and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Sorry, I'm still getting used to this doing this before the meeting. >> Mr. Blouse >> here. >> Dr. Celebrity >> here. >> Mr. Hollandbeck
>> here. >> Mr. Chris Murdy >> here. >> Mr. Mater, >> Miss Smith >> here. >> Mr. Truma >> here. >> Mr. Desai >> here. >> Mr. Carpenter >> here. >> Now you can go into executives. Can I have a motion to go into executive session? >> Motion.
>> Second. >> Thank you. everybody to the meeting of the board of education of Branchburg. Please be advised that this and all meetings of the board are open to the public and media consistent with the open public meetings act and that advanced notice required therein has been provided. This
is a meeting of the board of education of branchburg at which formal action may be taken. The public will have an opportunity to be heard as shown on the agenda. Um, do we won't have to do the pledge and everything again? Okay. Please stand
for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
And it's all yours. >> Okay. Sorry. >> I don't think mic comes off. >> We did that before. >> Yeah. No, >> that's what I thought. >> We did the roll call.
>> We did roll call at the beginning of the meeting. >> Oh, okay. Sorry. >> So, tonight I want to um direct your attention to the January spotlight. Again, this is an opportunity for us to just acknowledge our staff that go above and beyond and to celebrate uh this
important moment for them. Um so, the first is uh Tracy M. She is a special ed teacher at Whiten. And I'll just read an excerpt from um the staff member or the the person who nominated the person said that Tracy creates a classroom where
every student feels seen, supported, and empowered to succeed. Karen Elvis is a Stony Brook special education teacher. >> They were cheering. >> Miss Elvis meets every challenge with resilience, professionalism, and an unwavering commitment to student
success. Shannon Heene is this BCMS science teacher. Shannon's leadership, positivity, and passion for science spark curiosity and excitement every day. Then we have Kathleen McMahon who is a
transportation office aid. She is thoroughly uh thorough through empathy, professionalism, and dedication. Kathleen keeps our operations running smoothly and compassionately. And finally, Kirstley Spinx. She's a
systems administrator here uh in the board office. Kirstley's expertise, reliability, and behind thescenes dedication keep our district running seamlessly. So again, we want to acknowledge all of OUR OKAY. And again, thanks for bringing
their energy, their commitment to uh and heart to everything that they do. And they truly do. And I again truly like the the spotlight for all of our staff. >> Okay. All right. >> For breakfast. Next up,
um, tonight we are joined by demographer Dr. Richard Grip, um, from Statistical Forecasting LLC, uh, for a presentation on our long-term planning, uh, and enrollment. Uh, we asked for the report to cover the five-year enrollment forecasts and community population
trends along with research on how local housing impacts our student numbers. We'll also review current building capacities and our projected enrollment to ensure we are well prepared for the future of our schools. So with that, Dr. Grip, I will turn it over to you.
>> Good evening. First, I guess we'll do a sound check just to make sure you can hear me. >> We can hear you. >> Wonderful. So, next we'll be sharing our screen. And if you just give me one second. Okay. So, hopefully you're getting a
picture of our presentation from where you're being able to see this. >> Okay, great. So, um once again, good evening. I'm joined tonight by Megan Gri as well, um who co-wrote the study. I would just probably say that it's going to take us about 20 minutes to go over
the findings and at that point in time we will open it up to questions um from from the board. So a little bit about our company. We've been doing demographic services such as this um for school districts in New
York, New Jersey metropolitan area since 1998. Um I don't know how many people were were on the board four years ago, but I came down and presented to your board to do a um presentation regarding a study done in September of 2022.
So about three and a half years ago. Uh we've done probably 200 school districts in the metropolitan area, but we do a lot of work from Virginia in the DC area all the way up to Vermont. and we are the demographic consultant for the New
York City public schools, the largest school district in the nation. And we've been that consultant for them for the last 20 years. So I'm the executive director. I have a doctorate in Ruckers from Ruckers University, Graduate School of Ed, and educational statistics and measurement.
uh most of us wind up working in this field. It was just called psychometrics for the college board or ETSs, but I preferred a more practical approach to uh my degree and wound up in um writing a dissertation
on multiple regression and projecting enrollment. So that's how I got my start. I still like to publish in this field which is called school demography. It's a niche field and have testified as an expert witness in this field in ALJ hearings in the state, particularly when
um sending receiving districts want to divorce from each other. >> Hi all, my name is Megan Grip. I'm a senior demographer here. I graduated from the University of Rochester with my math degree a few years back and that brought me kind of into the world of
academic research. So, I've co-wrote two academic papers, one in math research and the second in demographic forecasting with Dr. Grip. Um, in addition to research, I've previously supported demographic analysis for San Francisco private schools, but most
recently I was a senior data analyst at Hilton Worldwide, um, where I specialize in advanced revenue analysis for their hotels. Um and my current role here I support the projection reports and overall process improvement um with
everything we do. >> So the purpose of the study is more than just projecting enrollments and that's why we have this bulletoint um slide because most um boards we work with they think of a demographic study as
projecting enrollments which is true but there's a lot more to that. So we look out for the next five years and the number one question we usually get is why can't we go beyond five years and projecting enrollments? Well, first of all, the state of New Jersey Department
of Ed won't allow it because you have to start projecting children who have not been born yet and that's where the problem becomes. It's more in the lower elementary grades that is a real high level of uncertainty. Um, other things we looked at in the
report was your community's population trends, um, different demographic characteristics, which you'll see in a moment, the age structure of the community, which is really important, um, birth rates, fertility rates, and then moving away from your community, drilling down to the school district
level, we looked at your historical enrollment trends districtwide, and also by grade configuration, which for you guys is really just your schools. Um we computed student yields by housing type. Now student yields are simply the number
of children per housing unit. And we did a very sophisticated analysis um looking at the number of children by different types of housing whether it be apartments or town houses or detached single family homes. And the fourth
thing we did is we contacted the local municipality to find out about new housing starts and analyzed their impact on your school district. And the last thing is we looked at your school building capacities to see if they have surplus seating or shortage of seating
currently as well as in the future. So when we look at Branchburg's population over time, um the current population in um roughly the far not the far right of the screen, but in the just
center right of the screen is 14,940 persons. And you can see significant growth um through 2000. the population in Branchburg actually grew 12fold over that period and you can see in the last couple decades it's been fairly stable.
Um the value on the far right is the projected population for 2050 from a third party organization called the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority. So we did not come up with that number. That's from a different agency. So in 25 years or so, they're
projecting a total of about 16,000 persons in Branch Park. So who are you as a community? You're 3/4 white, uh 11% Asian, about 8% Hispanic, and under 3% black in 2020, which is when the last
census was. um in context of 2000 from 2010 you have an increasing Asian and Hispanic populations but a declining white population your median age is fairly significantly older compared to New Jersey um you have
a fairly low foreignb born population only about 15% where India and China are the two largest sources um you're a very educated community with a 65% bachelor's degree or higher which is much higher than the state. You can see the next line below. Your household
income is also much higher than the state, about $65,000 higher. So, you're a very affluent um educated community just by those two data points. You have more than 58 housing housing units of
which about 82% are single family homes, either detached or attached, which would be a condo. And about 16% of your housing units are renter occupied, which is much lower than that of the state. And the median value of an owner occupied unit is $575,000,
which is about $80,000 higher than that of the state. So next, this is just a map of Branchburg Township showing the three schools where they're located. Um, our GIS analyst put
this together for us and I'll turn this part over to Megan. >> Awesome. So, for historic enrollment trends, um, in the latest school year, the 202526 school year, the PK to8 enrollment is 1,389
students. So, that's as of the October 15th snapshot. We use this snapshot because it is the day that enrollments are reported to the state for official census counts. So that way we're always comparing apples to apples as we look across years since you know enrollments
dayto-day can be in flux. Um so to compare in the 201617 school year there was 1464 students. So that's a decline of 75 students over the 10 years. Enrollments
mostly declined through 2022 23 school year before reversing trend and stabilizing a bit. This is similar across the grade configuration level. They have experienced some form of this district-wide trend. The PK to3
configuration declined through the 2122 school year before stabilizing. Four to five has been a bit more stable overall, but still some mid decade declines ending out um at 308 this year, which is a decline of 25 students. And at the
middle school level, the declines have mostly been in the last 5 years, but again has also started to reverse and trend. So they're still sitting 4566 students lower than 10 years prior. um to project five years out, we use the
cohort survival ratio method, which um is the New York, not New York, New Jersey Department of Ed approved method for projecting student enrollments. And I will get into that a little bit later. Great. So this is a graph of the overall
district trends. So like I said before, declines through 2022 23 school year that reversed and have kind of been very similar in the last three years. And then this is that same data by grade
configuration. The PK to3 is on top in blue. Um so they really had the biggest COVID hit I would say. Um you see that big decline in 202021 which has since reversed trend. um for the four to five configuration,
not as much of a dip, but you can still see there was a bit of an impact and they've been a bit more stable. And then 6 to 8, that decline really followed all the way through in the 2022 23 school year and they have also started
reversing trend and stabilizing. Okay, so I mentioned the cohort survival ratio method which is what we used. is department of ed approved. So in order to project for the next 5 years um we need to first compute these survival
ratios. So we have a very simple example um so say you have 100 first grade students in the 2425 school year and then in the 2526 school year you have 95 second graders. So you've lost five students. 95 over 100 that's a survival
ratio of 0.95. It's very simple. So when we have ratios that are above one, we are experiencing inward migration, getting more students than we had the year before. Ratios that are below one is outward migration, losing students in the grade progression.
So we do this for each year, each grade for the last 10 years. And at Branchburg, eight of the nine average ratios that we used for grades K to 8 were actually above one. So that's indicating that there's a net inward migration overall across grades.
Um another interesting phenomenon is that three survival ratios in the 202021 school year. So the first co year were the lowest value of the last decade. Two of which were at that PK to3 level. That all kind of aligns with those sharp
declines we saw in the earlier slide. And like I said, we use an average of all these ratios for the last 5 years to help project for the next 5 years. Okay. So, kindergarten replacement is a
way of describing and observing the inward and outward trends of a district. So basically we're trying to see if we are getting the same student counts as the graduating class. So in the case of Branchburg, your graduating class is the
8th grade. Um and your incoming class would be kindergarten of course. So here ne negative kindergarten replacement is has occurred in the last eight of the last nine years and that's ranged from 3 to 55 students. Basically, this happens
when the number of entering kindergarten students is less than your graduating class. So again, say you have 100 graduating eighth graders and you get 95 incoming kindergarteners, that's going to be a -5 replacement. So I think the
next slide helps illustrate this a bit better. Most of these bars are negative. So in the latest year, the 202526 school year, there was a kindergarten replacement of -13. So less kindergarteners coming in than there
were graduating eighth graders. Here we have this paired with overall enrollment change. So a bit different enrollment change being the influx and outflux of students in other grades. I think interesting to see here is that
postcoid the kindergarten replacement has been partially or fully offset by those enrollment gains in other grades. So I think you know the 23 24 school year is a very obvious example. You had a positive 20 kindergarten replacement
which was really amplified by the influx of students in other grades. So your overall enrollment change was 98. Okay. The other thing we look at is birth counts of course to get our kindergarten students. So um we look at
the birth counts on a yearly level and then that becomes your kindergarteners 5 years later. So we analyze birth data from 2020 sorry 2011 to 2024. Um this comes from the New Jersey Department of Health and a birth is classified by the
mother's residential address. So that's how we determine which students are considered Branchburg students. Birth counts have generally declined through 2020 but after co they have also reversed trend. So the number of births in the last four years has been higher.
In the latest year of data we have 2024 there were 132 births which is a little bit lower7 than in 20 2011 of 139. And then you can see in this graph how there's like I said general declines
through 2020 which have really since changed direction and popped up since then. Okay, this is tying together births and kindergarteners. So we have the same number of births on the left hand side
as we did in the graph births by year. The middle column has kindergarten students that we have moved 5 years later. So in 2020 for example, you see4 births in Branchburg. Then 5 years later, 144 kindergarten students. So
quite a big jump. That results in a birth to kindergarten survival ratio of 1.385. So getting that inward migration, inward flux of students. Um in all of the years except for 2020,
which is that red number we have um highlighted, you've had positive um inward migration from birth to kindergarten. So all those values are above one um except for that one pandemic error year, which you know is a
bit of an anomaly. Okay. And then this is just overall what is the population looking like by age and gender in Branchburg. So this is the 2010 census population pyramid. Um we
have males on the left in blue and females on the right in orange. You can see that there's a very large um middle-aged class. So the largest age group is 45 to 49 for both genders.
Um and then a bit of a a smaller bulge but down in the um the child age on to the next. Okay, great. And so this is the same pyramid but for 2020. So you can see how this has shifted over the last decade.
That middleage group is a bit older now. 55 to 59 is now the oldest um cohort. And since this is 10 years later, the same largest cohort is 10 years older, this says to us that there's limited
migration happening in the township. The other thing to note, which I think if we pop to the next slide will be even more obvious. Yes, you can see this is the two pyramids overlaid on top of each other. um the shaded um transparent
lines are the 2010 census pyramid bars whereas the solid ones are 2020. So, especially in those lower um student age populations, you can see those cohorts have declined significantly over the
last 10 years of between censuses. And there's been bigger changes, positive changes in the older 55 to 59 grades, not grades, cohorts. >> Okay. So, as I had mentioned on the
outset, one of the key pieces of our analysis is contacting the township and the municipal land use officer regarding new housing. So, just as a little bit going back three and a half years when I met with you then, there was a lot of
housing units planned and the housing units that we talked about in 2022 um really have not come to fruition. a little bit has, but the the ones that we're in were in that table back in 2022, they're still in our report in
2026. Um, so there's the potential for 1361 non-age restricted housing units, all of which will be multifamily, which we've referred to as being the apartment or townhouse stock. So, the three main
developments that are um planned in Branchburg are 2G at Branchburg, which is 441 units. That's under construction as we speak. Summit Green, 556 units, that's preparing for construction soon. About 138 are affordable apartment
units. And North Branch Walk, that's nearing completion. When we spoke to the township back in mid January, about 227 cos or certificates of occupancy were issued at that point in time, including
for 24 affordable apartment units. Our total above does not include the Lamington urban renewal project that's age restricted. Should not have children in there. Um, but there's 100 units planned in that particular development.
So we computed how many we estimate would be in these developments and add them all up and this is the number down at the bottom which is a fairly large number. 349 public school children are projected in grades K to8. So the next
slide is actually showing all these developments. I'm not going to go over them because um if you have time and you have the PowerPoint you can do it. But really, it just shows the the housing type, the number of units, the bedroom distribution, which we need to project the estimated number of children, and
the project status of all the re all those developments, which I've more or less highlighted just recently with you. So one of the things the board asked us to do which is called a detailed student yield housing analysis and that's when
we join the property database of Branchburg Township to the student address of the school district so that we have a very rich robust um data source of children that are attending the different or living in
certain types of housing units in your township. The alternative would be use um values from the Rucker Center for Urban Policy Research, which is statewide averages, but I don't prefer to use that if we can. We'd rather use your data because it's really unique to
your community. So, this is just summing what we determine. Now, these are yields for K to8 um based upon your property addresses, like I said, and your student address directory. So for single to four family homes and they're mostly single
family the average yield is 749 children per housing unit and you can see it's much lower for town houses.132 and apartments at 286. So we did the research online of um and also some other directories of coming up
with a list of all the townhouse developments. They are only here on the left. the rough sale price of what you can get for one of these units, the year they were built, the bedroom distribution. You can see they're mostly twos, twos and threes, bedrooms, the
number of units, and then we, like I said, we were able to tell find out how many children live in these particular developments. And um the overall yield is.132, but the one in red is Fox Hollow. That's the largest yield of all
the um townhouse developments, which is 395. We did the same thing for apartments, but unfortunately there's not many apartments in Branchburg. One of them is brand new Red Rock Preserve from 2023, which is an affordable, entirely
affordable housing unit apartment complex. Has a very high yield. You can see there 490. That's not totally unexpected because um the research shows that affordable housing units tend to have a higher number of children, public
school children, than market rate units. But you only have one other one to compare in this in this analysis. We also looked at your historical residential construction over time to see um how that plays out. So, some of those you can see about 213 units have
been built in Branchburg since 2020. Um, just to give you an idea of what's been built, um, 75 units in Fox Hollow, 26 units in River Trace, and 100 units in the forementioned affforementioned Red Rock Preserve.
When we look at the home sale distribution over time, what's very interesting, you can see in this graph, this is from 1990 to the present, is that um home sales really increased through the early 2000 period, peaking at 378 sales before declining in the
region in the middle there. That's the housing and um housing market and banking crisis of the late 2000s. And then you can see that home sales have increased uh through the pandemic years of around 2020 and 2021.
But in the last 3 or four years, you can see sales have declined again. This time due to higher mortgage interest rates, which is also causing fewer homes to be put up for sale. So lower inventory as well as higher interest rates.
Okay, moving along to the next slide. It shows you where the sales have occurred just in the last five or six years. The dark blue is the greatest number of sales. So you can see in the center of the township and the northwestern areas of the township are where the greatest
number of sales have occurred. So we did two sets of enrollment projections for you for this 5-year period. One we refer to as baseline and the other one is referred to as adjusted. So baseline only includes developments that are
already under construction. So we exclude developments that are proposed or approved but are yet to start construction. And the reason we do that is because we definitely want to include things that are under construction because it's going to happen. But
sometimes as you as I just mentioned in the outset, we were here three three and a half years ago and we're still talking about some of these developments and we don't want to overinflate our projections. So the adjusted which is the following one takes into
consideration every single development regardless of their construction status. So think of that as a worst case scenario. Regardless, enrollments are projected to increase throughout the projection period. And you can see um in the baseline numbers, we're talking
about a gain of 228 students and 370 students with the um uh adjusted and that is based upon you see that CSR 5ear that is going to be we use an average of the five-year ratios when we do that
adjusted projection. So when we break it out by enrollment, grade configuration, you can see we which is really by school. Um really no school gets spared um regardless which one you want to look at, there are gains
across the board. Uh let's just take a look at the adjusted because I would like to think that the developments that we've been talking about tonight are going to be constructed. But you can see that uh the pre-K to3 school um Whiten is going to have the largest gain
followed by Stonybrook and the middle school roughly around the same amount. So how is that going to impact your capacities? Well, first let me show what this table is. This is somewhat it looks very easy but it's also a little bit
complicated because the the the the problem here is the the column that says capacity and the capacity value of a school which we get from your long range facility plan and your architect is based on how you're currently using the
building and a capacity value can change from year to year in a school district. If you decide to make more of your gened classes, which may educate 20 or 22 children, and make them into special needs or gifted and talented or English language learner programs, which have
smaller um caps on the room size, uh the student size, you will lower the capacity. So, just keep that in mind that these are how you're using it currently. So, we compared the capacity to your current enrollment and we took the difference. If it's in red, you have
what's called unhoused students or a shortage of students or inadequate seating, however you want to put it. So, Whiten currently has 33 unhoused students. They're a surplus at the other two schools. Fast forward 5 years. Now, these values for projected enrollment that you're
seeing here are the worst case scenario projection enrollments from the adjusted projection. of the higher values and you can see Whiten would have a significant number of unhoused students in 2030. Stonybrook would be nearing capacity and
you would still have room at the middle school. So wrapping up tonight's presentation, I would just like to give a brief summary that yes, enrollments are projected to increase in the next five years and there's really three reasons why. First,
you've had an increasing birth rate in the last four years. Two, there is addition of more housing units coming online. Um, and three, you have an inward migration of students. And the inward migration, as Megan alluded to earlier, is due to the ratios, the
progression ratios. There's nine of them from birth to kindergarten all the way up to seven to eight. Eight of nine on on average are above one. So, you're gaining students moving into the um the school district. So bullet number two um potential for
greater deficit seating at Whiten by the end of the projection period a very large deficit. Um and three while enrollments are projected to increase due to the new housing you really should be monitoring the status of these proposed developments because if these pro if these developments are not
constructed in the next 5 years like almost has not happened and since we've been here last the projected increase in enrollments would be less. Um, but I it sounds like some of these are definitely going to happen. But again, you should be continuing to monitor um because even
our projections we assumed in the last report would occur probably in year two or three of the projection period and here you know four and a half years later still nothing's happened at least in terms of getting children in them. So with that I would open it up for
questions from the board. Yeah. Um I I have a question. Um >> you probably need to use the microphone. >> Sorry. Can you hear me? >> Yes. >> Yeah. So um I was just trying to correlate what you u one of the slides you mentioned that um the number of the
population is only going up by a thousand between now and 2050. Right. I think it was an earlier slide. So I'm just trying to how figure out how that correlates to an increased need or increased number of let's say students
necessarily. Um I'm just trying to correlate that with that. Well that's that's a great question. So that's kind of why I gave that disclaimer earlier that this is from a third party agency called the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority. In my
opinion, I think that's very low. Um, but I'm telling you what other people are saying about the population in the township. Not that I believe it. Um, so, uh, I'm going to give you I'm giving you this value here with a grain of salt. Okay? Because the reason why I'm asking
is because, you know, we went through a referendum process and, you know, we're also getting challenged, right, by the fact that, hey, how do we know what the future's going to hold, right? So that that's why that piece of information it's more of like it feels like it's not supporting the rest of the presentation.
That's all. >> Sure. And I understand that. Um and and for the detractors out there um you know first of all people also have to understand a couple things. Um when they see a gain of a thousand people like that, the question is well where are they gaining? Are is it all in one age
demographic on the 65 and over or is it somewhere else? you know, so it this doesn't tell you, you know, where that gain is projected to occur. I don't have the data on that. So, um I also will challenge anyone with that stating that
you cannot really go by one of these graphs because a thousand person gain does not mean it's unilaterally across the age distributions. Secondly, when we deal with data, um the the key data is your enrollment data.
Um, this is telling a story and particularly this one over here. This is the elementary, middle, and I'll call it the inter im intermediate school in Stonybrook. But take a look at 2020 when you bottomed out in prek to 3. You've
been nothing but increasing since 2020. And you know what that's that means is that your upper level schools are going to get those increasing cohorts over time. Um, it it may not jive what you with the other slide that you just
mentioned, but it really doesn't need to because this one stands alone all by itself. >> Got it. Thank you for that. I just have a followup. Um, so the other thing is that I noticed is I I like the analysis that you did with the uh the comparison of the kindergarten versus 8th grades
and the ins and outs and so forth. What's a better way to predict or is there a way to predict let's say um folks that move into the community versus moving out of the community? Yeah, that's a great question. Um, so we we do an analysis for some clients when
there we were asked to. This was not one of the things picked up by the board in terms of um the options we did for the study. We do a sophisticated housing turnover analysis um where we look at sales rates of homes
over time and we do a projection of homes going into the future at various lengths of ownership because what we find is homes that are all that have been held for a very long time and have longer lengths of ownership don't have many children in them as you would
imagine. They they've already graduated from the district. So we do an analysis. Unfortunately, that was just not something uh that was selected by by the board. >> Pivoting off what you just said, that's exactly what I wanted to bring up. If you can go back to the slide that shows
the home sales in Branchburg, that'd be helpful. There it is. You'll see that we're at an all-time low for home sales right now, which means we have a bottleneck of inventory that's going to be coming on the market as those individuals retire out. The current ratio for the single
family homes which those are single family homes because we didn't have the apartment complexes at that time. Current ratio you have for the single family homes is the lowest at 0.2 something per single family home. People come to our community to grow their families. They come and the people that
are leaving don't have their families under the same roof at this point. That's why they leave. How do we predict what that ratio is going to be for all those single family homes that are ultimately going to be brought onto the market at some point in the next 10 years or so as people retire
and they move move on? >> So I did not see that number projected in your analysis. >> Looks like he's frozen. >> He's very good at staying still. Stump the
>> See if Megan can get him to open up a little bit here. >> It's interesting balloon quickly. Oh, just let me know that his computer decided to restart, so it'll be a moment.
>> All right. Did he >> Sorry. >> Did you hear everything I just asked? >> I did. Can you repeat the last part? >> All right. So, looking at that chart right now, we have the lowest turnover rate that I see in the entire chart, which means these these are single
family homes. going to be sold at some point which means we have this bottleneck that's happening right now where people aren't selling for whatever reason the environment that's what's happening those homes are going to sell they have to sell um people going to move out of them when their families move out currently our ratio for single
family homes is also very low that ratio is going to blow up as people buy the homes because they're buying homes to expand their family that's why you buy a single family home >> so all of those houses on the they're coming to the market that ratio is not going to be reflective that that ratio
you provide is not going to be accurate to what's coming in and single family homes have the ability to have three four kids. That's why you buy a single family home. So, how do we predict that increase considering you're using the smaller ratio currently because that's
what's currently accurate. How do we predict that higher ratio of what's going to happen to us with that increase? >> Right? I mean, candidly, there's no way to predict selling patterns like that. Even when we do the complex housing
turnover that was alluded to, when we do that, we still use housing turnover rates that are based on historic data and assume that they hold constant throughout the projection period. So, unfortunately, there's no great way to tell, like I said, just what the selling
patterns are going to be. You're totally right about um that influx of people selling homes and then coming in. It's also another reason why even though we don't include say age restricted homes
because we know or apartments because we know they're going to have not going to have students, there's still the question of well someone might want to sell their home and downsize into an apartment which would then maybe a family would move into their prior home.
Unfortunately, there's just really no way for us to tell what those sell selling patterns are going to look like. >> So, >> I hope that's sort of answered it. >> Well, it's comes back. >> I'm looking more longterm. More long term rather than the selling patterns
and exactly when that's going to hit. Just understanding that it will hit us and that we have to prepare our community to be able to support those students that are going to come in 10 years because of that turnover into single family. Um, so that's where I'm getting a little bit hung up on this.
>> My apologies. >> And I'm back. Brand new computer and it decided to for whatever reason just absolutely shut down with a Windows error. So, uh, >> I'm done. >> Um, I'm sorry. What was the question again? >> All right, I'll ask again because you,
uh, unfortunately your computer failed on you. All right. So, what I was struggling with with your presentation was the lowest ratio of u of children in homes was a single family home. Also, we have the lowest inventory of single family homes on the market right now.
So, we know those homes are going to have to turn over at some point. >> Our population is aging. It looks like they're more 50 55. That means their children are probably going to be aging out of high school soon. And those single family homes are ultimately going to go on the market. >> Um there's no reason to hold a house if your kids have moved on. So that single
family home ratio that we're using to project based off how many homes we have in Branchburg in my mind is not reflective of what we're actually going to get in the next 5 10 years because those houses will turn over ultimately. So how do we project that increase which
is not currently accounted for in your numbers? Well, I'm going to stop and and go back a little bit with what you said because um I've been doing this since before the millennium, so 1998. And I was doing
this type of work when we had the last big shutdown in the housing market, which was in the 2008 to 2012 period. And I had a lot of people that said exactly what you just said was that we have a lot of we're going to have a lot of pent up demand. we're going to have a
lot of seniors moving out um and a lot of families moving in. And I can tell you it did not happen. um you will get seniors that'll move out in good periods and bad periods but the issue that we're finding is that a lot of seniors like to
age in place and partly it's because and I know property taxes are high but they have family members that are nearby they have grandchildren they're very entrenched in their community with their churches or friends and things like that so you may think that you're going to
have an exodus as soon as when this housing market turns turns around, but it's not going to happen. It's it's going to be like it has been over the last um you know 25 years. And the reason I can tell you this is because we didn't do this analysis for your
district, but we've done it for many others like yours. And what we find is that the the turnover rates of homes, turnover rates meaning selling rates of homes with very long lengths of ownership, I'm saying 30 plus years, is typically under 2% of the homes that are
owned of that particular length of ownership. So I I totally disagree respectfully um that that's going to happen. Um, and I think, you know, even if we did an analysis like that for your district, I don't think that's really
the issue here. I really believe that, um, with the housing stock that's coming on board, um, you're you're going to have certainly a lot of children coming into this district and you have them already. They're already moving through the system. But I I don't I don't think
there's anything in addition that we could provide you from what you said. I think the yields are what they are uh around 479 children. It could change over time, sure. But again, we do yield analysis for districts um 5 years ago
and we do it again currently for a district as an update and we don't find the yields to change hardly at all. >> Okay. So, follow up on that then. We saw on your chart that the average age over the past 10 years of the single family home, I think it was single family homes or the families has increased by what 5
10 years. It was 40 to 45 year olds. Now it's 50 to 55 year olds. >> Yeah. >> That's right. >> So is that ratio of single family homes? Do you do it all over the area? If you found a similar environment, similar township as Branchburg, but that age
group was the 40 to 45 year old was the main age group. Is that ratio higher or or same as ours? >> Similar almost identical because what we see and you have an aging community. There's no question about it. We've talked about the median age, but I I would definitely um compare you. I'm not
going to give specific names of districts, but you're very similar to a lot of districts in Morris County that we work with. Um highly educated, affluent, and older. Um and those are the three things that you would see in and we looked at a population age
structure of some of their districts uh as compared to yours. >> All right, understood. >> Question for you. Can you hear me? Yes. >> Um, your analysis takes into account the last 10 years of information.
That last 10 years includes the COVID drop, shall we call it? >> Correct. >> What would the difference in your analysis look like if you just looked at the last five years and projected that forward another five?
>> So, we used the last five. Um, so when we do our projections, like I think we mentioned to you, we take an average of a number of years. It's actually we took the average from the last four or five years. We didn't go back 10. Um, so
we're looking at the period of time most recent to your district post pandemic, which we think is the best indicator of what your projections would look like going forward. >> Okay. And just to follow up, one of your slides showed I think it was 1347 new
units with a yield of over 300 students. >> Yes. >> That percentage, you know, just quick math in my head, comes out to about 23 or 24%. But the rest of your analysis was based on a lower number.
So does that should that tell us something that as we move forward that that yield number will increase or will it stabilize at the lower number that you use? So uh now we'll get into the weeds a little more. Um so when we project the
number of children it's our job to determine what we think are good comps to determine um what would be uh specific developments that might be typical the similar ones that are coming on board. So uh let's see you know I
don't have that in front of me but I believe the yields that we use for the affordable units that are coming up were from Red Rock Preserve. So in Red Rock Preserve there were 49 children PK to 8 in the 100 units. So that's 49. So that
was the the yield we used for all the affordable apartment units coming online cuz you have a really good comp I'll call it from real estate um to use. And then we used um some of the yields that you're getting from North Branch right now because the assumption is all right
you have a pretty robust amount of children already from North Branch. we can figure out the rest of them um based upon the yield that we're getting from that particular um development. So when we talk about the three yields, the single family, townhouse, and condo,
that's averages for the whole community for those three different types of housing stock. But when we project the children, we dig down a little deeper. We're not using the averages. we may use comps that are similar to what's coming in because very often if you use the
average then you're taking in housing stock from say garden apartments that you know from 30 years ago have a very different yield. So or or same thing with the town houses some older town homes maybe a different bedroom distribution than what's coming in. So all those things have to be considered
when we figure out which yield to use to project the number of children. >> Yeah. And that's kind of what I was getting at because almost all of the new construction coming in over the next five years planned projected started are those multistack units
>> with almost no single family coming in. Which is why I asked whether you use the higher yield or the lower because the trend of housing is moving towards that higher yield and that lower yield is almost irrelevant because there's no new
single family houses coming in. Well, so we uh to to answer your question, we use the yields of the comparable recently constructed um developments in your community, which we think is and most people agree would
be the best way going forward. Yes. >> Thank you, >> Dr. Griff. If you can just also um we had a conversation regarding while the demographic study was K8 um and we did not include the 912
uh I had asked if you could do a um just a rough idea for our 912 while yes we don't they're not going to be housed in our schools we do have to pay for them for tuition transportation you know as we're doing a demographic and we're looking at these housing units um can
you just maybe just talk a little bit about the numbers also that you gave with regard to 912. >> Yeah, sure. So, um, that's Christine, I'm assuming, right? >> Yes. >> Okay. So, yes. Um, we obviously don't have yields based upon your student
addresses because you know, you have K to8 population. So for the 9 to2 estimation, we used those Ruckers statewide average multipliers I mentioned earlier tonight and that would be an additional 141 students 9 to 12.
Um and then that would be for budgetary purposes of course um with Somerville High School something to consider going forward. And and we also talked about what the yield would be, the total yield of of the red rock unit,
>> right? So um I think it's an extra 24 children you had in grades 9 to 12. So if you add the 24 9 to 12 to the 49 PK to 8, you know, you're looking at 73 children
in a 100 unit complex. That's a yield of 73. So yes, that that is pretty significant. But again, we did use that type of yield going forward in our analysis. So it is all captured here. >> Thank you.
>> Any questions? >> Okay. Well, thank you very much. Really appreciate the the presentation insights. um really has helped us particularly as we are you know moving forward making some determinations about our referendum. This analysis really
helps to provide uh information detailed analysis of our enrollment as we move forward. >> Thank you very much for your time and have a good evening. >> Thank you. Thank you. All right. Bye >> bye. Okay.
Okay. >> Just on that like you mentioned like in response to one of my questions there was part of it was not in scope or something like that. You said that there was a part that wasn't in scope. Should we entertain that in the future or is it not worth it?
>> Um I remember thinking exactly the same thing. I didn't catch what it was, but I think it had to do with the ratios and turnover of the housing market. >> And that's exactly what I was hung up on. >> So, I'd love that to be added, but >> we can discuss that.
>> Yeah, we can we can take a look at see what >> see what I mean. It's an additional cost, you know, that's involved with it, but based on the fact that he's done, you know, all this work already. He's got a lot of that information. is now digging deeper into um but we can get the specs on what it
is that he would do and see if that's what we're looking at. >> Yeah, if it's worth it. I I would think it is right because in terms of that was just one I didn't see that we didn't see that in the presentation though specifically. So yeah, hopefully it's material enough that we can then utilize it for the future. Well, I'll just point
out something that was interesting on the graph where he showed the housing sales where he said, "Oh, the last time the housing sales crashed was 2008 to 2012, which is where that last big dip was." What you should have mentioned to him is that when you hit 2013 is when
that next big jump came in, which is what your point was. >> Yes. Yes. >> So again, I think it would be beneficial to see that analysis >> and also the rates too. I mean that it's this is temporary right now, right? Rates could go in a different direction
as well. That's to use that go up even more. >> Okay, we're going to move on to uh our next uh student safety data uh system report again on a uh twice a year we need to do this presentation and so
speak specifically about violence, vandalism and it's a state report uh as well as hib. So I've asked uh Mr. Ran to come and share with us the details of the SSDs report, >> all the uh the positive things that go on in here. So, we've got our our
student safety data system and I just want to point out that all of this is from September to the end of December. Um and so, as we keep going forward, just keep in mind um that this runs through the end of December and all of the other data points that are from previous years also keep that September to December time frame. So, that way we
can compare apples to apples as we're going forward. Um as Dr. Burton had mentioned this is something that we have to do twice a year. Um we submit all of this data to the state. Um and this includes our stuff of violence, any
vandalism, weapons, substance abuse, abuse, uh and as well as HIV incidents. It also includes restraints or seclusions that we use on our students. Um these are what we do in case of kind of crisis in order to be able to protect
our students from themselves and others. Um so our staff that engage in these restraints are all trained through um the crisis prevention institute on crisis prevention really in the hope of trying to reduce those restraints but in the case that they do happen to make
sure that we are not hurting students right that we're um engaging in holds that are going to be um safe for them as well as the student within there. um and most of those occur within our special ed classes um and with our special ed um
uh staff as well and those that that serve that population. So as we look through our numbers um this is all for this year from our violence um we had two incidents at BCMS. For vandalism we had one at BCMS. There were been no cases of weapons or
substance abuses at any of the three schools. for seclusion and restraint. We have three from BCMS, one at Stonybrook and one at Whiton. >> One question. >> Yes, please. >> Can you tell us what the violence means?
>> So, in in that case, it was um assault. So, there was two cases of assault um at the middle school. >> So, just a comment, I'm surprised like zero on the substances. Has that been for years like this or is it just something that was instituted over the
last like some procedures you guys implemented? >> It has been generally very low within single digits um from the data that I looked at and remembered. I don't remember the specific numbers of those but I can I can send them to you from the years past. Um but it's not something that has been a big jump or
change. Um it's all been fairly low. >> Precisely. Yes. So it's it's illegal substances that have been found. So, of whatever that might be, such as as vaping or cigarettes or or other illegal substances. Moving on to suspensions. Um, this has
two years. So, you can see where we were last year as well as where we are this year. The columns in blue are this year. The ones in white are from the previous year. At Whiten, um, we've had not had any suspensions over the last two years. Last year at Stonybrook, there was one. So far this year, we've not had any.
BCMS, we had a total of 26 last year. It has dropped down to six this year. Um the categories that the suspensions at BCMS are are kind of listed onto there. Um the inschool suspension has been because of theft instigations, insubordination, inappropriate language,
and as we said, those those two um uh violence categories that also were suspended was because of the assault. And I wanted to put this quote by Mr. captain um who along with Dr. Stanton have done a wonderful job of really reducing the number of suspensions in
the middle school. Uh and a large part of that um is tied to our code of conduct and how it's been implemented and the fact that it really has been a series of of steps within the process so that the students, the parents, the teachers, the counselors,
the administrators are all different parts along those steps so that behavior is not escalating beyond what it should be. And so we're able to really contain that and really make sure that we're addressing the behavior where it belongs um so that any small kind of thing doesn't become a bigger problem and lead
to a suspension. So that's been a wonderful work across the district. Now I'm going to jump into HIVs which is harassment, intimidation and bullying. There is a very specific legal definition. Um, I know most of you on the board uh are very familiar with
this, but for those that are not, um, we do have this really, really specific definition. Um, the exact wording can be found in policy 5512, so on the website. Uh, you can easily find it there. But one of the there's four really big key points that need to happen. Um, it's
just to be clear into there, it can be a single or a repeated action. So, it doesn't have to be something that is constantly repeated. It could just be a one-time situation. It needs to be motivated by a distinguishing characteristic. So something that really sets that person apart. It needs to
cause a substantial disruption to the educational or rights of that student. And it also needs to cause harm to that victim. They need to be impacted in some way. So when we look at our numbers again, we've got our blue column that is this year. The white column is from last year within Whiten. Um actually before
we get there, I'll kind of talk about the different rows going across. So our cases investigated are ones that we are actively having um conversations, interviews. We are really looking into exactly what is happening. Um we then break that down
into alleged cases. Those are ones where there is no founded um instance of HIV versus our confirmed cases where it was founded that it was an incident that met the definition of HIV. We also have preliminary determinations which are done by the
principles. So they will take a report of bullying or harassment or intimidation at face value and see if it meets there. So before we investigate, before we determine whether anything is true, we look at it and say if it was true with everything that was stated in
this in this report was true, would it meet the definition? And if it doesn't, right off the bat, we know, hey, this is not going to meet those three different prongs. we can preliminary determine it where we put it to the side and we don't do that full investigation. If something was to come up later on, it would then
come back and be filed as an HIV. So those are ones that we just we don't do as much of that process because from the very beginning we can see it's not going to hit those prompts. And then at the bottom it's the overall total report. So though both those that were investigated and the preliminary
um you can see through there at Whiten um we had one last year we had three this year although two of them were preliminary determinations so it was only kind of one case investigated um between those two years. Stonybrook again is is pretty similar with that um with a a discrepancy in the preliminary
determinations for our investigated cases. It was 13 last year, 12 this year. Um, but there was a lot more preliminary determinations last year. At BCMS, um, we have a reduction in cases investigated um, by eight numbers, which
is which is great. Um, so we we're seeing a big reduction into there. Um, and very few preliminary determinations. Um, and across the district, you can see those numbers as well. >> This is just 2526 is still not finished right now. >> Correct. This is just from September to
December. And again, that's the same in the 2425 year. So it is those numbers are just from September to December of 242 24 precisely. So that's why it's it's apples to apples. It's not full year versus half year. >> Got it. Thank you. >> Yep. When I come back at the end and we
do the full year, I'll do the same thing. So we're looking at full years and full years. For right now, this is just that that kind of fall to early winter time frame. Thanks. >> Here's a nice little graph that goes a little bit further back to 2022. So, you can see particularly at BCMS, we had a
big spike in 2023 that is since kind of tapered off. Um, and across the board, you can see that the the numbers for our HIVs are lower than they were in 2022. This is our motivation categories. So, as we file our HIVs, we also look at at
what that distinguishing characteristic might be about. Um, this is really helpful for us to determine long-term trends so that we can really focus on training, prevention, really helping us to determine what our programming goes forward. Um, the largest section in that
bottom left is no identifiable characteristic. So, a lot of this is the reason that it does not become a founded HIV is because it doesn't have a distinguishing characteristic into there. might just be um you know inappropriate behavior done um done by a
student but it's one in which it's not specifically about that characteristic. There's two cases that were about color or race. One of them was about a student's voice and then 10 of them were about appearance that wasn't directed at
a protected category but still had to deal with that appearance. So some measure of appearance of that person um just not necessarily in a protected category. So overall why did we see a little bit of this decrease in number of cases reported? Um one of the big things that
we've been doing over the last couple of years is really our student survey and data analysis which has been primarily done through um Panorama. And this has allowed us to really help focus on building our classroom and school communities. Um, better understanding where our student needs are so that we
can really reinforce the relationship skills that our students have and and helping them build them and and work with them. Um, and really helping us to uh teach these emotional intelligence skills so that students can resolve conflicts in productive ways. our revised code of conducts as we mentioned
earlier uh it's really helped our students kind of really take an ownership of their own actions and recognizing oh hey I can't do this otherwise here are some consequences that are going to come about um which can really help again kind of nip that in the bud and and really help us
address actions before they get serious we've also had some wonderful trainings um the BAF funded the BMX styled action sports which was a anti-bullying um event earlier this year so we've gotten some some wonderful support from some of our our parent funded things as
well. Speaking of trainings and programs, uh we also kind of report the different ones that we have done throughout again just this first part of the year. Trainings are specific instances. So, it's a one-time event that goes on whereas our programs are
ones that are going to be repeated over a period of time. Uh so, it's not quite as cut and dry. Some of our trainings that we've had include training our anti-bullying specialists, making sure they're they're really aligned to what we are looking for. Student HIV trainings, uh, full staff trainings to
to go over laws and and things along those lines. We've had programs such as the start with hello week, our week of respect in October, schoolwide lessons, and uh, many of our we have school climate and safety meetings which are also required as part of the HIV law where we will meet regularly to review
this data. It includes parents on that committee uh to really address and understand what's going on, how we can address that in each of the schools. >> Question. Yes. >> So, if I have a a child coming through the system at like what's the earliest
age are we like kind of dealing with this with HIPS? In other words, until like they do something wrong, then we don't we we we can't categorize anything, right? Like, but how do we how do we how do we address that? And and how early do we address something? We have guidance lessons starting in
kindergarten. They're going to absolutely be age appropriate. So, it is not talking about, you know, uh the challenges of bullying and going through the the full law of it, but those are really geared towards how we're interacting with with each other. Um you know, starting with kindness, saying
hello, right? Really thinking about the values that that we can pull out into there. So, we do start those conversations as early as kindergarten and bring them all the way up through the district. Um, and that's really done through our counselors as well as our school climate teams as well and school safety teams.
So, what comes next from this? Um, looking at these, we're going to continue surveying our students, staff, and families. We found that's really really helpful. Um, so continuing on with our our panorama and our MJ sky, which we'll be picking up as well. Really taking that data to review what's going on, what does it tell us about it? Uh, so that we can really continue to
build those relationships and focus on connections and helping our teachers within there. We're going to continue looking at our code of conduct, really making sure that we're evaluating um how it's working and and how we can provide training to make sure that our staff, our students, our parents are really understanding everything within there to
continue to see that growth uh of reduced numbers within here. Uh and we're currently looking to start some trials for a district-wide emotional intelligence program. um looking to towards next year for a full-time implementation, but in the meantime, we're looking to trial some of those
programs to better understand how they can support us as we move forward. >> Is the training mandatory or is it like voluntary and is it throughout for all the administration or certain parts of the administration? >> Training in what aspect? >> Like when you when you say provide
training for like code of conduct and other things like that? Yeah, I think this is something that is going to be done on a school-by-school basis to really identify where is it within our code of conducts that it's being supportive. Where are our parent where are staff struggling with how to
interpret it or understand it? Those are those conversations that we will continue to have so that we can better provide that training. >> Right. When we're thinking about our HIV stuff, we do have mandatory HIV training that every staff has to take for legal
reasons, but as well as our own that we are putting forward to make sure that our our staff understands the HIV stuff. >> Is that like once a year or is that how frequent is that roughly? Is it do you have to take it once and you're done? So every year we will do at the beginning of the year we go over all of our
procedures of how to identify HIV cases, how to report them, what are your required procedures, what are you required by law to do, all of that stuff. That will happen in the beginning of the year. Throughout the year though, we will have other trainings um to deal with more
prevention issues of how do we kind of handle our students? How do we identify situations that not might not be appropriate and what do we do moving forward within there? So, it's a little bit of both is we've got some that are definitely required um by law and
that'll be once a year as well as trainings throughout the year that can be both required through faculty meetings as well as optional. >> Yeah, that that gives at least me more comfort that like as a board member, right, that all of this is going on. So, I appreciate that. >> You're welcome. >> NJ Sky.
>> Yes. Is it replacing panorama or in addition to it? >> So it is uh currently we are uh wrapping up with panorama this year and we are onboarding and getting started with NJ sky. So we're looking to get the spring
to do the NJ sky but panorama panorama is sort of fading out. It's wrapping up this school year and we're going to be moving into using NJ sky. But will we be able to migrate the panorama data into NJ Sky so we don't lose that last year or so of history?
>> Yes, we will make sure that we're keeping all of that panorama data um that will not disappear from us. We will make sure that we're capturing that so that any analysis that we want to do moving forward we can keep. >> But will it be two separate data sources or will it all be combined into NJ Sky?
No, it'll be NJ Sky is a different >> different survey, but you'll but we have the data. Okay. I think to your point, but it is it's a different survey. It's for the different program >> and NJ Sky supported by Ruckers >> Microsoft. >> Yes.
>> So, do we get any additional >> It's free. >> It's free. Do they do anything special for us in the program? >> Yeah, absolutely. So, we actually were um part of a cohort. So, we applied um and we were accepted as part of a cohort to get lots of free trainings. I was
actually in one this morning for um a couple of hours with a uh community of practice where we get to be connected to other districts that are also involved in the NJ Sky project and and be able to kind of share how we can best implement it and uh analyze data and and really use it to to benefit our district.
>> Additional resources too. >> Yeah. Awesome. Any other kind of questions or clarifications I can make for you all? >> No, good work. >> Great job. All right. Thank you. >> Thank you very much.
>> Appreciate the question. >> Okay, just a couple additional items. Um, you want my >> Yeah, please. >> Okay. Okay. Um, good evening. And I do have just a couple of things just a mentioning um specifically um of late
the HA uh HVAC issue at Sony Brook and the Whiten Whiten uh sprinkler system issue. Um we've had a over the past few weeks we've had we've been able to successfully manage several of these emergencies impacting really the overall safety in our schools. Again, we remain
committed to sharing pertinent information uh as quickly as possible when these types of emergencies occur uh during the event during the event and we often will speak to how quickly or how um further down the road as we get more information we will share them out and
we ask for again we really appreciate the cooperation uh with the guidance that we give provided to ensure a secure environment. A lot of times when you have an emergency at a school, parents immediate reaction is to go to their run to the school to pick up their kid. And we want to be able to make sure that we give you enough information that we have
under control, the situation is fine. If if need be, as we needed to do in Stonybrook, we may need to move kids. We're constantly and always how do we maintain a level of safety, security for our staff and students at all times, but again, keeping parents in the loops that they understand what's going on. Again,
I do want to thank um the Branchburg Police and Fire Departments as they've been an integral part of helping with the managing these situations as well as our dedicated staff, students, custodians, and bus drivers again for all their support in managing the circumstances to keep our schools safe. On the agenda this evening uh is the
ratification of the agreement with the Branchird Teachers uh Township Education Association for teachers um uh custodial instructional staff. I mean all that are under the BTEA. Uh it's been many hours of work to bring forth this resolution and we want
to thank the negotiation team of the board uh the of the association headed by uh Randy Childs who's here this evening. Our labor attorney uh Isabelle Machado, our Borick office, there's many administrators including Miss Vorhees, Miss Yard for all their efforts to bring
a final contract to fruition for a vote this evening. Uh do want to just give a quick budget update uh on the budget process. We've received the allocations from the increases in our health and benefits for pres and prescriptions. Uh after
tonight, we'll have the salaries and we'll be able to then comb through the budget with our budget managers to address additional areas that we'll need to trim to get to a balanced budget. Uh we are hearing that the timeline for the budget submission process may be changing. Uh and so we'll keep you
posted on the timeline for the budget submission process, but we're we're um myself, Miss Warhees, uh we are committed to getting to the uh we still do have our board meeting on March 19th and getting it finished by March 19th. We'll see what the actual push the
button time is. Do want to just remind just to the public that the kindergarten registration uh for the 26 27th school year is still continuing the rest of this month. Parents with children five years or older uh at uh October 1st of this year will be eligible for entrance into kindergarten. And again, take a
look at the uh website with all the additional information. And then finally on the agenda this evening, the board will be accepting donations of hoodies, hats, and gloves from the Branchburg and Somerville Bridgewater Rotaries. Uh classroom sensory kits from the donor's shoes, and the NJ STEM pathways donated
a 3D printer valued at $500. And the Branchburg PTO uh donated the ninja experience that our Stony Brook kids are very much uh looking forward to uh at a value of $3,000. We uh thank all of our generous donations from our partners.
And that concludes my report. Thank you very much. We will move on to public comment on agenda items only and we will move right past public comment on agenda items only. Okay. Uh then we'll move on to governance. Um I
just have a brief report about the superintendent search. We have since the last meeting conducted our first and second round interviews and next Tuesday we'll be conducting our final round interview. So, as we progress further,
we will hopefully at some point um have a candidate that rises to the top and be able to present them before the end of the year. Um we also have some voting items. We have one approval of minutes, two approval of HIP investigative report and three approval of HIP findings
report. Can I have a motion to move those? >> Motion. >> Second and Megan. Um any questions or comments? Can I have a roll call, please? >> Mr. Blowsteen. >> Yes. >> Dr. Celebrity. >> Yes. >> Mr. Hollowbeck.
>> Abstain from three, but yes to the other two. >> Mr. Christian Mury. >> Yes. >> Miss Smith. >> Abstain from one and three. Yes to two. >> Mr. Tuma. >> Yes. >> Mr. Saw has left. Mr.
here. >> Yes. Next up is policy. Um I wasn't anticipating that Mr. Desai would not be here at this point. So I don't necessarily have a report. I don't know if anybody can speak to the um
second or first reading items that we have on there. If you want to elaborate at all. Um I'll just mention on uh second reading is uh the revisions to policy 5600 student discipline and code of conduct. Again as Mr. uh Rand mentioned that has been a total overhaul
of the uh code of conduct. So we're looking at the final approval of that. And then the first reading we've made some just minor uh revisions to 7510 which is the use of school facilities specifically as we uh any entity who
would like to be able to use our facilities and is designated as a nonforprofit. We've gave the specific uh ways in which they demonstrate through documentation that they are nonfor-profit status. Um and so we just incorporated that into the the policy and we're looking at a first reading on that.
>> Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Can uh so we have two voting items. We have one policy and regulation second reading and two policy and regulations first reading. Can I have a motion to move those? >> Motion. >> Megan. Any questions or comments? >> Can I have roll call, please?
>> Mr. Blouse. >> Uh Epstein. >> Dr. Celebrity. >> Yes. >> Mr. Hollandbeck. >> Yes. >> Mr. Krishna Murdy. >> Yes. Miss Smith. >> Yes. >> Mr. Truma. >> Yes. >> Mr. Carpenter. >> Yes.
>> Next up is curriculum and instruction. >> Our first meeting is not until March. >> Thank you very much. We have some voting items. We have one conferences and travel. Two, approval of revision of out of district program. Three, approval of service agreement. Four, approval of
2526 out of district program. And five, approval of revision of contracted service. Can I have a motion to move those? >> Motion. >> Second. >> Nice. Got in the head. Uh, any questions or comments?
>> Can I have a roll call, please? >> Mr. Blousey? >> Yes. >> Dr. Celebrity? >> Yes. >> Mr. Hollowbeck? >> Yes. >> Dr. Christen Murdy? >> Yes. >> You're a doctor now. Mr. Christie. >> I apologize. >> Call me late for dinner. >> Miss Smith?
>> Yes. >> Mr. Tuma? >> Yes. >> Mr. Carpier? Yes. Next up is personnel. Mr. Helmet, >> no report for our first meetings on March 5th as well. >> Okay. Awesome. Thank you. We have voting items. We have a one approve one approval of extra duty pay. Two,
approval of retirements. Three, approval of personnel. Four, approval of teacher academy. Five, approval of revision of additional extracurricular aid. Six, approval of leave. Seven, approval of athletic stipen. Eight, approval of mentoring. Nine, approval, revision of leave. 10, approval of substitutes. 11,
approval of additional extracurricular activity A. And 12, ratification of agreement between the Branchburg BOE and Branchburg Township Education Association. >> Yeah. >> Can I have a a motion to move those? >> Motion.
>> Second. >> I'm sorry. Who said that? >> Uh, Natal. >> Any questions, comments? Can I have a roll call, please? >> Mr. Blouse. Yes, >> Dr. Celebrity. >> Yes, >> Mr. Halenbeck. >> Yes, >> Mr. Krishna Murdy.
>> Yes, >> Miss Smith. >> Yes, >> Mr. Tuma. >> Yes, >> Mr. Carpenter. >> Yes. Moving on to finance and facilities. Mr. Tum, do you have a report? >> We have a brief report. Um, the finance and facilities committee met last
Thursday. Um, quite an active agenda with quite a number of items discussed. Um, some things to bring to the board's attention is there was an administrative review of our food services which passed with flying color. So, congratulations to Mashios on doing a great job. We had
a discussion about the facilities use policy. We are going to delay implementation of the new policy until July 1st, giving us enough time to send letters to the various organizations to notify them of the ongoing changes. We
are also going to wave any prior fees and clear the slate for a lack of a better way to put it to so when the new policies come into effect that'll be from a point forward with no noise from previous issues. Uh if anyone has any
questions you can reach out to me after the meeting and I'll bring you up to date and give you a little more detail. Um we reviewed the demographers report which we saw at tonight's meeting. We did a a quick review of a tentative budget for 2627.
Um we discussed the tuition increase from Somerville a little bit. We'll get into that more as the budget moves forward. Um delays a little bit because the governor's address has been pushed back because it's a new governor because they're allowed more time to prepare their budget presentation. So that
tightens our timeline a little bit. is normally we would have the numbers by now, but since it's a new governor, it's delayed by 30 days, which really tightens the timeline of when we have to submit. So, puts a little more pressure on us to get it done. But just so you're aware that why we're doing that, because
there's a reason there's a new governor and she delayed her budget, her budget report to the legislature. Um, we also discussed solar panels. Um, two issues on the solar panels. The first is we're going to remove the solar panels
from the from the middle school prior to the end of the contract so that we can get the rod grant money spent and replace the roof that needs to be replaced at the middle school. And when the contract does end, I believe you said it was in November, Miss Vorhees. >> Correct. >> So, when the contract does end in
November, we will be removing all solar panels from all of our buildings as the cost analysis was not favorable. Uh we're investigating a new badge system for the schools
and that was it. Thank you. >> If I can just make note the facility use revision and the solar panels we bringing forward a motion for you in March for both of those items. >> Okay. Thank you very much.
Um we have some voting items. We have bill list and payroll. Two, secretary and treasurer reports. Three, line item transfers. Four, approval of donations and grants. Five, approval of revision of shared services agreement. And six, approval of settlement agreement with
Bound Brook Board of Education. Can I have a motion to move those? >> Second. >> Nat and Michael. Um, any questions or comments? Um, I always just like to thank the people who are giving us donations.
That's very, very helpful. The PTO and the BEF especially have always been just and this year. Great resources. So heavily involved. A lot of parent um activity. So thank you to them. Um, anybody else? Can I roll call
please? >> Mr. Blouse? >> Yes. >> Dr. Cabriy? >> Yes. >> Mr. Hollenbeck? >> Yes. >> Mr. Christian Murdy? >> Yes. >> Miss Smith? >> Yes. >> Mr. Tuma. >> Yes. >> Mr. Carpenter. >> Yes. Uh, next up is public comment on any item.
>> You got one. >> Kathy Bonese. I'm here on behalf of uh the negotiating and btea. Want to thank everyone in the room and those that are not in the room for all the help and the continued effort especially Mr. Tuma,
Mr. Chris Marty, and Mr. Carpetier. Thank you very much. And also a shout out for our retirees. Are thankful for our members that are retiring and we welcome >> those new personnel that are coming aboard to um a good district. So thank you.
>> Thank you. >> Okay. Anybody else? I'm going to close public comment. Move on to the board leaison reports. First up is Somerville. >> Great. Somerville had a meeting last month and um we got an update on the referendum on the Somerville side. They
are starting their bid processes. Several of their projects that will affect the high school will be completed in the 2026 year. And then the biggest project at the high school is the new gymnasium building they're putting in
and that will be finished in 2028. So, some of those things will the our high schoolers should start seeing by the end of 2026. And then the second thing was the tuition. Um, last year for Somerville, we paid about 22,000 a student and this
year it has gone up to 25,000 a student. >> I felt the same way. >> That's why I asked for the numbers. Okay, thank you very much. >> Um, PTO, Mr. Mater is not here. I don't have a report. Somerset County Ed Services Commission, we have not met.
Um, New Jersey school school boards. >> Um, there was one thing um that I noticed. Uh, the vice president of legislation for the NJBA um is stepping down. So, they're holding a special election for that. Um, nominations can be made um, uh, I think it was up until
May 16th of this year. Um, and they need to be Oh, no, I'm sorry. They need to be, uh, emailed directly by uh, February 27th, so next week. Uh, if we wanted to nominate someone to take on that
position, which I'm not sure we do, but there it is. >> No, not legislative. No. Uh, Branchburg Township. >> Um, the brief report. I watched the last
township committee meeting on TV. Uh, no real items of impact to the board. Attended coffee with the mayor this past Saturday. Talked to the new mayor. Kind of got a feel for what he's looking for in the town. He's um adamant on controlling any
development beyond what's already been approved. We'll see if that holds. Um but otherwise again the main focus of the meeting and the people that attended was basically the housing and the impact that it would have on the town. Again nothing directly related to the board.
>> Can I ask you a question? So what is the impact that those people are concerned about if it's outside of like traffic patterns? >> Traffic patterns, public safety. >> Okay. >> Recreation, right? >> A lot of comments about White Oak being like overrun on weekends and very little
room. So, they're concerned about space, right? Open space, how they going to convert open space into active recreation space, that type of stuff. So, interesting conversations, but nothing that really impacts us. >> Okay. Thank you, sir.
>> I I actually I'm sorry. I had something that kind of came to mind while we were doing the demographic report. Now, just this um some of these proposed um apartment complexes were proposed as 55 and older and have now changed specifically Cornerstone over here by
the municipal plaza. Um so is there any how who governs how that's used and how is there any >> that's only changed because they took pilot money. So any of the unused apartments that they can't fill um they
can then use them in for low-income housing. >> Yeah, because I know we I know we are getting um children from >> they're adamant that they will never use a pilot program again to take in funding to build. So that shouldn't happen anymore. >> Interesting. Okay. Thank you. >> Cool. Uh BF,
>> I got to make up for some lost time from last meeting. So get ready for this. All right. With the unwavering support of our community, the Branchburg Education Foundation has invested approximately $22,000 back into student enrichment in just a few months. Community
participation in fundraisers, ticket sales, and community events has allowed us to them to proudly say yes to the following. Dialed action sports assembly, wind turbine stem project, 3D printing for tiny techies, drum circle program,
science heroes assembly, author's day experience, and also split with the PTO with the ninja experience. Second item, BF's annual Hershey Park ticket fundraiser is on. Tickets are on sale through March 7th and can be
purchased for $50 each. Normal price is $87.80. Please go to the BF website for it. Uh, third item, join the BEF for a fun night out. I think I mentioned this last time. It's the Roaring 20s themed Murder Mystery Fundraiser on Friday, April
24th. Charlie, you're going to be there, right? Of course. At at Martinsville Gardens in Bridgewater. Tickets are open, still open, and each ticket includes cocktail hour, participation in the murder mystery, dinner, and dancing. Again, go to the BF website. Um, let's
see. Lastly, uh, BEF continues to sell spirit wear blankets themed for Whiten, Stony Brook, BCMS, and Summer High School and Home Sweet Branchburg while supplies last. So, >> thank you. >> I I will just throw out there we we have two of the blankets and they're very
nice. >> Was the dancing after the murder or before? >> Cut out. >> Um, Branchburg seat. I unfortunately don't have a report. Um, no need for a second executive session. Can I have a
motion to adjourn the meeting? >> Motion. >> Second. >> All in favor? I. Thank you.