meeting notice statement. Adequate notice of this meeting of the Berkeley Heights Board of Education was given as required by the Open Public Meetings Act as follows. On January 9th, 2025, notice of the board of education meeting schedule was sent to the Star Ledger and the Courier News and was also provided
to all schools, PTO presidents, the BHEA president, and posted at the administration building. A copy was also provided to the public library and filed with the municipal clerk. Please stand for the flag salute. I pledge algiance 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. Thank you. Mr. Secretary, may we have a roll call, please? Mr. Kiri,
Miss Bradford, here. Dr. Forer. Miss Terrero, here. Mr. Dylan, Miss Jolly, Miss Connor here, Miss Stanley, we have a quorum. Adjourn to executive session. Whereas the Berkeley Heights
Board of Education seeks to adjourn to executive session in full compliance with the Open Public Meetings Act, NJSA 10:4-6. And whereas the open public meeting acts provides that a public body may exclude the public from that portion of the
meeting at which it discusses matters related to those identified below. Matters rendered confidential by federal law, state law, or court rule, individual privacy, collective bargaining agreements, purchase or lease of real property if public interest could be adversely affected. Investment
of public funds if public interest could be adversely affected. tactics or techniques utilizing utilized in protecting public safety and property pending or anticipated litigation, attorney client privilege, personnel, employment matters affecting specific prospective or current employees. Be it
resolved that the Berkeley Heights Board of Education adjourns to executive session to discuss matters related to students, personnel, negotiations, and legal issues. And be it further resolved that the minutes of the discussion, if any of these items, will be disclosed to the public when matters have been
determined and confidentiality is no longer applicable. May I have a motion to enter into executive session? Thank you, Dr. Forer. In a second. Thank you, Mrs. Connor. All in favor? I.
Okay. We are moving to executive session at 6:32. Thank you. Two, three, four, five. We have a corn. We're almost there. Thank you, Mrs. Connor. Second. Second.
Thank you, Mrs. Stanley. Vote. Voice vote. Everybody in favor? I. Good. The time is 8:08. Okay. report of our student representatives. Thank you, Pippa.
Hello. Uh, good evening. I will be presenting for Olivia and I since she's currently at the band concert. So, good luck to the band. I'm sure it sounds great. So, first will be her student life report. Uh, good evening. Throughout April, GL has been celebrating Autism Acceptance Month with
spirit days and candy sales. April is also National Deaf History Month and the ASL club has held meetings as well as highlighted GL alums of the deaf and hearting program during the morning announcements. In order to celebrate Earth Day, the student auxiliary club held a cleanup outside of GL and the
environmental club held a bake sale in order to fund raise for green initiatives at the high school. On Tuesday, April 22nd, the Governor Livingston music department held a very successful small ensembles concert highlighting talented instrumentalists and vocalists from the GL student body. Tonight is the largest ensemble spring
concert for the GL music department featuring the concert band, orchestra, choir, and symphony orchestra. From May 5th to 16th, GL students will sit for AP exams, which is one of the major milestones on the way to the end of the school year. Additionally, the AP seminar class completed two out of three
portions of their AP exam. On top of that, uh there's also something happening at GL with the sports as well. One of the most recent and major achievements made by the sports team at GL was the golf team. This Tuesday, they won their division title at the UCCC championships at Galloping Hill GC. Mark
Caparelli in class of 2026, won the division title uh individually and Victoria Stanba, class of 2025, placed second at the UCIC girls tournament at Suburban GC. Congrats to them both. For some general events at CMS, there was a
student versus staff basketball game. so was hosted by the future Highlanders, so we'll see them soon up on the hill. Riley House signed her letter of commitment to continue her academic and field hockey career at the collegiate level. She'll be attending the University of Scranton this coming fall.
Uh alongside that, on the GL boys lacrosse team, Michael Nelson, class of 2025, got his 400th career saved, which is extremely impressive. And on top of that, during launch on Wednesday, Kevin Schneider shared his story about navigating the challenges, struggles, and mental toughness present in the student athlete experience. His
presentation is called Under the Brim, and it focuses on mental health challenges and personal growth of student athletes. And it shows how even though those who might be very involved in the school may also still be struggling. Thank you. Thank you very much. Uh we are very proud of our
student athletes and our our students who are involved in the arts. I know I attended the Highlander Basket fundraiser which was very well attended the uh two weeks ago and raised a lot of money for our our band. So, thank you again, Pippa. Okay, reporter the
superintendent. Thank you, Mrs. Bradford. Um tonight, we would like to um uh report out on the referendum survey, the pre-referendum survey that we sent out to the community. We said at the beginning when we did our pre-referendum presentation that we were
surveying the community and we'd present the results to the community and we are doing so tonight and then um tomorrow the board will get a list of projects that have been prioritized based on the survey results um along with estimated
costs so that um we can then determine which projects will um that we want to actually put into a potential referendum and we'll start from there and talk next steps. Good evening
everyone. So we are here to talk about the survey. Um so we conducted this communitywide survey shortly after our initial meeting uh to assess support uh for the potential referendum and gather input on
priority projects. uh a total of 536 respondents uh filled in the survey, which is a pretty pretty good number for a district this size. The analysis focused on three core areas: educational facilities, facilities project rankings,
and community sentiments regarding any referendum and their support. Uh our intent here was to obtain information that could be used toward the crafting of a referendum. Which projects would be best uh supported? Which projects might
not be supported? What were pe what did people believe were their priorities? So in terms of an executive summary, there it is. Um we asked the respondents to rank their educational priorities from highest to lowest. Um with any ranking
uh score system they were given five points for the highest priority and one points for the lowest priorities. Um and we quantified the results uh with a weighted score. The quality of the teaching staff was the number one rank. It received the most weight weighted
score. There's an incredible sentiment about the teachers in this district and how well they do their job and how important it is to continue the educational uh excellence that's being done here. School safety and security was the next highest ranking uh category, aligning the curriculum to job
market needs. STEM and steam and science initiatives were also high up on the list as well as hands-on project-based learning. So, there's a big amount of community support for investing in the staff in uh the teaching quality and in
security and programming. We then asked respondents to look at uh potential capital improvements from least important to uh least important to mo from most important to least important. Uh usually when we do
priorities for any categories, one is the highest priority, one at best, four being you know the lowest or five being the lowest. So what we found was that the rankings by average score uh for the district 2.74
um in in terms of points for a ranking was technology, robotics and uh any of the renovations that would support those. The next were science lab innovations renovations uh at science labs, STEM, steam, anything associated
with the sciences uh was the next category. special education, classroom renovations was also high up on the list. Toilet room renovations, uh med followed by media center renovations followed by athletic renovations. Um it
athletics did rank lowest of the list of those priorities. Um however, there were uh a good overall majority that did feel that some athletic renovations could be done. There was then open-ended questions. And when you see open-ended
questions, it gains insight into what people think in, you know, from a without being guided through the questions. It's what do they feel are must include uh items for the referendum. So we asked for what do you feel would need to be included for your to gain your support and what do you
feel wouldn't would not should not be included to gain your support. The must includes were again special education, safety, security, STEM and robotics, health, wellness and accessibility and then modernization that impacts instruction. So any renovations that
would impact the classrooms is something that received high marks. Those that were do not include were athletic related upgrades, especially locker rooms, vague renovations for the sake of just renovating, uh projects perceived
as aesthetic or unnecessary, or concerns about overspending. Now, these were the most mentioned items. It doesn't mean that they rank that high on the on when you the questions were posed. You'll see as we go through the questions themselves that even though athletics
there were many comments about athletics not being uh included, but 60% of the respondents wanted athletics included. So you'll see there's a little bit of variance between what people said and what the direct response to the question was. So now we'll jump right into the
responses. We'll cover each of the responses. This was, you know, we start out with very uh general questions. um how long have you lived in district? And it it appears that we have people every anywhere from 6 to 10 years to uh 11 to
12 years is the majority. We've got 17% greater than 20 years in district and 18% less than 5 years in district. How satisfied are you with the quality of the Berkeley Heights school? As you can see, you know, the majority of people were satisfied with the
Berkeley Heights school. some 66% 67% were satisfied or very satisfied with the schools. There is 19% that noted dissatisfaction. Um 8% very dissatisfied and 13%
uh had uh I'm sorry, 3% had no uh had no opinion or other uh they felt otherwise. During the time you lived here, do you think the quality of education has improved, stayed the same or declined? And uh similarly with this
we have a a split. Some 10% felt that it improved, 40% have felt that it stayed the same and 37% felt that it declined with 12% having no opinion. Do you have any children who currently attend the Berkeley Heights
schools or who have graduated or attend private school or are homeschooled? The vast majority of respondents have children who will be attending or currently attend Berkeley Heights schools. Uh a very small percentage uh are graduated. Uh there are 9% 9.1% of
the respondents have no children. That's actually a very good number to get people who have no children being active in participating in such a survey. age group. Uh little delay. That's
why. All right. So age group uh the majority of people were 36 to 55. Uh there's a a 13.8% were younger than 19 years old which is also a very good group to have
responding to survey questions. So, as we got into some of the specifics for the question, there was a a one question talked about rank, how satisfied you were with how the Berkeley Heights schools does a variety of things, um, plans for the future. And
the red is satisfied, the blue is very satisfied, orange is dissatisfied, green is very dissatisfied, and purple is no answer. So you can see across the board there there is a significant satisfaction with how you plan for the
future, how you prepare students for success, how you address the students holistic needs, how you communicate as a district with community members, and how you reflect the values of this community. The lowest scores received were for how well the district maintains
facilities. um there was a a that was where dissatisfaction topped satisfaction uh in terms of the district. So it's something that you know obviously it's something we want to know so that we can address regarding the student experience. What should be the
district's key area of focus in uh the in the coming years? As you can see one is blue is the highest priority. Two uh red is the second highest priority. Orange is the third highest priority and four is the lowest priority. So overall
quality of the teaching staff is the highest you know mark that you see uh with the highest priority for this for the school. School and uh school safety and security is the second highest uh followed by uh a variety of differences
between extracurricular activities, online learning experiences, community service. uh district's ability to accommodate new programs is is a is a key item. Hands-on project-based learning uh as well as student achievement on on
standardized tests and social and emotional development. STEM and STEAM initiatives as you get to the bottom again strongly strong um priority aligning to the curriculum and instruction in the job market is a high priority as well. Uh
flexible scheduling throughout the school day. it was kind of spread. Um, access to cutting edge technology, another high uh high desire, collaboration with community partners, individualized and differentiated instruction for each
um each child, art, arts, performing arts programs and facilities ranked high athletic programs and facilities. And then uh the full day kindergarten prek program uh was you know kind of spread across the
board project specific questions. So we asked the community about specific projects that were either in the previous referendum or you know talked about last time that were priorities last time and what we would
do this time. So, would you be in favor of renovations to the existing libraries that would facilitate more effective and usable instructional space, collaboration areas, and create a more adaptive media technology center for elementary, middle, and high schools? 76%
uh indicated yes. 23.9 uh% indicated no. milling, paving, fencing, replacement projects to improve existing site conditions, layouts, and drainage at the elementary, middle, and high schools.
80% were in favor, 19.8% were not. Would you be in favor of wholesale roofing system replacement projects to improve existing conditions, eliminate leaks, reduce maintenance at the elementary, middle, and high schools?
91% were in favor. There were 9% of respondents were not in favor. Would you be in favor of a public address, communications and security camera system upgrade that would improve existing conditions, provide more coverage and protection at the
elementary, middle, and high schools? 77% of respondents said yes. 22% of respondents said no. Would you be in favor of ceiling flooring including asbestous as flooring abatements and lighting upgrades in classrooms and
other instructional spaces at the elementary, middle, and high schools? 88.6% said yes. 11.4% said no. Toilet room upgrades upgrades and renovations for general toilet rooms at
all schools, 82% yes, 17% no. classroom renovations, including science in general classrooms that would provide greater flexibility and adequate number of classrooms for the science program at the high school. 87.5% yes, 12.5%
no. A secondary question to the science rooms was, would you be in favor of renovations to biology, physics, and chemistry that provided layouts that would support an advanced curriculum with greater flexibility and efficiency? Again, 88.4% 4% yes,
11.6% no. Would you be in favor of general renovations, uh, classroom renovations to support a growing curriculum for TV production, broadcasting, robotics, or technology? 84% yes, 16%
no. Wholesale renovations to the existing locker rooms and team rooms to provide more space, greater efficiency, proper storage, updated toilet and shower facilities, and a trainer room at the high school. You can see here there's a little split but still the
majority of respondents 65% uh said that they were in favor of that while 34% were not. So as you can see priorities from a prioritized standpoint science lab renovations toilet room renovations were
the highest along with technology robotics. Um, you had locker room renovations, a significant number that were priority seven, but across the board you still had priority 1, 2, 3, and four that were, you know, that balance that out. Uh, media center
renovations also high priority 1, two, three, four dropping off a little bit. Uh, and then special education, high priority one, two, and three with uh, priority four dropping off a little bit as well. So overall uh you know the the
the data supports the the questions that were asked based on what we're seeing here. The most common the five most common responses or similar responses from the survey. These were where uh respondents had the ability to enter
things that they felt were necessary for the referendum. General maintenance, heating and cooling systems. People uh who responded noted that there were issues with the heating and air conditioning systems. There were issues with roof leaks, general maintenance needs at the schools, particularly at
the high school and middle school levels. Uh there was also a a group of people that talked about improvement of outdoor facilities and sports fields. A number of responses mentioned the need to upgrade the sports fields, tennis courts, better lighting, and the
addition of new athletic facilities. A number of respondents talked about in general building and classroom renovations uh in various areas including bathrooms, locker rooms, uh emphasis on gender equality, classrooms and cafeteria to improve overall
functionality and comfort. And the remaining two were technology upgrades. There were several mentions about uh including better Wi-Fi, digital learning tools, classroom tech, uh and improvements of an aging infrastructure. Uh and then uh the last one was safety
and security. A lot focused on enhancing security, improving the cameras, better lighting, addressing security issues like monitoring bathrooms for vaping. So those questions were there. Here is where I, you know, kind of don't
get the responses. Every other response that we saw for a lot of the work that needed to be done was positive, 80%, 70%, 60%. The final question came down to, would you be likely to support a referendum to address the needs of the
district? And I think that the reason that we're seeing such a skewed response here possibly and most likely is that there's no cost associated with this and people are wary. They want to know what is this going to cost me if I'm going to support it. So there was a discussion
about a potential for a second round of questions, short survey that talked about the fact that the board's intention would be to look at this as a netneutral option, zero tax impact to the taxpayer and then ask some of the
questions again related to the projects that we're doing. And that's just a verification step, right? That's to confirm that this data doesn't support the previous data that was listed before. And I think there has to be a reason respondents were not given the
opportunity to put a a a written response next to their their vote either for or against or possibly like like only 7% of all respondents said not at all. So and again cost knowing what this
would cost or not cost could have changed or changed that data. So it's certainly something that we would want to consider moving forward. Finally, what this really comes down to, and it's kind of a summary, is that the community's expressed a clear desire for
practical student f student focused and instructional spaces investments that support teaching in 27 21st century readiness. Any referendum that would emphasize steam, STEM, special education, sciences, safety, and
essential infrastructure um have a high likelihood of success based upon the data. athletics, while it's valued, it shouldn't dominate the narrative and may best be presented as alternate orphased projects. And then we did talk about a handful of those students who chimed in
about technology and infrastructure failures in the district. So, as you can see, our kind of green light is on science labs, robotics, special ed, safety, security, technology integration, and more modern modernization of classrooms, toilet room
renovations, and media center renovations. We would include, if necessary, with limited scope, athletic facilities, including locker rooms because, again, they still were perceived positively in the individual question. there were a few comments that
came out that said they were the most most comments that said uh not to include them. So long short that is the summary of our uh of the the analyzation of the data for the the the
um survey. So before we go to what's next, are there any questions as it pertains to the data that I presented? Yes. Thank you. You're welcome. Um, a couple questions. First, um, can we get a copy
of this presentation? Absolutely. Okay. Second question, um, just, you know, when I was reading the survey questions themselves, I can maybe help you understand why that last graphic was such in part because when you're asking somebody, are you in favor of this
wonderful thing? Why wouldn't you be in favor of this wonderful thing? So you're getting very high marks on all the questions maybe except for the very last one with the facilities. But I think you know at the end of the day I I don't I didn't love those questions because who
wouldn't why would anybody say no to a better product right of anything that you're asking. So maybe if there's some thought if you're going to do another one to maybe rephrase the questions because it's like would you want this relative to what? like it you know in on
its own everybody would want you know better facilities better STEM better gyms better fields you know whatever so that was my kind of issue with those questions um and then the one question there was some mention of fields I from
your first presentation I may be remembering this incorrectly were fields actually allowed to be included as part of the referendum sure okay I thought maybe they're not fundable they're not so yeah for funing Right. So it be 100%. Yeah. Okay. Thank
you. Yes. So 536 responses. That's correct. And um this survey was sent to staff and the students also, right? Yes. To middle school and high school. Do we know the breakup of how many students and how
many staff responses and how many actual residents? Yeah, I I mean I believe that data is available. I don't I don't have that right now, but the data is available. To add to that question, you had a slide on
the percentages. To kind of add to that question that Mr. Kerry's asking, is that a a a good number for a district our size? Is that a typical number of responses received for
this size district? I think it's it's a fair showing. I could it be better? We always want it to be better, but it's definitely a fair showing. We just did a another survey in a three school district and they received 175 responses. So
536, it's a fair amount. Um, so yeah, we we had ages. Um, right. And so the 13.1% is 74 uh people younger than 19.
Um the let me go this way. 19 to 25 was 6. 26 to 35 was 14. 36 to 45 is 166. 46 to 55 is
212. 56 to 65 is 50. And older than 6514. Um so this is by the age. I'm just saying we we do have the data to see how many. So I did raise this in a different meeting where some of the middle school kids
didn't understand what a referendum was and the survey was sent to them. So I'm just saying does the district have a breakout of out of 5336 responses how many were actually staff and from student emails? Do we have that break? The students would be
younger than 19. So I have that that's 74. I don't have a breakout from staff or a breakout of middle school versus high school because we didn't collect um email addresses or anything like that. It did ask for an email. The first
question was to do the survey. You had to give an email so that your survey response can be emailed back to you. But I don't believe we recorded those. I think it was to verify but we didn't
record. I sent you all Yeah. We can look at the data and see what we can pull up in terms of because I I took when I took the survey the first question asked was email and question is whether you want to record that is is
another factor in the survey. Some district want the emails recorded. They want people to be accountable for their responses and when you do it that way you are able to see who gave exactly what response. Other districts want the survey to be anonymous. So even though
you provide your email at the onset, the data is not may not be saved. We'll check tomorrow and we'll take a look at what that what our data was for the survey. And could a person have uh was able to did you set it to in such a way that a person can only take one time or
can they take multiple times? Well, that's a good question. Believe it was. You can double check. Yeah. Any other questions from the board? I have one. Yes, Mrs. Connor. Um, when
the choice was given in terms of the different categories of what they would prioritize, was there an indication of what the cost is even in terms of kind of just single dollar, $2, $3, something to indicate how big or small? We don't
know what that cost is. This was an intent to say in scope, is this a is this something that you would like us to entertain? It really wasn't a, you know, there's no way for me to quantify cost until everyone looks at the budget and
if this is a priority, if toilets are a priority, we're now going to look at all the toilet room projects that we have listed. We're going to add them all up and that's where the list you're going to receive tomorrow will have everything based on this survey and what people's uh inclinations were will be in the
cost. Now, now you will see all of the toilet room projects are going to be X million dollars or whatever that number is. All of the media center projects are going to be X dollars. All of the roof projects are going to be X dollars. When we add it all up, it may be over what we
want it to be. So now we're going to have to pair down, look at what the priorities are between those projects themselves. So it's very difficult for us to even give an idea of cost without a telling someone that the cost could be millions and millions of dollars. That's
only going to go in the wrong direction. And the second part of this is having a better understanding of what you need and knowing that the board's intent is netneutral. We have an amount that we can't go over. So once we back into those numbers, that'll give us a better
idea of cost. What could have been said and again not not knowing where where this was going to go, what could have been said at the time was the board is going to entertain no tax impact. So would you support a referendum if there was no tax impact? That that was going
to be and that's the follow-up question, right? So that's the follow-up question especially where if we can go to the one that showed possible or most likely or the support for the referendum, I think
Um, to Natasha's point, everything is great till you put a number against something and then you start having the affordability conversation or a prioritization conversation that says you only have $20 million. What can you do with it? Exactly. And I think that
the other thing that I'm curious and maybe it's not in this but potentially a followup is putting some sort of an indication that says this type of a project will is eligible for like the aid the 34% that we talked about for
people to be a little bit aware of such a project would get the aid versus like something that is absolutely no no no hope at all of getting any funding. Every project that was listed on this list is eligible for 34% aid.
All of them. Every project that we listed here. Okay. So, it's fields and things like that that are not here. And it's not what the respondents said, it's what we asked them about. Yeah. Those classroom renovations, the science, the STEM, all of those classrooms, toilet room renovations are all eligible as
best as flooring, all of those things are eligible for 34% debt service. Got it. So, and it wasn't said to your point, it wasn't it wasn't said in the beginning. So, it's certainly something that could have led to this response. Yeah. Okay. Mrs. Shelley, could I just
ask if Pippa would like to ask her question? Oh, sorry. I was just wondering while I was listening to this with the student percentage of the responses from the survey, I mean, knowing myself as a student and a teenager, getting 74 people isn't that bad at all. And this
just may be my uneducation on where the surveys are sent out, but personally as a student, I didn't receive anything about the district sending out a survey. And I feel like with the amount of kids that are at GL, it's not likely that all of them will answer. Like you probably
won't even get 50%. But I'm not sure if there's a way to send it out through the school email so more people could respond because even throughout the presentation there were certain parts of it where I was like, "Oh, like that definitely needs to be fixed from like a student perspective or maybe it's just my opinion and values what I value in
school." Uh, which I might not share with other people. But with the tennis courts and I saw something with gender equality specifically with the locker rooms, I feel like that was a definitely a good point that was made because I haven't been in the boys' locker room, but from I guess speculation and rumors,
uh the guys locker room is significantly better than ours. I don't think it's a number one priority, but I do feel like it's something good to point out. And I do know that if plenty of the girls were able to fill out the survey, you definitely would have seen more responses focusing on that as well. So,
I'm not sure if that's something you can control, but I wasn't aware of it. And I feel like I do check my email frequently at school and if it was possible to send that out to other people with I think you're talking about doing a second kind of form sending out. I mean, teenagers won't be worried about how much it costs
to be honest, but just to get it out there on what their opinion is, I think it could be more helpful because obviously the adults are the ones providing the funding if it does come through taxes, but the students are the ones that are being most directly impacted. So, I think that might be beneficial.
Thank you, Fiba. Mrs. Jolly, thank you. So if there there is a second round, I'd be very curious if you could add a comment field for this particular question because especially for those that are saying not at all. I'd be very
interested to understand like what is it you know after you preface it with tax neutral after you know you give all that information. I'd still be very interested to understand what's going to because that might spread you know absolutely eventually. So, absolutely. And to kind of add on what you know,
Miss Connor said and Miss Jolly said and others have said, I think when you're doing a second round, I think it's important to get a feel for what people's appetite would be if it wasn't tax neutral. If it wasn't tax, if it was
not. Yeah. Because I'll be honest with you, $20 million isn't going to go very far with some of the things we have to do. So I think it's a realization that we need to face and I mean if people don't want to do it fine but I think they have to understand we're going to be really
limited. Okay. With all the things they're looking for. Understood. Good question. Good point. Mrs. Stanley say from the student side that maybe you could um request a presence with Mr. Nixon and kind of go over some of the
student concerns. Um because I think that's a great way because he's he's going to have to be the one that fights for his projects here at this building. Um and you know, I think that's that's a way a great way to get your guys' voices heard if we don't send out a second one.
Um but yeah, I we we know about the the girls locker room. Believe us, it's it's on our priority. even if it's not on the town's priority yet, but it might be because they don't realize that there is a difference between the the uh female locker rooms and the and the male locker
rooms um and some of the the maintenance issues that we've had um in the past with that with that locker room. So, so it is on our priority so you can sit safe with that one. But um but yeah, I I would love to hear what the students priorities are and if you wanted to to
organize that and get in front of Mr. Nixon, I think that would be awesome. Yeah. Yes. Um I think I did mention I spoke to them in the past, Miss Bartlett and Mr. Nixon around the last time when we were having the issues with like the leaking and the
heating and about how a lot of the students felt left in the dark. Maybe this is also just my friends just wondering what's going on as well. Um, and I mentioned to them, I was like, even though again, not everyone opens it, if you send it, nobody can say like, "Oh, we didn't know anything like you
didn't send anything out." And they said that that's something that they'd definitely be willing to do. Um, so I think I could follow up with them again on that. They seemed very willing to work with me and they understand my point of view, but they also had the point of view that, well, not a lot of
students actually read their email. So, but I think that's our fault. So that's not something they can control, but I do think it would be appreciated by the people who do look for that information and try to access it that it could be helpful. Yeah, absolutely. Right. Like the more information the better and then
it's on you, right? If you give the information, but yeah, no, I I I really appreciate you uh speaking up for them. Thank you. So, what's next? What's next? So, we are targeting a March 2026
referendum that will coincide with the debt service expiring. Uh, we are going to use the survey data and community response to review and consolidate the listing of projects which we've done. The district will be receiving that list
of projects uh to review it. You should be aware that we basic we have a I mentioned this the last time we spoke. We have a project selection tool. It's an Excel spreadsheet. It's got a column that says Y and no, yes and no. So, you
can either click no or put no on or put Y on. If you put Y on, the costs are displayed on the right. If you put no on, it's taken out of the formula in the equation. So, we have taken that base sheet which has a significant amount of projects on it, more than what the
survey called for. everything that we talked about from the past, from the future, what needs to be done, what could have been done in the past. But what we did was we took and put yes on every project that's associated with the
ref with the survey. So anywhere the survey received a positive result, we put the switch on. That gave us a total amount for each school by the criteria, the project category. So when you get this form, you're going to get a summary
page. You're going to get each school individually with a list of projects. Below the projects, there are even projects listed as alternate projects which are not even vetted because the number that we received with just the
survey items is more than we're looking to look at. So there are other projects down at the bottom that were mentioned that you need to look at and say, "Well, wait, this is not a priority, but it really needs to be a priority and it should go up." Otherwise, what you'll
see is we've broken down how many how much are the total for all science lab renovations. How much is the total for all parking lot and sidewalk and fence projects? What is the total for all STEM, steam labs, robotics, technology,
cameras? So you'll see a total of all those projects. At some point we're going to have to take a now second look and say all right we know we need roofs but do we need all the roofs? You know that we're going to have to back off of some roof sections. We're going to have to get a little of something a little of
everything done. If we're going to stick with net neutral if we want to figure out what that second question or second piece is that may require a tax impact then that's the next step. But getting that you'll get this uh list from there.
We will you'll do you guys can do your you know own options. We'll then work with you to create that palatable referendum. What is that? What really is it that either gives you a net neutral or zero tax or considers a second question for additional? Then after that
once we have that listing we need to prepare our submission to the department of education. That's plans, educational specifications, cost estimates that tell them we are looking for 34% in debt service aid from the state and we're looking for your approval. Once we
submit to DOE, it's the waiting game. We then have, you know, 6 months, four to six months could be to wait for DOE approval. DOE will send back approvals and then from there, once we have approvals, we know what we're going to be funded for. we know what eligibility
and costs we're getting and then we can start informing the public on the real numbers, not the estimated or proposed. We're expecting that every project here is eligible for debt service aid. DOE sometimes looks at classroom renovate
ceiling renovation projects. If it's not the whole wing, they'll look at a classroom and say that's maintenance. You should be doing that out of maintenance and we're not going to fund you for it. So we're going to go in with conservative numbers, but we could get knocked back a little. So that's the
next steps. That's where we are in this process is finding scope. What is it that we are going to include? What is it that we're going to do? At the same time, if there is a a a desire to go act back out with a second set of questions,
we absolutely can do that in very short order. It's modeling after this first the first one. We don't want it to be as long, but we want to make sure that we cover the key points that you all brought up tonight and the key questions that we want to know need to be answered. So, that would be another
another piece of this. Could you give us a timeline uh once we get the project selection sheet? Uh what is the timeline for that and uh heading out toward our deadline of March 2026? So as and again I know this is you know it's as soon as
possible but you know obviously you need to take your time to go through this. We need to meet it's not something that you know I think the B&G you know committee or will meet and kind of work with them and look at this sheet. Every other board member can look at it as well and then we can reconvene. We're going to
need to meet a couple of times to finalize this. So you know two three weeks. I have a quick question. So, does it have to be March 2026 or can it be November? It has it has to be March 2026
because you have debt rolling off and the intent is to whatever that amount of the debt service for the district is to replace it with new debt and therefore there's no debt from the tax to to the taxpayer. So, let's say number four
which is educational adequacy review and you said they can be delayed or they can take time. So there could be some reasons why if you do not get them then you cannot put this referendum. So if you cannot make the March 2026 you're saying we cannot put it on the ballot on
November 2026. You can but you won't receive the de the debt will roll off in March. Okay. So when you go out in if you were to go out in September or November of 2026 there would be a tax impact. Okay. It wouldn't you wouldn't
be able to say there's no tax impact. There would be a tax impact. Mrs. Jolly and then Mrs. Connor. Sorry, but just to be clear, the tax impact would be like, oh, it rolled off, your taxes are lower, and then, oh, it come back up, your taxes are higher. It would
be like a flip. Yes. Right. Technically, yeah. Yes. But it's it's the optics of it. You know, when you're when you're doing it at the time of rolloff, you're saying the debt service is $174 a year. The new tax, the new debt is $174 a
year. It stays the same. Sure. As opposed to I gave you back money and three months later I'm going to take that back again. Right. But just to clarify that the tax impact is not just one way, right? You're going to have a a decrease and then an increase. Of course, Mrs.
Connor, is there any other implication of the delay in terms of timing? Is it it's it's clear if if we want to sort of keep it flat, we have to make the March uh 2026 timeline. But is there any other implication in terms of not getting the
34% or not getting the aid that there is no such since for for many years now DOE has you know the state has provided debt service aid. They've provided 34% on all eligible projects. uh I think once they reduced the amount uh and that was like
2008 2009 but since then they have given 34% in debt service aid we we look anything can happen but you you would be the first district not to get it in you know 30 years so we we are we are and and just so you're all aware we've
worked this into the schedule DOE's delay is in our schedule so we believe that we can make March 26 six, provided that we get this down to DOE no later than June. If we get it down to DOE no later than June, we get their review. We
get our we still have the ability to inform the public once we receive the approvals and DOE knowing that this is a referendum project that is due March 20 26. They'll also know that debt service is rolling off. They will have to do
what they can do to get this done. So if you can just remind everybody the submission prep point number four prepare the submission for the DOE. The target date for that is uh we want to get it down as soon as possible. So you know for us sitting here if we get it
down by June we're okay. If we're beyond June we then risk this what you're considering the issue. That's late June. Can you just beginning of June of our our deadline if we want to keep the March
2026 June 1st? I just want to make sure that we all understand it's it's early June. It's not late June. Understand that right now we are preparing DOE applications. We are setting up the letters to the state. We don't know the scope yet, but we are setting everything
up in our office for each school for each set of projects. but we can't finish it until we have this scope list. So, we're doing everything that we can to expedite in advance of knowing the final list, but obviously we're going to
need those numbers. And I I'm going to go out on a limb and say June 1st would be the absolute last deadline for us to get down to you. Mrs. Terrar, um so I know we've been talking about a second survey and we've been talking about different projects. Sure. Once you get
that list to the DOE on by June 1st, can that list be modified or is that a hard list? Like that's what we're going with. Yeah, it it is a hard list. It will be a hard list. What we would what you can do in terms of modification is if it's a
similar project that you want to add another one of them, well then you can, but you're not going to get debt service aid on it because it's based on what that submission is. Okay? you you may have the ability to modify it, but that only delays the process. DOE requires a
revised submission and it's it's complicated. So, I see no other questions. Thank you so much for the presentation tonight. We will get back to you as soon as possible. Sounds great. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Thank you.
Uh continuing with the report of the superintendent. That concludes it for me. Thank you. A committee and liaison reports. I can be quick. Uh do you want to be quick, Mrs. Connor?
Sure. I have two things. Got it. Uh this is the personnel committee meeting. We talked about um unaffiliated contracts and um there is one item on the agenda today um that is related to
this unaffiliated contract. Essentially, it is uh a change where the employee would get up to five vacation days um that they would be able to to u carry
forward up to five vacation days which is something um that we discussed in committee and there was uh there was support for that. Uh the second point that we discussed in committee was um increase to the uh hourly rate for the
health teachers and the math interventionists and the fact that getting that increase would make us competitive as a district. That's it. Thank you. Um let's see. Uh I can go next. Negotiations committee. The board has a
resolution on the agenda tonight for the Westminster Church agreement for the MKM parking lot and snowplow plowing arrangements. The head custodians contract discussions continue. Additional contract negotiations continued between the Berkeley Heights Town Council in the district. The town
council veterans affair committee uh and met to plan for the upcoming Berkeley Heights Memorial Day parade and remembrance ceremony on Monday, May 26, 2025. and we'll have numerous students and community members involved in that. The Union County Educational Services
Commission met on Wednesday, April 2nd. They had the Union County Teacher Recognition Award honores. They were recognized for their service. Financial and personnel matters were discussed. The Berkeley Heights Education Foundation met on Tuesday, April 22nd. Dr. Feltry was the invited guest. The
foundation discussed upcoming fundraisers and past successful fundraising events. The foundation encourages Berkeley Heights public school staff and students to apply for grants using the new streamlined application process. Update on the board
uh goals. The board continuing to work on improving committee structure. Continue on working on improving communication. The board in evaluating the CSA is in the process of our CSA evaluation. Mrs. Clearary, the board's NJSBA field representative, will be
providing guidance to the board at a special BOE meeting on Thursday, March 1st to ensure a timely evaluation. Uh, in terms of all district goals, Dr. Feltry will develop the new district goals and Mrs. Clary will be updating uh providing guidance to the board uh regarding the five-year
strategic planning process in support of the district implementing a plan for continuous board development. The board is continuing to work on professional development and as part of this Mrs. Clear's presentation on May 1st will be part of that and she will also be explaining the board self-evaluation the
process and the tools and the development of new board goals. We have some suggestions for board goals but we can discuss those at a further time. Looking ahead now do we have any other committee updates? Dr. Forager.
Yes. Uh finance and facilities met on April 1st. We talked about the bid for roof repair at Woodruff and and um blank Woodruff and uh CMS
CMS. Um the committee was told that the lowest bid had a material defect and we would have to go with the second lowest bidder and that was maybe weathertight. Turns out it was somebody else and uh that's on for tonight.
Builds are under the allowable amounts for SDA. Work will be done this summer. Subscription transportation. We recommended keeping it at $500 per person and $750 per family for the 2526 school year, but some would like to
raise it. I think there needs to be a policy that specifies in some detail when is the rate to be set and so that we can feed that into the budget process. perhaps in September so that the routes can be planned and vendors selected. Uh we talked about the solar
panel agreement that's currently in in place. Uh solar panels are very old and sunlight general capital is the vendor doing the maintenance. We pay 11.09 per kilowatt hour and whereas the market rate is lower at 11 10.01 cents per
kilowatt hour. I shared with the committee two documents. One comes from the board of public utilities and deals with projects that require a capital investment uh or and the other or no capital investment. So you have to evaluate them differently. The other
comes from the local finance board in 2009 and says that such contracts cannot be negotiated. Uh fourth, it might be that we should remove the solar panels at GL and Woodruff. uh current uh BA is currently collecting
more information on this issue and will share it with the board. We talked about the tennis courts at GL. The courts have not been used for a very long time and are currently unusable. If we want to use them, that would need total replacement and
reorientation. And we talked about the contract. We discussed the contract. The state statute says the employer pays for the sick time and our contract does not require it, but it does say that bills have to show hours worked and event
work. Thank you. Yes, Mrs. Dolly. So Tom, in the finance and facilities committee discussion on the subscription fees for transportation, was there um a discussion also about like a
transportation survey potentially to go out? I don't know if that's the right committee, but there's just to gain um an understanding of like the demand we might have. Well, that's that's the big issue. I mean, you're the
um the issue is uh as you raise the price or lower the price, what what what does your demand curve look like? Uh you if you could you could raise it, you could raise the cost, but you may then find fewer people signing up, they actually wind up with less money.
Um the only uh in my opinion the only true measure of demand is if you send somebody a request and say do you want this or not. Well that's kind of what we do with subscription right is when we offer a seat people either apply or they don't
apply. I just I just think it would be helpful. reason why it was brought to earlier finance committee is because um right as you know we had to kind of keep getting the budget down um I think it was like
800,000 um that we had to cut in order to get a balanced budget this year and subscription busing is right now being paid in part by the taxpayers um right like so everyone's paying for some
students to get $500 busing, but not all. Right? So, for instance, I think we're budgeting $121,000 for subscription busing. Now, that is an increase in how many people applied last year for subscription busing, but it's not a surprise because
we took like $250 people's busing away. If you think all of them paid 500, which most of them, like some of them didn't, right? Because we gave that family plan. So, some only paid 250. But if you if you just just that alone, if you look if
you think everybody paid 500, that would be 242 students paid subscription, right? So we're getting buses for students because you can only put 54 on a bus. So there's a couple buses that are only for subscription students for the most part. They're only paying 500.
We used to charge a,000 because we know about every seat's about $1,200 is what um Mrs. Shihan had originally come up with and we had only charged a thousand but by cutting it right now that's $500 per person that alone. So, if you do 200
instead of 242 times 500 is $100,000 the taxpayers are paying for these kids to have subscription busing, right? Like there's a difference between asking the taxpayer to bus kids that are in a hazardous area like um Diamond Hill
Road then asking taxpayers to subsidize busing for students who choose to get busing, right? I think that's a very different topic. So, I personally believe, right, we need to really look at this because we could go back out for a bus
um RFP, right? Whatever bid, a new bid for busing, but we can't do it this, right? We can't do it now because if we do it now, it would we would get they would come back with like 62% increase, right? You have to do it in the fall, which is what Dr. Forger was talking
about, right? If we did it in September, October, November, December, right? you could actually get bids that are competitive, right? If you did it right now, everyone else already has their busing, so we would just get crazy bid, right? Which is what happened in the
past. Um, this busing company said that we can no longer provide the same busing and then when we went back out for bid, they bid like 62% higher than what they originally had with us. So, I personally believe we do need to really look at this if we're never bringing back
hazardous busing by asking the taxpayers to subsidize this. It's a lot. It's a lot of money and I'm just not sure that this is where we want to put it, especially when we're talking about facilities that really really need our attention just right for to subsidize
busing. That's my opinion. So, I think yeah, and in the past we discussed um having a service. I don't know what the right timing would be and I'm all for you know look relooking at you know not going to go down the hazardous route again but from a revenue perspective in
terms of what the new um the 5750 plan versus what was done previously from a revenue perspective I think we it was only off by five 5,000 versus what was um previously subscription busing that um at a
thousand that I think revenues on that were 126,000. So it was only like a $5,000 difference. So from a revenue perspective, I think we're pretty close. No, I just said, right, if you charged $1,000 right now to the 242 students,
right? If you charged $1,000 to them, if I round it down to 200 students, let's say only 200 sign up, you're a hund,000 more than 120,000, 121,000. Can I just Can I just say something that is predicated on
people wanting to or continuing to want to pay $1,000. The reason why we have a higher participation rate now is because the number is actually better. It's lower for families instead of everybody paying $1,000. You're giving people a
break and more people have signed up for the busing compared to what it was when it was $1,000. But you can support that with data because we took 250 people busing away. So yes, it went up, but it went up for a reason. This is this has turned into a different conversation. Tom, I had a I had a different question.
So are are you done with your questions? Yeah, I was thinking, you know, I gave you uh five items here. I did bid for roof repair. I did subscription transportation. Maybe shouldn't have brought that up. Solar panel agreement. I did tennis courts contract. So we got
five items. Uh maybe we'd like to talk about something else. Yeah. No, I actually have a followup on our favorite topic. Um, is it fair to say that for the purposes of the budget, we are not assuming that we are going out to bid.
We are continuing with the routes that we have right now. Yeah. And there is some percentage five or 6% based on whatever the CPI number is. We've accounted for that in the budget. It's five. No, it's 3 point
something 3.25 25 or 3.5 some somewhere in that range. Okay. So, it's three point. It's Yeah, it it is safe to assume we're not doing any uh we're not changing we're not changing any routes. We're not changing any we're not going out for bid. My experience with the
bidding is that's kind of a risky thing to do and we try to avoid it. I mean it it depends. So now that is under the assumption that the bus routes as they have been designed are the best solution
based on the demand which goes back to the survey question. Is was there any discussion about doing a survey so that the decision to keep the routes as is is data driven. It's based on information
that that people have confirmed their interest assuming it's you know the 500 or the 750 per family that hey I'm interested in signing up for the bus under those circumstances that that conversation has not happened. Is that
fair? Is that what we are saying? I think that's correct. We don't I mean you want a survey you got to send something out you know and we have we haven't done that. So, but again the survey but the survey is already answered by the amount of people that subscribe, right? Like that is the
survey because once you pay the money, right? That's you could send out a survey and everyone can say like, "Yeah, I want busting for 500 bucks." But then who actually pays is the one that matters. I'm I'm not I'm not sorry. I'm not looking to debate. I'm just wanting to understand if that was discussed
survey, no survey, and and that's it. So, there was one. All right. But what's the point of a survey if we already have that data? We can move on if you have anything else. Um just you don't like my answer doesn't let's move that discussion back to finance and facilities. Thank you Mrs. Zakiri. So
there was one other point that we had asked the administration and we are looking for the feedback. I think um on the we bought the transportation software and one of the question and I think we did discuss for some time on um how it was approved the transportation
has it improved things. Yeah. So basically the question was what is our efficient like you know how many students are riding a bus are we being efficient are we using like we we are going to keep the existing routes but there was some concern about some buses are only subscription some are not so we
did ask for that data but we haven't seen that yet because the transportation coordinator did I think we are still waiting for it like we didn't have that data handy that's an action item we're still hoping that we will get the data on How well are we using our buses? Hey,
thank you. Any other committee reports? Mrs. Terrarero, I have a long one. So, if anyone else wants to go before me, uh, I have a quick one. Um, the strategy and planning committee met for very early this year, which has
never happened in 2022 or last year. I think we never had any strategy and planning meetings because this is the referendum year. Uh I think the quick uh recap is uh we wanted to understand um the impact of some of the federal or
presidential executive orders on our district's um um DEI like we have it in our strategic plan. We have DEI metrics. They kind of kind trickle down to building levels as well as um
administration goals. So that was an ask and I think uh Dr. Feltry shared a response from New Jersey uh school boards association. I I didn't read the response completely but we did get a response back that uh because it's only
the strategic plan is only till 2025 it's okay to be there but there will be additional discussion happening I will share that with the entire board. Thank you Mrs. Turo. Okay. Um so I attended the ABS liaison
meeting. Um that happened on Wednesday, March 19th. So it was just after our last meeting. Um they discussed an extra box on the HIV reporting system and how it should be utilized. This box identifies if the student is a general ed IEP or special education student.
There was a discussion around inter the interviewing process of the HIVs. Um they suggested that there should be two people involved in the interview. one person actually conducting the interview and the other person taking notes, recommended strategies for in
interviewing younger students, such as utilizing photos to help the student um get out what actually happened. They also discussed techniques to interpret the truthfulness of the interviewee such as their rate of breathing, eye contact, and general body language. There was
also a discussion about the inservice day on February 14th um with Dr. Phillips. Um, such things as the role of the child study team, cases involving IEP students and notifications to their case managers, and the need to change
class schedules for students involved in founded HIV cases. Um, stating that the victim should not be the one removed from the classroom from that current class. Okay. Um the rec commission
liaison the rec commission met on the Thursday March 20th. Um these meetings are actually held in public and allow for public comment. Um there were two specific speakers that spoke out. One specific speaker voiced frustration with the availability of the school
gymnasiums for PAL to utilize. Another person spoke about the availability of the tennis courts for the public. um they had various things that they reported on like different categories. Some really don't pertain to us, so I'm not going to bore you guys with it, but
um specifically related to the field and parks news, they announced the meeting that the board of ed had about the lower Columbia lease on Wednesday morning. They said the uh BH uh wreck commission received a certificate of insurance from the board office to get the GL boys
tennis team back on the courts. the staff would begin working on the CMS fields first and then move on to prepping the fields at the other schools which obviously it's a month later. So, uh grant news, they talked about Elrig, which is short for the local recreation
improvement grant, and this grant would be earmarked for the lower Columbia field, specifically the turf field at Lower Colombia. There's also another grant called the Union County Wreck Grant. It's about uh 63K and that money would be put into
walking and biking paths. They were at the time that this meeting was given and I don't know if it's changed. They're waiting to hear back on this. For miscellaneous news, the committee is moving forward on the project for Lower Colombia. They're moving forward with the a survey shortly. I don't know if it's one
out. Okay. PTO curriculum liaison meeting. The PTO curriculum committee met on Thursday, April 10th. Um and they broke it out into two categories. First were updates on the elementary school updates. Hughes and Mountain Park fifth
grade students participated in a steam tank regional round. The students presented their pro products to a panel of judges from the state at the time of this meeting. It was shared um that they are still waiting to hear back on the results. I don't know gotten any. Um, an
I Ready mid-year data workshop was just completed for grade levels 1 through five. These workshops are important because they conduct a deep dive into the mid-year data to evaluate the progress of the students. For the secondary school updates, um, at CMS,
five teams in the Fiserve regional competition, there were five teams in the Fiserve regional competition. one team will advance to the national competition and congratulations to the winners. Um they were talking about the cycles process being reviewed. They
should be experienced by all students as opposed to just electives. Um and this could free up some teachers to assist in interventions. Um Knack, now this is kind of a new thing. Have they actually
reported on this yet, Dr. Felry? Because I don't want to blow your spot up. What do you mean? the Knack program. I believe they've started. They've been trained. I don't know if the kids have started using it. So, um this is actually fabulous. Um there's a new tutoring program that's being offered
through Union County. This program is available for fifth through 8th graders. These are hired students from Kain University who would provide virtual tutoring. It's free of cost for the parent and the district and a letter was going to be sent out sometime after
spring break. Parents cannot cop opt out of the program to lo no longer receive the notification emails. This program is expected to be in place starting in early May and the contract will be in place until 2027. Several Union County schools are
currently utilizing this program. To be eligible, students must be Union County Public School students who are in the fifth through 8th grade. So, it sounds like a fabulous opportunity for families. for GL they talked about the deaf and heart of hearing program um
will be pro uh will be performing um in a percussion group which is amazing. Um the seal of liter of biiteracy was received by 19 students this year and these students will receive a special sticker on their high school diploma. So
congratulations to all 19 students that actually achieved this. Um the district is investigating a dual enrollment program for mar multivariable calculus. They are working with local college for students to receive college credits
which is fantastic. I think we should do more of that in this district. And then districtwide the NJSLA testing will begin in May. Curriculum writing for the five-year cycle will begin this summer. And our new assistant superintendent, Dr. Crystal Maher, will be starting at
the end of this month. Okay, almost done. And last but la not least is the uh town council. There have been actually two meetings since our last board of ed meeting. Meeting one. Um the
town council met on Tuesday, April 8th. A proclamation was made by the township of Berkeley Heights making April Child abuse prevention month. Um so I don't know if anybody's been in town hall, but they have these little pin wheels out there. Um, so I thought that was just a
little cute thing that they put out. Um, the Berkeley Heights Town Council budget discussion. They had a Berkeley Heights down town council budget discussion. Various grants were reviewed and one was uh one was the need to continue appro
improve approving sidewalks. Hopefully this action will help our students safely walking to and from school. Um during the town council reports, the mayor did mention that she attended an event to help the fifth grade students prepare for the upcoming steam t uh tank
regional round event and she said she was incredibly impressed by the presentations. There was a second meeting that the town council had actually last week. It was a special meeting on Thursday and it was nothing big. It was basically the purpose of the meeting for them to go into exact
session to talk about contract negotiations. So I don't have anything further on that. That's it. Thank you, Mrs. Stanley. I have policy, but Deb, thanks so much for going through all of that because I know I know all these lays on things can get really uh
overwhelming and take a lot of time. So I appreciate you doing all that. Um, so I do have policy, if you notice, it's under new business because we don't have a policy 131 right now. So under new business is where our policies are listed. The policy committee had a
meeting April 1st. Um we went over spectator code of conduct for uh intercolastic events. Um this is new. Um uh the stress estimate uh came up with this. We did have our new athletic
director look it over and he gave us his advice. Unfortunately, tonight the one that went out to the public and in the board um uh handout is not the one that should be
uh because the athletic director um he did put in the one that went out to the public had the blanks empty. Um unfortunately the the numbers that he had put in did not get um put through. I don't know if it was just because um they weren't accepted when it went
through or if we used the wrong document, but um I can go over any of those if you need. Um I do have a print out of it if anybody wants to look at it. Um but the committee did see it. Um and we had a discussion on many of the numbers. Um all schools are required to
have this policy in place by September 2025. we will go with um the athletic director's um suggestions. There was discussion on the need for a 365day suspension on the third offense and the staff feel that if the spectator
makes it to a third offense in the same calendar year, it is warranted. Um you are also allowed to appeal with the principal which would address a concern if it was a student. Um we did discuss 5570 um which is sportsmanship. we were not
able to come to uh an agreement at that meeting. So we will put it on our next meeting. Um also on our policies for tonight is 5512 which is harassment, intimidation or bullying. This did come out with the February um alerts for
stress estimate. So, we already had reviewed it. Um, but we do have it on tonight underneath the comprehensive equity plan policies because it is part of that. Um, in tonight's pack, it also did not list that we chose option one in
for the harassment, intimidation, and bullying. It gives us two options. We chose option one, which is what we currently do. Um, so it's not much of a change other than it just wasn't listed. Um I will make sure that uh the staff uh has that in the when they submit it. Um
we added a paragraph from our current policy into this and then we chose option one which is what we currently have. Um you will see that um if you look at the alert the main change is to the MOA agreement. Um it was added to the language.
We did not look at student smoking um and the high school graduation because we ran out of time. We did make it to um athletic competition. So, one of the things that we need to address is we need to address
homeschooling language. Um the current language says no. Um and we need to have the discussion of the pros and cons. I know I saw in the athletic uh minutes that uh it was discussed in the athletic committee as well. Um so we will need to bring that back to
policy. Um then we had a discussion on the comprehensive equity plan policies. The state is requiring all districts to have a plan in place. It has been in the uh in discussion for some time. Policies are part of this plan. This plan needs to be approved by the board latest in
June with policies approved prior which is why they're on tonight. The committee scheduled another meeting for 410 to address these policies. Um, I'm really I'm really happy that everybody was able to read these and get through them. We had a good meeting on the 10th where we
did go through every single one of these um and had really great discussions on them. Um, so again, the one on tonight is the spectator code of conduct for inter intercolastic events and the high school graduation because we felt like those couldn't wait. The rest of them
are all part of the comprehensive equity plan policies. Uh so we did there's one called academic integrity 5701. This was a total rewrite. Um then we have policy 5710 which is student grievance. This is
similar to the chain of command and gives opportunity to appeal to the board. This is uh often seen in instances of a grade dispute. Then we had food services policy uh 8500. This was new language around subsidized lunch program and things that uh the district
needs to do. U luckily we already have that in place. Policy 5533 is student smoking. Um this was a revise. We chose to keep the options we currently have in the policy and stress estate added another paragraph to address the uh MOA.
Um and we added a statute from a paragraph above to address substances and what substances we are actually talking about in this policy. Then there is a new so this is a new policy it's I'm sorry a new regulation 553 which is student smoking
um see sorry all right then we go to 511 which is the eligibility of resident and non-resident students options were added for non-resident situations. Committee added legal guardian back into the policy. Um we have regulation 5111
eligibility of resident and non-resident students confirm number eight shall um the word shall was okay discussion around deny eligibility. There was a policy 1140 educational equity policies and affirmative action. This is also a
revive. Um the assistant superintendent is the affirmative action officer and the information is available on our public website on how to contact them. There is policy 1523 the comprehensive equity plan. There was a discussion around equity and discrimination. The
assumption is all districts have areas that can improve whether gender abilities or economic disparities. These policies give residents the ability to hold districts accountable for those working on those concerns. There was a revision to policy 2260 which is equity in school class and classroom practices.
We add um the standards to this policy. Then there's regulation 2260 equity in school and classroom practices complaint procedures updates to the procedures. Discussion on why Berkeley Heights was crossed out. Our old policy had our district name stress
estate put in this district to uh simplify it for all. Um the committee felt that it was fine. Policy 2423, the bilingual education discussion on ESL and LE. The major changes were due to how
multilingual students are discussed and accommodated. We are in compliance already and receive a waiver for bilingual classes due to the size of enrollment. The regulation 2423 for bilingual education was a complete rewrite um because of the language
differences. The regulation 2415 is new. This is title one services. We already have the policy 2415. So this is just the regulation. We um are required to have the regulation but we do not have we do not receive title one funds. Um
then there's policy 5750 equitable education opportunities. Some language was removed and added to other policies. So it was removed from this policy and added into another policy. Some language just updated for affirmative action. Then we had policy 5841, secret societies. Uh there was a
lot of language updates. Again, we don't allow secret societies in high school. Policy 5842 is the equal access of student organizations. We added statues for protected categories listed. And then there was policy 7102, the site
selection and acquisition. Uh 2001 was the last update. So the discussion on why this is in the equity plan. the committee came to the conclusion that it was mostly to cover all the states basis. Um, and I think Natasha might run for some state stuff to help us out. And
then there's regulation 7102 which is completely new and it's site selection and acquisition. Um, so I hope that we can all work on these policies. I hope everyone had a chance to read them over because they were also in my minutes but then they were also shared um in the in
the attachments. So, we still don't have a policy 131. Um, because of all these policies, we were a little bit distracted. So, we're going to continue to work on that in the next meeting. We also need to talk about policy 5120, the assignment of students in the
future. Um, Dr. Feltry and I had a discussion on this. Um, unfortunately, some board members had to leave. She's receiving Dr. Felt is receiving multiple requests to stay in their former elementary school um after they have moved. And so we
discussed how um how the policy kind of addresses this. So you're talking like let's say you have a kindergarter in Woodruff, but they move to the Mary Kay McMillan area. They're asking to stay at Woodruff for their whole three years. Right now the policy
says, did I put it actually in there? Students shall generally attend the lo school located in attendance area of their residence. The superintendent may assign a student to a school other than that designated by the attendance area when such an exemption is justified by
circumstances or and or is in the best interest of the student. Every effort will be made to continue a student in the same elementary school once the student has been enrolled in that elementary school. So some parents are taking that last sentence and trying to like say that we should keep them in their school where when you put it in
context, it's more for the students who we have to move out of that district, right? Like for instance, in our district, we have some ABA students who do not go to their home school because we offer the ABA in another school, right? And that's where you would see a
student being asked to go from one school to another, right? and the district has a responsibility to try to keep that kid in that school. But if there's only one or two students with ABA needs, right, it's not in the district's availability to bring all the
ABA from one school to the other. So it it's in our best interest and the students to go to that other school. So I think we do need to have a bigger discussion on how we want to handle this um as we do see students moving um from one side of town to the other and how we want to address it. Um, so that is
something I want you guys to kind of think about and maybe share with the policy committee. Yeah. The only comment I have on that and my daughter actually was impacted when I moved to the other side of town. I think when you're dealing with a scenario like Woodrip or Mary Kay where
you run into a problem is when they move up to the next grade level that the next like if it's Hughes or Mountain Park because they're going to be starting over with friend groups. So, I do think that that's something to take into consideration that if you're committing to that, you very well might be
committing to keeping them at the next level, elementary school, too. Yeah. So, just a thought to think about. Yes. Questions? Dr. Horer, then Mrs. Jolly. Yeah. I just have a general question. As I was reading over some of
these policies, uh, they are in some cases just a recitation of the underlying regulation. And I'm wondering why we bother to do this. Why don't why don't we just say in the policy, go see this
regulation if you want to know the truth. If you want to know everything, why do why do we, you know, we're paying people to write these syn basically a synopsis of what the regulation says, but if you really want to know the truth, the regulation is the final word.
Yeah. Yeah. So, um, a little bit silly and I'll admit it's a little bit silly, but they serve a different purpose. Uh so uh the regulation you know often gives action steps and the policy creates more of an overarching goal. Um they sometimes are
the same and it is a little bit confusing but they're not always the same and it also gives you the space when they are two separate ones. Um since you all uh you know can you can change them. So you can change the regulation while leaving the policy intact or change the policy while leaving the regulation intact. So, you
have the ability to to make some changes as your policy committee recommended, but they're not um they don't need to be the same. They just happen to be in some situations, especially because some of these new policies aren't really that well um fleshed out yet. So, they end up starting very similar and then evolving
over time. What what happens if the uh Okay, so what if let's say I've got one of these regulations which is kind of a a copy of the I'm sorry, you've got one of these policies that's kind of a copy of the regulation and now uh
somebody within the state goes and changes the regulation. Uh is that is is a does a part of the policy become invalid then if the underlying support is gone? No because the regulations are are are
you're adopting them they're they're adopting these policies. I think that the question is if the regulation changes at the state level the 6A regulations changes. Is that your question? No. Yeah. Well okay there's lots of regulations but 6A is a good
place to start. Yeah. And uh so if I you know I got a policy I basically I didn't do my homework. I just uh relied upon the regulation. So it's kind of a ripoff and then somebody goes and changes the regulation but you know we
haven't updated the policy. So which which is the controlling thing the policy or the regulation? Tom can I ask a clarifying question? Are you asking about like the actual state statute like what you go and like like on the New Jersey website to see the regulation or are you talking
about the actual regulations that we adopt as part of the policy book? No, I'm I'm talking about uh when I say regulation I mean NJAC, right? So I think there's two different Yeah. Yeah. So if you if you have a if you have a
policy that is no longer compliant with state law then the state law is going to control Right. Um but you know you're so yes if if the law changes and your policy hasn't changed the law is going to be controlling absolutely um that's why you've got a great uh policy
committee you've got people around who will help you say hey this has now changed and you can update that but yeah if the law changes the policy would not be valid yeah I just have one quick um suggestion or a comment I think we la I did send an email to the acting superintendent previously we have a
policy on uh clubs activities and committees but we haven't adopted the regulation that is not on our district and um I did send it over I can forward it to you I think is that something that you can add to your agenda for Yeah I I I did raise it but I think because we
had um I did send it to Pam uh to add so it is on the list to discuss but because we had all these equity plan policies to review we just didn't fit it in likewise 131 we couldn't fit in either which is just as important that's and and we did look at it in the fall or maybe summer
of last year. So, we can look at it again. But I feel like yeah, we have a policy, but the regulation clearly states if there is not enough interest and not enough enrollment, I think that is what is binding, especially going I don't disagree. So I think it is on the
list for us to review because I think um I don't have clarity as to what the actual thing like what the actual criteria is for when um a club uh gets reviewed and how what's the attendance
requirement you know does it vary by the type of club it is um specifically I mean because we don't have a robotics club at CMS that had that was overs subscribed but there are other clubs with two members that where we are so it's like an allocation of resources all
our resources being allocated appropriately. So yeah so I mean if you read the minutes back from when we looked at it right one of the concerns was that um we have informal clubs and this regulation really didn't allow for that process. Um so we we will have to
look at this very closely on how we want to move forward. Um but the robotics club part of that was that the um one of the people leading the club is not with us this year. Um, so that it is really difficult and that club is a lot of work. My daughter did it and it's it's a lot of work. So I don't blame the
teachers for struggling to find someone to replace um them. But yeah, I think we can look at it again, but I do think we we have to really be careful that we can't just put it in place because it will change the way we currently do things. Um, but yeah, I I hope that everybody if anybody has questions on
particular for tonight um uh policy, I haven't seen anything. um you've seen some of them multiple times now because we had the two meetings. Um but yeah, it's we have been focusing on this comprehensive equity plan. Um my comment on the regulation and policy is that
regulation is usually from the state and then we make a policy kind of based on our district, right? Like we can kind of change the policy a little bit more um on what works for for Berkeley Heights. Um, some of these we don't need to change because, right, it's just you
have to do what the state statute says. Um, so you don't have to do as much changes in the policy. Um, but yeah, I I hope everybody is on board for tonight. Um, because these are important and that way we can get the plan ready for June. Thanks. But um, Pam, I'm sorry. But just to be clear, they're part of new
business, but they will be up for vote in the next meeting. Oh, no, they're on vote for tonight's meeting. I don't see a resolution. There's no resolution. because we don't have policy 131 attorney. Well, when I had um person
wanted to vote on policy 131, I was told no, it had to go into new business and then came on to as a resolution for the following um for the following meeting. So that's what happened with my version of 131 when I had sent it around to everybody etc. So my understanding is
that this is a new business. Um, so and and I and while I I'm supportive of all the policies and I was in those meetings, like the attachments are not exact, so I'm not ready, but they were in all of the on all of the um handouts,
right? All the minutes there are correct. So, you've had multiple weeks to look at them. I I'm you can ask the attorney that question, but again, these are on for vote tonight. That is what I was told because they cannot be they cannot be re by re recommended by the
superintendent because we don't have that policy 131 which was abolished. Right. But you don't have to have a recommendation by the superintendent to have a resolution. Right. They're not written. No, they're not written as a resolution. This is not a resolution. There's nothing to vote in new business. Would the attorney like to weigh in?
Yeah. I think that so that way board members just don't state things. public silence. I I apologize. I am trying to catch up as to exactly what happened here with your missing policy 131. Mrs. Stanley, could you explain
again? Yeah, I this is what I was told that they cannot go on resolution uh because that we don't have policy 131 and that they needed to go on new business and that they would be voted on in new business only. So, you're moving them in new business. That's what I was
told had to be done and that's and that they were put under my name only because I'm the policy chair, not because they're my policies. Okay? I'm not asking or I'm not asking the board to do this. This is the policy committee. I just they told me it couldn't go on the So this is not my policies. This is not
me making this decision. Okay. They're not mine. And this was in this Yeah. I'm just the chair of the committee. Understandable. Yeah. Actually, we we actually got legal advice on what is new business once. And the proper role of new business is you bring something up
and the body decides to either refer it to committee or to table it. That's all it can do in new business. But again, this according to Robert, this is not me bringing something that was not vetted by the district. Right? So again, this is very different than
regular new business and it's because right this is how the at the time we were told to do it. This is not my decision. Again, let's hear what the attorney has to say on how we can go forward. That's the point. We should be moving forward. If all if your both of
your interp interpretations were correct, there would be no way to bring this to a vote and then therefore there would be no way to have such a policy. That seems to sort of frustrate the purpose of the board. And while I think Dr. for is right about what new business is for. I think in the absence of a policy that would otherwise promote you
to pass policies, you need to be able to pass the policies. So if this is the way to bring them to the floor for a vote, that seems to be appropriate. So I what I it's unclear to me is who decided that it needs to be in new business and not as a resolution. Not I
wasn't consulted to make that recommendation that it needs to go in new business. I don't know. Why would you be consulted in that? Like I wasn't consulted. This is what I was told and I didn't put it there. So who said that? I didn't even write the I didn't write an email saying put this in new business. So who told you to do this? All of Miss
Curi. I didn't do it. I don't write that thing. Well, somebody somebody I was told they're going to be a new business to to to do. So again, Miss Curi wrote her email the 48 hours, right? You wrote your email 48 hours. I did not write an email with my personal policies that I want to see on the thing. This was put
on because we cannot put it in the agenda because we don't have a policy. So I was told just so you know it will be in new business my referencing one second. If you're referencing the policy that I had put forth my version of 131 it wasn't
just my own like it was reviewed. I've asked for comments. It circulated through three different board meetings as attachments where everybody could have weighed in not just four people in a policy committee. So, I'm really sorry that the advice you got then was different, but what I'm telling you is
this is not me. Like, this is not like you can take it up against me. There's this has nothing to do with me. How can we move forward? Exactly. We got to move forward. My question is the attorney saying we can vote on this. No, but who Dr. Feltry, can you please clarify who made the decision to put them on new
business? The chair for the policy committee keeps saying she was told told by whom? Right. likely by me because back in February I emailed Mr. Dysler um how to get policy 131 on the agenda and I said I asked in light of the fact that
policy 131 was abolished in December, how do we get policy 131 and bylaw 155 because you needed to discuss that with the committees uh the changing of the language at the time on the next agenda. Policy 131 was entered as new business
last month, which was January, but still not approved by the board. And he said, assuming the recommendation is coming from an individual board member, it can be placed as old business because it was new business that first month. um if previously discussed during new business
such as policy 131 or new business if not previously discussed under policy 164 to be placed on old or new business the board member has to provide 48 hour advanced notice. So that's how it got on because I asked Mr. Dler how do we move forward with policies and improving
policies when we didn't have a policy to approve policies. So so it's old business. Well we haven't discussed any of these. So policy 131 would be old business because we had discussed it in January under new business. Okay. But then anything new would be new business
because we hadn't discussed it. Can we move to the budget? Yeah. Can we the budget which is kind of what we need to discuss? Yeah. I think we need another five hours of discussion on this. Let's close the uh committee and liaison reports at this time and that
will give our attorney time to think about what was going to happen in new business further on. We are looking for board communications. Mr. Secretary, um I want to read something from the uh recreation commission. Um recreation commission will have a vendor at Low
Colombia on Saturday, April 26 at 10 a.m. to obtain information to prepare the survey of the land. The vendor will be flying a drone of the entire area. Um there will be police and anyone else the field will be notified to let them
know that uh there will be an on-site vendor. So I just wanted to let just make that announcement. Yes. Saturday. This this upcoming Saturday. Was uh AJ was that a communication to the full board? I don't recall. No, it was something that the uh town had sent over
to myself. Can you can you share that with the board if you're reading it in like we didn't we didn't see this email. It's board communication, right? You're you're reading board. It was just sent over to myself and uh Dr. Felt. That's all. I'm just I'm just informing the
public as well. That's what I'm doing. What are they Why are they flying a drone? To do a survey survey of lower Columbia. So the board under board communication we are announcing stuff that board
didn't receive. Thank you. Board correspondents. Uh first I have uh something from Matthew Wagner on GL boys tennis team. Second from Shan Highland letter regarding 5756 and the freedom to
read act. Last Michael LeBlond raptor visitor management system and identity theft. Those are our three board correspondents. U Mr. Secretary, was there anything I believe from the um a grant that we
received also? Is or is that in your report of the business administrator? We received a grant for playground equipment. That's we have something in there for acceptance of it. For acceptance of it. Thank you. Okay. Uh thank you. Now report of the business administrator and final budget
presentation. like to make the final budget presentation to the board. There's no differentiation from the last presentation that we had at the preliminary Basically this is the elements of our uh strategic
plan. These were our board uh budget goals that we had um based the budget upon. These were the rankings of based upon from our uh survey um that was taken for our budget and
these were the items that were ranked amongst those who uh took the survey on a scale of 1 to five the highest to the lowest uh priority of what people felt uh they felt strongly about. and one of
those happened to be uh having an officer at uh each of the buildings. Now we will speak about our budget highlights. Tax levy is increasing by 2%. Uh it's basically equating for house household uh average household assessed
at 300,000 would be 57 uh dollars per year. State head state aid has increased by $181,199. The account lines in the budget were compared with prior year spending from the last 5
years. Out of 615 budget lines, 349 have remained flat or decreased, which was which equated to 56%. Contractual increases of 3.2% 2% for the BHEA salaries for school year
2526 and contractual increase of 3% for the BHAA salaries for 20 school year 2526. Estimated increase in contribution for the public employees retirement system is at
17.5%. Property and casualty insurance rates are projected to increase by 12.6%. Health benefits and prescription rates are projected to increase by 11%. Increase of gas and electric are
both projected to be about 7 12% and the increase of sewer and water are increased at 5%. Curriculum highlights for 2526. There's a new calculus and AP calculus textbooks. New algebra 1
geometry and algebra 2 textbooks digital uh subscriptions. New math 6 to8 algebra 1 geometry textbooks with digital subscription. Sundance new bridge fiction and non-fiction paired guided
reading books. Wilson Foundation's decodable books for tier 2 and three tier instruction maker space furniture leveled literacy instruction kit to support the reading specialists and big ideas math program
for a K to5 technology highlights for 2526. Uh we have a technology lease which includes the following new devices for 450 students 80 paras and 75 staff. Technology at GL desktop
replacements for room 120 desktop replacements for office staff uh at CS for CST staff counselors with older computers and 75 docking monitors over at uh GLS high school.
Here I just have a revenue comparison uh over the past uh two years and the changes between them. Um as I cited earlier there was a change for state aid. Uh we've seen a decrease in mountainsideed tuition. uh that happens
to deal with a decrease in students coming in for next year from Mountainside. Extraordinary aid. Uh I budgeted a little bit less due to the fact that there happened to be uh a little bit less with state a uh state funding of what we received from last
year. uh preschool tuition. Uh we had an increase with that due to the fact that we had increased uh preschool tuition uh preschool tuition um rates
uh subscription busing. Uh prior year we had um five we had a decrease of 5,000 due to the fact that we had lowered the rates and the interest. uh he increased those
slightly. Uh the fees for activity fees, interest and miscellaneous revenues, uh there had an increase of about close to $10,000. Facility use and cell tower rental, there's an increase there of about
9,250 and some of that uh with the cell tower rental, there's a clause in the contract that there's about a 3% increase. So that's where that increase is coming from. nonpublic transportation aid. Uh some of that has to deal with um
I've included that in our last year's budget and we've seen an increase coming from the state for that type of re revenue that we're getting and that comes from students that are um uh private schools Aiden Lou Aiden Lou um
students that are going out of district for private school transportation and the use of fund balance uh that we've been utilizing to for um tax stabilization. Next is our school tax levy. uh since we've went to the max of
2% uh that is the dollar increase of $935,258 and as I stated earlier home assessed at 300,000 we'll see an increase of $57 for the entire year that equates to uh a 400 a $477
uh a month uh an average monthly increase of $4.70 a month. And here was our difference between last year to this year of $181,199. That equated to a 6% increase for state aid.
The increase of our uh appropriations for next year dollar amount amounted to 979,650. That was a 1.65% increase in our spending. Next, this was just a pie chart of what our spending is in terms of
um what our salaries consist of out of the whole entire budget is 65%, benefits is 19% and basically the rest of our um expenditures is 16%. And this just gives it a better
breakdown of how we have classroom instruction, instructional support, general administration, school administration, business and technology, operations and maintenance,
transportation, employee benefits, capital and and summer instruction. And that's just a breakdown of it in a different format as opposed to the salaries, benefits, and other. And that concludes the final budget presentation.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Any questions from the board? I see no questions. Oh, Mrs. security. Any capital projects included in this final budget? No, there is none. No capital projects. I saw like a number of $30,000 something. That's the the only
thing that's in there. There's an assessment that comes from the state for about $32,000 and that that's only just because of the bonds, but no capital projects have been added to the budget. Thank you, Mrs. Terrarero. I noticed that the uh
the inloo amount for the busing for non-public students between this year and next year is like a $30,000 gap. Are we losing twice as many? That's money that we get back from the state. Okay. That's what
we do is there's somewhere about 2,00 $200,000 of money that we pay out. It's about $1,165 that every year Yeah. every um parent gets. But then what we do there's a report that's submitted the DRTS. Now
the state the pool of money is always different every year and there's a there's a factor that the state uses that I don't know how the formula comes up with and then once we submit that whatever we get back based on the numbers that's the money we get back. So we got a lot more back this I mean it's
we've been getting money back before prior to myself being here that money wasn't being put into the budget. So, I I wanted to put that revenue in there so we could use that funds. So, that's what we've been doing. Okay. Thank you. I have a question. Oh,
I'm sorry, Mrs. Connor. I couldn't see you. Can we go back to the page um that had like textbooks and things like that? I think that's it. Yeah, this is the
one. Um, there was a question about uh tutoring and is there any I'm gonna I'm gonna funding available. I'm gonna I'm going to defer that over to the uh educational expert, Dr. Dr. Feltry. you where your educational
expert is uh on vacation. But um the tutoring we have the Knack tutoring that we have um but there's no specific like tutoring company that we're purchasing from like I I think you're well I don't want to name any names but um there's no
specific tutoring company that's included in the budget. No, not a company. But is there a dollar amount that's included in that says, you know, we've set aside $20,000 for tutoring specifically? No, there's not. Okay. So,
whatever um if there is one that that becomes available or the district decides, it will have to come from some other category that we are budgeting for. Yeah. Is that fair? You don't have money set aside specifically for tutoring, but
it's something that if the district would choose to move ahead with um they would have to figure out the funding from somewhere else. It be line item transfer. Correct. Yes. Because it still fall under um well, it would depend on the nature. If it was
salaries, it we'd have to find it in the salary line. If it was a vendor, then we'd have to find it in either like an instructional supplier or purchase services line or something like that. something like that. Yeah. Okay. Okay. There used to be a program I think it's still going on um where we were getting
funds from the state I think or federal funds. Yeah. For the afterchool program specific for like the middle schoolers and stuff. Is that money gone? Yes. Any ESSER funds and any high impact tutoring grant money is well being finished up
this year. So, the Knack program that's being instituted in May, it hopefully will free. It's virtual, but it's going to hopefully take the place of that, but it's also free. Yes. Yes. And we have some tutoring that's going on at the elementary level. Um that's that's um
funded by the high impact tutoring grant monies. And then we had the stabilization aid money that we had gotten from last year that had to be spent in a way and we used to toward TU. So, what about um I don't know what we have um in the way of National Merit
Scholars. Um I know last year that was an avenue that we encouraged families to do that couldn't necessarily pay for tutoring. Um and I know there's a whole process they have to fill out a Google form and everything
else. Is that still something that we are promoting? I don't know anything about that. I do know I've never heard with National Merit Scholars. Um I I have heard of programming with National Honor Society students because maybe that's what it service hours I think is
the end of they have to do a certain number of hours and so they and it's typically organized in a school. Yes, it's it's typically organized. I don't know how that works at the high school. I've not had a conversation yet about that. Mrs. Charlie.
So AJ, one of the things you mentioned that from a security concern from the survey, right, that um there was overwhelming support for um security personnel like an SLO, whatever at every school, right? I'm kind of curious to
see how look taking a closer look at those survey results. I don't remember how the question was asked because when we saw the presentation earlier for the referendum so this is not necessarily budget specific but just in general something to think about when we saw the presentation um earlier security was not
listed as a top priority and when things were listed of what people wanted to see from a security perspective it was more like better lighting more cameras etc. So, I would really, you know, like to take a look at those survey results from
the budget survey, how the question was asked versus those results from the survey for the referendum. When when was the survey put out with the budget? Was that uh January? I'm trying to It was put out in December and then it was put out it was one of the first things I did
when I came on board again in January. So, I can pull up the survey and I can um put it in a board buzz what the what the question was, you know, and compare the question. I put both the questions in there for you for comparison purposes. I I from what I recall from the budget survey, there was a specific
question about security in the in the um Right. So, I guess it depends on how you ask the question like if you say I mean what again it's one of those things, why wouldn't you want everything, right? Dr. Forer. Yeah.
Um what is the uh what is the reason for uh a new calculus an AP calculus uh textbook? I'm going to defer Dr. Filry. Well, my Yeah, I'm sure it was in the
curriculum committee, which I didn't attend that one, but I'm going to say during the whole math revision process, curriculum revision process that it's either too old or it was up for the five-year cycle. Um, but I don't know if
you recall from curriculum committee discussion. Not this year. This year, I think we just discussed what's on the agenda, like geometry, algebra 2. Uh we did not discuss at least to my recollection AP calculus textbooks. Yeah. No, I'm I'm wondering if it's just
uh that you want a new edition of the same book or if you want uh maybe did uh College Board change the requirements for AP Calculus or I mean I don't know the reason for this. I'm just trying to understand why
we need a new book. Well, I I don't have that answer, but I can get it for you. Okay. Okay. Uh, Mr. Secretary, does that conclude your report? Yes, it does. Thank you so much. At this time, we'll move to comments from the public on agenda
items. During this portion of the meeting, district residents and staff are invited to address the board of education on agenda item action items only. The board requests that individuals state their name, town of residence, or school of attendance for the record. All comment should be directed to the board president and
depending upon the nature and complexity of the question. It may or may not be answered during the meeting by the administration. If so, the response would occur after this public portion of the meeting has concluded. Although the board may not respond to all items raised during the public forum, all public comments will be considered. The
board asked that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking. Specifically, comments regarding personnel matters are discouraged and cannot be responded to by the board. Students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of New
Jersey. The board bears no responsibility, nor will it be liable for any comments made by members of the public. Please note that if any member of the public becomes disruptive during the meeting, the board president may terminate the participant statement. Continued disruption may result in removal from or adjournment of the
meeting. Each speaker's statement will be limited to three minutes in duration. We will take the public comments for those in person first, excuse me, and then we will go online. Is there anyone who would like to make a comment?
Good evening everybody. Um, so I I want to talk a little bit first about uh an open request I submitted for the budget. Could you state your name, please? I'm sorry. John McGuz, Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. And um the budget is probably the the most
important document um that uh and this process is the most important process I think of the year for each school year. It's what drives our priorities. and for the public not to have access to a line item budget. Uh so the the the reasons that I
received was that the document was deliberative consultative which is not true otherwise you wouldn't have been able to give me anything wouldn't have been able to give me any version of the budget if that if that were the case. I mean, the law is really clear. And what ended up happening was a promise for the
budget two hours before this meeting that I would get it after this meeting. And and that's really not a good step towards transparency. There's really nothing that should be hidden from the public as to what I mean. This is really important stuff. These are these are
dollars that are going to support our kids and the public should have full access to it. You shouldn't be afraid of it, right? if you did the budget properly, what's wrong? What are you hiding? It's it's kind of frustrating that it took nearly a month. And sort of
the response that I got back when I asked about it was, "Well, that's not the document that you received." No kidding. Um, we're we're haggling over busing for kids. Like, first of all, the the the increases were negligible, and
we're we're also talking about, oh my god, we can't tutor. And and so here's the security spending, right? And so this is what's funny too is that the numbers change all around, right? Okay. So, let's go to enrollment because based on what enrollment you numbers you look at, our cost per pupil changes
drastically for 2023 to 2024. One enrollment number was uh so today I got 2010 based on the ACFR a year ago it was 23.95 based on the DOE performance
report is 2431. So, what's our what's our cost per pupil? I mean, that's confusing. Then we go to security spending. You kind of have to piece that together because we don't get a line item budget. 2023 to 2024,
budgeted 214K. We spent 260. 2024, we didn't budget back to 214. We then went to 261 budgeted and then spent 386. And then this year, we didn't budget back to 261. We're going to 324.
Now, maybe I'm wrong on that because there might be 15 different versions of this budget floating around, but that was what I was able to piece together. This the the spending on security is out of control. Out of control. And you have a mayor and town administrator who's
coming here and asking for no caps, paying overtime, paying sick time, and paying vacation time. And half this board is is sort of okay with it. Thank you very much. Have a good night. Thank you, Miss Mr. Regu. Is there anyone else in the
public? Uh, Miss Malinaro, I see nobody online. Is that correct? Okay, we will close the portion of our public comments. Uh, moving on to minutes. May I have a resolution? A. All board
members so move. Thank you, Mrs. Mrs. Jolly and a second. I'll second it. Thank you, Dr. Forager. Any discussion? Yes, Mrs. Stanley. Changed in the exact session
minutes. Where did that come? Like, why was that changed? Who requested that? Request from Dr. Forogga. Okay. Because I feel like the change was now inaccurate. Like the original one was accurate, right? Like I I don't I know it's so hard because it's like we're a
board of eight. So it's like one board member can't really say like this is what I want, right? I just find it really frustrating because the original was accurate but the change was inaccurate, right? Um so but I don't want to vote no
because we got to move forward, right? This is the second time it was this. You seen what the change was? U Mrs. Roman sent sent that out. It was a slight change. Yeah. Nothing vacant. Any other discussions, Mr. Secretary? Roll call
vote. Mrs. Jolly. Yes. Dr. Forer. Uh yes to the uh March 6th uh executive and March 18th regular and no to the March 18th executive.
Mr. Kerry. Yes to all except uh March 18th executive. Mr. Terrarero. Yes. Mrs. Connor. Yes. Mrs. Stanley. Yes. Mrs. Bradford. Yes. Motion passes.
Okay. Uh moving ahead. Uh approve appointment resolution A. All board members. May I have a motion to move resolution A? All board members on approve appointments. So move. Thank you, Mrs. Stanley. Second. Second. Thank you, Mrs.
Terrarero. Discussion. Mr. Secretary, roll call vote. Mrs. Stanley? Yes. M. Terrero? Yes. Mr. Kiri? Yes. Dr. Forager? Yes. Miss Jolly, yes. Miss Connor, yes. Miss
Bradford, yes. Motion passes. Moving on to administration. I may I have a motion for resolutions A through C. All board members. So move. I'm sorry that was Mrs. Stanley. Thank you. A second
through C. Mrs. Connor. Thank you. Discussion. Yes, Mr. Stanley. So, I just wanted to say um on C, we're voting on um the recommendation of the superintendent to approve the recommendations of the following
harassment, intimidation, and bullying cases. Um I just, you know, it's these things are always really difficult because you always have, right, a victim and an offender. But when you vote to
affirm or overturn any of these, right, there's going to be you're telling the victim and the offended something, right, when you do that. And so for me, I think it's really important that we take these really seriously because you're telling the victim something if you overturn it and you're telling the offender something if you say if you
overturn it. Um, so I think it's really important and we need to take it seriously. That's it. Thank you. Um I just have a quick question on um the travel I think it's travel
reimbursement. Um is this as per the BHEA contract? Dr. Felry the amounts listed here. Uh no uh one is unaffiliated and the other is a teacher. So that the the
teacher one should be part of it should be it should go by the BHEA contract right the amounts in the contract. I I don't know that there are specific amounts in the contract for um professional development and I would actually ask because I noticed that we
don't do this on here um are these coming from title two funds or not and I should have asked him that before. It's not a fair question now, but yeah, if you can get back to me on that. Okay. I just I believe uh when we have the contract, we have a set amount
and on reimbursement for travel. So, I just want per teacher or as a whole unit as a I think in it's there is a section in the contract. No, I'm I'm puzzled by this. Uh if it's a teacher, does each teacher have a specific amount that they
can spend or is there a total amount for teachers? That's what Mrs. Airi asked. Yes. And so I don't have the answer yet. If you could, you know, can this be documented in the minutes? Um, AJ, the open questions like when we see
the minutes, when we have any open questions for the admin, like can they be documented with an answer or this question was asked? If I'm not mistaken, Mrs. Roman basically takes word for word verbatim everything that you basically
say during this meeting. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Roll call vote. Mrs. Stanley. Yes. Mrs. Connor. Yes. To
AB. Um, and everything in C except uh case number 28774 CMS. Are you going to abstain? I'm going to say no. You're going to say no. And you're saying no to which case? 287774 CMS.
That's the only one. Correct. That's the only. Okay. Uh, Mr. car. I'm a yes to everything except in C. I have three numbers. 272847 CMS 27 2847.
Okay, next one. What's What's your vote on it though? That's a no. Oh, that's a no. and 287774 CMS and 288178 DHE. Dr. Forer. Okay. Uh yes to A and B and
then uh on C there'll be a no on 272847 CMS. Uh A no on 287774 CMS and a no on 288178 THE and yes to the
others. Mr. Terrero. Yes to all. Miss Jolly. Yes to all. I'm abstaining on 287774 CMS. Miss Bradford. Yes to all.
28774 does not pass. Good. Which fails? We have one, two, three, four. Moving. Does an abstension count as a no? uh in this case it would only be one
extension whereas if you had in another case we had um with the last time where we had three so in this case it's not going to make a difference. Thank you. Moving on to education resolutions A through E all board members. May I have a motion to
for resolutions A through E all board members? So move. Thank you Mrs. Stanley. Second. Second. Thank you Mrs. Connor. discussion. I Mrs. Airi I just want to know have all
these textbooks been in like reviewed by the curriculum committee? Did they go through the curriculum committee? So the textbooks were presented in a curriculum committee when we met in March. Um and uh Dr. Curtis described the process that
they went through in terms of the teacher evaluations and the student evaluations. Um however I think Dr. Forer so I can't question whether you know the textbooks are good or not right I I trust the administration but I think Dr. Forger had some questions with respect to the
geometry textbook that I think he sent to Dr. Feltry to ask Dr. Curtis about but I don't know if there's been any resolution to that to the any any answers to those questions were this were the open
questions answered thought so on geometry what thought so what I'm hoping to get is a discussion of the geometry book in the curriculum committee uh there's a lot of problems I see with the proposal doesn't mean I'll necessarily
go against this book but I think we need to really have a discussion about it. And so I'm going to vote no on the geometry book with the hope that enough people will say this needs to be discussed and we come back in May and
we'll see what happens. But also the timing is do we need this by when when do we need this textbooks approved? I mean this would I would think would be for the fall, right? So I guess the question we table it. Uh yeah I was
going to ask Dr. Feltree if um if the book is not voted on this particular book is not voted on today if it's voted on in May is does that impact um anything with respect to delivery of those textbooks in time for the fall? I
don't believe so. So good. Thank you. Well, I mean, right? Like, so I know we piloted these, but aren't we going to write curriculum? Um, I would assume that they want to do that over the summer. Yeah. Delay it. That's why we'll have also we did have this go
through a curriculum committee, right? And Right. But I'm not a math PhD, so I don't have I wouldn't know. That's why we had the teachers, right? The teachers formed a whole committee, right? The teachers formed a whole committee just like we did with the the big ideas program in the elementary school, right?
They form a committee. They go through multiple different books. They have presentations from those companies come. Then they choose the ones that they want to look at further. Then they dive into those books. Oftentimes they get samples of the books. And then they actually choose one, sometimes two to pilot. And
then they pilot those at different grade levels with different teachers and then they come to the recommendation, right, to the committee. So this has already been vetted by math teachers and mathematicians right that work in our district and know the standards that our students have to meet in order to meet
graduation and move on. Um I know in the survey right people were saying that they are ready for uh secondary right education. So I don't see a need to table this because I know that the work has already been done and I don't want to delay anything for the teachers to be
able to get the work done for September. Right. So I think Dr. Felchure answered. I'm sorry. Yeah. All All I'm asking for is a serious discussion of this particular book within curriculum committee and I can get my questions answered. We can vote on the book in
May. And I think we I think we know there's still there'll be time for the curriculum committee, I'm sorry, for the uh curriculum writers this summer to write curriculum. although you don't actually write curriculum uh based on a particular book um as I
understand it. So all I'm asking for is a serious discussion. We did not have a chance to do that at the last curriculum committee meeting. All we got was this is this is the book we'd like to go forward with. And I asked for a copy of it and I was not given a copy. some out
and bought my own and I've written up my comments, submitted them. I hope that we can have a serious discussion. That's all I want to have. So, with all due respect, this has been like an a concern of yours for many
years, right? Is the geometry and the geometry books and you have brought it to curriculum many times. Um, so right, we have discussed geometry many times with you, but I'm the people who actually teach geometry in our district did get a chance to look at these books and I'm going to take their
recommendation on it. Tom, are you making a motion to table? I I'm asking for I'm I'm just going to vote it down and then you can we'll come back in May and revote the book if if you want
to go forward the book after we've had a discussion. That's all I'm going to do. Any other discussion? Mr. Secretary, roll call vote. Mrs. Stanley? Yes.
Mrs. Connor? Yes to A, B, C, D. Um, yes to everything in E except this geometry book. Uh, is that an abstain or a no? It's a no.
Mr. Kerry yes to everything except for um me the geometry book. I'm hoping that the questions will be answered or you know addressed in the curriculum committee. Thank you Dr. Forager. Uh yes to everything except no on the geometry
book. Miss Terrero. Yes to all. Miss Jolly. Um yes to all except the geometry book. Miss Bradford. Yes to all. Everything passes except for the geometry vote.
Moving on to personnel resolutions A through P. All board members. Um, Mr. Dylan is not here, but resolutions Q through AC, Berkeley Heights only. May I have a motion? So move. Thank you, Mrs. Jolly.
Second, Mrs. Ms. Connor. Thank you. Discussion. I just wanted to thank the the staff members who are retiring and resigning tonight. Um many of them have been with us for many years and I just really appreciate all their hard work um and
dedication to our students. I will second that with um many of these teachers have been with us uh many years and thank them for their years of service and to the students and to the community.
I thought that. Thank you. Fourth. Fourth. We value our teachers. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Roll call vote. Mrs. Jolly, yes to all. Mrs. Connor, yes
to all. Mr. Kiri, yes to all. Dr. Forer, yes to all. Mr. Terrero, yes to all. Mrs. Stanley, yes. Mrs. Bradford. Yes. Motion passes. Moving on to business.
Resolutions A through AC. All board members. And Mr. Dylan is not here, but resolutions AD, Berkeley Heights only. May I have a motion? So move. Thank you, Mrs. Stanley. A second. Second. Thank you, Mrs. Kana.
Discussion. Mrs. Zakiri. Yeah, I thought um at the tentative and then we had a discussion about maybe doing an RFP for the auditing services and we are still at 47,000. I'm sorry, could you repeat the letter
again? In uh B B. Thank you. In B where we have I think the maximum expenditures. We did talk about it during the tentative budget about accounting and auditing services and them delivering it late and so we had we
did discuss it in exec also and maybe putting an RFP through. So are we still going to keep it at 47,000? That's what I have budgeted. Okay. Any other discussion and Oh, sorry. Yes. And then Mrs. Khana public
relations is still 15,000. Is that correct? Not reducing it. What exactly do we So what is this 15,000 for? Is it because our um I know back in 2022 we stopped um we basically restricted the
community from commenting on our social media pages. So it's basically somebody posting um updates on social media. Is is that all that is? This public relations somebody posting Yeah. What is the 15,000 entail jobs? That's
Mrs. um um well yes Vicky Bomb. That's right. Yes. But um the public relations posts on social media but also uh um shares
information with the local news organizations. Um she's going to be instrumental with the referendum getting information out on the referendum. Um there will be a dedicated email
um address that once we choose projects if we choose to move forward with the referendum where questions can be asked directly and um we're tasking her with the um job of uh managing that email
address because there's nobody in district who can feel the number of questions that will likely come in. Okay, thank you. Any other discussion? Mrs. Connor, um I have two questions. One is item L, U, the joint transportation agreement
with Sussex County Regional Transportation. Can you just help me understand is this a vendor for any of the special routes or last year? We I think they were used last year. We probably put them on this year just in
case if we do, but we don't have anybody going in. Okay, that's kind of what I thought it was. The other two vendors that we've had for the past few years. So, this is a bit of a backup. It's an alternate if something was to I'm trying to lead the charge because last year I
tried to lead the charge with our groups last year and I brought this up at our round table. I put something out there with a shared spreadsheet amongst all the Union County schools. let's start getting these schools together and see where we have our special ed kids going
and let's try to share that service so this way we can start getting these kids on the same bus if we can and let's start trying to save some money and uh the prior um county BA you know he just passed away um uh few months ago he
started the charge with me and when I brought it up again let's start to get this back up so I wanted to start If we have the ability like an instance such as this where we use somebody, I wanted to get them on so when we do have to use them, they're already approved. Okay.
Kind of what I thought. Um the second question is the last item in this which is ad approved bids for the roof replacement. So it's got a base bid and then it's got an alternate bid. I'm trying to figure
out. It looks like base bit plus alternate bid is the total. Is that right? Can you Yes. Maybe just talk through what that means. The architect is doing some extra work. Uh wanted to get some additional areas of the roof done that needs to be done.
Okay. So, what they figured is that the last time the bids came in over what they were supposed to be and what happened was that they wanted to move one of the um HVAC units. That was too much work for all these vendors that
wanted to do that. So what they want they did was took that out of the bid because they needed a crane moving things. So that's why all those bids came no one no one came out to bid for it and we only had one was ridiculously over. They took that completely out deferred that to the referendum was what
they want to do. And now what they did was rebid this whole thing. We had nine or 10 people come out and their bids came in much lower, which means we had a a budget with the state and it came in, let's say, $1.2 million. Well, now they
can do extra work and it came in much lower. So, that's why they threw in that that um alternate bid to do another area that needed severe work to be done. So, that's why they put it that alternate bid in to do more work and it's at a lesser price. So it fits all underneath
the umbrella for the SDA to get the reimbursement back. Yes. So I think the terminology of calling it an alternate bid sort of confused me because I couldn't understand how you could have a $1.25 million base bid, but the alternate is
only like 152K. So it's not an alternate in that sense. It's it's extra scope that's being carved out specifically. So that's what it is. It's the it's incremental scope. So it's not necessarily an alternate in the in the that's that's the architect's
terminology. Alternates to be selected select the right but it's incremental. It's not you don't replace this with the other one is my question. Okay. Thank you. That makes so much sense. Any other discussion? Yeah. Is I just had a question about that though.
Is there I mean every vendor can submit an alternate bid, right? And do we and it's all it's all right there in front of you. Okay. But every one of them submitted an alternate bid. Okay. And do you compare alternate to alternate? So you might wind up with two different
vendors. One for the base bid and one for the alternate. It it's combined the base along with the alternate and that's what affects the total. And what the total is that's where you determine what the lowest is. All right. All okay. So I just want to say something about the
budget. Um, I'm going to vote for it, but I do have reservations about what's going on here. Uh, problem I see is that we're budgeting 9.8 million more than what is considered necessary for a thorough and efficient education according to the
state. There's on the page where it shows this number, there's a somewhat brief explanation of what we provide that is extra, but there are no numbers associated with any of these items. But an even bigger concern that I have
is even with all that extra spending, uh, we're not even close to the 80% proficient that we need to get to. So something doesn't add up here. So next year I'm going to want to
see uh some numbers associated with this extra spending, the extra spending items, and not just a list of all the extras. Uh then on the on item B on the professional
services, I don't agree with the auditing amount and the legal services amount. So I'm going to vote no on that. Um and then finally on the uh non-public school security, I don't really know what's going on there, but
maybe you'd like to address that. It seems sort of we've addressed it one other time before. any of the when you see nonpublic monies non-public monies are for the non-public schools that we have in our district the
flex school and there's another school I'm sorry I don't recall off the top Montasauri is it Montasauri okay the state has to give they're entitled to get money non-public nursing nonpublic textbook nonpublic security uh
nonpublic technology and there's another one all those funds that they have to give the state has to give those two schools has to float through us as the public school. Yeah, I I understand all that. And what they have to do is we
when they spend those funds, we have to approve them and that's what that resolution is for. Yeah. But what I'm seeing is it's for professional development for school security. I I just see that as kind of a stretch to say that professional
development contributes to school security. Thank you. Any other discussion? Mrs. Jolly. Uh so I asked this on email, but maybe we could just have a quick chat about this. The um approved purchase of the Tech Vision terminals. So the dollar
amount is already in the bill section. So it seems like we already paid for this, but yet we're being asked to approve. So I'm not sure how the process should work, right? Like if it's already paid for um why is this like a resolution or should you know it's kind
of putting the cart before the horse I guess and then in terms of what we are purchasing um I guess I just wanted to better understand because it's the only I guess the only um uh terminal that can be used with the
they're the sole source provider for this software. So, did we purchase the software first and are not using pay schools? It's pay schools and that's pretty much the only terminal that can be used with pay schools. So, what what is happening now though?
Like are we not using like this is in the cafeterias, right? Yes, correct. So, what's happening now? the registers that they're using um are not being supported by Windows 11 and every time the kids are coming through they're getting delayed because it's spinning and it's
can't handle some of the kids particularly here at the high school in CMS it's not working one of the things that I noticed my child here at GL is she doesn't even use pay school she uses like Apple Pay yeah well that's how you that's how you can pay it's almost like
Apple Pay is like a credit card. It's like a Clover device, you know, like when you have those handheld things that you have schools and and what is it? Pay central or wherever you're putting money on different they're two different things. Yes. Okay. You can you can go
online and prepay your child's uh lunches on pay schools, right? But if you happen to come with your you give your child a credit card or if they have Google Pay on here, they can pay it that way through Apple Pay. And you're not
paying fees, right? Cuz I mean, I can tell you Pay Central like every time I put money on, I'm getting charged like five bucks. Well, there's always when you're using a credit card, I don't care wherever you go, you're going to pay a fee. Now, if you're going to pay cash, that's a whole different story. But then
parents don't want to give their kids cash because then that cash evaporates. So you give your kid $20, I don't think. Oh well, no, I'm not. Well, you know where I'm going with the story. Can I ask a question just on same topic about the the Tech Vision
terminals? This is something that's used by the cafeteria by the vendor. Is that right? Our or the cafeteria staff use it. That's how they uh pay for the lunches and they keep track of the inventory and everything else that goes with it. So, it's not the
vendor that needs this. We need it like the district. Everything that we have in our kitchens. Yeah. The equipment, the uh I'm going to say the stoves, the registers, everything that's in our kitchen, we own. So, the registers are us. It's not the vendor. Nope. Okay. Got
it. So, like I've had to there's um I'm going to I'll give you an instance. We had one of the reach refrigerators in here to fix it was about I don't know $1,500 and get one brand new was $2,500. So, and the thing was close to
20 years old. A lot of the equipment that we have around here is probably 20 to 22 years old at least. I get that. I get that. So, following up on Tasha's question, this is a resolution, but this purchase has already been made and we have a bill to that effect. Is that
right? Yes. Okay. Okay. So, this is a little bit after the fact. Um, going back to the budget for a moment, I think you had utilities and sewer at 5%. What's on the bill's list right now
is a $54,000 sewer bill for usage in 2023. Can you maybe talk through what is the in well what's in the budget right now in terms of dollars that's that's
allocated to that utilities/zour line. Yeah, I sent you that that that amount for next year or I don't I'd have to look and find where that number is, but I don't know what they're going to project for next year. I gave a 5% increase um from last year for net for
from 2425 to 2526. You remember what the number was off the top of my head? No. I had like 26,000 for um the high school and I forgot what the the other schools were smaller numbers.
20. So this is just the sewer or this is everything utilities like other types of just the sewer. Just a sewer. sewers. Sewer and the water is broken out separately because that's American water. Okay. So, it was $26,000 for GL and a smaller number for the other
Exactly. Mhm. Do you think it's adding up to anywhere near 54,000? I don't know because there's things called edus and they're based upon what uh what is it? A two-bedroom apartment would be. So, one of the things I don't
know how they come up with this. This has been that way since 2005. I've sent you the um how they come up with the high school which is 31 edus. I don't know. They just sent me this stuff. This has been going on since 2005.
So I get that part that whatever their number is what 20 sorry I I forget what's the number of ADUs edus whatever the number is that we get the high schools based upon 31 edus. I forgot what
the the middle school's based upon. It might be nine. Okay. Thank you. So, do we know what is the peredu number? And my question,3941 I did remember because I just looked at
it before. So, so my question is what you have in the budget. Do we think it's underestimated based on what we see in the bills list today? Yeah, it might be. It's it's probably going to be probably estimated, but I don't know until I get the bill for that I get until I get the bill for 2024. So, they're two years
behind. So, it's two years behind. I'm not sure if I fully understand the math, but there is a bill of $54,000 by the township for and this is for 2023. So, I don't know what the 2024 number is going to look like or the 2025
or 2026 number, but I see that this is a hole in the budget potentially. Well, you know, you just got to look at one thing. Whatever is going to come in is under budget. You're going to have to just move money around. Do do we have an explanation from the
township like why like why is it 2023? We're in 2025 and so somehow we're supposed to figure out what like the super rates were. I've asked all these questions and I really didn't get a good answer about it. Did you get any answer? I listen I got the resolution about
the,039. I got I got an email about how the edus are done. Why they're behind on the billing, I don't know because they're trying to redo the whole sewer plant right now and that's in the construction. And I'm going to assume you guys must have read the article in the tapin about them doing facilitating
and doing this construction because there was something while during the break was going on. They're doing some type of construction had to shut something down. So in terms of how they're behind the billing, I don't I didn't get any answer. So my concern is this, right? it. I don't know if it's
based on usage. It It seems to be an allocation or some sort of an appropriation of you, you know, in order for the township to make their numbers work, the schools are on the hook for $54,000 worth from 2023. And who knows
what the 2025 number is going to look like. The only thing that I'm doing right now is I've had asked Mr. for uh Romano to to have a count of the sinks and the bathrooms just at the high school and all the other schools just to get an idea of what we're looking at and how and how if you got a two-bedroom
apartment counts as an edu, right? To see how it could equate to a two-bedroom apartment and how they come up with 31 edus for the high school. I don't know. I Yeah, I guess I'd also like to see what the 22 number was. That was my
question. No, you I gave you I gave you a look. Haven't had a chance. You got you got you got 21, 22, and 23. I don't remember, but I got involved with too many for the last three days. I've been involved with several things. AJ, can you share it with the entire
board like those numbers? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I have a question. Question. Okay. Yes, Dr. Forer. Then Mrs. Terrar, I'm just wondering if uh this sewer bill is something like a hospital bill or they they have inflated rate. Listen,
this you've seen this was this was in the bills list last year and the year before. Yeah. It's nothing new. Okay. But I'm wondering if it's kind of like a you know with a hospital bill, they have their sort of really inflated prices, but nobody pays those. They're all
negotiated down. All right. That's why you don't pay so much when you have insurance. Well, there's a resolution to substantiate it and there's the edus that are there. So, and it's and it's and again, it's been being it's been been paid the same way. I'm going to say for the test of time.
So, are you uh there's time and there's life. Uh and then there's the IRS as well, right? So, I don't know. I just curious as to uh you know how they why this is so
large why it jumped. So maybe it's a negotiable item. Thank you. Mrs. Terrero is next. Um totally different question. Um the roofing for the middle school and for Woodruff. When is that project
slated? Summer happens. It is the summer. Okay. summer just like the two bathrooms that are being done over at uh Wil uh Woodro that's going to be done in the summertime as well. Um what else we have being done? Probably said it and I just
the other way there's something else being done I can't remember. Okay, Mrs. Aira, you had a question. Yeah, just a comment on the sewer bill. I'm just curious to see what's the bill. The sewer bills being sent to the corporate like the Cornell, L'Oreal, Lifetime. I
want to see like what what are they being charged compared to a public we're considered a nonprofit so we're treated differently and that's why the edus come up uh edus and the resolution of 139 as opposed to someone else. So, I don't
know. Might I suggest that because this is from 23 that we try to move forward with that bill, but I think everybody it makes sense to maybe try to explore what exactly is really happening to alleviate some of the concerns that people have. I
have, but again, this this has been going on for the longest time. So, this problem has existed way before me. So, I I thank you. I I found the email with um and Dr. Dr. Beltry, thank you for sending it to everybody. So, it looks like the 2021 number was
30,968. The 2022 number 2022 usage says 31,147 and 2023 is now 54,000. That's true. So, I'm not sure. It's not like we've had some sort of an explosion of
students between these years that we've had the sewer back up though in the girls locker room. I think this needs some We need to go back to the township and talk about this because this just seems the the change is massive. We just need to look at it again. We have a lot
of pun on words here. Explosion, you know, just think about it. Thank you. If discussion is over, Mr. Secretary, roll call vote. Mrs. Stanley. Uh, yes to everything except I'm going
to vote no to N. Vote no on N. Okay. Mrs. Connor, um, I want to say yes to everything except our Yeah, that's it.
Mr. Kerry, um, this one is hard. I was hoping to vote yes on the budget, but I was hoping to see some capital projects and I've had multiple discussions with Belry and you. Uh, I'm going to abstain from the budget um for this much money and what
reserves we have. I I I had hoped we'd be we would have been at least paved one of the schools parking lots and I am a no for the auditing in B. It's a no for so
we're saying so you're going to nay on A correct abstain. You're going to abstain on A. Okay. And in B, I'm going to be a no on auditing, accounting, and legal services.
Just on that alone, just that. Yes. And um yes on everything except no on R and T. Is that it? Yeah. Oh, okay. Dr. Forger,
uh, I'm going to have no on items on item B and dealing with the auditing and the, uh, legal services and no ontr. Oh.
O F F is in Frank, T is in Tom, R is in Robert, and yes on the rest. Miss Terrero, yes to all. Miss Jolly. Yes to all except R.
Miss Bradford. Yes. Okay, so let's see. We have R and T. It looks like R does not pass. R fails.
Can I move on, Mr. Secretary? Yes. Moving on to finance resolutions A through D. All board members, may I have a motion, please. So move. Thank you, Mrs. Kana. Second. I'll second. Thank you, Mrs. Stanley. Who did discussion?
Who did the bills? I review the bills. Thank you. Any discussion? There is an open question that I had sent uh Dr. Feltry and about I think it was a conflict of
interest memo uh that was drafted and I was asking if we can get it. Um there were multiple entries that was one of the question that I had but I think um Dr. Fry needs time to get get it to us. Yeah.
Is this by our office? Dr. Say again. Is it by our office? Um, I believe so. I received the question at 4:37 this afternoon. So, have time. We can connect on the memo. I can get you a copy of it right away. Any other
discussion? Roll call vote. Mrs. Connor, just bear with me. Um yes to everything except um three check numbers. Check 211645, check
211752, and check 212047. Mrs. Stanley, yes. Mr. Kerry. Uh, I'm yes to everything except it's a no on C and no on check
numbers 212161 211645 211752 212047 um 212167 and I I gota You got to go back. I just I didn't get the first two. I didn't get
them correctly. Can you just go through the first the first few again, please? 212161. 212161. Yes. Okay. Um 212052. 212052.
Yeah. 212090. 090. Yeah. 211752. 211752. Yeah. 211645 645
212047 212047 212129 212 you said and what's the last three? 129 129 uh 212167
212167 Yes. And then no on C. Okay, Dr. Forager. Okay. Uh are they the same numbers as a little hard to tell? No, I don't think they're exactly the same and
they're maybe a permutation. Uh, so I better go through it. Check number 211645 is a no. 211645. Yeah. 211752 is a no. 211 752 752 212047 is a
no. 212 047 047 212167 212 167 1 167 212129 212129
Yeah 212161 212161 212052 212052 You said yes 21209 21 Wait a second 212
090 090 and 212053 212053 and yes to B no to C uh yes to D. Mr. Terrarero.
Um I'm going to say yes to all, but I'm going to just say um I do agree that we need to take a look at this sewer bill. Um because just looking at that journal, there's one line item where it's like
all of a sudden $31,000, but the other ones are kind of broken down. So I do think it's important for the district to kind of get to the bottom of what's happening. So I'd like to kind of get that on the record. Okay. And I'm specifically talking
about sewer bill 21216. 212161. That's the check number. Sorry. Check number. Miss Jolly. Okay. So I am a no on five checks.
Um the two that are previously attachment W attachment X. So that's 211645 and 211752. I am also a no on 212129 212 129
161 and 212047 Okay. What was the one before 047? 212161 212047 Natasha could you repeat the first one please? Sure. I'll start again. 211645 Thank you.
211752 212129 212161 and 212047 Mr. Bradford. Yes. Okay. Mrs. Mrs. Stanley I vote. Thank you. Vote first. Thank you. Okay. So, we're going to have check
number was I think I was second. Sorry. Check number 211645. Check number 21782. 52 52 I'm sorry. 211
212047. That's your common one. Um what's the other one here? 21 2129 is it? Yep. I think everything else passes just those three. That's those four.
And then there 161 there 161 161. Three of them. That's only three. Okay. Those are the only four checks that have not passed. Could you repeat them again, please? Uh, check number 211645,
check number 211752, check number 212047, and check number 212129 have failed. 129 shouldn't fail because I said yes to everything except
those three. 129 was not passed by Dr. Oregon, Miss Airi, Miss Jolly. That's it. Oh, sorry. It's 161 that has I would think 161
field. I think I voted yes. I think I voted yes with the caveat that we need to look at. Yippy and I agreed on that. We I didn't vote no on it. I just we need to dig deeper.
I think it's just like the GL if I thinking about that right that is the GL bill the 3100 752047 161 that's only three 047 only three okay so there's only three I'm sorry uh
the last digits are 161 645 could you repeat the last three digits on The nose. The last three nos. Yeah. Which one? The last three digits of the nose. The ones that failed. The ones that failed. Yes.
You talking about the check number? Correct. Oh. 212047. Got it. And 161 failed. No. No. No. There's only three. 21645. Got it. 211752 and 21247.
Thank you. Okay, moving on to comments from the public. During this portion of the meeting, district residents and staff are invited to address the board of education on any item. Board requests that the individual state their name, town of residence, or school of
attendance for the record. All comment should be directed to the board president, and depending upon the nature and complexity of the question, it may or may not be answered during the meeting by the administration. If so, the response would occur after this public portion of the meeting has concluded. Although the board may not respond to all items raised during the
public forum, all public comments will be considered. The board asked that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking. Specifically, comments regarding personnel matters are discouraged and cannot be responded to by the board. Students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by
the laws of New Jersey. The board bears no responsibility, nor will it be liable for any comments made by the members of the public. Please note that if any member of the public becomes disruptive during the meeting, the board president may terminate the participant statement. Continued disruption may result in
removal from or adjournment of the meeting. Each speaker statement will be limited to three minutes. In duration, we'll take the in person first and then the online. I see no one in person. And Haley, we see no one online. We will conclude the comments from the public.
We're going on to new business. Um, and we have Mrs. Stanley's policy discussions. And do we have an answer yet? Yeah, I mean, I'm going to stick with the um answer that Mr. Dro gave earlier, which is um that in the absence of
policy 131, there needs to be a way to put these policies forward. Um, and so this is the real only avenue left to put these policies forward before the board. Um that's the this is the method that is existing uh instead of passing policy
131 again and then following that policy. Um this is our recommendation for putting these policies before the board. And I just would say right like this went through committees right everyone has seen these policies in policy minutes either two or three weeks
ago they are on the attachments for tonight's meeting both public and m and attachments for the board. This went through the process right and this is just the way the district felt that they could do it right that that's what they were being they were trying to follow advice. So,
we called a meeting um a second meeting this month just to try to get this done because we knew that time was of essence for these comprehensive equity plan policies. I'm I'm apologize. Obviously, I didn't make this decision, but I
apologize if this is not the way that, you know, other board members wanted it done, but nothing in here could should stop us from voting because this is important and we need to move forward and every process was followed until it made it to the actual agenda. So, if we
could please just put that um beside us. So I'm going to make a motion to move to move revise policies in attachment AB policy 5460 high school graduation and policy 9163 spectator code of conduct
for intercolastic events. I will make a second motion for the rest of them just to separate them. So is this for a first read? We don't have we no longer have a first read or a second read because we don't have that policy. You don't need to do that. But if we So discuss a
second. Uh, we need a second. I made a motion. I need a second. I'll second it. The now discussion. So, from a discussion perspective, right, so we don't have a policy. Um, I get it. This
is the first time I guess the public has seen it, right? As in the attachments, but some of the attachments are not quite right. Um, hang on, hang on. Some of the attachments are not quite right. Um, so what is like why can't we act
like this is our first read, right? Because I remember when policy 131 was abolished, I got, you know, a lot of people screaming at me. It's like, oh, the public won't get a chance to comment, right? So, if we did have policy 131, this would in essence be a first read. And I don't see and since Dr. Feltry I don't, and maybe this is a
legal thing, but since Dr. Feltry was in the committee, like you would recommend these, right? So why can't there be a resolution on the agenda? we don't need a first read. Why can't there be a resolution on the agenda recommended by the superintendent to approve to to move
these policies? Right? So, and and even if we don't vote on it today, we still are good because the um the comprehensive equity plan needs to be finalized by June, right? By the end of June or by June, right? So we have a May 15th meeting where we could very well
vote these through as part of regular resolution recommended by the superintendent. Not if we have first and second read, right? So if the next one is is first read, then it would be done. No, this could be act as first read, right? Like this is the first, but we don't have a policy in place to make it
a first read. So you Let me let me jump really quick. Let me jump in really quick because I think you you raised some really good points, Miss Jolly. So there's nothing stopping you from making this a first read conceptually. nothing is requiring it but also to your point nothing is absolutely stopping it as to why there was no recommendation from the superintendent my understanding was that
in reading the policy there wasn't a proper mechanism for the superintendent to make that recommendation without your policies however your question is is well taken um there could be at this point you know there's a motion right now before uh the the the board um and
you can amend that motion to you know say this is that you can make an amendment to that motion if you had the the support with the So, we have a motion for um I'm sorry with Dr. Forer. I'd like to amend the motion to say that this is the first
read and that the second read will be May 15th. Do we have a second? I'll second that. And that's just on just for these two the two. Does that Let me ask a question. Does that create a problem
because one of the policies is on high school graduation. That won't hinder anything. Correct. High school graduation is in June. No, I know. I mean, I just want to make sure there's nothing I don't remember off the top of my head what the policy says. I don't know if there's anything prior to
it. Talked about the requirements for high school graduation, which is why I felt that it needed to be on for tonight. Um, so it does change, right? in in forget what years it was, but there were certain years where some requirements were kind of stopped for
high school graduation because of the pandemic. Um those requirements are back in and so this policy has changed. Um it's not going to harm any of our students this year is really what I believe so because that's kind of the state um the state has already said that
these high schoolers need to do this. So it's just us having it in policy for the graduation. But I don't think it's it's going to necessarily hurt. But again, I just I'm not the one that abolished this policy and I can't control that. We I if
we want to do first read tonight, that's fine. And then we have to do second read in May, but we do need to get this approved so that way in June that comprehensive equity plan is in place. Um but we have nothing that says that we need a second read because of the policy
being gone. What what is it that says we have to put this comprehensive equity plan in place by June? It's a requirement by the state state. Yeah, there's a state law. State law. What is the what is the statute? What is the statute number?
And you're quite you're quite what is the uh statutory deadline? June June. Yeah. End of June. End of June 30th. So we even have a June meeting we could do it at. So the June meeting, we have to actually approve the plan, right? So we need the
policies in place prior to approving the plan. That's why we chose to put the meeting um this month and have we had two big meetings. How long does the statute said the statute said June 30th for the policy? Is that right? No, that's for the adoption of the
comprehensive equity plan of which the policies are a component. What's the law? I will I will look it up in a So, we're talking about this in new business, but I don't see any old
business with policy 131 listed. And I guess what I don't understand is the obstacle to actually putting 131 on the agenda. We've had a version
circulated many times over. I know that we talked about 131 in the last meeting. Um, and we was it the last meeting? It might have been the meeting before, I don't remember, but we've been talking about it for talking about and my understanding was
and I could be wrong. though was that the attorney had recommended that rather than we go about changing it entirely, putting the original one back in place with some of the modifications that I
know Mrs. Jolly had. That was my understanding and I thought, and I could be wrong, that the attorney was going to do that for us. I I don't think I could be misstating in the policy committee minutes. And Miss Connor, you were in that meeting. Um, we had a discussion
and Natasha said that she wanted to bring some changes to 131, but because of the meeting going over two hours, we were not able to do it at that first meeting. At the second meeting, you you were unable to attend. I wasn't able to join the second one. So, I don't know. Exactly. And but in the minutes, it says
that we agreed that we were still not ready because Natasha was not ready with her recommendations, but it will be on the next policy committee. Um, also just because it was a packed agenda with the Yeah. equity policy with the other policies. But I thought that I thought
the board attorney was supposed to draw something up for us. That was my recollection. So we have a stress estimate recommendation and I think we can amend it ourselves. Yeah. So we have we have our old policy that was abolished. That's what we're talking about putting
it was suggested that we take the old policy that was there before put it back in place but put the modifications that Miss Jolly wanted to add to it to kind of fix wherever her concerns
are. We can take a look at it at the next policy. I think that would be kind of important because I think that would help in this process moving forward. So my recommendation is the May meeting. Let's bring that also back on the agenda for discussion and possibly a resolution
as well that supports it. That's what that's what Miss Jolly and I put in the minutes, right? The minutes say that. Perfect. They will come to the next meeting. So, right now we have a uh a motion and we have an amended motion for
this is a first read uh by Dr. Forager and then seconded by Mr. Mrs. Terrarero. So, we can have a roll call vote on the amendment. The amendment. Roll call vote on the amendment. And that's to make it a first read. To make it a first read. Second
read for 51525. Dr. Forer. Yes. M. Terrero. Yes. Mr. Kerry. No. Miss. Jolly. Yes, Miss Connor. Yes, Miss Stanley. Yes, Miss Bradford. Yes. Motion passes.
Can I ask a question? So, if we still don't have a 131, because at the next meeting we won't um because we'd still have to approve it, right? Um can how do you recommend we put a second read on? I I think that given what you've expressed in this motion,
you've you know, you've served the uh objective of putting the public on notice of it, right? you're putting it back up to pass it at that point. And so I would uh I would advocate that it's it's old business. It's your it's your it's now been a motion that's been passed. The the well, it hasn't passed
yet. Excuse me. The amendment is now uh added to the main motion. Right. So if this motion passes, it is essentially set on the agenda for the 15th already by passage of this motion. Regular as a resolution as a resolution for old business. Which one? So can you can you
d whether it's old business or res like we still need a resolution to vote on draft a resolution put it on the agenda? Yeah. Okay. But it would be on the agenda or in on the agenda. Okay. Thank you for All right. May we have a roll call vote then on the a motion to accept
revised policies attachment AB. Uh Mr. Secretary roll call vote. No it was only for a Mrs. Bradford. A yeah just for A. Oh I'm sorry. Yeah. Attachment Apach lowerase A uh attachment uppercase AB.
Correct. Right. So this is for lower case pass these two policies on first reading. Correct. So this is the one that Mrs. Stanley and Miss Terrero had done. So now we do the roll call vote for that. Okay. Correct.
Mrs. Stanley. Yes. What are we what you have to sorry explain one more time what are we we're voting for the amended first read to move these to next on May 15 to approve them on the first read
I approve first read okay yeah because it's been amended now Mr. Terrero yes Mr. Kerry yes Dr. For yes, Miss Jolly. Yes, Miss Connor.
Yes. And I just want to confirm that Tom's amendment was actually applicable to both AB and AC. Yes. No. No. Oh, that was just We're only dealing with AB right now. Just AB. So, is this only for AB or also for AC? I thought we only did
a Okay. So, just the motion was to introduce these policies and I amended it to say we're introducing it for the first two policies. Yes. 5460 and 91 attachment AB. I didn't say anything. We still have to do the same for
attachment A. So that was my question. So do we do the emotion? Do we do the motion? We have a roll call vote going on right now. Finish the vote. And you said yes. I said yes. Miss Bradford. Yes. Motion passes. Okay. Now moving on. Wait. Sorry. Oh, wait. That's right.
Never mind. Okay. Moving on to policies under B, comprehensive equity plan policies. May I have a motion? I would like to make a motion to move comprehensive equity plan policies
attachment AC for first read with second read being at the May 15th meeting. May I have a second? Second. Second. Sorry. You okay? I heard Mrs. Conifer. Okay. Uh, no discussion. Roll call vote.
Mrs. Stanley, yes. Mrs. Connor, yes. Mr. Kerry, yes. Dr. Forer, yes. Miss Jolly, yes. Miss Terrero, yes.
Miss Bradford, yes. Motion passes. Just before you jump on, um, I it's NJAC 68 7. Dr. is the the rag for that. Um the deadline slower slower slower. Yep. It's NJAC
6A 7 is the comprehensive equity uh plan and the deadline is actually June 23rd. So not June 30th. June 23rd. Okay. I'll we lost a week there. June 23rd. That's correct. Okay. So we have to approve approve the plan on June 6th. That's right. But we don't need to do a second
motion because you built it all into one. Got it. Mrs. Kerry, you have the next new business. Yeah. Um I just wanted to ask some of these uh questions and I think so we are receiving a lot of we
used to receive a lot of documents. So it's about board agenda and the attachment delivery process. Um I think the historical precedent has been we used to get board agenda and attachments as downloadable PDFs. Also the
attachments for the draft agenda and for the actual meeting was broken down. We didn't get like an 81page document or a 120page document of attachments. So my question is I think somewhere between
the transition between I think fall of last year to now we are only getting Google links and the biggest um like today I think this afternoon we couldn't find the hip report like if you go into the
BHPSJ inbox and search HI report we can't find it previously Mr. Nixon used to send hib report with a date by embedding these documents into links. Huh? He shouldn't have been doing that.
Well, we we were getting that like that way into have been sending reports via email. He should not have been. Why? Risk of confidentiality. No, but uh there are executive session documents that come as attachments too. So all I'm
saying is 2022 we received all I'm saying is from a searchability perspective I can forward you previous emails it is just not Mr. Nixon it was the p previous superintendent saying she should not been doing so I think I think with the confusion I feel uncomfortable
I think the confusion is is that there was a PDF document right that was attached which is very similar to a Google document attachment. So I think the only difference is is that when Miss Auri is saying is that she can't Google
HIP report for this month and find it easily. But I actually find that when you put things in the board buzz, you actually do list it out. And the same with excess question. It's not about Googling. You can't Google HIP report. I'm sorry. If you can look search through your Gmail, if you can search
through your Gmail, right, you can find it. I I haven't had trouble finding it because usually it's written in one of the documents and then you you can still you'll do the same thing. So I just want to um Dr. Felry if you can send me in an email why you cannot attach them as an attachment. I would like to know that. I
want to know the legal reason for it. It's because it's not just about searchability. The Google links I don't think we as a district have a policy because some of the links and I have pointed this to you multiple times. If you want me to send it to the entire
board, if you go to our district website, there are a whole bunch of meeting minutes that are missing for reorg meetings. There are a whole bunch of agendas missing. So, what is our document retention policy? As a public entity, when we have a meeting, we we
are expected to ensure that we save these minutes and documents because these are decisions that are being made for a public school district. So my concern is I don't know who creates the Google links and if you embed it in that
link because what we had a website change and when we go and we can't find some documents we are told oh when we switched from one website to another. So all I'm saying is this is your first year. Two years from now if we are looking for let's say a BHPD contract
are we going to ensure like are you is there something written down in a plan from a document retention perspective that these links will stay that way they will not be changed. So if that is not there then I'm questioning the integrity
of these links and how are we going to find them because today I had to like send multiple like we had to like literally scramble to find some of these documents. So if there was no decision made and these is for the bold so maybe you have to ask us for you know how do
we want to receive them? How do we or I'm comfortable if you're going to come up with a plan and say, "Hey, we're going to put them as links only, but this is my document retention policy." And you're also going to go and take a holistic look at the district website, the missing minute meeting minutes,
missing attachments. That's what I wanted to have a discussion on. I didn't want to move any motion depending on how we address this. So, I can speak to some of it because I've I've uh watched the the meetings
the last three times. I can tell you based on what I'm looking at as to what was sent, we are not sending the HIP reports as a PDF anywhere. They are they are part of the executive session agenda because they are confidential and um we
don't want to risk the confidentiality of that and that's why they are part of the executive session. I did put them as as a board buzz. Um it was conveyed to me that board buzz wasn't the way to to view the HIP reports. So they are always
on the executive session. So you have to moving forward. Now I could create an Excel spreadsheet or a folder of all HIP reports and put them all in there if that's easier for access so you can find them from month to month. I'm willing to
do that. Um not a problem with that. But whoever was emailing them to you as a PDF attachment, that's at risk and I am not comfortable doing that and putting the board at risk or putting myself at risk doing that. No. Um I I can
accommodate that sort of thing. part of um a transition plan and the and the the conversation that we should or we will be having you know next week is these kinds of things um in terms of how the communication you know will work.
Um I've noticed the last three meetings there is a lot of effort on the part of my staff and myself to create draft agendas that have gone out I believe in a very timely fashion um and you know this was an anomaly because it was even
longer than normal um to give the board plenty of time to review and ask questions and what I have noticed is um there's a flurry of activity that happens either the day before a board meeting or the day of a board
meeting. Note to self, I can't schedule anything on a Thursday of a board meeting. You know, I spent the morning doing interviews. Um, and so that seems to be the trend. I can adapt to do that but I am personally questioning the
necessity of a draft agenda if it's not serving the purpose of giving the board time to ask the questions that they want to ask before it goes live. So if so previously we used to get it on Thursday evening that way you know there there
are there is historical so I've given it to you a week in advance. Yeah, but some but then we we don't we are unable to some of my questions are on the bills list which we are not able to review between until Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. So if we don't go
into the business office until so the window for reviewing the bills list is Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. So if we get in on Wednesday, of course the questions are going to come to you after work for us. So um depending on we are
trying to accommodate the schedule that's being come coming to us from the business administration's office. The other thing is this Google links for everything. My question is who is creating them? Who has access to changing them? Because if I go into my board email and click on some of the old
links, they're invalid. They don't work. I I can't speak to what happened before I came. I can tell you right now everything is in a shared drive so that if somebody owns it and they leave um we have records. What happened in the past what I'm going to speculate on is it was
owned by somebody who if they're no longer in the district then it when they turned off their Google address it either didn't get shared properly or and so we've moved forward to changing that. Um but I can't speak to why they're not
there. Let's not harp on. I'm saying going forward I just want a plan from you which can be next week when we meet or later that if we create a Google link it's created and these are the people who have access to editing it. I would like to know is it the business that
anybody who is in our shared drive. So right now it's my um administrative assistants and uh AJ's administrative assistance. So the business office and the curriculum or the So that's basically seven or eight people. Yeah, more than Well, it's more like three or
four, but yeah. So, I just want I just want So, from a document retention perspective, if you're going to continue sending Google documents, I would like you you don't have to answer me right now. You can send an email saying who has access. I'm happy to answer you right now. Yeah. Yeah. Fine. So, frankly, it's easier for me to answer
you right now. I'm saying these are documents. I would like a documented answer from in an email that if we create Google links, they will the data will be valid. So, so that it it can be like in November I'm going and opening a Google link from January and you
answered me in a March or an April meeting. I'm just saying these are documents that are I can't access some of the old documents. I'm saying in future what is our fault? I will do my best. I I cannot guarantee that there's not going to be a technology glitch and that something is is not going to be
there. I will do my very best to create it in a in a way that you will have access to it for as long as you about the missing meeting minutes on the district website. Are you going to address that? Can you can you make sure you make a list of those and let us know? I have already. Yeah. I I don't
know if you already cuz I haven't seen or anything. I've only been hearing that there's in general just I keep hearing generalizations. There's meeting minutes missing. That's all I keep hearing. Can you can you make a list of anything specific that we can address? That's all I'm asking. Yeah.
Then in the similar vein, AJ, I would also expect that you could say like when I said Oprah documents were on the website, you said I'm I'm not speaking the truth. But maybe I never got any, you know, rebuttal or like basically saying yes, these were available on the district website. I shared the link to
Dr. Feltry. You were on the email. Oprah documents are available on the district website. So, Mrs. Terrero, so um Dr. Feltry, you had sent a draft. I believe it was before break. Yes. And you had listed a bunch
of links and it was great because you actually named the links like executive session meeting whatever, right? And so that was really really helpful to kind of be able to pull them up. I know they were links to Google Docs. So that was really helpful. Well, the other the one
thing I will say that I did notice was there were two check attachments and when I clicked on each one to look at it, it said that that image no longer existed because it was
moved from the drive or deleted or it was something like that. So, I just kind of figured it was likely a check that I could just look on the attachments for. So, it was no big deal. But, I actually liked that way. That was great because
um it was really I think the naming conventions were good. It was clear. It was easy to search for. So I don't know if you looked at that but it was really helpful this feedback. Thank you. Thank you. Mrs. Connor, you have the last new
business. I do have the last new business and um this is about the email from um from the rec department chair inviting board members for a walkthrough of Lower Colombia. And the email goes to
explicitly say you're being invited as residents. However, the email has landed in my board email. It's not landed in my personal email. It's not landed on my text message. So for all practical purposes, this is an invite to me as a
board member because I've been reached at on my board email address. So this is an invite for all board members, township and so on. This is not advertised as a meeting of any sorts. the moment five of us get together in a
very public place for this walkthrough, so to speak, you know, and Natasha, you had all of those points listed, I'm in agreement, it it just seems like a bad idea. So unless this is published as there is
a meeting with no published agenda other than there's a walkthrough of Colombia, I'm not sure if it's a good idea for five of us to show up to that walkth through uh and and put ourselves at risk from an OPMA standpoint. All the other
things notwithstanding. So I just want to get some guidance from you on what's the if we choose to attend this what has to be true for us to not be in violation. Yeah. So look if it's if it's truly say
anything just showing up if you if you aren't talking to each other and aren't really near each other. It's open to the public. It's a community event. U I I think that it's going to be you know hard to claim that it's not a violation. However, in the interest of absolutely
being on the safe side, I would not recommend that five of you show up, right? Um, unless we actually notice it as a meeting and we we we put a notice out there that this is happening. There is no agenda because it's supposed to be a walkthrough. We haven't published it,
but there is a likelihood that five board members or more will show up at the same time. I I have had boards do that in the past for things including walkthroughs. Exactly. anything. We're going to meet at this site. We're going to do a walk through. There will be no action, right? So, that is an option,
too. However, you you have a committee could assign the the tour to a committee and then you'd have a designated small subset of board members who could go and then report back and you'd avoid the open public meetings act. So, I'd recommend a committee uh if you're either your facilities committee or your you know, pick a committee. That's up to
the board of course, but one of your committees could go and and take a look at it and uh kind of report back would be also I think see advertising it has I know it's a very minimal cost but it it is expensive to like advertise it. Absolutely. So maybe just ask around who
how many I'm not available on that day so I'm traveling so yeah if there are five then maybe we should spend the money to advertise it. What would be the you have to allow for citizens input. I'm going to be honest with you. When it comes time for like a special meeting, I send to the the newspaper, but I just
say it. I just do it as um what's the word I'm looking for? I I I tell them not to put it in and pay for it. It'sformational purposes only. Oh, that's all. I thought that is a cost. No. Uh is there anybody planning on attending? I don't even remember when it was. I mean, I do think that somebody should
represent the board. I know I suggested the president and the vice president and the athletic chair go. Um, I don't know if you guys are interested in going or able to go, but I do think we should be represented and at least hear what the plans are. Um, because it is our land and we do need to work on the
relationship since we've had so many issues and we have I mean if we're going to work on the sewage, if we're going to work on this LEO, we do need to start working with the council. It's May 10th at 100 p.m. Um, Saturday. I my expectation is that I will hear about the plans irrespective because I think
they need as per the lease, right? and they need to notify us. I mean, I walk Colombia, Lower Colombia every other day with my dog. I know it intimately well. I don't need I don't need a tour of Lower Columbia. I know, but I do think that I do do think that the board should
have representation and like that. I I do think if the athletic chair or the finance chair I have a suggestion. Yeah. I don't know if you're available, but Vipy and I are the liaison for the rec commission. That's perfect. Yeah, I might be able to make willing to go with
you if you want to go. I just want to see is I mean that's just an idea. No, that would be perfect. You guys want me to go us to go? I'll go. No, but it's at one citizen, right? So, why do we need Right. But we we understand, right? We
understand that we have a a responsibility, right? And like like the attorney said, we could all go, but we're kind of opening ourselves up, right? So, we as a board are saying we don't really want to do that. So, let's pick some people to go to represent the board and and just say those are the
three and the rest of us kind of try to, you know, wait for the report of those three. And Dippy, if you can't go, I could go. Yeah, I was just checking my I I have a soccer game to get to. So, all right. So, Deb and I will go on the tour. It's not in town, unfortunately.
So, if you're able to go, that'll be great. Thank you, Gail. Okay. Thank you. At this point, I'm going to ask for a motion to adjourn the meeting. So moved. That was Mrs. Stanley. Second. Thank you. Everybody wants to second it. Everybody. Okay. Uh, voice vote. I I
Yes. Meeting adjourned at 11:40 p.m. Thank you so much.