money the ultimate effect if we spent additional $343,000 in tax levy plus a $200 some,
in state aid the sending districts would have like tuition adjustments for $25,000 per student because we'd have all this money to spend that now we would have been underspent on our tuition of what we charge them for this year so I don't think it's a good idea
but I didn't want you to know that we we could apply for this Aid if we did all these things and it would be at our fingertips for some reason this year because we're below adequacy but so just explain to get $300,000 out of the taxpayers how many percentage points
would that raise our taxes 15 2% is giving us uh 2% was 20,000 I think was it no 2% is given us I think it's 43,000 or something is
1% so it would be a lot and it just in the end with a tuition based School District the you know the the down the road effect of that would be great for this year but it would not be good for
us long term um so I don't I did not feel that we should push that and I did not and I just wanted you all to be aware of it just to be transparent that per we'll be shot when we leave right and my discussion with the county ba today was that unfortunately the districts some of which are represented here that would
have really have benefited from that weren't eligible because they're districts that are above adequacy and if you're above adequacy you aren't even eligible for that which most I would say most Warren County districts are probably above adequacy so being below
is better being below is better um it made us eligible for this but right with you know in in the town of Bader our tax base is is very different than the tax base is even in harmony so I mean I I work on very different
districts um oh I know so I just wanted to explain that even though it wasn't a great explanation just so that you aware that it's out there if you do read about it somewhere um so the budget that we've been working on is the one that we stuck with with a 2%
tax increase to our tax thanks thank you yep any other questions on any of these items are we tbling that one a little bit later in the meeting right yes nine nine is tabled for just a little while
for a little while temporarily tabled no other questions 9 through 15 with well actually not 10 through 15 we do roll call for the budget or does it I don't think that I need it no no because it's a preliminary anyway m
not a final well I don't think we need it for the final either oh okay all right just want to make sure sure thanks okay all in favor I I I any nose any
extensions okay switch to my other page okay so we are going on to continuing business podcast info I I'll I'll if you want the podcast let me know I got I have to actually
have to text it to you my number can't you just text it to me all right I I have to download it and get it it's not as simple as just you know one click it but any other continuing business I do um so I have I was looking for an update
regarding the feminine products in the bathroom I saw that the nurses update said they still available and the nurses and I know that we were looking to we place an order to have the dispensers dispensers in the bathroom and never kind of got an update
so but uh Mr hoit actually not that Mr hoit the Elder Mr hoit um actually said to me early last week we have everything in and everything is fully stocked okay thank you for that um and then I have to follow up again on the website so some
pages were updated but not a lot of them so like our homepage still has Tech tips from 2023 news announcements weeks and reviews our academics is featuring students from 20
one m so I did have a quick discussion with I'm going to say the tech department and one thing and because I just discussed this I'm going to related to that because we are not the standard
5,000 student District we don't necessarily have positions for all of these things to happen so the way our website works it's each department I think stop me if I'm wrong but there's different people in charge of different sections we don't have one person that
just oversees all of it so I know some people went in and tried to update all their pieces right away to try to make it better but we are definitely lacking in having somebody who oversees the website overall um and if it's still something that I don't know that we have
anybody that's either has the time or anything to do a full overhaul but I basically said kind of looking for like a website audit like to what about the BHS media isn't that like a student run overseen by a teacher maybe yes so I
love that idea of like aan I mean at least take things down someone time to take things down I'm only just giving you like that was the discussion that I had higher level um maybe it can be charged to the principal to speak directly to a you know or at
least just take it down yeah and somebody you know who can individually oversee it I I don't know that's all I have on yeah I know and one of the reasons that I'm harping on it is it just really is our only face right and it's our marketing it's and if
you're from a sending district and you're not sure if you're going to come here where are you going to go our website and so just it says who we are and we're not this so I'm with you I've been complaining to um and then I did want to follow up
in the last meeting Maran brought up the life skills classroom I had that on my list too oh all right so what the life skills classroom we met the weeks are blending together sometime last week Monday Tuesday Wednesday last week um we have a plan
together we're just waiting on to see if we're going to get some additional funding um probably have a really good plan for that to be Unleashed in the at the May meeting like who did the plan what's that who two put the plan together we have we have part plan we have one if we are on a Sho string
budget you're not on a Sho string budget keep going um then we need to know that for sure that we're not on a Sho string not on a Sho string budget I can't give you a dollar amount but you were not on a sh then we can plan differently we were just waiting to get some sort of confirmation on yeah I don't have it exact amount we'll try to get um right now we we kicked around the idea of
actually having um architect kind of help us with we what we have ideas um we also want to just say that you know architecture expensive though so we want to be mindful of getting the bank for our dollar so we'll we're going to explore that but now that I have a good direction I can have we gone out to look
at any of these other life skills classrooms we have not we talked about doing that over the next couple of weeks and I gave a couple of good examples Warren Hills has a good one as does Sparta so we'll probably at least those two start with so yeah okay I'll report that back
tomorrow night to the family I know and I I meant to talk to Tommy and I forgot I have one Third Street what's up with Third Street man the kids love playing at Third Street it's nice to see everybody over there was packed this
afternoon loves going there it is uh it it was Welly there was a ton of kids uh no update since the last time we spoke it's uh it's just we get drips and drabs of emails from really from our uh from the Architecture Firm that this piece of paper was approved so I have nothing
further and where where are we left off with it we're just waiting for State approval to sell it but it's like it keeps going up the ladder so ultimately someday somebody's going to send us something that's going to say you can sell it or you can't oh so we don't even know if we can
we're pretty confident we can but we just need that officially in writing I suppose somebody could say no if they wanted to they always can y well I do have a few things um Grant updates on the energy and
playground I have not received anything formal still from AC cpnl the last I heard is that we are hoping any day for a notice to proceed that we are in the final stages um and as far as the the playground grant that I submitted
January 31st just waiting here um bathrooms open vaping consequences for Vaping yeah the big
one I can give you an update at the next meeting MH I mean they're open as far as I know but I can't come into the a little maybe the open close thing or the notification that they're open if they're on this side of the school versus that side of the school got it y
um because obviously we all know that vaping is not legal and shouldn't be happening in school and kids should be able to go to bathroom um and so just to confirm all the bathrooms are open even the Middle School bathroom I'm not confirming that CU I don't know that for
100% but I can give you a definite answer at the next meeting and uh damages to bathrooms bad things happening in bathrooms outside of vaping there's some nothing's been brought to my attention but I can follow up on that too I haven't heard anything and usually
I get it from the custodial staff more than anybody so but I haven't heard anything um and then she's saying there's been damage I that brought to my attention she yeah all right okay we'll we'll report on that one too and the cell phones I
understand that there has been maybe some new policies being put back into effect or enforcement enforcement enforcement policy would be the good word um I believe as a parent it's good to lead by example so are there rules in
place for the teachers and faculty also when we can use and when we can't use there are guidelines in place whether they're followed or not is a very very different question oh can I dub tail onto that yeah um yeah CU I did notice the baskets outside of the
bathrooms um and there has been some Crackdown on that um but possibly maybe I know like the middle school maybe the eighth graders Mr carus has um like a student kind of committee where he hears the voices of
the students do we have anything like that in the high school um to where the students are part of the process um because it's you know when the students that are doing the right thing we're trying to catch them doing the right thing but the students that generally do
the right thing are getting you know stopped in the bathroom because they literally need to use the bathroom being asked to maybe empty their pockets or things like that but yet we still have vaping so it's not put your Vape in the basket it put your cell phone in the
basket so it's you know yeah I think we need to we need to uh it's on my very short list of things to have a discussion about where we are with that um I personally don't believe in punishing everybody for the acts of a few um and I think sometimes the kids see it that way and I think we just need
to just tighten that necessarily Titan is up not the right word but really take a look at that and um to my knowledge we do not involve the kids I know we involved them in the decision on the tress code but that was a year ago so I'd have to check on the cell phones if I mean because they have some really good ideas and I have a negotiator
myself that lives in my house and um you know and they have some good thought processes and they you know have the right to be heard and and also have good examples agreed so with that being said on March
10th there was legislative uh bills that were approved in the state of New Jersey and um some of those bills was requiring school counselor certification instruction on curse of handri writing scholarships for public
service service and then cell phone and social media policy and in that it says that provide age appropriate and grade level differentiate guidelines concerning limiting and prohibiting student use of cell phones and social media platforms prohibit non-academic
use of cell phones or social media during classroom instruction um address permitting student use of cell phone in the case of emergency or in response to a perceived threat of danger address smartphon cell phones with only text or voice and other relevant devices
including smartw watches uh list options that may be utilized by a school district for cell phone storage including lock pouches and cell phone lockers provide guidance for a school district to establish network-based restrictions to prevent the use and
access to social media platforms and detailed Protocols of communicating the district's policy concern concerning student use of cell phones and social media platforms to students families and teaching staff members so it says the bill will require each Board of
Education to adopt a policy concerning student use of cell phones and social media platforms so that kind of du tails on to what you were talking about um just real quick one of the thought process on it is that they're so accustomed to hey I finished my test in
10 minutes I'm G to go on my phone if I don't have another class workk to do um so I'm not doning cell phones in school and not that's neither here nor there with this let's give them new ideas of what to do remind them take out a book and read it or maybe there is extra work
in that math class that they finished their tests faster than their classmates they're truly sitting there for you know a half an hour 40 minutes we're not letting them sleep you know like what what are they supposed to do with their time because that's where they're they're going to get they're
going to start maybe start causing a ruckus or a problem in class um so need to help them find a different coping mechanism they're not able to use their phones agre thank you I had two
things um I just wanted to congratulate Avery stack house and Mason Chamberlain for March 12th um unsung hero award uh we saw quite a few of our board members and our administrators there um it was a lovely
event was um and we all enjoyed our students and our administrative board members company and then the only other thing I was going to ask and I sent this over the curriculum committee but just an update on the career fair and if we were still on track for that I know
there's a lot cooking so yeah we are we and I know I had emailed maybe in one of my updates about a month ago we are very much on track actually a pretty impressive list of uh attendees um so I can have Dr mcken for me the latest version of that and we'll I'll get it
out to the board but I think it well over 40 at the last check right wasn't it like high like oh that's amazing great what's the date again the career fair May May 30 May 30th so I have an issue for new
business one of the main functions of a school board in the state of New Jersey is to monitor the programs and the activities of the school district to ensure sure they meet the educational welfare of the children and the applicable rules and
laws at our last meeting three Mo mothers spoke about their concerns regarding the treatment their children are receiving from our special educational program and some of its AIDS in addition our Hib harassment
intimidation and bullying incidents have recently been increasing most being related to students with classification based upon the concerns of their mothers and my concern for the well-being of this group of children and the increase
in hi violations I make a motion that this board establish an ad hoc committee comprised of four to six board members to investigate our special education program and establish a monitoring program can I second the motion
that's about special education well I'll second the motion if it's a motion if that's I think that's a great idea separate we don't have to worry about okay yeah yeah let me just say
Min I don't see why there couldn't be special is well are we looking at special ed Bob or we looking into HIV because you mentioned both special education but the committee any board
committee has to don't know for number uh five five be I would recommend you set the number as rather than saying five or six moot I'll amend my motion to five
members so we're good with that to be able to all in favor I I any NOS any abstentions okay all right so we will look at moving in forward with adding that
committee and that committee will report out then at the monthly board meetings like similar like the finance and since we're going to move like another committee as much as we can I mean again we're we're know yeah we'd have to make it a separate know comme we wouldn't
want to be adding it on so it would probably be we just have to be careful what we report out as far as student rights and things yeah okay I have some new business um kind of a different take on the bathrooms do we have it huh oh I'm sorry
um I was at the high school play or musical um all the shows and I had some feedback from public there's been there was quite a bit of public that was there just to see the show didn't really know kids or you know really like those kind of things so they'd come in and there
was some suggestions that I was getting um from those people as far as some better signage for our buildings like where handicap parking is or where entrances are just for people that don't know our building and aren't used to our community even grandparents and stuff
that come for any of these things we have Veterans Day you know those kind of things that we have people that are new to our school so that was one of the recommendations maybe even if we could do some temporary like increase to close parking for the elderly those kind of
things um would be one thing just so people aren't walking from one end of the building to the other that you know might struggle um also bathroom signs inside the building just so those people aren't having to ask every other person which Hall the bathroom's in or where the bathroom is you know something that
we could temporarily hang up maybe or put in the hall or you know make it a permanent fixture I don't know what the most economical thing would be um and then the end of that would be I did go into the bathroom that we are having most of our public using it's kind of
embarrassing there's tiles falling off on the floor and things like that and we have our public using that and you know it's it's not our best foot forward to say the least um so if we could just look at maybe making some you know just
general repairs you know upgrades sure to make it you know not having tiles falling off the baseboard got it so those were my only things that I have anybody else have any other okay hold on
are they working on yeah we're going to move on to public okay yeah yeah so we're going to move on to public participation right now anybody have public participation please come on up hi my name is Kathy Gross my daughter goes to the school all four of my boys
graduated this school and I work in the school I really love what I do and Mr Blum I would like to thank you for bringing up the idea of an ad hoc committee I would maybe I would love to see parents not necessarily special LED
parents um but other parents or other uh Professionals in the school kind of join that committee um that you know people that see these things going on every day and can add our opinions show it good or bad um so I would you know if that could
be something that could be done I think that would be great um but I I thank you for putting that forward okay thank you my name's Kimberly Wilson my son goes to the school I have I know we can't answer questions but maybe you can clarify
later um since Mrs bielli resigned what does that mean for our director of special educations because we obviously need one with everything the approved substitutes where they're going and then this is for me and another mother from
the class that the teacher you appointed we would like to know if he can meet the kids first and maybe us because I know my son and her daughter they will test his limits they will push him until they cannot push him anymore idea great idea yeah we're g I know one El supposed to
comment right I know but let mean Qui let me so for the subs it's not sure yet until all the paperwork is in and where we need them so I don't have a a clear on that one U with Miss begelli we're going to work on a plan which we'll discuss uh at the April meeting as far as that piece moving forward as far as
the child study team um Dr Gano will absolutely come in and meet everybody um once he's approved I'll reach out to him and we'll we'll set up a time when that makes most sense okay so I I that'll be don't want to put the cart before the horse ever so well no yeah now that we do that we'll try to get that done some
obviously sometime next week okay and then one more thing and this is from both of us again we spoke to you about it I think it's something the Board needs to know as well I am still waiting it's been two months since we've had the first meeting from uh what is her name I can't think
of or the caseworker that's substituting for misina M I have not heard anything about my meeting with behaviors about John's FBA okay and she has not heard anything about her meet so just you say as far as scheduling the meeting correct scheduling any kind of contact anything
no emails I gave her a note from my son's doctor on things that need to be amended and all I got was a phone call saying I'll set a meeting up and it's been over a month so things like that is something I know we've discussed but I think the Board needs to know as well that we're waiting two to three months to get any kind of
communication if we get any at all from the child study team about stuff that goes into these children's IEPs and 504s that's it thank you any other well hello I'm
back um I'm now the uh council leaon with the police department which is what brings me here tonight he's hitting them all um the police have been working with the uh uh the school staff to uh improve the the procedure for dropping off students in the morning and picking up in the
afternoon that's that's kind of a mess over there and I know they've been working on that and the new procedures are imminent as far as I know uh but along that I wanted you to know that our crossing guards are being subjected to some incidents of uh verbal abuse which
is just not acceptable on any level at all um the police have videos of some of them and they're going to prosecute good um but just along that line I know when you uh you'll be announcing new procedures for the drop off process this parents put something in there would you
mind about courtesy with the crossing guards and a little bit respect I I don't know that it's parents that are doing it it could be commuters let's just get the word out yeah to treat these people all I want to do is get the kids across the streets thank you thank you very much
just to picky back on what Mr Roth said we plan to um have that new uh drop off and pick off in place right after April break so we'll have all the information out to the parents um before break so that they know what what we're going to do we have a lot of um ideas we're just we're waiting for the weather to clear
up and and we have signage and everything that'll come up so yeah so when I send that out I'll make sure that it includes that little that little PSA y thank you very much thank you any other public participation no okay so we are looking
to go into an additional executive session to discuss number nine negotiations um can I have a motion motion second okay got one all in favor
I okay any nose any abstentions okay so we we'll go into this and action may be taken when we come back in about 20 minutes I'm hoping 20 minutes to a half hour I'm gonna time it this
time I promise thank you I have a feeling together all right be really bad okay so we are going to look back at business item number nine I'm looking for a
motion motion oh I was going to okay amend it first so we're going to amend it to we're going to approve the ratification of the five-page memorandum of agreement for 2024 through 2026 with
the correction of Sal increases of 6% for 2024 to 25 and 6% for 2526 for the teacher aids okay so we need to make that correction everything else stays
the same on it so can I have a motion for to approve number nine motion second second roll call please Mr Blum Mr bone yes Dr up yes M Duckworth yes Mr Scott
yes M Stefan yes M Walton yes Mrs wenner yes M white yes Mr chiarelli yes Mrs Gardella yes Mrs ratham yes okay anything else on okay motion to adjourn the meeting
motion gr second all in favor I any nose any extensions have a good night everybody thank you so much for coming thank you