All right. I would like to call this meeting to order. 7:32 p.m. This is a regular session of the Bin Township Board of Education held for the purpose of transacting appropriate board business. In compliance with chapter 231
laws of 1975, the notice of this meeting was advertised in the Mars County Daily Record. Copies of this agenda of this meeting were appropriately posted and made available to the public. >> Mrs. Bora >> here. >> Mr. Brander here. >> Mrs. Cabana >> here. Mr. Chen >> here. >> Mr. Hittinger
>> here. Mr. Johnson >> here. >> Mr. Mcry >> here. >> Mr. Mills, >> Mr. Rosenberg. >> Also present. Mr. Fertini, superintendent principal. We have a quorum. >> Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> To the flag of the United States of
America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. So we will be starting with Morgan annual report on a valley school submission to school safety data and
student support overview. First want to stick the >> we're so I'm going to do the SSDS report first because that's my least favorite part of my job. Um the by by law all New Jersey public school districts must use the student safety data system to report all
incidents of violence, vandalism, weapons, substance abuse, and HIV incidents that occur in their schools. The information is collected to fulfill state federal reporting requirements. So the following information covers September 2025 to December 2025. So I'm
happy to report that we had zero incidents of violence, vandalism, substance abuse, or weapons um here at RDS. We did have um six alleged HIVs and one confirmed HIV. We had a total of three in school
suspensions and two out of school suspensions. So that's my least favorite part of my job. My favorite part of my job is this. I love supporting our students. So um I wanted to take a minute and just go
over um how we've changed the way our school support students since um in the last like year and a half. So my personal educational philosophy is that all students can and will learn when given the provided appropriate and meaningful supports but not all students
learn in the same way or on the same day. So I like to think of it as more of a learning is more of an exercise in endurance than rather a race. So what does that mean here? I know everyone thinks oh I went to school. I know what
happens in schools. No, school looks totally different than it did when we went to school um you know just a few years ago but um when we were in school. So the old way is the teacher stands in front, the teacher is the giver information and the students is the receiver of the information. Um so our
desks are in rows. The teacher is just really leading the class. Um but the new way is a lot more collaboration, critical thinking, creativity. Um we have flexible learning environments. We have flexible seating. We have student centered activities and a lot of a lot
more interactive um learning that's happening that I wish that we had. Um so the recent changes that we have moved to a more data-driven progressive and preventative approach. Um I know
we've talked about the OG training in our kindergarten, first grade, working our way up to third grade. So that's our proactive preventative approach. Let's make sure we reach everybody so that way we don't have any gaps. Um but in general we provide supports through the
lens of the MTSS which is multi-tiered systems of support. New Jersey keeps changing this name just to add more acronyms and confusion. Um it's now NJTSS. It's the same thing. Um so our previous system was we had like
an er EIS and IRS model. So the EIS model is where teachers would push into classrooms and help other teachers out, which is wonderful. Everyone can always use an extra hand. I I love extra hands in my classroom. That's great. However,
our new approach is that we're using our data, our benchmarking data, our classroom data, our observations, and we're targeting students in the weaknesses that we can identify. So what does that mean? So the old way, the new way. So we're using data to predict and
identify educational gaps in curriculum and achievement so we can take a proactive approach to students um prior to a student failure. So the old way was that once a student started to show that they were having weakness, they're getting poor grades, they're then we would jump in and start doing some
interventions. Now we're doing that much much quicker. The minute we see any kind of weakness, if we taught a skill, we see the weakness and we're like, "Oh, okay. Let's pull some small groups so we can help." A lot of times your your child might even get a tier 2 and your
child doesn't know it and they get to get a little extra help with that and then they're okay. Um so RTI falls under the MTSS umbrella. So RTI is response to intervention. There's a quiz on all the acronyms. Um
it's part of the MTSS framework. So if you look at MTSS as a big umbrella, RTI is under there. So when we're looking at RTI, we're looking at interventions that could be behavioral, they could be academic, or they could be social, emotional. So anytime we see a student
who's starting to struggle, we call a meeting, we talk to the teachers, we talk to the parents, that kind of thing. Um so we have this like to be to put it in short is that we have a framework in place that supports students at all
levels um at the first sign of academic weakness. So, when we have three tiers to RTI, which I'll talk about very briefly, if you have any questions, feel free to email me because I could talk about this all night, but I know we have a lot going on, so I'm going to be really quick. So, tier one is all students. It's universal supports. Those
supports, when I say all students, is probably like 85% of our students might need something like that. Um, then tier two would be some students. And now we're looking at like 15, maybe 20 at 20 is pretty high, but like 15 at most. um those students are going to be
identified through um our data collection like I said our classroom observations, our teacher conferences when we talk with teachers and all that kind of thing and they are pulled into smaller groups. Sometimes the um reading specialists or the BSI teacher will push
in. Um we're holding data meetings next week, data meetings where uh we took our benchmarking that we just recently did because we've done our second round of benchmarking. We do one in the fall, one in the winter, one in the spring, and we have data meetings right after the benchmarking. And we identify any kind
of gaps that we see in our educational program. So, we're not looking at specific students, but we're looking at the grade level. We're looking and we're saying where is the grade level like struggling the most? Where are their strengths? Where are their weaknesses? How can we capitalize on their strengths and improve their weaknesses? So, that's
tier two. That can be done by the classroom teacher or it could also be done by a push-in model. um which also includes behavioral u pushes in the counselors the the child study team pushes in on BCBA we think um
tier three is small so tier three should be between 5 to 10% of our population who are getting pulled out of the classroom so they're getting pulled out of the classroom based on their you know identified weaknesses and then we develop goals and objectives to really
zero in on them progress monitor We meet, we go through a whole intervention cycle, which is typically between 8 to 12 weeks, depending on snow days, vacations, that kind of thing. Um, and then we revisit. Are the interventions working? If they're working, great.
Let's keep going. We want to make their we want to make sure that they're sticking. If they're not working, what do we need to do to change it? Or if there's major red flags that we see zero growth, okay, we need to push through for a child study team evaluation. The supports that I'm talking about are all
general education supports that are available to all students, even special ed students if they need it. Um, so RTI is really important because it gives an indivi individualized learning pace. So if you have a child who's struggling a little bit, RTI allows you
to slow down, take a minute, take a breath, go over it, whatever kind of weaknesses they're having, work with the child. Um, it ensures enduring understanding. So if you see I always say if you think of it like you're building a house, we have to have a strong foundation. If you're building the foundation and the foundation is
wobbly, the house will always be wobbly. So we want to make sure that we have that really strong foundation. Our foundational skills here, we've been working really hard with um and I'm just excited because I know what we're going to talk about in the data meetings and we have good things to say. Um, so we're
working on that foundation to make sure that all students have a nice strong foundation. So I talked a little bit about the classroom level support, the tier 2 support, tier three is intense, and then if the tier three support isn't working, we move for a child study team
referral. We go through the child study team process to see if if special education is needed. So, our tier one supports, what does that look like? Because it looks a little bit different in every school, in every classroom, every teacher, every old, but these are the these are what
it's grounded in. It's grounded in in explicit instruction, making sure that students know these are the expectations. This is what we're looking for. This is what we're expecting of you. Um, and we give them guided practice to help them get there. Differentiated instruction. So, you
might walk into a classroom and kids are not working on the identical assignment. That's very common because we're differentiating the instruction to meet the needs of our students. Um, active student engagement. We're using techniques like pair and share, um,
response cards, whiteboards. A lot of teachers when you walk into their classrooms, you see that they'll be work like working a math problem and the students have a whiteboard and write the answer down on the whiteboard, everybody hands it up. So now I'm ensuring as a teacher everyone's h holding up the answer. I have a quick temperature on if
my students are following along with me. Um chunking content, breaking content into smaller pieces if needed. Uh formative assessments. So we're using ongoing checks for understanding like I said that um the whiteboard that's a a quick assessment that we can do. Exit
tickets, entry tickets, just how like feel the room. How's everybody today? comes up, comes down in the middle. It just gives the teachers an idea of where we need to be. And then of course scaffolding, which is providing temporary supports. So this is really important. Um such as graphic
organizers. A lot of these are just provided and we do that so eventually we can pull those supports away and they can stand on their own. Um, so that's what tier one, that's like a brief overview of tier one because there's so many things that teachers are
doing to help our students in our tier one supports. Um, and that's just it's beautiful and it's wonderful and it's really a lot of it's a lot of tailored to the students and the the classrooms and the content. Tier 2 support tier 2 construct instruction varies like I said
earlier. It could either be done by the teacher. It could be done by our reading specialist, our BSI teacher, like I said, our BCBA. She works really closely with us, our um counselors and
um the child study teams. So, when a student is identified at RVS as needing tier 2 support, we notify the parents and we invite them to an RTI meeting. This is something that's new this year. Um last year when we when I started we
had a very different system. So it takes a you know a little time to get everyone on board and so people all understand. So now moving forward we're at the point where we're able to invite parents to all the meetings. Everyone understands the process. We're it's a work in progress. So we're you know it's not
perfect. Nothing's perfect but we are working really hard to make sure that um we're meeting the needs of all of our students. Um so what but what I think is important to to stress is just because a student a student is getting um tier 2 support or
even tier three support doesn't mean that they need special education. So spe the difference between RTI and even 504 is that if you have if you're getting special education you're getting specially designed instruction. You're getting it by a certified special
education teacher. that teacher is designing the instruction based on the goals and objectives in the IEP and making sure that our students are meeting their goals and objectives. Um, so our tier three support is our most intensive support. I would think
it's tier three support. And like I said, it doesn't mean just because your student is getting tier three support that they need special education. But if they're in tier three support and they're not making progress and we don't see any progress, then we make the move
to refer to special special. Um, so it's intensive data driven instruction. They're small groups. They're targeted. Um, I think our small group, no, I say three to five, but I don't think we have I think there's only one group that's five students, but it's really small.
It's targeted. It's progress monitor. similar to an IEP goal progress monitoring. Like we're keeping data to see where we're moving. Are we moving the student where they need to be and then it's just continuous. We keep going. So then if a student is doing really well in tier three, we're not
just going to go great. You we're going to tell them how great they are, but then we're going to drop them down to tier two just to make sure that there's a slow progression back down to our tier one to make sure that everyone's getting the support that they need. So, I talked about like I said intervention cycles can take anywhere
between six to eight weeks with the snow days and the vacations where we're working on 12 for this cycle. Um, but what happens is we keep working with the students. If it's showing progression, we'll keep going. If it's not showing progression, we stop, we think, what do we need to do? How do we change it? And we move on. And then if we're not
showing any progress or we're like there's red flags everywhere, we go right to a CST referral. our support team and the administrator who oversees it. Um, our RTI team members are Alyssa Baldino, Sam Herat,
Olivia Sea, Kelly Miles, uh, Sherro Gotado, and Justin Cordderero. Um, we meet regular regular I can't talk today, right? >> Close enough. You know what I mean? And we talk about our students. We are
such data geeks. It's fantastic. If you're a data geek, I you would love this because we sit, we go through the data, we skim through it, we look for, oh wait, well, we need more time on fractions because we only spent um four weeks on fractions and we really should be spending eight weeks on fractions.
So, we make those changes. That's what our meetings are for. Um and then additionalized special expertise. When necessary, we call in the director of special services, the school psychologist, the district BCBADA, and
any other even an OT or PT if we need it. So, that is a big change from I think what was happening before. So, I wanted to just make sure that I covered that. Um, so what should you do if you're concerned about your child's progress? The first step is always to contact the teacher. The teacher knows
your your child best. Um, the teacher will then contact the RTI team. We'll collaborate. We'll talk about it. We'll hold the meeting. We'll invite you to the meeting and then we'll evaluate to see what kind of supports that your child needs and you're part of that process.
So, other supports we have at M at uh RVS that do not require MTSS or RTI, we have our homework club. We have our before and after school teacher support. The teachers have two days a week. You're either available before or after school if you have extra help. And then we have win periods for grades five
through eight where students can get during the school day time to work with teacher and if they're having any kind of difficulty or weakness they can work them. Um I also wanted to talk about the difference between an IEP and a 504. It
goes back to what I said earlier. Um so they're both legal documents. A 504 a student must have a disability. your facility must adversely affect their education and their access to the education. So, a 504 will give you
access. It gives you accommodations to access the the um curriculum. For example, a really common accommodation is extra time. Some students need a little extra time, the processing speed to think about the questions. They'll get the extra time. The difference with
a fi with an IEP is that that provides that special education teacher. So there's three prongs to special education um eligibility. You must have a disability. It must adversely affect your education. And then that third prong is you need a teacher. You need
specially designed instruction. Your instruction should be different than everybody else's and it's designed specifically for you. And that's what we that's what we use our special education teachers for. So I just let I was trying to be as quick as I can. I'm going to breathe now. Um,
do we have any questions? >> I have a question. BCBA. >> Oh, our behaviorist. >> Okay. Dr. Angelie. >> She's fantastic. >> Yes. >> Do you see AI helping you predict before you said you were looking instead of
waiting for the child to fail, you're trying to predict before a child gets there. Can AI help with any? >> Yeah, absolutely. um AI can ab what I like to do with AI is when I So we look at the benchmarking
data, right? So if we're like and it tells you what specific um standards the child may be weakening. So AI is great for you're like, "Okay, help me develop a um RTI plan that addresses this
standard. give me um skills and practice that we could use and progress monitoring tools. So it gives you all these ideas. We kind of >> Yeah, you kind of smell it from there. So the the AI program that we're currently using is to take multiple
pieces of data we filter in the screeners the benchmark assessments and the link data and it's able to identify the common errors across those assessments from one year to the next as well. So it's able to compile all that information and spit that back out to
the teacher and say these are the specific stands where consistently uh weak for the student. So then we can design a differentiated plan for that student and we can get those those pieces earlier with the AI tool as well. >> But I have to tell you my team likes to
dig into the data. So we use AI but we use it as more of like giving us some ideas to kind of develop a plan. I haven't seen them just throw information in and okay this is it. So I think that's important too because you know knowing your students and knowing what
they can do where they're struggling you know AI doesn't really >> Yes. >> Um I don't know if we have enough time to tell this yet. Do you think they're capturing more students in the three tier support we were you know few years
ago or something change happen? >> I think so. I think we're catching them before they get there. >> Okay. So, I think that >> Do you have data on that? It sure depends. >> I don't have data prior to me getting here on that. Um, I have data since I
started, but I I don't have anything compared to the board meeting. >> Yeah, we don't have those those comparisons, but what I can tell you also is that we're seeing significant percentage increases. I think I mentioned this at a couple of board meetings about the number of students and percentage of students that have
made progress compared to those students who have not had some specific type of training OG. We're able to track that. We're able to have targeted instruction not only because of the OG training because of this approach. So again, it's hard to compare before and now because
it's a different >> apples and oranges, >> but but the the increases and the identification early on is is pretty substantial and significant. >> I just wanted to say that I appreciate the presentation and I think that multi-tered system supports is like one
of the best practices that we have in education. So >> it is. I I get so excited about it. Like I truly love it and I love that we can help kids that way and I'm so proud of our team and our teachers for what they're doing and you know we we've made progress significant progress and we're
kind of working our way up and we're going to continue to make progress and I just see our projection will be amazing. >> Well keep keep up that work and for those that are not familiar MTSS is kind of like a standard of care in healthcare. So it's it's researchbased it's highly effective and it really good
for students. So thank you. You think this necessitate you having more small group instruction rooms? >> This is called foreshadowing. >> Great. >> I like the way you >> It's actually true. >> Thank you.
>> Thank you. Okay, we're just going to have a feasibility study presentation from Porzio Bramberg and Newman and Associates. One slide. >> Yeah, that's just one slide.
Eight pages condensed to one. >> We are very efficient. >> There's the clicker over there. Maybe the clicker. >> Clicker. That's it. I can put it >> on my computer and just put it on the
drive. was gonna say, "Can we do that?" And then we can put the thumb drive and then >> I don't know. I always had a smart. I never had I didn't have these fancy This is your stuff.
I can just do intro. I can introduce our folks and then we'll try to get >> All right. Hi everyone. While we're getting up the the PowerPoint, I'm just gonna start with a little bit of an introduction. My name is Carrie Wright. I'm a partner at Porzio Bronber and Newman along with my colleague uh Veto
Gagliardi uh as my partner at Porzio Bronberg and Newman. We're a law firm. Until two weeks ago, we were located in Morristown. Uh now we're located in Pyne. Uh we are the co-chairs of our education practice at the law firm and we have had the pleasure of working with
a number of school districts across the state on a variety of issues but in particular one of our u subsp specialties is working with districts to identify alternatives to their educational programming and that's what we were retained by the board here to do
um with regard to a feasibility study. So we were retained to look at the educational options available township with respect to educating your high school students. We then put together a team of experts that are experts in
their individual fields. >> So we >> Oh, wonderful. Okay. >> U so Veto and myself, we're lawyers. We help facilitate the process of a feasibility study. Um but we do not
write the feasibility study. So we retain the gentleman in the back who I'm going to introduce in just a minute and they are responsible for actually putting together the analysis that we're going to hear from this evening. So what I wanted to just before I introduce them
is go over the >> okay go over the scenarios that we looked at. So as far as the educational option for bootentown with regard to educating high school students, we identified three scenarios. One of which
is the status quo. We always look at the status quo which is mountain lakes, right? It's where your high school kids go now. So we look at the financial implications of where they go now. Um your enrollment projections, the demographic information, how your
population is going to change, how Mountain Lakes population might change. Um and then we looked of course at the educational programming available at Mountain. The other two options that we identified as potential scenarios to study were um Township sending its
students to Kennalon High School and sending its students to Morris Hills Regional. Both of those school districts were studied by the experts. I'm going to introduce them as I said in a minute. Um with regard to whether there is um whether it's feasible. So we call it a
feasibility study for a reason because we're not advocating for anything and they're not advocating for anything. We are providing your elected officials with information so that they can make a decision on whether they want to pursue a change in your um educational
configuration. So feasibility study is the first step in that process and it has to analyze a number of different things. You have to look at the enrollment projections as I said the demographics um the racial makeup of
your students and the students at the other schools. You have to look at the financial implications both where you are as well as where you might move your students. What is what do the finances look like? And of course the education. Also part of that is looking at the
capacity. If we look at Kennelan High School, can Kennalan High School fit your students? So, one of the things that you're going to hear as soon as I introduce our experts to you is what this standard is. And I want to go over that standard that the commissioner
would look at if the board were to decide to try to make a change. And I think it's important for everyone here to understand what that standard is because you're going to hear it in a negative. So when we write these reports, we look at the statute requires
us to analyze whether there will be any substantial negative impact on any of these areas. Substantial negative educational impact, substantial negative financial impact, or substantial negative racial impact. And we do that
because that's what the law requires us to look at. But we wanted to let you know that upfront so you don't wonder why are you continuing to talk about how there's no negative impact because that's that is what the standard is um and what has to be included in the
feasibility study. But we're certainly going to go over any of the positives and negatives that were reviewed um as a result of the analysis that was done. So when we're done going over the specific issues, uh my colleague Veto is
going to go over the process so that everyone will know if the board decides to move forward, what does that process look like? Um how long does it take and then we will entertain as many questions as the board has or the public has at your pleasure. So I'd like to introduce our experts who
are going to go over the specific pieces of the study. First, um the educational expert uh is Tom Pagera. Tom has more than 40 years of educational experience um in teaching um and as a superintendent in uh various school
districts in New Jersey. He spent almost 30 years as a superintendent. Um he has specific experience with sending receiving relationships. So he analyzed the um educational aspects of the study. I also have Robert Scardamalia. Robert
has spent 40 years as a school demographer. He is one of the nation's most foremost school demographers. So he does the first step in this process which is determining how many kids you have and where are they, right? So he also will look at the racial um
backgrounds of your students because it's one of the things that the state wants to look at. the state in um makes it clear that if you're moving student populations, it can't impact substantially the racial aspect, the composition of those schools. So that is
something that Robert studied. Um and he also looked at the capacities as I said an important aspect of the piece that we studied. Um and last but not least, Steve Sea does the finances because if the finances don't work, there's no um real opportunity for making change. Um
Steve Sia has spent about 25 years as a school business administrator in a variety of school districts uh in New Jersey and he has significant experience with sending receiving relationships and rating feasibility studies like that. So um we don't know if you have anything to
go over before I turn it over to you Bob. >> Yeah. The only other thing I I wanted to point out is when we talk about the the other options you have, obviously we didn't negotiate any arrangements with those folks, but it wasn't like we um picked them out of the sky to um to
study. These are geographically approximate districts that theoretically are ready, willing, and able to educate your children. They willingly agreed to participate in the study. So they weren't evaluated passively. We hear from the experts that they interacted
with officials in those vote in those places. So we when we talk about options these are not theoretical options. These are real world options that if you wanted to proceed you have obviously the status quo but two other districts that have an interest in educating your high
school children. And I'll talk uh at the end about what you would need to do in order to pursue that path a little further once you've had a chance to absorb what the experts have to say, the written study and any community input that you get. But I certainly want to make it clear to you, this is not an
academic exercise. These are real world existing feasible opportunities that we are here to evaluate and present for your consideration. Bob come up. >> Bob, do do you need me to stay up here as a sad version of Adam White?
>> Depends on whether you know which button to push. >> I So far I do. And if you can't know what buttons to push as a lawyer, you got control. So push another button. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, as you've already gotten a little
bit of information, uh, and I'll kind of dwell on that. I've been doing demographic analysis since graduate school in 1977. Uh so census and demographic data is just my button push.
>> No, I'm I'm here. No, I'm here, Bob. A man like yourself shouldn't be pushing his own buttons. >> I need a copy of the report so I can follow. >> Oh, okay. Okay. Excellent. You're all familiar with the geography.
You don't need to draw on this. Um, just as Peter said, the location of the high. >> Okay. Don't don't touch the screen. Let's go back. How far are you? Uh, the location of the
high schools are part of that mix in the decision process and all of them geographically um qualified. Uh Morris Hills the regional district you know includes Milwaukee does it evenly
touch it. Um Milwaukee Township and uh Burough as well as Denville and Wharton make up that regional district. So a lot of the data that is in the report you're going to see for more skills is the combination of all of those component
areas. One of the first questions in demographic analysis is how does an area change? Is it growing? Is it declining? Um the population in the report includes data mainly from the Census Bureau. That's the primary source of you know
demographic data in the country and and it provides a history back to 1940 uh of dennial census populations for each of the communities and basically what you see is a growth across but not consistent because there have been
periods of different throughout um particularly in New York the entire northeast area has gone through difficult changes and that's what you see in that uh there's a difference where regional the com
combination of all of those communities makes it the largest community around 56,000 compared to other which is around 10,000. So in addition to just totals, the
report contains a a pretty comprehensive community profile of a lot of economic, demographic and social characteristics. That data comes from the dennial census and the thing called the American community survey which is where we get
all of the good socioeconomic data that comes out. In add so addition to the characteristics that you see here uh one of the most important one is age age distribution age distribution has a huge
impact on uh family formation and movement migration of population so it's one of the keys and what it shows is that median town the median population age population of Bon Township is pretty
time 48.2 years. Um, you know, in relative terms, that's that's getting pretty old. That's like, you know, I'm I'm on the upper side of that. So, I'm I'm pulling that up in the compared to mouth lakes, which
is 4 41.7% median. Chino 44.8% not percent years. So, it's a relatively older population that has implications for a whole variety of uh issues related
to school enrollment. Uh there's more detailed information than just this in the report including uh data on housing housing uh median uh cost value of owner occupied housing housing of different
types structures single family homes versus multifamily home um and median incomes median incomes are relatively high uh and well over New Jersey state as a
Next slide. So one of the basics is looking at school enrollment trends and we've looked at their enrollment from the fall. This is a fall beginning year enrollment 201819 through the 23 24 in each district. Uh
in township uh this will tell you uh you know what the what the individual chambers are. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail. You can see them there. What you see here is the actual reported in Norman uh for each district and totals. But as this shows the total the
day the data that we gathered and the data that goes into the analysis is more detailed because we need data by year by individual grade level in order to look at changes in in the enrollment population as well as do projections. In
general, you see there variability in each of those areas. You can see that there's increases and decreases. Uh so that it isn't it isn't just a consistent upward or downward. And um it's important to recognize in the
period of time that we're looking at COVID pandemic had a huge impact. And so it dramatically changed any uh perceived trend of increased enrollment or decline because just in that one year period of
2020 so many things impacted enrollment uh and across you know Bucken Township or any of the other communities affected everybody. So that's an important thing guys to keep in mind.
Birth data current births in five years become kindergarten students. So what's occurring in the fertility level in birth data is important particularly for looking at uh futures
enrollments. Birth counts come out of the New Jersey Department of Public Health and little satellite. New Jersey is great at providing access to this data unlike New York where it's a real pain in the neck to try and give the same level of detail.
off the top of what you see in this is these are cumulative across all of the communities and what you see is generally uh an increase although not a consistent increase in the number of births and there are a lot of things that impact that uh housing changes,
migration changes and such and the basic structure of the population. But basically, you see uh an increase until that last year and post that last year, you're going to see births decline.
So, as a demographer, I kind of have to put on more of my demographer rather than school. And just to kind of go into a little bit of detail, you're probably all familiar with the the national trends we hear about of
declining fertility levels, declining numbers of births, slower national growth. And it's important to understand what those future impacts are. And certainly the projection understanding of what's going
to happen in the future is um crystal ball kind of stuff except there's some really key things to keep in mind. The absolute number of vote is generated by looking at particular levels. the average number of children
and one of them will have some fertility and but that has to operate on a second thing and that's the number of women in childbearing age. So it's kind of hard to think of this
time of increase in births when we hear about uh declining births nationwide and in our communities and lower fertility levels. But what you have is very low fertility rates. But you have in this period of time the
millennial generation which is the very large larger than us baby boomers in terms of size entering into their childbearing units. So you have very little fertility rates but you've got a lot of women childbearing age. And so it's generated
has generated much that increase. Now for the future, what's going to happen when we all age? So these same women of childbearing age, millennials, they're going to be hitting their peak levels and then aging out of
their childbearing ages. So what's going to happen? Fewer women, low fertility rates, birth to continue that. Other things that come into play here, uh,
housing, uh, new housing in communities is an important component. How are they changing? What types of housing is being built? Uh, so each of the communities were contacted to get that data and wasn't necessarily always the easiest
thing to do. Uh, of times required an Oprah um, pardon drying out. uh operate request uh public records request to get that data. But even with that, um the the community
officials may have uh some records of that, but it really doesn't tell you all there is to linking uh really doesn't tell you all that there is to know or that you need to know about individual development. So often times it was
getting back to an individual developer to get more information and part of that is a lot of things we don't know. Just because there's a development planned or even approved doesn't mean that it actually gets constructed. If it does
get constructed, when is it going to get constructed and how what's the time take? How many units? What type of units are these uh studio or single bedroomedroom apartments? Are they conversions of u single family homes?
Are they multi-bedroom homes? All of those uh come into play and that there's so many questions about that that it is frankly difficult. But within these communities there there isn't a
whole lot of development happening except for lower skills. Morris Hills is regional is where there's the highest level of expected development. And again expected doesn't necessarily mean constructed and occupied. necessarily
it's it's a an informative number but one that you don't unfortunately you kind of have to see how it plays out in actuality to understand those 338 uh possible students
spread out because we don't know when that timing will be. We don't know anything about what their grade level would be. uh and so it's it's an informative number but it goes into the analysis and into the projections. Uh
there are assumptions made about how that timing would be made and distributed across uh grade levels. So the enrollment projections enrollment projections uh use a standard
what's called cohorts live ratio method. It's a pretty standard way of getting at the short-term projections and it's a relatively mechanical process. You're simply looking at uh how students age
through the educational process and how many what's the number of students in each grade in each year versus how many were there in the previous grade in the previous year. So the ratio between how many fourth graders were there last year
and how many fifth graders are there this year is is like I said a pretty mechanical thing. What that ratio over one means is that there's some external influence that is bringing in new
students. Could be migration uh could be changes in public versus private education. Uh there's a whole variety of things that go in there. A ratio under one means again there's something else going on out migration of families or
other shifts in public private. So that ratio becomes a historical measure that gives us a look at shortterm within a fiveyear period. It's pretty accurate because we've got a long
history of grade level students and we can look at that average over uh that period and project into the future. And so in that process, that's when these scenarios come into play because they're doing projections for each of the
individual components that we're talking about for Bin Township, Kendall, Norris, Norris Hills in order to evaluate uh the impacts of that analysis. I'm kind of getting ahead of myself
here. So capacity is as as Kelly and mentioned is an important piece of the analysis. But it's also important to remember that this this computation is something of a
static measure because what we know today is the capacity of an individual school and we know the number of students and we can you know calculate whether uh today there's excess capacity
or not. And when we do the projections, we can do that same calculation but based on what that static measure. So the projections can tell us that uh given the way students are um
programmatically or physically assigned in the school, will in the future a school have excess capacity or deficient capacity? And what we find out
is that in in most of these cases there's there's both current capacity and future capacity to varying degrees. Uh the one area that stands out is Morris Nolles where there's currently
excess capacity but if you look at the projections that static measure would say there's not enough capacity in the future. Again, static measure. It's it ignores the fact that districts have a
lot of things in their toolbox to deal with space. Maybe it's physical changes, maybe it's programmatic changes. So again, it's one of those things that is informative but
not prescriptive. if it's not something that is unchangeable. And the other big important piece, thank you, is the uh racial impact analysis. Now, this is a lot of data. Um, and the
report goes into a lot more uh detail, but this gives you a look at the race and ethnic distribution for each of the uh different scenarios. Again, keep in mind that the distribution is based on
the 23 24 data we have, but each of these districts have become more diverse over time. And the report will give you the 2018 to 19
same data. And so you can look at each of the districts has become more diverse, not necessarily in the same way, maybe higher uh, you know, Hispanic changes or Asian changes, but each of the districts has become more diverse
over time. And it's not about any of the other communities in New Jersey, New York, or anywhere across the country. uh that is just a factor where we are in the 201819 school year boot township
student body was more than 85% white and 13% minority total minority so if you look at this total minority is the sum of the Hispanic black Asian and multi-racial plus a little bit where folks have
identified themselves as uh American Indian Native Alaskan very small categories by 20 so 1819 85 86% white 13% minority by 23 24
that had shifted to 76% white um 24% minority. So each each school each district has experienced similar shifts but not not the same. There's variation within each of them.
um to kind of summarize those changes, it's still the same racial categories, but what we do is look at uh what's the racial makeup of the Guten Township students uh that are
in Mountain Lakes and what would be the shift in Mountain Lakes without Township? what would be the shift in Kennalong or Morris Hills or Morris uh Nolles with the introduction of Putin Township students and you can see that
there's there's variation in those percentages uh in all of them because the composition is different in each of the the district. But what you also see is that racial change is not that large. All of them are moving in the direction
of increased diversity and so the impact of the Bin Township students in any of these districts uh is not going to be a large negative. Okay. Uh the Dors Hills uh high schools you see a little bit of
a decline in minority percentage in both of those. in mountain a very small increase mountain lakes without township a very small increase and even
in the worst case margin cities worst case even in the most extreme case in Morris Hills with a 6.6% 6% decline in the minority population. That represents about 80 85 students. 85
students spread over four high school grades results in a not very significant number. So concluding as we see in communities across the country the population is becoming more
diverse uh just as these more kind of communities are you also see changes that aren't consistent uh across all areas and that's also the case in in this area. So yes, there are differences that among the different test scenarios,
but those differences represent no significant negative impact as a result of the potential changes in sending receiving agreements. The projections indicate that mountain lakes has limited
capacity currently and in future under this status scenario with the sending receiving agreement with blue dodges. Kinolong and Morris Hills high schools
are currently under capacity and even under the status quo projection have the greatest level of excess capacity. That's also the case should uh a new sending receiving agreement be um
engaged in with Bin Township. There's currently excess capacity in Morris Nolles, but that's only current capacity. And as I mentioned previously, the um future capacity and if Putin
Township students were to attend Morris Mills, there would on paper in this static measure be a deficient capacity. But again that that's a static measure and there are multiple ways in
which a district can deal with those type of capacity changes. >> So we're going to do the other two sections and then thank you very much Bob and then we'll entertain questions and everybody back up like that
everybody comes on safety. So, um, the next component is the educational component. And so, I'll ask Dr. Car to come on up. Good evening. Um I as you can see I've been superintendent for 30 years and I happen to be uh right now doing an
interim superintendency back in Mount Arlington which was my very first district where I was appointed in 1996 at the age of 12. I might have that a little.
So um we examined obviously the the same exam um that we're all doing and we're looking at the send receive relationship between Ben and uh township and mountain lakes and um and the alternatives.
So we looked at several areas um right across the board in terms of academics and educational programming. So we look at the academic programs, we look at the athletic and extracurricular activities, the educational program,
um the academic performance outcomes, the visual performing arts, STEM, transportation, um visited the facilities and looked at the whole array of the course.
After a review of these areas, it's our opinion that Putin Township, who were to move from its current sun and receive relationship with Mountain Lakes, either Kennelon or Mars move, would not
have any a substantial change in its educational opportunity for the vast majority of its students and there would be no negative substantial impact um as set forth in the Furthermore, the students from township
um the uh stay in their uh current sending se relationship um you know they continue to thrive. So moving to either of the two high schools would not appreciably increase or decrease the educational
opportunities for most of the students. Um, regarding the program review of educational, general education, all the high schools offer are the robust uh selection of paid um and a robust selection of honors. We
give you a number in there. They're all around the same in all three schools. The programs are highly developed. They offer educational opportunities and acade for academic growth alongside extensive uh visual and performing arts
programs uh ELLL programs and co-curricular Okay. Um so um if we look at the uh we looked at AP uh I IB SAP and AC scores um and one
finds a level of consistency of high performance. Um which which defies declaring one high school superior community. Um if you look at this the performance scores it's in detail. I
won't drive you crazy. I'll read them all. It's in the report. There's sort of a pattern of flip flopping of who comes in first, who comes in second. Uh a quick example, Mountain Lakes did the best in algebra. When you compare three high schools, Mountain Lakes was number
one. When you turn the page and go to geometry, Mountain Lakes was number three. And that kind of pattern of who's first, who's second, who's third continually changes hands by small margins and and those and most of the
time, you know, those are have a normal fluctuation. So all in all, we're looking at three high schools um with uh this similar academic performance. um
this the uh staff we look at staff in programming in all three high schools. So um we look at uh the qualifications and and of general ed and the and the programming in general ed AP uh and IB
program visual and performing arts ELA ELLL co-curricular activities special ed programs they are all uh there's a full array everything is described in the report there's nothing lacking in any
one of those schools there's a slight slight um as for Morris Nolles in their size in offering special education some special education classification. So um they um what I'm referring to is
students who may be sent out of district and we're talking about a very very small minority of students. they may have uh a more of an opportunity if a child falls into a particular class classification that they offer because
of their size as compared to Mountain Lakes and generally that's dependent on the number of students that have the same classification that it's worth having a class for. Um but that that's was the only small aspect in terms of
professional uh um development. They have um excellent programs and professional development. The teacher experience and education levels are all above par and their technological
technology capacity is is excellent. again squeeze it. Um for the site visits um I I visited all three schools, met with
staff um all three um all of the schools were anxious to uh walk around walk me around with huge numbers of staff because they all would like your business. um so to speak. And um we looked at the educational space, you
know, all above par quality. They all have um state-of-the-art media centers, art, science and technology labs, plenty of visual performing, art space, and uh and athletic facilities are all up to
par and beyond. Uh each of the high schools have taken appropriate measures for safety. Um, I was impressed that each one uh has security cameras all over. Um, full-time uh resource roof uh officers or class three special
officers. Basically the same same uh same people with different titles. and former police officers who are retired and uh and they are there for protection carrying
appropriate weapons. Uh all three high schools um are all within location and would not not one would be a problem for an unusual distance for your your kids to travel.
Uh the in the athletics and um extracurricular activities again um all three schools offer an extensive array of team sports. Again the only unique piece is Mountain Lakes and Ben Township
have a combined sports programs. I don't know your community. I don't know how that's how important that is. Some places that's a hot button. But um so this tradition of combining recreational programs may act as an
informal feeder uh program for your high school sports and may may be a significant uh community consideration. you refer that I um so again uh reiterate after reviewing
these areas you know our opinion that if Putin Township were to move from its current sending received relationship with Mount to either channel high school or Mars Nolan's high school there would not be a substantial change in the educational opportunity for the vast
majority of students there would be no substantial negative impact set forth in the governing world and uh and students from township will also likely continue to thrive in their current
send relationship with them. The the one thing that I wanted to mention because I don't know that was clear if you if you you listen to the last two reports you heard from the demographic standpoint that there's capacity at Morris Hills that there isn't at Morris Nolles and then we're
listening to an educational analysis of Morris Nolles. It's because the superintendent of schools of the district said that if your students were to attend that district they would be placed at the Mars Nolles High School and he would rather reconfigure that high school for a number of reasons. So again, not something chosen by us. The
superintendent said if the students from Boot Township came to uh our district, that's the high school they'd attend. So that's why despite what you heard, demographically it may be counterintuitive. The educational analysis was done based upon Morris Nol because that's the place where he said
your children would be son. So with that, I'll turn things over to Steve Ca the financial button. I'll stand by in case you have a problem. All right. So the um in the financial analysis we have um me and you got my
background um and my colleague Peter Genevies uh prepared the financial uh section of the report and we start by building a framework a model a financial model that includes number of different
resources. Uh primarily we use actual audited financial statements. Uh two years we use uh budgets. Um we use the demographic uh enrollments that was outlined earlier. Use other information
from state sources from the districts. Um and we use these to project revenues and expenses over a five-year um time frame of the study. uh we also have some key assumptions and
expectations. So um the tax levy and tax rates are estimated for comparative purposes. So we are developing a comparison so that we to the best of our abilities compare apples to apples um
between the different scenarios. Um it's what I like to say it's a projection. It's not a prediction. There's a lot of things that could happen that the individual boards can do over the next five years that might change the tax levies or the tax rates, but we have to
try and um uh compare the different scenarios. So, we we factor that in for comparative purposes. State aid and the educational programs for the same reason are fixed for the 22 23 school year. We
assume full implementation in year one um to try and um show you the realistic view of what the financial impact would be. In reality, we'll talk about this in a moment. Um the students that are
currently in uh Mountain Lakes, if you withdrew, would continue there and graduate through. So there would be a phased out approach but with a limited time frame five years if we phased out over four years we'd only really see one
year full financial impact. So we assume um uh that takes place in year in year one. We use a regression analysis to project five years of equalized value. Um and each scenario identifies the
savings and the various costs. The tables that I'm going to show on the next slide, they um the values are in thousands and the tax rates are in $100 of equalized property value. A savings
is a positive number. Um a cost is a negative number. So let's jump into the financial impact. So for scenario one, we're looking at withdrawing from Mountain Lakes and sending to Mars Hills Regional.
And what we see is the three communities impacted the tax levy and the tax rate for the status quo really stays the same and a fiveyear um average sending um students to the
Mars Hills Regional uh school district. And it's important to realize that it's a five-year average, but annual numbers. So each one of these numbers um takes the individual uh years and then
averages them. So when we're looking at township and um the new Senator C relationship, they're saving about $394,000 a year. So that's an average number over the five-year period, but each year over
that fiveyear period, on average, you'd expect to see a savings of about $394,000. The bars hills, the savings is is higher. It's one one just a little bit above 1 million. And as you would
expect, Mountain Lakes sees additional costs of about 1.5 million. So in scenario two where you send the students to Kolan uh Bhutin saves in this scenario saves in this scenario as
well $187,000 kalan 1.5 million and mountain lakes as you would expect has the same amount of 1.46 46 whether you go to Kingon or Morris Hills
it doesn't there's no impact on your choice to Mountain Lakes so it's the same uh additional cost regardless of what scenario it is a clarifying question on these tables now >> I would imagine we're going to say the same thing I'm curious if we do go ahead
>> what's the assumed tuition rates in the in the savings here because I'm if it's all CPP versus what we're paying. I would imagine that >> we already did the same thing. >> It implies that the savings are probably significantly larger depending on what if you were to agree to something that's
way lower than CPP would say more snows or or or >> Yes, that's right. I I'm going to get into that in a moment if I if I don't answer later on in >> but the status quo for Mountain Lakes assumes basically what we're paying today. So that that's right that's that's actual number. the other
scenarios of the model based off of just their cost and our student ratio. >> That's correct. >> I was gonna I knew Steve was going to get to this, but I wanted to say it while the chart was in front of you so you can see the impact of it. >> This is very conservative the analysis.
So Steve's assumption, which is the only assumption you can make right now, is that they're charging you the maximum permitted by law, the certified cost per pupil, which is what you were referencing. So naturally, if you were to find a new partner, you are free to engage in negotiation with them because
they're savings looking at the kin almond right $1.5 million a year. They could still do very well even if they charge you something less than the actual cost. But since no such discussions have taken place, the appropriate thing to do is what Steve has done here, which is to assume that
they charge you the maximum permitted by law. So I know that's part of his analysis, but I want you to see what it looks like with those numbers there. Your savings compared to Kinlan's. Those numbers could be a lot closer depending on what those discussions uh turned out to result in if you were to talk to Kin
as a potential partner. Those actual savings may be larger. Um I could I could touch on that now. Um so we assume as I as I I indicated earlier that the educational programs do not change. All
right? Because we need to have a a a set um program in order to see what the funding is. If you have um students coming into a district or leaving a district um we
have to assume because the programs need to be the same that the um student teacher ratio is maintained. So you either have to hire new teachers or you have depending on what school it is on the withdrawal school don't have to let
teachers go because we want to maintain the same educational program. It's not the same educational program if your class sizes go up or they go significantly down because you're adding students or you're taking them away. So,
in order to maintain the same program, we have to keep that student teacher ratio the same. That may or may not be the case in a particular community. So if you're sending to kinolon you they may not need
um the number of teachers that we identified they may increase their class sizes slightly but we can't assume that we want to assume that the programs are the same because that's the level playing field that we need to compare
one scenario to another. So just one more clar question that assumes then that you built in the new districts if potentially we would go there you would you hire teachers and the reverse with lakes they would have to ship teachers
in order to maintain the ratios just >> absolutely and that's the lead into what I was just going to I was I was going to um go next so the 1.4 4 million. If you did the quick calculation, you could see that your 190 or 200 students uh uh
generate revenue in excess of that. But it that number factors in the savings that the district will get because they no longer have to educate those students. And that's teachers, it's you
staff, benefits, materials, things along those lines. It's the net effect of the revenue and then the operating cost. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. >> So we we we talked a lot about negative impact. Substantial negative impact. Steve, that's an additional cost. That's
a negative impact, isn't it? It's a negative impact. My my goal here is to see or the the charge is to see whether it's a substantial negative impact. And we could say that it's not a substantial negative impact for a number of reasons.
Um the first is there's a 4-year phase out, right? So that 1.4 is not 1.4 in any one year. It's about 370,000 each year over three years. So it's negative, but we don't think it's
substantial. And why not? First, um, when we compare it to their current expenditures and tax revenue, it's not it's not substantial. In terms of the expenditures, it's less than 1% of their
total expenditures. Tax revenue was less than cap about 1.5%. Another reason is because we've seen reductions in uh gluten students um going to mountain lakes in the past. In
20189 you had about 256 students in um uh that you sent to uh Mountain Lakes and then in 22 23
there were only 99. So a loss of 57 students. So we know that um Mountain Lakes could handle the reduction of students over time. And that's what the phase out provides. It provide pro provides a balance um to
phase out over time. The the next thing is that over the years that we identified there were there were significant surplus numbers at the end of the year in excess of $2 million. So
some tighter budgeting initially can help uh with that transition. And lastly is a Mountain Lakes has about $7 million in reserves and those could also be used to help with the transition. For all
those reasons, we do not see that it's a a substantial financial negative impact. And that's part of our conclusion. You could see that um regardless of the scenario, Bootin and the sending
district, they save money. So, it is a it's a positive move regardless of which scenario the the board uh selects. Morris Hill Regional, the um the benefit
um to Bon Township is greater um in the five-year period that we identified. Canelon offers some long-term financial benefits. So they um don't rely as much on state aid. So any fluctuations on
state aid might impact Morris Hills regional more than it would Canalon. Canalon's um median teacher salary is lower than Mars Hills is. So, um, looking into the future on a longer term
basis, there's, um, some things that point to Caroline as being a very good option as well. Um, one thing I will note is, um, and it's a little bit more intangible, but Kalan has fewer
students. They have about 500 students in their high school. Mars Hills, depending on the school, has over a thousand. So your 200, 190, 200 students going into either one of those schools will will increase the
denominator, right, to to make the cost per pupil go down. And if we're looking at 200 students over a 500 student population, all right, you're
you're talking about um 40% uh you know going in and that 40% is a lot bigger than if it was off of a thousand and it would be 20%. So what I'm saying there is
you would have a greater impact on your cost per pu on the cost per pupil in Kolan than you would at Morris Hills because your students would be a greater ratio um than they would be in North region which is which is something to
consider. Um, so that's our our our final uh statement is that they just we do not see any substantial negative financial impact for any of the districts in the study. Um, and they the the two scenarios that you've asked us
to identify um show a lot of positive promise um for your consideration. >> Thanks. All right. So um the report is clear, right? no substantial negative demographic, educational, financial
impact in any of these scenarios. Meaning that it is um the conclusion of these experts that they are viable options for your consideration. There are no um legal impediments. So right
now you have just received from really three uh extraordinary experts a whole lot of information to absorb. Uh but there may be a point in time where you say to yourself, okay, well, what happens next if we're interested in u
moving forward with any of these options? So you have the feasibility study which is required by statute. And by the way, when you look at it, you'll see a lot of information about your community that you already know. The content of the report is dictated by statute and code. So there's a lot of
verbiage in there that's not there as filler. is there because it's required by the Department of Education as a matter of law. So if you wanted to move forward, um you have to pick one of the two options because what would be
presented in this petition to the commissioner of education is a request for authorization to sever the relationship with Mountain Lakes and to enter into a relationship with either of the other two districts. Um surely the other district and and
they knew this from participating the study day would have to be involved in this process but the petition to the commissioner requests authorization for the change. Mount Lakes has an opportunity to oppose it. Uh they can do their own expert report if they want. It
is inconceivable to me saying this publicly inconceivable to me that they can come up with a better team of experts. We've done a lot of these for a long time. I really don't care who they hire. Um we have a great deal of comfort with what we have presented to you. In
any event, um once the petition is filed and any opposition is filed, the Department of Education forwards it to the Office of Administrative Law and um a hearing is conducted that looks a lot like a trial. Administrative law judges
of course are not judges in the traditional sense because they're in the executive branch. They're hearing officers collecting information for the benefit of the commissioner of education. If you were to attend or to participate, it looks like a nonjury
trial except the courtrooms are painfully small and unpressive. Um when the process is done, that is when the the hearing takes place, one or more undoubtedly avoid fact witnesses. It will be for the most part a battle of
the experts. Um the attorneys submit written statements. They don't um deliver the fiery closings that you're used to on television. They bring to the benefit of the court dense thick legal
analysis of the facts really focusing on the substantial negative impact saying that it's right. The administrative law judge um issues what looks like a decision except it's not a decision. It's recommended findings of fact and conclusions of law for the benefit of the commissioner of
education. Each party has an opportunity to advocate that the commissioner accept, reject, or modify what the administrative law judge has submitted. And then the commissioner of education makes a decision where the commissioner of education should apply the test of
whether or not there is a substantial negative educational, financial, or demographic impact. Any one of those, if there's substantial negative impact, would prevent you from moving forward. The statute, however, is really written to be permissive. That is to say it
should move forward unless there are one of those things. The opportunity is to give folks an a chance to enter into a an arrangement that the community feels will be beneficial and as you heard
Steve describe and this is as a matter of course it certainly will be what we advocate it would be foolish to do anything uh else part of education doesn't want to see students uprooted. So, if a student has started at Mountain Lakes High School and you bring this
petition and you are successful, um those students will remain there. And so, your graduating eighth graders would move to the new high school, but um the graduating n 10th and 11th graders would remain in Mount Lakes as 10th, 11th, and 12th graders. And that would be repeated
until you no more had no more students there. So that transition is benefiting the students of course and not disrupting them but it also as Steve pointed out eases in over a four-year period any financial implications as far as the Mountain Lakes Board of Education
is concerned giving them plenty of opportunity to deal with the implications of your departure. So um naturally as I said there's a lot for you to absorb. So while we will give you an opportunity to ask any questions you have now I will say two things
number one to the extent you have questions many of them will come not now but after you've had an opportunity to let this uh sit with you study the report and maybe even talk to people in the community the second thing I will say as far as questions are concerned to
the extent you ask a question that uh would be answered truthfully only if I were to discuss something involving litigation strategy I will dodge your question and not answer it because it's not my client's best interest to answer that question publicly. Doesn't mean I'll never answer it. I'm just not going to answer it publicly. Uh but again, um
I'll I'll invite as I did the the sort of the Grammyy's view where we all come up here in case you have any questions, but this is certainly not your last chance to answer uh to have us answer questions. It's just the first. So, is there anything you want us to um to address? Uh I would have questions here
on the demographic study on that graph where it had the different um show the populations and then it showed it sort of declining. It was hard to see the colors. Is there any one district that might be slightly growing more than another in there? It was kind of hard to
see. Uh sorry. I couldn't tell which one is which. They all look the birth rates. >> I'm sorry. The uh my bad. Thank you. >> Okay. >> The question was about the birth rates
in any >> I didn't know if anyone was growing or falling more than another. It's kind of hard to see. I I can appreciate the the stack bars, but the colors. >> Can you point out which one was which district? as she said.
>> Yeah. Here. >> Yeah. >> Township. >> Foot and township's on the bottom. >> It's in the bottle. Okay. You're not going to >> uh Canada in the middle. >> Middle. >> Mountain Lakes on top. Okay. And it's
Ky. So, is there anyone that uh you know, Mountain Lake certainly has >> I think out of all of them like Mount Lakes and Bon Township seem to be growing more over time. >> Well, they kind of all have a positive
trend line with a lot of variation. What can what I think is the most important thing to take out of it is what you can't see, which is the uh Looking at fertility analysis for lots
of different areas, we see the same thing happening. Millennial women aging out of their childbearing ages and births continue. >> When do you think where do you think that levels off? Like where compared to the the previous years does it level off
sometimes, you know, around like 2018, 2019 levels or does it continue to fall further? I think you're going to continue to see a fall at least through 2030. >> Okay? >> Because that's as the youngest millennial women move towards aging
health. Um if you looked at the fertility curve, it starts in 18 years, very very low. 20 to 24 still low. 25 29 a little higher. 30 to 34. 85 to 39, 40
to 44 still high and then it drops off. And so when you have that large cohort of women moving into those higher fertility rates, that's where these higher numbers are and as they age out,
if you Google millennial generation, you'll find lots of different definitions. I go from about 1980 through the changing centuries 20 years. So the oldest is women are now 45 aging
out. The youngest of women are 25. They're just coming into that peak. So another 5 10 years. >> Got there's one other thing you said too is careful. This community is a seasoned
pocket population, right? There's a probably older community member that children have already gone through the system. So, >> did I hear you say that? >> That's it. >> I might be in the season. Median age is what? 48 48.
>> I'm sorry. >> The median age of Boon Township is >> 48 around 48. >> 48 something. >> That's right. So the population older that children out of the school so may be replaced by >> that's that's the unknown how that
replacement is going to to be affected. Um again I'll go with my personal experience in upstate New York. You've got lots of beautiful, wonderful communities that have an aging population and the question is what's
attracting younger population to take over those? that that's an unknown and that's where without getting too negative communities need to focus on how they can do that rejuvenation if they want to
have that mean it's just we actually talked about this just before the beginning it's a statistical fact that New Jersey uh has a slow population growth to the extent it has any growth at all it's been through immigration not because of an increase in birth rate so it's the with
the birth rates continuing to decline and immigration declining the future population of New Jersey may have um for the first time in our collective lifetimes see decline. So it's it's it's
very difficult to predict given the state of the world right now other than it is easy to predict as as Bob said in the declining birth rate. >> I can get I can get into too much so >> thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. >> That was one of my questions is whether
there was some methodology to predict what kind of community attracts parents and children. So I hear that you're saying that there's not really a method for that for predicting that. Well, >> go ahead. >> Without purporting to have a crystal
ball, um, yeah, I mean, population changes by births, deaths, migration, and you can look at historical trends in each of those and make some assumptions about the future. So, I do a lot of countional
uh projections. So yes, you can get a pretty good sense because unlike very shortterm cyclical economic factors, demographic factors are structural, the age structures, millennials, you know, they aren't going
to disappear in in a year so we can get a better idea. >> The second question I had was just about the potential phase out. Would that tuition rate just be the default elastic on tuition rate for each of those five years or four years of phase out? Yes, that's almost always the case, but it
certainly is the case in the analysis you saw. We're not expecting anything different. There could be something different, but we will not expect it. Any other question? I guess I think you know the answer, but it's based the enrollment data itself. Um, if a high
school is hosting a Mars County School of Technology, I think Mars does, Makes used to. So like I think Mars Mills has the performing arts academy and and Mount Biotech Academy those students are included in the enrollment numbers that we see like that is that how it works in
New Jersey numbers. >> Did you did the school within a school scenario? Did you is that included in the demographic analysis or just the capacity analysis or the I guess the enrollment numbers basically the enrollment numbers? Uh the projections
yes because the projections are done by individual schools and then you for each of the scenarios you back up township students out to see the impact and that's how the racial changes are are done too. >> So it did include the academy students
that was your >> unique I don't know if it's a whole thesemies or Mars County but but I know in Mars County you have all these differenties at different high schools. So Mars Mills or I know has the performing arts academy students coming there. So those when we see the
enrollment numbers that you used you know to are those students in those numbers I guess was the district question is that how it works in the enroll numbers are reported. >> I'm getting I'm getting the enrollment numbers from the district the uh student
ID uh files and frankly I don't I don't know 100%. Um I I do know you get it by grade level. To the extent that those academy students are reported in those grade statistics, I would say yes, but
uh I I don't see individual enrollment for academy. >> Yeah, >> but I can go back and >> just curious I I would assume so. >> I would assume we believe that's right. >> I mean, is that a question for Tom? Like if as a superintendent, would you report
your students? Yeah. If you had a vote tech school in your school, you would report those students. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. So for again for for the demographic analysis and the capacity analysis that is included that's answer your question >> and I guess a piggyback question is the
mountain bikes today's special education program for the year any students are also included. Are those students also included in the enrollment numbers that you have for Mountain Lakes that you recall the special edgrade are included? >> Yes. And that's for the special hearing impaired school that they have.
>> Well, that's set. So, if they're at the Lake Drive school, that's the school. No, if they're educated at the high school. Yes. >> So, because I know some of those students are >> shared, right? >> That That's correct. So, if so, to go back to Bob's point, if they if if they spend enough time at the high school that Mountain Lakes counts them as part
of the enrollment, then the answer is yes. If they are both there, let's say, only for specials and they're otherwise educated at Lake Drive, the answer would be no. Anything else? Okay. Well, thank you for your kind attention on we know is so important to
the community >> and we look forward to talking with you again. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Target. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Good night. >> Well, what you could what you could do is bring him in now. Is there anything
that you you want to discuss or that was just an agenda? >> What we can do is we can redo order and start with the leazison reports and then oh no I'm sorry the um facilities report. >> Yeah and then we can have open discussion and invite her to answer any
questions. >> Okay. So we are going to go into agenda item number 12 um the facilities committee report please. >> Yes. Um the committee most recently met on
Monday evening. Um and we talked about the motions on tonight's agenda. As you can imagine, there's a lot of discussion back and forth questions um on those motions and
just uh potential referendum and questions in general. Um, and then we talked a bit about some of the educational priorities and needs for the district. And I think we had a
really good robust conversation with the committee around those um, priorities. And I thought it might be a good opportunity now just to kind of have an open discussion with our architects in the here with us tonight about what we
feel as a as a board is important for our students and the district. We had a really great conversation our last meeting and we've had some meetings since then. Um Mr. Patini, I'll ask you to add any information that you would
like to kind of um discuss before Okay. Uh, first and foremost, thank you very much for joining us and I'd like to open up to the board. Since we are talking about the uh the facilities meeting and the main conversation was infrastructure, I think we should open
it up and talk about infrastructure in and of itself. If there's any questions like we've had some questions in committees uh or you know subcommittees and things of that nature where others don't have the benefit of those hearing those answers and maybe getting some
guidance from our architect now is the time to do it. So, I'd like to open up the floor to everybody to have some conversations or bring up some questions about some infrastructure items and then right at that point we'll have a discussion about what our collective vision is in terms of the building
educational needs and how can that be brought to light by our architect so he has some specific guidance. So, I have a question. I know we talked about this in uh in one of our our meetings, but do you have a walk from the last
uh the last referendum to what infrastructure to infrastructure? You know, what that looks like from uh cost expense standpoint. >> So, we've been working on that and we're close to finalizing it. So, we will send that to you. And what we try to do is to
take the original referendum, remove things that are not being considered as part of this referendum, identify the proposed referendum that's been discussed, and give you a comparison of the delta. Some things
went down, some things went up. The reasons they went up include additional scope because after revisiting this years later, we've taken a slightly different approach. uh changes in the market. Some are pretty significant as it relates to, for example, the cost of
a unit ventilator has gone up, but it's flattened out now. But that's impacting this. So, we do have that. We're wrapping it up. We're trying to make sure it's as easily understandable and that the numbers match up as best they can. Going back three years to find some
information on how we got to that point is not the easiest thing to do. But the direct answer is we have that um almost done. we will send it to through John and Ken to distribute to you so that you can see and then obviously
we can answer any questions associated with that and there are things that within that project list. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And then there are some other things that we've had active dialogue in
individual committee meetings that you'll have to decide. And the decision is they're eligible for 34 cents on the dollar, but is it something that you want to include in this package because of the financial ramifications
to the projects and the community? Does that answer your question? >> It does. Um, but my is it okay if I ask a followup or am I want to monopolize the top? All right. Um, so then I I we've talked about this and I I kind of get lost along the way. We want to submit the infrastructure application to
get started is and that's what we want to discuss tonight. Can we change that and modify that after you send those on? If we decide we want to pull something from a project from that list, can we then do that? Because that's what I want to discuss here. >> Yeah. So, so the answer is you can,
but we would prefer not to wait a month to get that guidance because at the end of the day, there are two pieces to this decision, right? At least in my opinion. One is is the scope something you
support in including and accomplishing or is it not something I support because of a financial component and we're just trying to manage the financial component. So I think if we can agree on a timeline, the goal of getting that approval tonight to start the process is
we have to apply to the DOE for a project number that takes a little time and we just want to get this ball rolling while you analyze the educational pieces that we've been talking about for months as well. So the answer is yes. Um, and one of the things we talked about in one of the committee meetings is that if you want to break
this out into more than two applications, because right now the proposal is the educational piece, art and nurse, so that you don't pay an additional review fee, which is substantial, and the other stuff, we can break some of those other stuff out. I'm going to suggest that based on my
involvement in the various meetings, I know the two or three that I think are actively being discussed. So we can put those towards the end of incorporating them into the application while we work on the other pieces. We're going to revisit these numbers again because we
want we understand that this is not a small decision. So we want to revisit the numbers again to make sure we're being as accurate as possible while leveraging the 34% and
trying to communicate to the community that this is a budget. It doesn't mean this is what it's going to cost you. And historically, when we develop a budget, our goal and and the the results are
typically that our budget falls within the middle of the bids. We get bids lower, we get some bits higher, but in the aggregate of all the projects, we'll be able to deliver it. So, people look at this number and say, "How can it cost that much?" And that's not necessarily what it's going to cost. It's what we
have to budget to be conservative because once approved, you can't spend more than what you have. Once we get a preliminary eligible cost letter from the state, that's what they're going to give you in the way of aid or the bid,
whichever is lower. So, we're trying to balance these things without making it look as though it can't be supported, but to be able to create a budget. So that was a long-winded answer to yes, but we should put a timeline on it
because I know that part of the discussion in public is that you get to hear each other where in the committees there are clearly differences of opinion and we kind of keep going in full circle whether we should or whether we should. >> Well, the reason why I asked that is not so much yes, there are new things on the infrastructure side, but there are old
items that were on the original referendum that are on here, but they've been modified. So, we're seeing costs go up and that's why the walk was so important is I I want to see what have we added in scope versus what is just an increase in the market for unit ventilators. But one of the things we're
talking about is if we're going to put unit ventilators in the hallway. We didn't originally have that. >> Yeah. I want to know what's the difference. >> Do we do we need that? That's I'm asking that question like as to be costconcious, you know, amongst the board. That was a scope change. So, I'm
trying to figure that out as we look apples to apples for the pipes. >> I'll do a follow. I think very tactically it's I I want I want the wall because I don't know I don't know what I don't know yet. So, that's one. Two. I think it's helpful like you said not a month. So, do you need a timeline from us? Like, so we'll give you assuming we
pass the the finance motion >> to get started. You need Hey, I need a final project list from you guys two weeks from >> Yeah. I would say that um I'm going to jump ahead because I know that there was discussion about some follow-up meetings with the goal of focusing the
conversation or pivoting to the educational piece in at the the March meeting. So I would say that if we get this information to you by the end of the week, is it possible to have what we need from you by that next meeting that we collectively have so that we can
bring closure to the infrastructure discussions and then focus on the education >> when the next meeting is at the our next board meeting? >> Well, I think there might be another meeting that we're going to try. I don't know if that's been discussed first. No, no. I mean another special meeting to talk about >> not an ad hoc meeting. Another special
meeting to potentially walk through the education >> when the next board meeting is March 18. >> So we have three weeks. >> A special board meeting or just other meetings at how >> special board meeting special. >> Yeah, I missed the I didn't hear that.
So, so I would say if we get this to you by the end of the week and within 2 weeks, >> okay, >> we could get that guidance, maybe it aligns with the potential for a special meeting to talk about the other stuff. So, we can start that meeting with, hey, Greg, you know, we we had a chance to
talk about in committee. We'll talk about it collectively and here are the tweaks we want to make to the application. or we're still not fully deciding. So, can we just break these projects out into a separate application cuz that'll buy you another 3 to 6 months until we hear back from the state, right? So, you could submit the
application separately so that if you decide to move it forward, we already have the PEC. If you want to pull those projects, it's just as easy as not adding them to what you present. >> Cost more though to apply them separately. >> Look, every application has a tremendous amount of paperwork associated with it.
So, it's a nominal amount. I think it's maybe $5ish thousand dollar. Um, so it's not the end of the world if you want that flexibility to determine, okay, we need more time to digest this because even though we've been talking about it for months, we're trying to be as costconscious as we can.
>> So, it's basically two weeks to finalize or we pay $5,000 for 3 to six months of optionality like flexibility. Is that what I'm hearing? >> Yeah, basically. >> Okay. I mean, that's I I don't know what the answer is, but at least that we know like within we got to figure if they
give us the walk by this Friday if as a board we can figure out within two weeks or we're looking at separating it and paying maybe5 or $6,000 for a different application to then say we have another six months to figure it out. >> So, when would the board meet as a board to discuss the infrastructure part? That
would be the big question. >> Unless it unless it comes back clear enough that we could figure it out. >> Probably not. That's right. Right. So >> that's I think that's where the conversation came in with the special meeting. >> So So yes. So we could do that or we
could just do the three. >> What does that mean? Three >> the three applications to >> we just we just we just assume we're going to do it separately. We're going to eat the 5,000 but then it gives us time. >> Time and we don't feel rushed. >> I don't think that works. >> Honestly, I would rather take the requisite time as a board to figure it
out. >> Yeah, for sure. I I don't want to add a level of complication, >> but we would need direction on this is the definite list and this is the maybe list because we want to make sure they're in their own applications. So
>> what >> so >> let's just talk about so for example the abatement outside of the individual projects that require abatement that was something that was brought on board very late last time because it was felt that listen we're almost there the building
is almost empty with um the the environmental pieces and there are reasons to do that you get 34 cents on the dollar but it is an expense right because that went up and we didn't create that budget your environmental consultant create the budget So, if that's one project that we want to break
out, no problem. But if we want to break that one out and maybe one or two others, so now we have the two non-educational applications. But if you decide that one of these three you want to throw back in here, that's difficult to do because the numbers in the
application to the DOE get melted together. You have the benefit of seeing our individual budgets by project, but when we submit a DOE application, everything gets merged together. So anything and everything associated with that project general conditions all those projects get merged into a general
conditions number all the electric whether it's for a project A B or C get merged together in the application so it is difficult to pull and push from an individual application for flexibility but if you're reasonably confident that it's going to be all or nothing then
breaking out a third application is easy to do but we wouldn't keep that decision. >> Yeah. Can I also didn't I'm sorry I'm now I feel I I'll be very specific because we're talking specific products right B might be one I I'm I want to know about the walk about the unit ventilators like and if you were to put
in 55 versus I don't know how many are in the hall versus 40 what is that difference and if we were like if you were just to submit to the DA I want to do unit ventilators I just don't know how many I want to do right now >> so >> I don't know how much that is >> yeah so look I can give you a general sense that
the unit ventilators just to use the proper for terminology so that we're all aligned. There are two basic systems, three three basic systems that we're talking about in the school. The boiler is the common plant that feeds everything. There haven't been really
too much discussions. the boiler is identified as a means and look and there is something that we recommended as a best practice and to give you um backup and some redundancy is you have two very
large boilers. We originally expected to replace them with two but if one goes down you're relying on one to to provide 50%. So, we recommended a third modular boiler so that if one ever went down, you have 66%
redundancy to keep feeding the school. By way of example, that extra boiler is somewhere in the range of $400,000. Putting things in perspective, the unit ventilators alone, the existing unit ventilators, which are each each space,
>> those from a budgeting perspective, we were budgeting those three four years ago at 7075,000. >> The market has moved that needle to 110 115,00 classrooms. So just using
that's the >> so so but let me just get back to that. So that's not something that we controlled in a change of scope that was what we're seeing in the market and it's a budget. >> The the the the third part of that mechanical systems is rooftop units. We
are replacing as part of this the rooftop units, the gyms, etc. We recommended based on what we've seen over years is to put a rooftop unit into the hallway so that the building is climate controlled more regularly. It was never
designed that way nor any school in New Jersey because it was felt like it was an interior hallway. But what we were experiencing through climate change, through walls that are insulated back to the 40s, 50s and 60s is that moisture was building up. condensation from that
change of classroom being now temperature controlled because before it wasn't and the hallways not condensation and I think John correct me if I'm wrong you've experienced that too where hallways that are travertine get slippery we've had districts with workers comp claims do you need to do it
no could you do it later yes as a professional we feel obligated to make that recommendation to you to provide the best solution what was that hallway RTU >> 800,000. >> Yeah. So, you know, >> but I think that will will help just
>> Yeah. And and that's what you'll see in there. We'll try to we'll show you the delta. >> Yeah. >> And then we'll we're going to round off numbers like we're not the math won't work exactly. So, you'll have something where it went up a million dollars. It'll be plus or minus $980,000 and you
know somewhere in the contingencies. >> I'd also like to point out that part of this because some of these costs have gone up proportionally the contingencies have gone up. So these are monies that you're not yet using, but there's a best practice for us. The DOE requires them and you're getting 34 cents on the dollar for them. So there are a lot of
these pieces that are not market driven, per se, but just proportionally changed. >> We'll get that to you by the end of the week. You'll be able to make those decisions and I think within two weeks, if you could give us direction either to break out more applications or eliminate
some of the pieces, we can get a jump start on pulling those things together. and then you can finalize that decision. You know, ideally, I think there was talks about a special meeting just so that we could have a conversation about the educational piece that we're talking
about so that at the following board meeting more action can be taken. >> So, I have a question for the the board. What are the question mark projects? I >> I was just going to make a suggestion. Can we do a quick There's only 12 of them on here. We do a page turn and go one by one and then see if anything
>> and before you do that I attempt you know in advance of getting the mapping would would help with that discussion too but in advance of getting the mapping in case it's not there. >> Um is there like the abatement cost that's in the current proposal was that allocated to specific projects the last time instead of broken out like
>> Yeah. So that's exactly right. So what happened was in the original project that we planned for we didn't know we were going to do abatement unrelated to construction projects. So when we looked at the art room for example, we knew there had to be abatement there. So that
was included in that budget. >> Then and I can't remember how we got it. I think John was an advocate to say look we're so close. >> We're going to get 34 cents on the dollar. So we got the environmental consultant and we looked at everything else but the number. This time what we did was the environmental consultant got
involved earlier because it was a carryover and he didn't break them out by project for us. So what we did was you that number went up partially because we took it out from some of the other projects. That's why the art room cost went down a little bit. That's why the nurs's office went down a little bit. So there's a little bit of a push
and pull here. That's why that number went up partially but also went up because his new numbers were higher which I'm guessing went up >> but that's an absolute accuracy. >> That would help understand. And then then question two. Um, the last time something was labeled HVAC replacement
and this time we have unit ventilator replacement and RTU replacement would is is it if I was trying to map that in case I don't understand it when you give us that report is HVAC replacement adding the RTU replacement and unit ventilator replacements together.
>> HVAC speaks to heating, ventilation and air conditioning. >> Yep. >> The unit ventilator and RTUs. We tried to get a little more granular because you were asking these questions. unit ventilator is a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning component. A rooftop unit is a heating, ventilation, air conditioning component. So, we just
used slightly different terminology to get to the same goal because we can look at those numbers now a little bit more granularly for your Q&A. >> So, they're broken out before they were under. >> So, if I add the two together, you know, the the RTU and units together and compare, I would be comparing that to
the one HVAC number in the past. >> That is correct. Okay. >> Okay. That's what I was. That's correct. Yeah. And then our between central layer and your vinyl center window here. I mean, >> yeah. I just want to make sure I'm looking getting my >> combines so they can Okay. >> Yeah. And so the breakout we're going to
give you merge them together so you can we tried to get the lines coming across even though they don't exactly line up like the abatement for example. And you'll see some references that this budget was carried over from here up to here for an apples to apples comparison. >> Yeah. Thank you. That that helps greatly
in case in case you wasn't clear when we got it. That'll help greatly. Thanks. >> Can we go through a walk through of the list? >> Yeah. >> Again, I honestly don't know how it helps without the wall, but >> Well, but I think it does because as an example,
when we get to I mean, we can jump through this at 11 right now. I've already talked about unit ventilated replacement. >> Yes, >> I know we should start at one, but he said I don't know how much it Jeff's question it helps with the walk. I think it does because I have a question about the unit vendor replacement. So I put
that on the question list because I think we've changed scope and I don't like to talk about that scope. So for me as a board member that's not a slam dunk that we just want to do that. >> So that's a question mark for me. So I would put that over there until I understand what changed and then we should discuss >> just 11.
>> No, no, no, no. I want to go through all of them. But my point to Jeff was yeah I think there's value in saying this is the questionable pile. this is the we want to do it pile and then I think we had art and nurse in its own category if I'm not mistaken. Right.
>> So for art and nurse why don't we skip those and >> yeah they're one in one in 12 list but I think they're >> they're not large costs and right now I'm looking at trying to be costconscious while balancing school needs. >> All right. So let's just go down the
list from there. We'll we'll say yes or >> abatement. >> I have a question. >> I don't know if we need to do all abatement. Agree. >> I do have a question about the nurs's office. I'm sorry. >> Oh, go ahead. >> It says ADA renovation. Isn't that Americans with Disabilities Act is a
law? That's not an option, right? >> Well, we don't have it now. It's one of those >> grandfather. Okay. It's grandfather. Okay. >> Um but so, but I I Yeah, I didn't mean to just pass over I think as we look at applications, I think nurse and uh art room are going to be on their own
applications. as we go through this list and we put the questionable ones in their own bucket and of course the yeses >> that'll help them with your >> Yeah, we'll be able to move on and then when we come back in two weeks or a week for our question I suggest if we're going quickly through them you know putting yeses or questions if we get
through them and we have questions we ask questions like maybe we can ask ask questions now that while you're here >> we have to know we have to know what that is included >> exactly I I want to know like if you were to not do it because you're going to have to touch certain things no
matter what. >> If you're going to save $100,000 then like we should do it. Like that's the number zero. Say no, we're still going to have to go. >> Yeah. If you say no abatement, then the other costs are going to be more expensive than the other ones, right? >> That's correct. 100%. Do we know?
>> And that's where the wall comes in where if you come back and you tell me, hey, you guys are save 50 $50 by taking it out because you're going to touch everything. >> It's not insignificant. It's hundreds of thousands, >> but it's going to be a little more difficult for us to break out because the environmental consultant that gave
us that gave it to us in a lump number. We had a drawing which you have seen the scope document. It highlights all the different areas and so we can do it. Don't get me wrong. We'll have to kind of reverse engineer it, but but I think this is like horseshoes and grenades. If you tell me it's like like between four
and 600,000, I think I don't know. That's my opinion. like >> well my understanding of the abatement was yes it's embedded was embedded in other projects and it has moved there's also a standalone abatement that's what I'm questioning >> right >> be very clear on that and it's not insignificant is my understanding so I I
am definitely questioning >> by way of example the storage room that is off of Ken's office has asbestous floor tile >> we're not doing any construction in there >> and that was something actually that the
asbestous consultant I think had missed that. So we found it, we added it back in. That would be an example of something being removed if you want to do it. There are then the things that get put back in because they're part of the construction project. Then there are other things that John has made a point
to bring to everyone's attention that I just want to be conscious about. If we're doing lighting and the new ceiling in the hallways, for example, there are areas of asbestous up there that if we're taking out, unless we deem those construction related, they're not really
being touched by the construction, but they could be negatively impacted by a worker who's not paying attention. And so, you know, from a conservative perspective, that's been John's position, which I support because the last thing you need, which I've had happen once in 38 years, is OSHA comes
walking on a job site, there's dust everywhere. And even though our drawings were very clear in the environmental, you know, you're talking about laborers who maybe aren't paying close attention to things, and it turned out that they shut the school down. Now, this was in the summer, so kids weren't there, but
it delayed the construction schedule. John, you want to >> I was just going to jump in because, you know, basically you have floor tiles and ceiling tiles that are in those projects getting rid of the and it's a it's a small scope that's in the hallways, but again, what I brought up was when you have people pulling wires for fire
alarms, for HBAC, all that, and you disrupt an elbow that's up there, you're shutting the building down and the environmental people. So, so, and that it's also costed out over a 20-year period. I mean, you're you're taking a loan for 20 years, so the cost gets spread. But that's important is that the
scope of the work is small, but the damage that could happen if it has to be abated in an emergency. >> Understood. There's other abatement that has won't be touched at all. That I look in a perfect world, I would love to do it all and I would love to do all this.
And I want to start this off with I am well aware we get 34 cents on the dollar and we spread it over 20 years on every single one of these. But I think the taxpayer has questions about some of these. So I'm trying to play devil's advocate and push and see what can we do to make this as cost cost conscious as
possible. >> But the point is we don't even know right now what we say yes. >> Well, we had a rough idea I think the last time but it was a few hundred thousand but it's worth the discussion. I think >> yeah on that line and we'll do our best to back out of the environmental consultant number to give you order of
magnitude but it's it's not $50 like it's >> but you know it's going to be a couple hundred,000 >> 700. So the question is, >> yes, you're going to save it, but you're also going to get up 34 cents on the dollar. I don't need to tell you all that. You guys know that. We'll break it out for you. You'll have it by the end of the week. Hopefully, it'll make some
sense and then, you know, we can take the direction. >> Go ahead. >> Is it is it possible, doable, helpful if if it was if the report was able to identify certain areas that would be touched as opposed to these are included in the project. So, for example, you
just mentioned the storage space below my office, but 10 square f feet, you know, like if we if we were able to demonstrate that this is just another 100 square f feet out of a project of a th000 or 10,000 square feet of of asbestous that could possibly be disrupted, then it would be like, oh,
well, if it's only this little amount with this cost, then we can compare not only the cost of the project or the abatement, but how much it is ceiling tiles, piping, floors. So, >> or is that not possible? This is a little outside my area of
expertise because we relied on the environmental consultant. He lumped things together. What I can tell you is that there is an economy of scale that's going to be realized as well because if we do all the abatement, there's going to be a window of time, let's just say
the first summer after the successful referendum, where they're potentially going to come in here and abate everything. guys are on site. They're setting up their decontamination areas. They're doing whatever they need to do. >> As opposed to, okay, if we're bidding
the art room and the nurses together, but the electric is separate, which would make sense because you don't want a general contractor involved in electrical upgrade because he'll put on his 10% or 5% or whatever the number is. Now, you have each contractor responsible for their own abatement
work. It it it's a little bit more challenging to manage and the unit cost will also vary a little bit because if the GC for the art room in the nurses office has to bring in his abatement guide, they're going to be there for 2 days. Then you have the electrical
contractor that has to bring it in for the hallway abatement. He's going to be there. Are they here together? Are they there are logistics that have to be managed. So I don't know that we can get that granular to give you accurate information if we
well what if we call out 10 square ft here or 20 square ft there you know it what's that savings look like I think we can give you an order of magnitude that says these are project related we'll have to go back into some other budget and these are the areas that are
technically not in our construction zone and you leave them >> that's what I mean Then oh then I misunderstood your question and then yes that that I can do. >> Okay >> that I think we can do. >> Does anyone know what the potential cost is over 30 years for leaving asbestous
unabated? >> And then question about the abatement. I know that prior scope documents had abatement broken out like we were saying. Um, if we were to take all those numbers, the other from, you know, the abatement numbers from each of those specific projects from the last time,
add them all up. Um, are there any other abatement numbers added to this? Well, the environmental consultant, did he add any additional areas beyond those abatement areas that were considered the last time? Yes. >> If I understand your question correctly, >> kind agree, right?
>> Does this include abatement that he didn't contemplate the first time? >> Yeah. >> The answer is yes. >> The one example we gave you, which we discovered because he didn't have it highlighted on his plan, was the flooring in that little storage room. >> Okay.
>> So, that's that's an example. >> I'm just curious because it might give it might give a hint for some something. It may give us some magnitude if we looked at, you know, took those numbers from the last time. >> Yeah. >> We're going to give you two numbers out of the abatement. >> Yeah. >> Based on the list you move forward with,
this is an abatement we have to carry and this is the abatement that you'll be left with for future consideration because we're not doing any construction. Now, >> what is breaching abatement? So breaching is the ventilation from the boiler into the chimney and all the
associated components >> but but assumed asus is that what that is because that's built into the boiler not in the >> because he again I can't speak to his logic he we know the boiler a project being considered and those older boilers inside and some of the breaching we
believe have asbestous for some reason he didn't include them in the budget. So, so my point is there's abatement outside of So, I think there's my point on that. I I hear I understand that now. My point is I think there's more standalone abatement than there is project lady because in some of the
projects it's included in >> so I'm I'm not saying that there isn't still some in the abatement. I get it. But I still think there's more than we think that is standalone would be my assumption. >> Can I phrase it a different way? >> Sure.
The amount of abatement outside of the construction project is not insignificant. >> Yes, >> it it it's a significant dollar amount when any person would say hundreds of thousands of dollars is >> is a significant expense. That's a
house. >> Yeah. >> For many people, >> the only uh exception in the breakout is that boiler. So I don't want to mislead. There are no more numbers embedded into the individual project. Those are rolled into the abatement number. What we did was
anything that we caught >> and I don't want to say caught. Anything that he didn't identify for whatever reason, but we knew about we put it separately because we didn't know how else to to present it. >> I just saw briefing of eight and boiler. >> Yeah. And and in our report to you, it
says separate from the reference above because of that visa. So, >> but we'll get you the numbers. >> Abatements questionable is my point. >> And chances are the boiler replacement numbers, you're pulling out a whole boiler and all that stuff anyway. Is is it likely that that would be covered
anyway if you if you do the boiler replacement project? >> Well, there's a line item in in there for payment >> for this one. We had a separate line item and and the answer is >> these are budgets. Better to go to the state with a budget, get your 34 cents on the dollar, and then not need it and
give it back because you can't use it for anything else than to be short, >> right? And so our goal is always for our budget to be in the middle of bids. And for the most part, you should see that when we start getting bids, in some cases, you'll see based on a lack of interest or whatever else that the numbers will be higher, but other
projects that are very interest will be lower. And in the aggregate, we'll we're going to meet our goals. But again, these are not costs. These are budgets and and it's difficult for some people in the community to understand that >> and I think look my point is I'm not saying we wouldn't do it. I think it
just warranted the discussion. >> I wanted the number boiler. Uh, sorry. I have a question on the boiler. You said three. >> It's clear. There's only two in this. >> That quantity is wrong. >> The dollar amount is right.
>> Okay. >> Okay. >> Right. So, we originally had an inind two for two. >> So, we ended up when we did the budgeting to give you that redundancy. If there's an example where if we're if you're okay going back with two for two,
it'll work. The system will work without a problem. There is a savings to be realized. >> No, I get it. We Sorry. We need to have a discussion. I appreciate that. My here's that question. Shut up. >> So, >> do we So, you're saying we don't need three. >> Do we need three? >> My question is I was I didn't have any
questions on that until you mentioned today that three. Now, I have questions. Do we need three? Like today, if one goes down, do we deal with 50%. Has that ever happened? And is that a big deal to add a $700,000 third boiler to our current >> and nice to have? It's brand new. >> Yeah.
>> You want me to answer how we operate now? >> Yes. >> We do it on league lang. So we'll run one for a week and give it a rest and then we'll run the other for a week. >> So it doesn't really happen that often. >> No, I'm saying you run one boiler. You don't run You never run two boilers at the same time. >> You always have to school with one boiler. >> You do. It's 100%. But if you if a
boiler goes down and the second one goes down. So >> you always have a backup. Yeah. >> I think it's uh I think it's a fair point. I >> But the newer ones are more efficient. >> Yeah, they're more they're more efficient. You're going to have parts for like right now if one goes down, we're in trouble because it's hard to get it repaired all day.
>> You're going to get a brand new two brand new ones. You'll run them in lag because you don't want to run both. One goes down, I'm pretty sure you'll get somebody in here like within two days to fix it. And it's a new system, >> right? >> And it should run 30 years for the next reference. >> Yeah.
>> So I appreciate that we'll work. Let people say new words. >> So what I'm hearing is boilers. >> We can What did you mean that the cost was right but then quantity was wrong? >> It should
if you look at the we have quantities there. >> Right. I'm with you. But what did you mean? What did that mean? So we did two 800,000 three. So we did the math correctly that for some reason that column didn't get
updated $400,000 system but then I'm assuming there's ancillary cost around >> but whether I do two boilers or three boilers the breaching all the ancillary stuff has to be done >> so it's a $400,000 system >> correct >> I think you said 7 is it four sorry >> no 700 was the art to use in the
>> hall okay >> we step back for a second and John you might not have the answer for this the second but in terms of the abatement Now of the speest I'm sorry the asbestous now what does it cost us annually I know you have to go kind of through analysis
of it every year correct >> yeah no basically you're required if you have asbestous in a building every district is required to have an asbestous >> plan management plan which we do >> and in that our inspection so you have six months you have three months you have six months you have three year
inspections so we spend several thousand a year but you know again you always run the risk anytime somebody's pulling wires, I have to sit and I have to talk to them about that. And if they do breach it or like use the term breach, but if they do damage it, then now we have to get an environmental consultant
to do it. So, you're dealing with the whatifs a lot of times. Um, you know, a piece of furniture is moved and and a floor tile breaks, certain things that we can remove as a district, but when you have more tiles breaking, you have to get them abated because you're not
authorized without asus. When's the last time you had a speestous they've been issued? >> Have you ever have to They have another district, but here we've had we've had inspections. We we have all the labels up there, but we never had a We never
had damage. >> Yeah. Yeah. Like the example of the damage. >> Yeah. I mean, a lot of unknowns. I did a locker project years ago in another district. We pulled out the locker. We had no asbesus. We had no asbesus plan. They pull the lockers out when they find they found pipes. So, we shut the whole school down. And so there chances of
that. But again, this project I'm saying with the project, they're going to be in those ceiling. They're going to be in every in the ceiling above the tiles in the hallway is only that much. And it's loaded with pipes with >> Oh, yeah. I'm not saying this number is going to go to zero. It's going to be something.
>> So in those numbers, I think are were included. That's what that's what was added. >> There's 500,000. That's from other stuff. >> I don't know the numbers. I want to say >> Yeah. But I think that's where the numbers would help, right? >> It's still a question. I think it's a question. >> Can we survive without it? Yeah, we we'll have a plan, but they're
>> I think the the biggest piece to the puzzle, and I'm not going to get the room numbers right, but the kindergarten, preK, and the three classrooms across the way all have ceiling tile. We're not in those classrooms doing any renovation
work, but as part of the abatement, all that is being proposed to be abated. So I would argue that um that's one example of something completely outside the scope of the construction >> that's be in the million and then and then we'll ask the we'll ask the best the environment consultant look give us
an idea of what the value of that work is because if John has to replace a light there or for example if we're going to do the LED and I know we're not up to that on the list yet but now you've got contractors >> working and now it is in the
>> construction So, we'll we'll get you the number. >> That was the other thing I was thinking of is is every classroom is going to have a lighting issue. >> Correct. >> And they're going to pull a fixture down from the ceiling and they're going to put up a new fixture. They're going to drill into >> mounted. So, that was sort of the issue.
>> You're affecting every every classroom now. >> With boilers, right? We all agree we need upgrade boilers. That's not >> It's two or three. two or three >> is the question. >> Burglar alarms, >> they're they're old, you know, and we're
burgl I don't know the system's old, but >> let me ask we can keep we can keep the conversation quick. Does anybody have a question on >> I for me too materiality matters, right? >> Yeah. Like to me I'm looking I'm looking at the big numbers like I'm looking at
unit ventilators roof placement has to happen. don't even want to talk about that one. So electric >> but can I just on the roof >> there was a talk about doing one >> it's gonna be even >> that's going to reduce this by 600,000ish >> roof the roof
>> regardless the roof I don't care how much >> but can we let one real quick we can >> electrical service upgrade >> you got to do >> I don't have some lighting lighting >> but I think that's part of also the the old HBAC everything is tied to the
upgrade we're going to 2500. >> I think you don't I think you >> And again, just to put your minds at ease, we have a $175,000 allowance because what we've been experiencing lately is that the utility companies are coming and charging us to do certain work rather than being appreciative that
the electric bill is going to go up because you have all this more power, you have more computers, all that stuff. So again, we're trying to cover our bases because we've had a couple circumstances where they didn't charge us anything. There is still contingency planning in there that we hopefully get
back >> fire alarm replacement. I I think we all agree >> health and safety. I would >> 100% we need that and the cost is minimous compared to everything else like >> lower gym windows.
Why were those brought into the project this time? Is there any failure to them or >> Well, there's crack they're just not efficient. There's a lot of light coming in there that uh you know even the the theater department you can't dark in that room but but the really there's single single pane they're not efficient
and uh it was a small part of the project right compared >> how much 219 >> it would bring it to compliance >> 34% >> and if it comes into the bid you know might come in lower but you're going to actually get money for it but >> whatever >> I can go either way
>> it go either way I want to >> just say yes for now when we see the breakdown if we have additional questions Yeah. >> Well, there no breakdown on that one cuz it was new to the scope. Okay. >> There was nothing to compare it to. >> So, the next one's a big one. We had a really good conversation about this, right? On lighting and Craig, can you help us understand what another option
to putting it into the referendum would be? >> Sure. So, um the lighting is one of the things that has a return on investment pretty quickly when you upgrade from your existing light systems to LEDs.
Many districts are doing it. LED better light and more energy efficient. There is something called an EIP, an energy savings improvement program. And what that does is if you um if you were to draw up draw a pie chart
and in that pie chart you had two or three sections that were your utility costs. John carries a line item for the utility expenditures. Water, gas, electric. electric probably makes up a pretty significant amount. What the EIP
does, it's a board of public utilities program. It allows the district to go through a different process whereby you identify the replacement of the lights,
what that savings will be, and then pay for the improvements through the savings. What that means is you are authorized to borrow money without voter approval through an EIP.
You can have to follow the Board of Public Utilities processes. We designed it the same way. You low bid it the same way, but the funding source allows you to borrow the money for up to the life expectancy of equipment. So 20 20 years or so, maybe even 25. And what John
needs to do is John cannot reduce his utility budget because this isn't free money. It's just reallocating where you're spending the money. So instead of paying it to utility company, you're going to send it back or excuse me, pay the debt down for the light or the the
money that you borrowed for it. And ultimately after you pay them off, you have the benefit of the additional saving. But the so the advantage is what I just explained. The downside is that you don't get 34 cents on the dollar. So arguably, if you do it through a
referendum, which I always recommend do the first choice, not only are you getting 34 cents on the dollar, but you're still getting those same energy savings without jumping through all the BPU hoops that you'll see on the electric bill side. >> And you're right. I but I kind of look at it a different way. This is more to the board now that we could ask the
taxpayer for it. Yes, we get 34 cents in the dollar and we can pay for it, but here at no additional cost to the tax. John's shooting me daggers as he should. There is no as the budget guy at no additional cost to the taxpayer. We could do all the lights over.
>> So the gas is not really saving money because it's just going into we're not asking the taxpayer for anything. >> The other thing it does it it ties your hands as far as it freezes funds in say say your projections come in uh you know they're a little bit higher and you don't use as much energy for whatever
reason. Yeah, >> especially with the the unknown is now with the savings on electricity with air conditioning. You don't know and you can't project. I mean, they could do it by the book, but if your energy costs are are different, you're locking those funds up because you can't move them.
You're paying off your project. That's all you're basically using that for. >> Yeah. And and >> it's a more complicated. Look, it's a little more complicated, but Chris's point is very valid, right? You're you're making an argument on how to accomplish this without going to the taxpayer. Please keep in mind that when
you look at the benchmarking that will be done because there has to be a model created to present to the BPU there are calculations our financial advisors they they don't want to take this lightly that's based on a benchmark that you create today and what I tell people is
once you add air conditioning into a building it's going to be used more >> than people who didn't want to use the space in the summer because they were sweltering boy scouts girl scouts all groups going to say, "Oh, this was great." So, what it's going to do is to keep your electric bill behind where it
would have been, but it still may go up beyond what's being paid for. But that would be the case no matter what. You still have to allocate more money in that budget to accommodate, you know, increased usage. It's no different than if the cleaning people leave the lights on when they clean the entire hallway rather than turning them off. That
electric bill's on unnecessarily for a couple of hours. But, >> so is it is it a yes question? Maybe. I'm sorry. I don't I'm not understanding the concept. I mean, it's $1.6 million cost. There's no way you spend that much
power. >> It's the difference in what you save with the new electric bill. You pay to the who the state >> there has to be on that somewhere. We're not paying $1.6 million >> over 20 years. You are? >> Yeah.
>> What do I mean? That's like >> 100 grand a year. >> We're saving $100,000 a year in power. Maybe it's the lender. >> John, what is what is your electric bill today? >> A year. >> You know, I have to We're probably budgeting $70,000 a year at some point.
I don't know. I'm just pulling number I don't have in front of me. >> Yeah. >> Half of it. >> And and the lighting is the most The lighting is always part of an EIET. It has to be because it's always what makes the math work. There are circumstances where you
have a bigger district with a million dollars a year electric bill where they get to do some additional projects. Small motors here and there are other stuff that you can do, but lighting generally drives this. No question. At the end of the day, you may not be able to do all the lighting because the math has to work. We can try to look at that,
you know, quickly just to see where we end up. Um, but, you know, certainly the math has to work otherwise the board of public utilities won't let you do it. So look, if if everybody thinks I'm just throwing out another option. If we don't think it's a good option, we don't have to do it. But I was >> let's put it on the question bucket for
now. >> I I'd rather skip to be honest. >> Well, and the price will not start like >> I'm sorry. Say that again. >> Based on I know some numbers I did look up the prices on that went up like
>> Yeah. So, so, um, on the lighting piece, so one of the things that John asked us for last year when we were doing the lighting in the hallways and stuff was to replace the ceiling. That didn't get into our budget last year. I don't know why that on us. Um,
so we have that now. That's about $250,000. And I think what we did this year was we went around and counted every light fixture to make sure that we had it covered. And so I think that's part of what you'll see is the delta as well because we ended up with a lot more
light fixtures than we actually saw. >> But also one of the concepts with changing to LEDs everywhere like for example somebody brought up you brought in the classrooms. >> Right now every light is on in every hallway in the classrooms but with a new system it's more not only is it more energy efficient all those lights would
be off as soon as you walk into the hallway they go on. >> Well the new I always learned you turn off the light when you leave it. No, I don't I can't calculate. >> There's a sensor. There's a sensor now that is built into the design because the code requires the code changes
require that energy efficiency to be brought in. So now there are sensors that would be in each classroom. They're not motion sensors because you know a kid's taking a test or if you've ever been into a bathroom where there's a motion sensor and you're in the stall and all of a sudden the lights go out on you and you have to kind of dance. These
are occupancy sensors which use different things than motion so that it realize when someone's in it. But if someone leaves, the lights will automatically go out. So that's part of this program as well because it's now a code require >> and that's a culture you have to change. But you can't often do it. Teacher uh or
staff member will walk out of an office for 10 15 minutes, get caught up in a conversation, the lights are on. I mean that that's all part of the replacement plan. >> So questions. Okay, >> that'll be on the question list at least until we get a little bit more
information. Uh, nine, I think, is a yes, but it might go down. >> Yeah. >> If we do part, >> and again, I know you haven't discussed or voted on this yet, but should we right now reduce that by $600,000 and take that scope out if if if there's
general support because John strongly believes you can't even if this is a successful referendum, he doesn't think it's going to last another >> summer. I I would I think that makes sense. We all agree. >> Sorry guys, we're we're having side conversation. We get a point. The question was, should we reduce the
budget by 600,000 because we're almost regardless of referendum, we think the answer >> assuming we're going to do the >> Well, I'm going to come back to you in March. I'll just tell you up front and come back to you in March that it's going to be part of the 2016. So, how much roughly 600
>> 600 >> 600,000 number 600,000 >> the number from the do the plans and everything. So, we're good to go. >> Do that. Very good. >> That's a yes. We all be happy. >> It's a yes and less >> and then and then you're left somebody asked me the question, but you're left
with a very small piece. Correct. Over hanging is a little piece up by the kindergarten wing that the roofs at this point are not concerning me. >> Y >> but eventually you're going to >> the next two and 11 are the big ones. These are the ones that are like >> it's like 50%.
>> These two alone are the 50% of the cost. So that's that's where I >> and we've already asked our questions. Are there any additional questions? >> So you'll see this. Well, I'll submit it to you and you'll see them. >> But I'll tell you, it's more just the unit.
>> The rooftop units are how many? What was the scope? >> And I think there's no question that the rooftop units we're going to replace. The question is that there is a plus or minus a $700,000 commitment >> to conditioning the hallway. It requires rooftop units and duct work. You could always do it later, but again, our we
feel obligated to based on our experiences as of late and all these other things. We're going to put it out there. You guys can make that decision. Um, and then the biggest thing which you cannot control, but what we've seen is that the unit price of a unit ventilator
has gone up 50 to 60%. It's leveling out now, but what we were budgeting in the way of 70 to $75,000 per unit ventilator, we're budgeting at 115 now. And we shared the benchmarking with you, so we know where the bids are coming in. That's out of our control, right? That's
34 units. We did find seven additional unit ventilators. Some of the classrooms had two, so there's a couple hundred,000 that got added as a result to make sure all unit ventilators are replaced. But the big ticket item that is within our control is about $700,000, which is that hallway. You can always do
it later, but again, we offered it because there's 34 cents on the dollar. >> That tells me a lot right there, right? Because there's 41 units and it's $40,000 more. That's 1.6 million correct >> in inflation. Which to me, like if you go to the and part of this is narrating to the public is that look,
>> the scope didn't change. The price literally has changed by 1.6. So, so you're moving from here to here just on price. >> Yeah. and and I don't recall and look it is leveling out a little bit because there was a point where you know you had to wait for an electrical system or you had a ventilator for 12 months right so those things have leveled off a little
bit but >> some of the some of the manufacturers and companies are now no reason to reduce our price everyone's grown accustomed to this and that's what we're going to do >> that's what happens >> I'd be curious if if any of those
>> the roofers have done it to be honest with you >> well no I'm actually I am actually interested if some of those manufacturers are subject to tariffs because I know there's just a ruling. So, I'm actually wondering if >> I'm sure some are. Yeah. >> I'm I'm wondering if we should look and see if that the tariff issue could be reququed because I know there was just a
Supreme Court ruling on that. Um but >> that'll take years for people. >> You're not going to know until the >> You're not going to know until your bid is >> I think someone there had suggested it. I thought it was a great solution. We're actually going to incorporate it into every one of our presentations moving forward. But to show you the
benchmarking of our projects so that people can say >> per square foot like versus >> Yeah. Yeah. Like okay, you know, we did 40 unit last year. They were 106,000 each. We're budgeting 115. That was the average. Did we get some better price? Yeah. You got a competitive contractor. There's no rhyme or reason to their
bids. But you'll have it in the list. But >> to Jeff's point, that's just a >> that's what we're seeing in the market. But but there's still, you know, there's still a $700,000 number that you could do later or or
>> I got a question. Why do some rooms have two and do still but do they still need to? >> So So probably and again we haven't heard any complaints about the system is old and difficult to maintain. But for example, um I think it was the kindergarten. >> Yeah, they both they the size of the NFL
too. But I I tell you we've things abandoned them for years. There are two because of the size. >> Yeah, the the two of the size and I think Yes. So, if you were to go into the kindergarten room, >> what you'll notice is there used to be two separate classrooms, >> right? That's why, >> right? So, there used to be one in each.
So, when we counted the classroom originally, okay, there's one per classroom. >> When we went back to double check all our numbers this time, cuz it was 3 years later, we said, "Oh, >> even though it's one classroom, >> is that the only one?" >> No. So there's one, two, the three kindergartens all on that side have
three. There are >> the media center has two. >> Oh, the media center has two that side >> and they're outside the wall. >> One, two, three, four, five. >> The total number five. >> No, there are two more somewhere. >> Yeah, there's one in the corridor in the newer wing.
>> Yeah, there are two more. There were seven more that we found. >> You had a total of 41. >> Yep. >> 34. And then we found seven more based on not just number of classrooms but miscellaneous. So so now we're very comfortable that every unit of ventilators accounted for and replaced.
So >> the scope is from last time scope is the possible scope is increased in terms of the hallway. >> No that's the RTU unit not the unit. >> Correct. >> RTU. Yeah. So then compared to the last referendum, the only change besides the
cost of the unit is there's seven seven more you have to replace. Now that >> there are there are two changes. There's seven more that we found >> and the um the increase in the unit price. >> Okay. >> To the seven. >> So that's like a $2.1 million
difference. >> It's about right. So >> just from the getting seven more >> seven more for 700,000 plus the difference is like one six it's like two 2122 >> difference just on the ventilators but then >> I don't know if you I'm going to jump here but I was just summarizing like the
couple projects that we have that we have questions on like and I'm just doing rough math >> I was just adding them up that's my point I was just about to make $3 million >> there's $3 million of possible questions and I'll I'll list them and they're controversial but I'll list them
>> lights I the one 6 abatement. I just put.3 300,000 as a >> hallway the the hallways. So 700 >> and then the boiler at 400,000 and you add that up. >> What about the roof? Did you add that in? That'll be six more. I >> I didn't cuz that's just going to come
out and roll the base. I think you're right. You're right. That be so that' be $3.6 million. We could >> we get down to 15 to 16 >> in theory. I know the lights is a little controversial. I get it. It's not the >> Okay. So here's what I think would happen next. She will get us this
>> when we >> Yeah, it's almost done. I just want to make sure we don't check. >> Our next facilities meeting is on March 9th. What if we met for special meeting on the 11th? Still a week before that cut off of March 18th
to do a final yes or no on these >> be like a long agenda. >> Well, we'll talk about educational portion. You're giving me a weird >> No, I'm not weird. I was just going to cut my special meeting. I I don't know if I did I email the finance committee.
So, it was going to be in my report. So, we got a regular meeting on the 18th >> and then another special meeting and then possible because of what I was going to do in my report. They changed the budget submission date county. >> So, I was saying to the committee that
we can either, you know, keep the 18th meeting or we might have to have a special one just to prove the budget. >> Well, I don't know. We have I have to look at how it's going to fall because they they pushed back the uh budget submission from the 19th which was the day after our board meeting which it had
to be at the county office to now the 27th because the state aid is going to be released later >> if our if our meeting got pushed back a little bit Greg from the 18th to later in March. Would that mess you up? >> We will make it work. >> Okay. So then >> so if we keep the 18th, you know, and
again I have to see how it's going to work with approving the budget. >> But he said if we go a little later, you can make >> Yeah. So we do like the next week. >> I have a general sense of where you are. >> Yeah. >> We'll make it work for you. >> And then we could still have the special one on the 11th. >> Yeah. Because otherwise you'd have you'd
have three meetings. I think we shoot for that and we get some of the answers that we think about it because there's some of these I have questions but some >> so that gives us it gives everybody a week and a half to really look at it and the committee will meet in >> okay >> I just want to make a comment I support
the asbestous abatement it's a known carcinogen we have our children in the building I don't think it's a prudent thing to kick the can down the road for 25 years of risk the whole the word abatement literally suggests removing risk and I just want to say that I think that that's important and it's not something that I would try to save money
on. That's absolutely a fair assessment and I'm not trying to I look like the build on camera and I get it as the guy that wants to >> it's just questions but >> my but my my point was if uh using Ken's office so right outside Ken's office as an example not in not in the
construction not in harm's way of children and asbesus if untouched is not a problem I don't know anybody even knew that was there until we did this assessment right and now all of a sudden it needs to be removed the question is do we need to do that as opposed to the other areas. That's my only question.
>> So, >> I got to drop anymore. >> Okay. We'll talk more on the 11th. >> No drill. >> Okay. So, committ agree. I kind of agree also that I I would support, you know, getting rid of it all again.
>> I I I fully understand that opinion. >> My there there's there's ones here that to me like I already feel the RTU and the boiler. Yeah, >> lights. I'm a little bit like if we can figure out I'm not completely sure like
>> I don't know if the math works >> but that says like the way and honestly I feel like it's like the light scope from our last one and um I feel like it's the 34 cents on the dollar for the magnitude of the project and then also tied with the abatement the second we start doing the lights I think that
number gets much bigger if we try to do the other >> then then the number comes down to just leave everything in because you're just dealing with nominal numbers at that point. The big the big ticket items to be honest would be the lights and the the hallway and the boilers at that point. >> Yeah. Well, the hallway and the boilers like you do 1.1. >> Yeah.
>> And then because some of it look you can't run like and I know we're trying to match it to our last one 3 years ago. Inflation is up 20%. So like I don't I I care but even like as a like a resident I have to be objective and say it can't be the same cost. It just can't. If it
was 15 then three years now it's not 15. It just it cannot be. It's just not possible. >> And I just I just want to remind everyone, >> this is a budget. We have to be somewhat conservative. I don't have a crystal ball. >> Our goal is to get it to be less, >> right? >> Yeah. >> But if I if I if I go too tight on our
budget >> and we get one unforeseen condition, >> you know, it's an issue. So that might be just to my point, that might be something you say, you know what, Greg, let's make the $56,000 investment, take the lighting and the abatement and put in a separate application. Let us digest
that a little bit more because if you're going to do the lighting, we're going to do the ceiling. And if we're going to do the ceiling, John's point is a valid one. You're going to have laborers pulling wires in there. Let's just knock the rest of it out cuz at that point, there's not much left. >> Same length. And maybe that >> and and that's a separate application.
The RTU and the the boiler. There's a million one plus the 600,000 for the roof. That brings it down a million six. we can look at some of these numbers and maybe try to tighten them up a little bit while still protecting your interest and and get to that, you know, $2 million number with all the arguments you're making. >> And that's why the wall is helpful
because I I like know we're trying to match it, but it's just we we can't I understand all those numbers and all the as a finance person, but and I'm speaking I really hope every I hope we get like a thousand views on this video and I I don't think we will and I hope people see it. I I agree with you and
costs have to go up over time and they have gone up and this even like to like it is going to go up. >> However, the voter is going to see a number. They don't necessarily understand it's a budget. They think it's the cost and I want to make sure people understand, yeah, it is budget.
We are doing what we can to bring it down, but I think they see the number and I I want them to know that >> to getting that to be as mean as possible. >> Yeah, I'm sure we do. >> Like I mean the the last one was also a budget to be fair. Like it's the
methodology is is apples to apples. So the 15 versus it's apples to apples and I'm saying like there's a there's going to be a 15 20% increase even if we kept the scope exactly the same. Like exactly the same. understood. >> And so like I think >> I know people can go but it's just it's
just it's a >> done what two roof projects including this coming one. >> Yeah. >> This is one of those rare places where you got actually your own construction cost like at home if you did something three years ago it's 20% more now. I guarantee you. >> I just have one thing to say about
infrastructure pro projects because I've gone through some big ones. So as as a as taxpayers and as you know projects when when your taxes change because of a project. So they don't care about the boilers. They don't care about all these things. They can't see the roof. They just know that it's not leaking anymore.
The lighting, there's nothing else in there other than lighting that you walk into a building say, "Wow, this is where my money went." As if you were to renovate an art room. You're in there for an art room with a parent. So you see things that are tangible that they don't see the electrical. >> They're not exciting projects. >> Yeah. They don't they're not exciting.
They don't see the lighting that you upgraded this. >> We'll talk about the other exciting things. >> So, I just wanted to throw that is that >> not being hot in this building is exciting. >> Well, the other thing having dealt with like home and school association PTO's like they're looking for money to to uh
donate. You're not going to donate on copy paper because you don't see that. But if you see a water found or something donating there, there's where your efforts and your fundraising went to. It's tangible. >> Yeah. So just, you know, just keep it in the back of your mind that when you walk into a building that you just spend money on, what changed?
>> My goal isn't to just cut this for the sake of cutting it. It's do whatever possible to get it passed. >> That's really what I'm looking at. And I hope the the the public sees that these things are necessary. Things are end of life. And I'm doing whatever we can bring that cost down and make it more palatable for the voters so that they
vote on these really necessary things. That's why I want to say that out in public. >> And it's it's also important that they see you doing that here in a room. >> Yep. >> As nine people >> and that's why I'm questioning abatement. Do I want to do baitment? Yes. I want to get rid of everything in here, but I want to make sure the cost
is as low as possible to the taxpayer so they agree. >> A few points I want to touch on some of my notes. Um I want to ask answer Jeff's question before about what what have I seen? I didn't get a chance to answer you as far as concerned. Uh from the
educational standpoint, anytime that I've seen any problems with asbestous, it's been non-existent because there's already been a plan in place to remove it because of the potential cost financially and otherwise. So they take a proactive approach to it. So I haven't had any problems with disturbance and I
also know people on the abatement side and that's been the same philosophy. That's the pattern that I've been seeing. So I agree that you know it's not disturbed there's no problem but the potential is there. So >> when we're doing projects it could be disturbed. >> Uh the next thing is I know that we're
in agreement so far and that's also for public consumption. So people know my position on that. Uh I know we're on agreement as far as the fire and the burglar alarm, but again for public consumption that it's necessary because I've been uh situations and positions where they try to marry or overlay old
systems with new systems and it causes problems. So, in my conversations over over a decade with specialists who are coming in trying to help us out with our alarm systems and burglar systems, uh, smoke alarms and things of that nature, they always come back and say they
should have just ripped all the other old stuff out and put new stuff because when you overlay it, there's a big problem with wires everywhere and it becomes a mess. So, I appreciate the board's, you know, position in identifying the need as far as safety and security. Uh, that that is the
priority. Uh then the next part is uh we decided that Greg will send over the items on by Friday. Correct. >> Correct. >> And you said John or me. Let's make that John and then we'll have a single source
that John know that we'll always bring. >> And John, will you share it out then everyone be also committee but everyone else? >> I will. >> Okay. >> Just don't start the discussion but it'll go out to everybody. >> Okay. >> Y will share. Okay. And then we said
within two weeks uh we'll reconvene. What was that date? >> So we're going to we're um committee meeting on the 9th at 5 March 9th and then the 11th but special meeting uh >> John 7:30. I guess
>> that's a special meeting. >> Yeah. >> When is the um >> that's the 11. >> If I could just ask a question. When are we being trained? What date was that? If we move that we have to see if they're still available. >> Yeah. When we move it >> Well, you're going to have the 18th and
then I'm sure that because of the lateness of the state aid release. We're going to have to have a meeting after that as well to approve the budget. >> So, it'll be three meetings more. >> Typically, two
question. will be buried. >> No, we that's why I always scheduled it on the 18th so that we can do it because it's it was due the next day in the county office. Now they kicked it. >> It looks like that's going to be when we're have to approve the budget. >> Yeah. >> If you want I can get in touch with Paul and see if he can move the training. I
think that's not as paramount as this. >> We don't really have like a confirmed date yet, do we? >> What? >> For the budget approval? >> No, I just I have to I have to see the dates of the budget address. I know they kicked that down. We'll have to see that exact date. Usually the governor will have two days after that budget meeting to release state aid and then if
something dramatic happens and I have to rework everything then I need a little time to do that before submission. So but by the 18th I would have had all that information and then presented a budget that would been approved to go down the following day. best estimate a week delayed.
>> It's like I think it's a week delayed. >> I'll have more definitive when I ask some questions to the appropriate people tomorrow. I probably have a better answer when those when those dates will be. Then I can get back to you to see what
hold off on doing that until >> based on the discussing the educational part and additional stuff that we have to discuss. Do you think you know those or >> the educational?
>> Yeah, you're going to talk about there's more board discussion that has to happen probably sometime in the future. So we have enough time if we can correct >> keep that ball rolling. >> Greg was saying he was going to work with us again to cancel the 318.
Um, we're just talking about we need to discuss the educational component. >> Okay. >> Still, >> we're just beginning that tonight. But >> we were just saying you were flexible. If the 18th got cancelled and we did it the next week. >> I was wondering if that could have been the meeting to discuss the education. Is
that what you're saying? The education. >> So, just to be clear, my understanding was you have information as a follow-up to our last public meeting for the board to look at. We were going to have a special meeting so that it could be discussed
publicly with the intent that whatever that next meeting is, whether it's the 18th or the 25th, that you'll have a second round of conversations about it and some guidance on which way we want to go on the educational side of things. Is that my understanding correct?
>> Sorry, one meeting on 311, right? is that we're so >> since we're all here right now, I felt it was most appropriate for us to at least discuss what is common. For example, if we discuss the minimum
of what I was thinking about in terms of the educational programming >> um and then some people started bringing up certain things about, you know, let's say the music room. I think we all need to have a discussion about what we're all going to be thinking about in terms
of what what's going to drive his goal to create something for us to review. So what is it that I value all the things obviously and beyond. >> I gave you my minimum standard but I
think we also need to have that conversation right now in front of Greg about what your priorities are. the arts, STEM, both large instructional space, something that's useful for an auditorium that may be too big. I think
we need to have a conversation about that. So that gives Greg a common language and a common vision that he could put on paper. >> And I think what the minimum project cost. Yeah, I think or or Okay, but >> well, you had brought up I think last
time what the minimum and what that cost would be. >> Yeah. Well, >> uh is it still considered >> are we able to talk about that and open >> public or no the documents that Ken said earlier? >> I mean basically >> if you change the footprint of the
school that's where we >> see that that big increase in in price because it affects the parking and affects everything else. And if we try to do something a little bit more u working within the constraints of the school, finding some spaces and that's where we see a different plan, but
there's a trade-off of what goes in it. >> Are we are we having that conversation now? >> Are we we have to have the conversation about any particular drawing, but I think our conversation right now is going to identify the things that we discussed at our meeting with Greg about the space that could be used, the
maximum number maximum number of square feet, what that could look like, what could entail. We all know that that could be way too expensive, but what what direction do we want to go? Do we want to take part of that? Uh do we want to take an area in the back that will
meet the minimum requirements? Because that that doesn't seem like it's satisfying to many people here. So I think we could start having the discussion about what it could possibly like without referencing any specific. >> So basically what are our like like we
just went down that list. What would our list be from an educational facilities? >> Educational needs needs assessment. >> Can I understand from Ken's perspective? I know we're not talking about the drawing, but I would like to understand the why that was identified the way it was because it was mostly SGI and one cluster,
>> right? >> And that was from regular for SGI and a multi-purpose >> and a multi-purpose. What was the rationale for that? >> To give something to compare. This is what my recollection was that was his minimum. As that's what I want to want to walk
>> as was explained to me, the minimum goal was to get rid of shared spaces >> and to get the one small group instruction where kids are in there all the time into a windowed space. >> That was the minimum educational program. >> That was the question that was posed to me last time. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that drawing was
representative of that. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> Which doesn't infringe on the footprint of the school. >> Yeah. >> Well, tell them a little bit. >> Yeah. this the footprint increases a little bit but it doesn't trigger parking >> which are significant
>> but does that satisfy can your that was your main impetus was getting kids out of shared classrooms out of windowless areas that would serve that purpose correct >> I just question about that that scenario if we were to add four SGI classrooms a larger classroom
>> does that take people out of the closet offices >> no >> uh okay so you still have like a Mrs. Mrs. Hayes in her she be doing her instruction in the SGI room or that >> it would still be in the same >> they will be occupied by this >> again the minimum standard would be
those classroom spaces not office spaces and the as said as the priority the students that were in a windowless space all day long that was my top priority so extract that put it somewhere else that goes back to storage um and then uh
teacher on cart to Genet teachers are sharing one space. We needed one gen ed classroom for that. These two classrooms down here extract one teacher from there another teacher from there. Now we need two instructional small group instructional spaces. So I took that you
know what's the other space and then >> that's how I got that. >> Yeah. >> But if we really want to move forward with something that and that's again that's minimum. You don't even have to disturb the parking lot area for that. That can be managed. But then according to the conversations that were happening in this in our
committees and and some of the board members, it would just seemed like it was not meeting an educational goal in their mind in terms of bringing our education program to the next level. >> I would agree with that, Ken. And I just want to say like I I totally understand that many board members have a
self-consciousness about about talking about taxes or the cost of this. And I just want to say that I feel a responsibility as a board member to say publicly that I'm looking for the best interests of families that are in the community now that could be here from prek all the way through 8th grade and also for people that may be here 10
years from now, people that are on that 20 to 30 year time frame. And I think the me the need right now is the status quo is that the minimum proposal for the three small group instruction spaces and multi-purpose room does not meet the need of taking a music band room out of
a literal storage closet. So you know we we talk about career education, scientific education, arts education. So STEM is actually what we're living in now. robotics, AI, alternative energies, um, all these frontiers of science. And
I I think it's not a serious conversation in my mind to think about not having an appropriate instructional space where we actually have the space for special education teachers to be doing small group instruction where we have space for our science teachers, our music teachers, our performing arts teachers to do that. I think that a
10,000 square foot proposal is actually completely necessary and it's not a ridiculous ask. So, I'm willing to say that. I think that I'm not afraid of saying that that's money well spent. That's an investment in our community and our school for the future. So, that's something that I fully do support
and I think that that I would support that option. And if people disagree with that, that's fine. But I just want to put that out there. >> And and one other thing, we can we can go to um to two extremes. So, we can have no addition and remain status quo,
which I think is unacceptable to everybody. Then we have our minimum standard. If I look on that continuum all the way to this end where I can say not only do we need all these things, we need another gymnasium and we need another auditorium and we need a true working cafeteria which is so far out of
reach and so unnecessary. We wouldn't even have the space to build that stuff, right? So we have to come somewhere around here where we all are in in agreement that we are going to satisfy the minimal numbers of spaces that we
need but we also want to move forward in a direction where we get something like a true band or music room and or STEM room for example something that we all can say this is acceptable for moving our educational program. It's right by
the community. It's right by the teachers and it's right by the students and it's something that we feel all feel comfortable with for the entire community moving forward and that's something that can Greg can sink his teeth in and say I want to do that >> and I will I will say I also back that
because I would be afraid if we did the minimal that non-negotiables list that you know we'll have regret in like two years like okay we have some classrooms but >> like what's it moving or what is it helping us that yes, it's getting some
people out of shared classroom spaces, but long term we would be like outgrowing that a couple of years down the road. >> So, I agree with everything everybody said and I second what Francis just said, but what I would say is that that's why it was being such pain on the infra side
>> to your point, John. Those are the I'll use a term the non sexy projects, the non-exiting projects to the extent we can get that cost down. I'd rather spend more money on what is helping the children. So yeah, I I agree. That's why I'm trying to push on that side to free
up more money. I think the concern I had and also we've not made any decisions on a one question or two questions or which way we're going to if we're going to divide it out or not but with the infrastructure if we kept that as one and moved
with the um kind of the needs uh with that second question I wasn't sure if there was enough there as if we were going to break it apart into a second question. I wasn't sure that with the SGIs in the classroom if that was enough. I I I just felt like if we were
going to put it out to public and let them decide, maybe we needed to have more >> uh and and maybe >> something not all the way there. Maybe, >> you know, maybe moving music out of the
closet, >> which gets tricky and and once we start changing it that way, >> the second parking lot and all that you're in the parking, >> it triggers. It's like your house
more. >> Yep. >> I mean, agree with me. >> One thing triggers the next. And I think you know it's it's very yeah agree
about the needs of the children um music stands to be part of the school but you know I think we'd all really regret if it didn't nothing you know and I think um >> I don't really >> we really need to you know just need to
get the done right and I don't I don't know if it's one drawing Well, I think that's that I think you're exactly right. You hit the nail on the head. We want to make sure we find a good balance where we all feel very comfortable. We don't we we don't want to propose something
uh too small, too big. We want to have the balance just right and and have a good rationale for it. And I think that this conversation in public as a whole, I think demonstrates our our not only our willingness but our need to do that.
So is there anything innovative that you can do as a number four? >> No pressure. >> The minimum that was identified, >> we presented some concepts so that the board can look at and then have a discussion publicly about it. And it
focuses on um not disrupting the parking lot and avoiding the cost to replace parking spaces. If you were almost any other school district, you would have more property,
but you just have a very unique circumstance which results in limitations because of your wetlands, your repairarian zones, these environmental considerations. So, I would go so far as to say the solution we came up with is pretty innovative that we presented publicly to maximize
10,000 square foot without any environmental negative impact without impacting the recreational softball um um >> um >> softball field. >> No, but >> senior moment >> the back of >> what do they do during the day when they
have >> recess recess? Winner winner >> gym classm >> gym class you have a nice large grass area that's not disrupted. So we tried to find these minimum >> and the maximum. Once you go beyond the minimum there's there's limited room
back there. We have a major soil line uh uh soil line that comes underneath there that we have to go and investigate because the further we push out the more it may disrupt that. Anything beyond that expanding the footprint you're limited. There used to be a trailer over
here. Not really that an ideal location. The garden's there now. >> Anything we do on the extension of the of the one end of the building, seventh and eighth grade wing, which would be a conducive way just to double load a corridor would have a negative impact on the softball field. That's something
you'd have to deal with um and talk to the the you know or make a decision whether that softball field will get relocated. Because we're parking over here, we are able to leverage the DP's general rules and permit by rules and
things like that. Once we start going beyond 6,000 ft into the grass area, other triggers are made. So, I would offer to you that we've come up with some innovative solutions, the minimum, the development of the 10,000 square foot space and all that encompasses it
that you know you guys need to vet. Clearly, there are differences of opinion, which is fine. Once we go beyond the minimum, there's no other place to put it. You automatically trigger coming forward. And then the question is, well, if you're going to do a thousand square feet, do you do three? If you're going to do three, do you do
five? If you're going to do five and have to affect the parking, which is not an insignificant amount that we presented last time in the master plan, you know, the parking is not an insignificant dollar amount. And so, I wish I had a better answer for you. I wish I had the magic bullet, but I think
there are good solutions under the limitations. And it's it's really in my opinion looking at it from the outside it's a function of do you present the ideal educational vision and let the voters decide on the
finances or do you reel it back in before you present you know that to the voters and make the decision yourselves that we don't even want to present you know the the best not the best >> I think the exercise you did looking at the minimum
was a great exercise because I think what it's showing us is by no fault of anyone in this room, we just don't have a lot of options. >> Yeah. >> So then do we make a tradeoff >> because of that? And that's where I think we're I know how I feel.
>> We're almost we're almost at a half point of rebuilding a whole school >> when we're at that 10,000 square foot. >> If you look around at comps, you can build a school for $80 million. >> Yeah. Just to be clear, this is not costing you $80 million.
>> I know, but you know, >> look, the square the square foot pricing is the square foot pricing. We showed benchmarking benchmarking. So, at the end of the day, you know, you can look at if you build a a 50,000t elementary school or a 10,000 foot edition.
>> Generally speaking, and and the unit pricing will come down a little bit when you have a 50,000t new building. There are a little bit of economies of scale there, but it's not coming down to, you know, decade or two decades ago pricing of two or $300 a square foot. That's just not happening. >> Does gi given the limitations of the
space, the the the scenario of an addition of 10,000 square feet, does just in concept alone, does that address educational needs? I mean, again, it's limited. There's not much more you can do past that. Does it accomplish educational goals? Again,
>> yeah, it it accomplished the goals that were identified. Get kids out of windowless spaces, get rid of the shared spaces, and address the spaces that were converted over time as a necessity. And music room has been talked about a lot. The my understanding from looking at the
records and from talking to those that have some knowledge of the building, the current music room used to be the storage room for the gym. >> Correct. So, if that's correct, there's another example of converting a storage room into an educational space. And so we're reversing all of those things by
taking advantage of the 10,000 square foot and bringing it back to a an appropriate standard by the educ by the Department of Education's definitions. >> Can I ask one question about ADA? What triggers that you have to bring other
things up to compliance? So, we're talking about the the nurse's office and >> making the laboratory or the toilet room >> ADA compliant, but what triggers when you have they have to do it? >> Yeah. So, in New Jersey, we are bound by the uniform construction code, which is an administrative code that has a
barrier-free section. And because our buildings are so old, it was created decades ago so that people wouldn't have to comply with a new building code. meaning the international building code. If you were building a new school today, you comply with the international building code. But because these are
grandfathered many times, they're no no less safe than they were yesterday. So the answer to your question is it's um there is a menu under the rehabilitation code, a repair, a renovation, an alteration. These all have different
definitions, an addition, and they all have different requirements that kick you back and forth between the codes. And from the uniform construction code's perspective, part of it is triggered by a financial investment. So when you're investing X dollars, they want X percent towards bar towards improving
barrierfree compliance. They don't necessarily tell you where you have to spend it, but it's a function of how much you're spending. Once your facility is completely up to code, then there's no more allocation because you're up to code. But every time you make an
improvement, the expectations from the code is that a percentage of that investment goes towards compliance. Now, by way of example, if we did an addition and we were going to do a new door with lever hardware like you have there, that
counts towards ADA compliance or we could go in and change knobs to levers to make that compliant. So, we pick and choose what we want. It seemed reasonable that in the nurse's office where you have sick children. So it's it's I mean most people think about barrierfree compliance with someone in a
wheelchair, but there are people that are hard of hearing. There are people that are visually and in the case of a nurse's office, it's not unlikely that the nurse or someone has to accompany a sick child into the bathroom and you need that room for a second person. So even though we meet the right criteria for the radius, you know, there's an
example where it's very likely the child is ill, not feeling well, or an adult is ill, and someone has to be in there with them. So to answer your question, it triggers by investment, and then a certain percentage has to be allocated until you're completely in compliance. And as a place of public assembly, I
will say to you that it's not a code issue. It is a federal law. So that you won't know you're not in compliance until someone sues you. Do you ever renovate music rooms >> all the time? Is >> that an option for us?
>> It is. Yeah. I mean, so the option just off the top of my head would be we can't change the footprint per se, but to raise the ceiling in that area to give you the acoustical volume that you would need. I don't recall the square footage of the music room today. >> Uh today? No, I don't.
>> So, we'd have to double check. I think your footprint is smaller than the uh the facility efficiency standards for a music room. But but to answer your question, yes, you know, we are looking at another district right now where they have the tiered flooring that we want to get rid of because the music teacher
hates it and it's just not conducive as it used to be. And there's an example where we are raising the roof because they too have no ability to expand the footprint. They're not doing any other additions. So we're literally raising the roof in that section to assist with the acoustics to get rid of the direct
natural light that has a negative impact on stored instruments and stuff like that and putting clear stories in so they have wall surfaces for acoustics and things like that. So the answer is yes. That is certainly an option as well. >> You'd be impacting a brand new roof. But >> I'd be curious. It may be I know it's
not enough. Be curious. >> That's so obviously renovation to get 31st cents on the golf course >> with our our scheme. I guess it's ours. It's I mean if we can music seems to be a big problem just to most all of us. It's not >> Yeah.
>> Not adequate. I think every >> could you do uh and maybe this is where like we to go back to Ken's question fundamentally what do we want in the thing like is there a way to to like if you did that added a multi- functional room that could be a STEM room and then
you got the SGI and the small instructional stuff back there like >> we're getting kind of >> but then but then we don't have to move the parking lot cuz that's not because you're you're just adding one more room for like a multiunctional STEM room maybe raising the ceiling on music and then putting in these other SGI size.
It's kind of a middle, >> but I think moving the parking lot is what? >> Yeah, the parking really that's like like the price goes up because you're just >> Well, let me ask you a question. How often is your parking lot full? >> Never. >> Well, for events, >> but but for events, it's always going to
be and we don't design. So, if you want to expand the 10,000 ft, lose a few parking spaces and not replace them, people can still park along the curve there, right? We were just replacing the parking in time because no one loves to lose parking spaces. If you have an
event, people can park on the grass in good weather. So if if you want to expand the 10,000 square ft to make the best use of the educational program and just not replace the parking, there's no code requirement that says you have to do that. >> We were doing it again to give you the
option that most people say, "Oh my god, we can't lose parking spaces >> to have the net same." >> Yeah. because we ended up with a net result of formalized parking that >> is accommodated. I mean that's certainly I mean look >> we could brainstorm dozens and dozens of
options. >> Yeah. >> The best solution in my experience is tell me what you want. Tell me the program elements and we'll make it work. Once we get past the minimum, the footprint has to kind of come forward or
towards the softball field because you're just out of room. Unless you're willing to take out the the playground in the back and some other stuff, we're just physically out of room. And so if that's the concern, don't do the parking lot now. There's
nothing that prevents you from coming and doing it later. >> That's a good option. >> And then you can still get all your program needs to an ideal educational program and save significant. Well, we don't have to decide that. Now, if we when you present the educational component of this, can we itemize that?
>> And that could be a great decision in a debate. I'm not saying I'm for it or against it, but if it's between windowed classrooms, small instructional space, proper music rooms, and several parking spaces, parking the I'm going to ask that question >> for a couple of times a year where you're always going to have a problem.
>> Yeah. >> You're never going to solve that problem. There's no school district in the state that solves that two or three times >> all over the place. >> Yeah. It just it's impossible because then you end up with a parking lot that's half empty 90% of the time. >> Well, would be half empty, but we we
>> think right now it's like at most two. >> It's not full. >> So to your point, yeah, that's a valid option to look at it. If it's itemized, we can take a look at it. Have a good discussion. >> The question you mentioned about like, you know, there's the only place you go is the parking lot or the soft field.
Just a what if what if you can you go towards the soft wall field because I noticed the wetlands line is kind of right at the building. Are is that >> up up to about 6,000 square feet is what we calculated. >> You can go >> before we trigger storm water and some other stuff. >> But don't we lose the grass area?
>> Correct. We're we're in the repairarian zone over there. If you remember the drawing, you have these two overlapping arches. One is the wetlands buffer, one is the repairarian zone. So, we can still work within those to some degree based on our conversations with D, but there are certain triggers. The beauty of working over here is we're on the
pavement, right? It's already disturbed. Not a big deal. The grass is partially disturbed because it's being cut all the time. But, you know, I think we did a very quick measurement. The a typical softball field has an outfield of 185 ft. >> If you've got a middle schooler that can hit that far, God bless you. They're going to go far. But, once we do a
classroom or whatever, it drops it significantly. And it's not even if a kid's gonna hit that far, but someone who has to follow a rolling ball. You don't want them to have this abrupt, you know, piece to it. So, I think you have some concepts from our last meeting to look at to talk about publicly at the
next meeting after you've digested it and we can break out the parking lot for you from those estimates. And I think that's a very viable solution if if that's what's been perhaps, you know, holding back. It doesn't represent 50% of the number, but it's still a significant amount that can be said.
>> Yeah. Can we can I suggest we maybe table the discussion till the March 11th when we do infra and there's just consciousness temporary center >> we have an entire other agenda that actually I'm kind of about to lose steam but I I I think we're agreeing that we
want what we the addition forward and maybe we ax the parking and that gets us all the educational needs that we think we need That's >> does that give you enough Greg and then next weekend? >> I think we go to March 11.
>> I think it gives me enough to understand what I'll be prepared to talk about at the special meeting >> and then you know to get some direction and again all you're doing is committing to submitting to the state to get approvals and then what you do
ultimately after that is the >> Okay, good. Thank you. I think you're excused tonight. Always a pleasure. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much.
>> Thank you. >> Tell me the verbage and I'll do it. No. So basically based on the time what I just had a conversation over here >> is you would forgo >> any reports >> on there >> you can move the unless you have an objection to maybe pulling something out
separately. You can move finance personnel whatever all together as one one motion. We do it all on a roll call. >> Okay. >> Because the only thing needs to go for is personnel. Just roll call it all. Yeah. I'm okay with that. And then we have to go to close too. >> All right. Well, I'll start with board
business one and two though, right? >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> So, may I have a motion to approve board business motions one and two? >> Second. >> I didn't I missed this. >> Any questions, comments, or discussion?
>> If not, the question is on the adoption of board business motions one and two. All those in favor say I. I. >> All those opposed say no. Any abstension? >> I stay on vote. >> Okay. Thank you. And then so the question will be on the
adoption of finance motions 1 to nine and personnel motions 1 to four. And this will be a roll call. >> Right, John? >> Yes. Let me get to go a motion. >> Finance one. >> May I have a motion to approve finance
motions 1 to nine and personnel motions one to four, please? >> Um are there any questions, comments or discussion? Okay. Okay. If not, the question is on the adoption of finance motions 1 to nine and personnel motions 1 to four. >> Mrs. Bardock.
>> Uh, yes. Except I'm going to abstain from the finance motion which includes May number four. >> Abstain finance. >> Okay. >> Okay. Is that the only one? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Mr. Brandon. Yes,
>> Mrs. Cabana. >> Yes, >> Mr. Chen. >> Yes, >> Mr. Hittinger. >> Yes, >> Mr. Johnson. >> Yes, >> Mr. McBride. >> Yes, >> Mr. Mill. >> Yes. >> Motion carries. Well done. >> Hi. >> So, we're not going to do accommodations
or any of that either. >> Yep. I can do that. >> Yeah, I think so, too. So, Mr. Fini to you. >> Coincidentally, the only thing I had on my board report was that uh all
Chromebooks will be collected. Grades 5 through 8 on Thursday, April 20, April 2nd. Over the breaks, our tech team can update them and check each Chromebook to ensure they're ready for state standardized testing in May. And now, the combinations Uh, Falcons of the month for February.
Congratulations to the following students for soaring high with their strong character and academic effort. Fifth grade, Ezra Havens. Sixth grade, Jane Kajinger. Seventh grade, Olivia McAndrew. And eighth grade, Jacob Brown. Flying high in fourth grade for January. This certificate is awarded each month
to recognize students who display variety of outstanding character and/or achievements within the classroom. Congratulations to Essa Essa Cordri Chadri Connor and Deine Shrien Mandal Zoe Jane Zeleleski Daniel Zeniga Adeline
Nuvie Stella Seminario Julia Ram and congratulations to our RVS Falcons that were caught soaring for the month of January. Charlie Bonitez, Tegan Bonitez, Angelina Brandt, Katherine Kachv,
Giovani, Chiovori, Jackie O'Driscoll, Victoria Gibson, Jacob Gonzalez, Robert Hume, Rosalie Ayakon, Cameron Casper, Ellie Kennedy, Lani Lung, Keffrey Luchiano, Sheria
Mandal, Matthew Olirri, Naomi Padala, Yari Pledo, Julian Spartelli, and William Tak. >> A spotlight on student work for January is exemplary works uh by students in preschool to third grade displayed in the lobby on a monthly basis. Anthony
Gilbert, Carter Winters, Elliot Azineri, Maline Weber, Tyler Larson, Ali Lang, George Connelly, Zultan Zos, Adriana Mets, Madison Burn, Audrey Olsen, Daniel Venique, Jace Duchess, and Naomi Podala.
And let's thank our student council and Mrs. Olsson for all the dedicated volunteers who made this year's winter dance such a wonderful success. We'd also like to congratulate the following teachers on completing the OG training. Your dedication and professional growth and commitment to supporting our students literacy development is truly
appreciated. We're proud of your accomplishment. Marina Naziola, Matthew Spender, Carly Casten, Marley Golding, Cindy Snider, and Alyssa Baldino. Our seventh graders had an amazing time at Broadway seeing the Outsiders. It was a
great opportunity to experience a live performance based on a book they read this year. Thank you to the seventh grade teachers for sharing this experience and a special thank you to the Ed Foundation for organizing this trip for the second year in a row. We'd like to extend our sincere thanks to the HSA for hosting such a wonderful talent
show. Your time, effort, and dedication provide our students with fantastic opportunity to showcase their talents and creativity. Truly a special evening, and we're grateful for all you do to support our community. We'd like to congratulate Rehea Emis, seventh grade student who was nominated by Miss
Bartell and selected as an outstanding vocalist by the Mayo Performing Arts Center for the month of February. Rya was acknowledged for this honor on February 14th. This recognition reflects her exceptional vocal talent, dedication, and commitment to the performing arts.
And we would like to congratulate Caitlyn Hullbig on being nominated and named the 2026 Unsung Hero Award recipient. The Morris County School Board Association in partnership with the New Jersey School uh I'm sorry uh the Morris County uh school
boards association in partnership with the New Jersey School Board Association recognizes students whose quiet contributions make a powerful difference throughout through the unsung hero award. An unsung hero is a student who has made a significant impact on their school and community through unique and
often overlooked efforts. These students exemplify outstanding character by overcoming adversity with quiet strength, demonstrating exemplary exemplary citizenship through service and compassion, and consistently making meaningful contributions behind the scenes without seeking recognition.
Caitlyn's resilience, selflessness, and dedication make her truly deserving of this honor. We're incredibly proud of her and grateful for the positive example she sets forth for for our entire school. And finally, Mrs. Amy Fidala is synonymous with RVS. After 31
years at RBS, she will be retiring this Friday. RBS will miss her dearly, but she will not be forgotten. Her memory lives on and we are and we wish her all the best in her retirement years. And that concludes my accommodations. >> Thank you. >> Thank you,
>> John. Where you want me to go next? Another just note that there were there were no members of the public here. So neither of the open sessions were and I think the last piece is >> you have the policies for first reading and >> I actually ask about the policies I a
hard time seeing if there's indication what change in each policy I'm going to do it now >> I in the board update that I >> a couple weeks ago >> any old business I just have one comment and I'm not
trying to be a disciplinary but a lot of people are not doing their notes. It would be really helpful. We could all be doing our fifth, you know, committee notes with regularity. >> I'll be better. >> I mean, I I own it, too. But >> yeah, >> finances.
>> Any new business? >> Can we just make sure, speaking of notes, because I know I did some last night. Um, and Ken, I don't know if this is you, but can we just make sure that the new board members have access to those files? the Google Drive.
>> Has anyone gone through there and looked? >> I think I might have looked, but I I think it wouldn't bear >> double checking. >> A few years ago, if you remember, I didn't have access right away. I had access to everything but some of the folders, so it was an issue. >> Yeah. So, I think it just double check.
>> I have access to it. >> No, that's it. here. Can you click on share drives? >> Okay, then click on >> it should be the govern. >> I wasn't aware. >> Thank you so much.
>> Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. Thank you. >> Any new business? I just wanted to note I was thinking about we've all been very busy but um the governance committee is on that this year I think after we kind of dissolve some of the questions with ours I will find time for us all any thoughts
on governance but I'm ready >> clean up the drive >> clean the drive make the drive workable >> and speaking of committees not to add to anyone or to any more anyone's plate I'm losing my verb but I was thinking
thinking that it would be beneficial with the referendum planning if we had committee chairs meet with regularity given the intensity of everything the next two months. So that being finance program facilities and myself with Ken
just wanted to throw that out there and see how you guys felt about that. Good sleep late. Say yes. >> Just it just depends when >> at night virtual >> half hour here and there because we are
spending hours behind the scenes of our personal lives talking. >> I know. >> And it's just not acceptable. >> Not for you. It's not sustainable. Not for you. It's not sustainable. I'm going to be blunt on that. It's not sustainable. So it would be better to just come together like we did with stacking
facilities last week which I think worked out so much nicer >> minus Francis who who has the update now >> but you're able to get everybody from those committees and then as chairs we can be liaons to disseminating
information >> and this would be a temporary thing just until we kind of get through the harshest months of the demand >> as long as it's not more than four. >> Yeah. Yes. Just the chairs, >> just the floor facilities,
>> finance, >> finance, >> and personnel >> and you facilities. >> I mean, I I was just chair >> finance because I think they all correlate together. >> That's four. >> Correct.
>> Which ones would they be? >> Program. >> Sorry. >> Finance. >> Yeah. >> I'm doing a color chart here. >> Finance. Make them pink. >> Program >> per not personnel. >> Yeah. >> Finance
>> and facilities >> because those are what connected. >> Yeah, exactly. And myself or Barry if one of us is not. >> So it's myself whose program? >> Um Chris >> I'm finance. >> Finance >> and then >> and then Barry and I vice
>> regular president. >> One of the presies. I want to try these. >> We're getting punchy. >> It's yellow. >> Everything stop. >> Is it? >> Yeah. >> We have we have closer.
>> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, any other new business to come up? Great. May I have a motion to enter into executive session to discuss issues that warrant confidentiality as committed in the open public meetings act chapter 231
of the laws of 1975. These matters may or may not be made public when the board reconvenes. They will be made public when the confidentiality of the subject is no longer warranted and the discussion will be based on student matters. >> Move second.
>> It doesn't matter. Go ahead. I >> Okay, >> we've just returned from close session. May I have a motion to adjurnn? >> Motion. >> Second. >> All those in favor say I. I
>> meeting is adjourned.