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. Can I have a roll call please?
Mr. Hollenbeck Miss Joyce here. Mr. Pner Murdy here. Mr. Mater Shaw here. Miss Smith here. Mr. Tuma here. Mr. Desai Mr. Carpetier here. Can we 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, liberty and justice for all. I will hand it over to Dr. Chase for the superintendent's report.
Thank you, Mr. Carpentier. Um, little bit of an update on summer happenings. As we wrap up the summer, our focus is on the new school year. At this point in time, students will return on September 3rd, which is a full day of school. Um, we made the change from a half day to a
full day of school based on the feedback that we received from the community about the number of half days. So, I just wanted to remind everybody of that. Uh, buildings are ready. I saw some staff in already preparing classrooms, which was great. And our bus routes are going to go out to families by the end
of next week. Um, it's also schools have been sending their own communications, so you probably have received that already. And I will be sharing an email shortly, uh, probably next week about the culture and climate work done this summer, which included making updates to
the code of conduct. Uh, I encourage families that once you receive that to review that with your children so that everyone is clear on the expectations as we've been begin the school year. Um, I just want to take a minute to just speak to a couple things since this is my last meeting here in Branchburg. And I want
to thank the people I've worked alongside with every single day. The directors, the supervisors, and the support staff in central office are some of the hardest working and dedicated individuals I've ever worked with in my career. Um, I want to thank the principles for their leadership and
commitment to creating a safe and supportive, welcoming environment for our students so they feel like they belong here. And I want to recognize the teaching and support staff whose daily work in classrooms and across our schools gives Branchburg its strength and ensures that every child is cared
for and able to succeed. Everyone here gives so much above and beyond what they do. Often going working long hours um without any recognition to make sure that the students here are cared for. So I just want to give a heartfelt thank.
I'm going to deeply miss the families here and the students that I see regularly. Um, I also want to thank all of you on the board. I know you give many, many, many hours of your own free time to do this work. And a special thanks to our president, Mr. Carpentier,
who I have been known to text at like as early as 6:30 in the morning and um, who always responds with a lovely good morning. And for Miss Joyce, who was president before him, thank you for welcoming in the district. Um, if I missed anyone, it wasn't at all intentional. Uh, this is a wonderful
district and I know you're going to be in excellent hands with Dr. Bo Burton moving us forward. So, just finally, Branchburg is a really special place and I knew that from day one I came in here and I'm grateful for having to have the privilege of leading it and serving the students, the
families, and the staff here. So, best best of luck. I'm sure this is going to be continue to be an amazing district. That's my report. Thank you very much. Thank you. Um that brings us to uh public comment on agenda items only. The board of
education recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues in school matters of community interest. In support of this position, the law establishes a period of public comment at every board meeting. Individuals wishing to speak must state their name and place of residence. Comments are limited to three minutes per person for
a total of 30 minutes. An individual may speak a second time after all others who wish wish to speak on the topic have been heard. Please understand that our public forums are not structured as question and answer sessions but offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board. All statements shall be directed to the presiding officer and no
participant may address or question board members individually. All speakers are requested to express themselves in a civil manner with due respect for the dignity and privacy rights of others but whose legal rights may be affected. If anybody wishes to come up and speak on any agenda items at this time, please
step forward. Seeing no movement, I will move on to governance. We have um I have just a brief report. Um last night we held our virtual referendum forum. Um Miss Shaw did a
great job. She was the moderator for the discussion. Um I personally thought it was very informative. We had panelists um who spoke on the buildings, the scope of the projects, the financial impact to uh the taxpayers in the town. So, thanks to everybody who participated, everybody
that watched. The video is available on our website. If you go to our website, you can see a little popup that will direct you to the referendum website. Um so, we just really appreciate everybody for your consideration. Uh we realize that this is an investment in our
community and everybody has to weigh that decision carefully um in their own regards. So again, I just want to remind everyone to go and vote on September 16th from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. You can either do it at the municipal building or the station house. Um and if you're
going to vote by mail, just make sure that the uh post date is marked by September 16th. And that is my report. Uh we do have some voting items. We have one approval of minutes, two approval of HIP findings report, three approval of
HIP parental appeal and four approval of revision of 2025 2026 personnel appointments. Can I have a motion to move those items? Motion second. Second. Any questions or comments? Can I have a roll call, please? Miss Joyce, yes.
Mr. Chris Mury, yes. Miss Shaw, uh, yes to one and two and four and no on three. Miss Smith, no on two and three and yes on one and four.
Mr. Tuma, yes on one and four. Abstain on two and three. Mr. Carpetier. Uh abstain on one. Yes to the rest. That brings Oh, sorry. Can I said no when I meant
abstain on number two and three? Yes. Sorry. corrected for the record. Thank you. That brings us to policy. Miss Desai is not here this evening. I have a brief
report in Herstead. We have a few policies on the agenda for first reading which were all um stress as May mandated changes except for the attendance policy um in regulation. There was a discrepancy that was found that needed to be corrected. Um the two new ones are
P2365 which is accept acceptable use of governance or generative artificial intelligence. Um this is a strauss as may recommended this new policy and branchburg is adopting it and aligning it to the best practices and to Somervilles who they have a pretty robust AI
department over there. So we're trying to just follow their practices. Um we also have R5516 which is the use of electronic communication devices. Strauss Esme recommended this new regulation which details the use of cell phones while at
school and the and the discipline if the student does not follow the requirements and we also abolish some policy regulations um obtaining to lice which were recommended by the nurses and some other
medical professionals. Um, we have some voting items. We have one policy and regulations second reading, two policy and regulations abolished, and three policy and regulations first reading. Could I have a motion to move those? Motion. Second.
Any questions or comments? Just a question if there's anything noteworthy with the second reading of some of these items. I notice a lot of it has to do with food and meals. Um the majority of those actually all those recommendation came from our food
service providers and so most of the information in here is a requirement by the state in the department of agriculture. So there's nothing that's going to significantly affect our operations. Got it. Okay. Anybody else?
Can I have a roll call, please? Miss Joyce? Yes. Mr. Chris Mury? Yes. Miss Shaw? Yes. Miss Smith? Yes, Mr. Truma. Yes, Mr. Carpentier. Yes. Next up is curriculum and instruction. Mr. Howenvest is not with us this
evening that I don't believe we've met and there is no report. So, I'll go to the voting items. We have one, conferences and travel. Two, approval of revision of 2025 2026 out of district programs. Three, approval of 2025 2026
out of district program. And four, approval of service agreements. Can I have a motion to move those motion? Second. Any questions or comments on that? Just a quick question on item two where the student was unable to attend ESY.
Does that reduce our cost? Yes, we were going um I'm sorry. Hold on. I have to take my glasses off. Uh Stephanie, I'm sorry. Miss Vorhees remembers worked with Miss Anderson specifically on this issue.
Yeah, went from 140,437 to 12375. Nice. Anybody else? And the cost for the second one went up. Yes. That's how it happens. We're just subject to the contracts that
we get from the providers. And as you we've shared numerous times, these facilities are not capped at the 2% cap, which is something that we're capped to, which is one of the challenges that we're facing on our on our budget. Got it. So that was just a general increase. Yes. Okay.
And if those prices go up, we're still it's not like we can find an alternative. It we have to find the placement that will meet the child's needs. So if we're not able to meet the child's needs and also a lot of these schools um are very heavily enrolled. So oftent times our children are put on wait list or we have
to go to another facility because our children need to be educated. And in addition in this case I believe that the original contract from last year included two months of 2526. So we made the adjustment.
That's why there's such a large increase. Okay. which is why it says cost was put on the 2425 PO. Okay. I I try every opportunity when we're not within the school cycle to fix them to put them within the school cycle so that the money follows the year.
That makes sense. Anybody else? Can I have a roll call, please? Miss Joyce? Yes. Mr. Krishna Murdy? Yes. Miss Shaw? Yes. Miss Smith? Yes. Mr. Tuma? Yes. Mr. Carpier? Yes.
Next up is personnel. Miss Joyce, do you have a report? Uh, the personnel committee has not met since our last board meeting, but um, Miss Yard has done a fantastic job of creating a spreadsheet, which I believe, uh, Dr. Chase has been keeping up to
date. So, the committee and actually the board at any time can take a look at that spreadsheet to see where we are as far as vacancies and um, filling those. So I believe the board has been made aware of most of these if not all of these items.
Thank you very much. So we do have a few voting items. We have one approval of teacher educational specialist evaluation model. Two, approval of principal district leader evaluation model. Three, approval of statement of assurance. Four, approval of 2025 2026
non-athletic stipens. Five, approval of personnel. Six, approval of recision of personnel. Seven, approval of resignations. Eight, approval of additional 2025 2026 ESY positions and hours. Nine, approval of transfers. 10,
approval of 2025 2026 substitutes. 11, approval of additional summer hours. 12, approval of summer teacher academy. 13, approval of staff orientation hours. 14, approval of mentoring. 15, approval
of new revision of job descriptions. Um, can I have a motion to move those? Motion. Second. I've never heard that sound before. I know. Keep looking at what's happening. It's the new air condition. For a new HVAC,
anybody have any questions or comments about any of those items? Um, I just like to say thank you to all the people who are coming in as substitutes. I know that's a hard thing to do and a hard thing for districts to get at this time. So, we appreciate the help. Um, anybody else?
Um, can I have a roll call, please? Miss Joyce? Yes. Mr. Chris Murie? Yes. Miss Shaw? Yes. Miss Smith? Yes. Mr. Chuma? Yes. Mr. Care? Yes. Next up is Finance and Facilities. Mr. Tum, do you have a report? Yeah, we do. Um, the Finance and
Facilities Committee met two weeks ago. um reviewed the items that are on the agenda with want to call out a couple just so people are aware. Uh tonight we'll be approving the transportation joint here with Readington with reciprocal rates. So what we charge them, they will charge us. Uh we're
buying fuel and diesel for the buses for the school year. Um we discussed the revision of the handoverhand lease at Old York. Um the security grant will help pay for the magic buttons that are out of service right now. So, it's part of the
security system. We we found grant money to pay for the repairs that we need, which is good. Um, new superintendent contract. Welcome aboard. We look forward to working with you. And one thing that's not on the agenda, but that you need to be aware of is um the new
facilities use policy. So, we discussed the costs and the terms and how we're going to make it work. The good news is that the overall rates are coming down. The bad news is that we're going to have to more strictly enforce the policy now
so that there's really no more well we can let them slide and we can give them a lower rate etc etc. There'll be different tiers. The tiers will be based on whether it's a town organization associated with the schools out of town professional organization etc. hourly
rates for use of different facilities. It'll be before the policy committee at their next meeting to implement the policy. But I just wanted you to be aware that it's been discussed. The rates have been discussed. The revenue that's supposed to be generated has been discussed. It's a lot more complex than
it appears. So, we're going to have to give it some some looking over as a board as a whole so everyone understands what the implications of it are and so that everyone's on the ground. Got it. That's it. Thank you. And once those changes are made because those are important but much needed.
Yes. Um that'll be done in a public setting or we'll have to when the policy is adopted by the policy committee, it'll be adopted by the full board. Y the information will be included. Okay. And we'll be good to go. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you,
Mr. Carpentier. May I just uh recognize the PTO and Machios for the donations that they're making to help our staff have a smoother start with uh some caffeine and some snacks. I appreciate that very much. It's always a good way to start the day.
Um, awesome. Can I have a motion to move those items? Motion. Second. Anybody else have any questions or comments? I'm just going to go ahead and just um since there's some items about our interim superintendent being um
appointed, I want to go ahead and just thank Karen because we haven't really done this publicly yet. So, I just want to say how grateful I think we all are. I am especially for having the who have worked with you for these last few years. Um, I've learned a lot from you. I think we all have, you know, we we all
realize that you every action that you take in a professional capacity especially is always to put the students and the kids first and that was always evident um and never questioned. Um, so we just wanted to thank you for your commitment to the district. Um, thank
you for pushing us in a direction that I think we all can be proud of. you're leaving us better than you found us. Um, and just want to say best of luck in your future. I know that you're going to go on to do very great things and we
will miss you, but um, just happy to have had the chance to work with you. So, thank you. Um, and with that being said, I'd also like to bring your attention to item number 11. Um, as you can see, we've zeroed in on a search firm that's going to help us um and work
with us to help us find our next permanent superintendent. Um, so we're excited to be given the chance to work with Kathleen Hawa who was going to help us kind of like navigate that search. Um, I also wanted to reiterate to the public that we're committed to doing
this in a transparent manner. Um, so that will mean that there will be opportunities to be heard. your voices will get to be heard if that's in this probably the form of surveys um live sessions that we're going to put together. I'm hoping to have a website
that's going to kind of have benchmarks and earmarks that we can kind of track the progress and the key dates that are going to happen along the process. Um so I just wanted to reiterate that fact. We're very excited to work with Kathleen. We've heard great things about her. She's actually the one who has
helped Karen leave us We want to hire them. Should have thrown some there. She owes us money. A little more ironic, right? Yeah. Yeah. Um and last but not least, Dr. Burton. Um we're just very excited
to have found someone that we are confident um is going to be able to lead us and guide us in a direction that is really going to pick up where Karen left. Um you'll see a few different items on on the agenda and the way that um Dr. Dr. Burton is going to be
introduced into the district. One of the great things about appointing Dr. Burton is that she's already been in the district as a consultant working with some of the staff and the administration. So, she has those relationships already solidified. Um, and I think it's a testament to the people that she's been working with that
um they obviously made a very good impression on you um that you're willing to then come and work within the district. So, I just want to give kudos to all of those people. Um, and just like I said, I think we're just I'm thankful to have found a leader in the
caliber that you've obviously are that's going to come in our district and I'm just excited about the next school year. So, thank you. Um, if you want to say anything, you're more than welcome to come up. If you don't want to Oh, you have to. Uh, we still have to vote. So, don't come up. Charlie might say no. You never know.
Just hold on tight. See how it goes. And then you So, can I have a roll call, please? Miss Joyce, yes. Mr. Krishna Mury, yes. Miss Shaw, yes. Miss Smith, yes. Mr. Tuma, yes. On one to 10, an absolute humongous
yes on number 11. Wow. That's the first humongous. Yes. I heard him try. Yes. Thank you. Sorry. Um, and Dr. Bird, if you want to get up and say anything to the public for we can go to the public comment next. You can get up. Oh, okay. Well, we're in public comment
now. So, now you're you sit. What's the protocol? You can do whatever you'd like to do. Okay, I'm gonna stand. I'm used to standing. So again, as I've I've had the opportunity to meet formerly all the remaining board members. Um very excited
to be here and to be part of as Mr. Carpenter mentioned, I've already had some time probably since March uh to work with Dr. Chase and the principles. I've had great opportunities to get to know the the principles, work with them side by side, and also be in your
schools. Uh, and I will tell you that the safety and security is well in hand. It takes me some time to get into your schools, which is great to hear. One of the things that I'm very much concerned about is ensuring that our schools are safe each and every day. Our schools have to be safe. And I'll just mention uh the referendum that you have going
again is a clear signal to your community. The value you put in your schools that you want to invest in your schools and they whether they have children or they have grandchildren or or they the mere fact that they live here is an investment in their own property because person comes to a a
community based on the the location of the community and how about their schools. And so all that we can do to best promote uh our schools is an investment in our children's future as well as uh the members of our community. So very happy to be here. Thank you very much.
If anybody else would like to come up and speak on any topic, you're more than welcome. If you could just state your name and your residence, I would appreciate it. You can do whatever. started a precedent.
Um I'm Laura Foley 208 Ronin Way. I'm Lisa Catel Christopher. I just haven't furthered it over to Christopher, so we'll just keep it at um and we're both from the PTO. Oh, we just wanted to um first off this my
oldest just finished kindergarten at Whiten Elementary School and he's counting down the days to go back uh to school. So that's how much of a wonderful experience that he has. Um and I'm just so grateful. So I got involved with the PTO. We had um a meeting and
one of the big things that we're here today is we just want to encourage all of the teachers and staff members um to think about joining the PTO. Um we have a lot of really great events uh that we're planning for this year. A lot of um ways that we can sponsor things that
are going on in the classroom um you know throughout the school year. So, that's really what I want to say. And we also want to say thank you so much uh for making Whiten Elementary School such an amazing place and the district as a whole such a wonderful place for our kids to go to school. And um I will be
the community outreach coordinator which means I'll be reaching out to a lot of people in the community and trying to in a sense correlate all the fundraising and and curate things that we think could be beneficial to both the students, the parents, the teachers and the entire community as a whole which is
very important because I think up to now every year we get better, we get stronger and I think as a community you know when you have new people coming in it can actually help us further further along the process. So, I'm just happy that I'll be starting this year with the
PTO and I I encourage you to reach out to me for anything or any ideas um reach out to um Laura Fley and and any of us if you have anything that you can think of or if you ever want to sit down with us to get to know some things even
further, we'd be happy to help and and answer all your questions. So, um, we're really happy to be here and to meet all you guys and we wish you nothing but the best and we wish you a lot of the best and, uh, that's that's about it. Do you have any questions for us or
Mr. Mater is the, uh, he's not here. He's the liazison to the PTO, so he's kind of like your main contact, but if you guys ever need anything, feel free to reach out to Okay. me or Dr. Burton. I'm sure you'll have a relationship. Um, so, thank you for everything that you do. We really appreciate it.
Thanks. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much for getting up and introducing yourself. Um I just recently met with the leadership of the PTO with the admins um to really look to continue
to foster a partnership. You're very important to us. You do a lot of work to support the work that we're doing. So, we're just really eager. Uh, one of the things we're looking to do for the upcoming year is to have some folk from our admin team present at every one of your meetings to kind of talk about some
of the happenings in the district. Um, so I'm just really glad you're here and we're very eager and Dr. Burton, I'll I'll fill you in on all the background. Just very eager to continue to partner with all you do with you for all you do for our children. So, thank you so much for coming out tonight. Appreciate it. Thank you guys.
Just we wouldn't be here without you guys. Appreciate it. Anybody else? Hi, my name's Michael Blouse. I'm at 15 Cedar Grove Road and I bought a little piece of show and tell. Um, my my mom
found my eighth grade diploma and I opened it up and inside is a copy of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of New Jersey. And my daughter is a rising sixth grader, and I thought, wouldn't it be neat, especially
going into our 250th year as a great nation, um, if we could maybe start to provide these at graduation. I'm not sure if we do anything like that, but I know they're available um probably we could get them donated um you know if if we were to let certain organizations
know we were doing it and I just thought it might be a nice idea to bring in front of the board. Thank you very much. We can thank you all for and the time you guys put in. Mr. Blouseine, if it's okay. Um, could you email me so I can talk to you about
um, one maybe getting that artifact so our students can in fact see that because that's an AR that's an artifact. It's an archival. It's not from this district. But but still Okay, then we want no part of it. But no, it I mean nice, right?
Yes. It's beautiful. The only the you know, it always comes down to cost because money is tight, which is why we're, you know, doing a referendum to fund some of our things. But I would I would love to see if you would put that on loan to us for us to show our eighth grader or something like that. Or maybe we can. Absolutely. Yeah. Um I I'm pretty sure
there are copies of uh pocket uh size copies of the Constitution and and you can get them uh from different organizations and I'm sure we could get them donated if we were to tell them that this was what we were Oh, that'd be great. Okay. So, yeah, just reach out. Thank you so much for coming. Sure.
Thank you. Anybody else? We're going to move on to I'm going to close public comment, move on to board leazison reports. First up is Somerville. Uh no, we haven't met yet. Our next meeting is Tuesday our retreat. Good luck. Uh PTO, Mr. Mater's not here,
but thank you for your report, so that kind of suffices. Um I'm going to move on to Somerset County Ed Services. We had a meeting, believe it was last week. um wasn't all that eventful other than the fact that they are finishing up some
projects um on some of their spaces that they were renovating. Everything is on target to be completed. Um so I think that will be it'll give um the opportunity for the for the head services commission to kind of grow some of their programming which is important.
Um but that's really the only thing of of interest. Uh New Jersey school boards. Uh just one note that the first meeting for this upcoming year is going to be October 9th at 6 PM for the Somerset County Board uh New Jersey Somerset County School Board.
Thank you very much. Um Branchburg Township, just a quick note, Branchburg Township is very close to finalizing their phase four numbers of the lowincome housing requirements. It's it's it's a done deal. It's just
the the papers haven't been signed yet. Okay. So there's potential impact to the district in addition to the phase three. Thank you, Charlie. When would that roll out again? Uh 20. It runs through 2030, I believe.
Okay. BF. So I just got a text from Little Birdie. So uh um Branchburg Education Foundation would like to thank Dr. Chase for all their support and obviously the rest of the board and and the administration as
well and look forward to working with Dr. Burton as well in the future. Um couple of things. Uh they are working on summer by the way as I mentioned last time. So they they did get a couple of uh new sponsors they'd like to mention. One is Tutor Doctor and the other one is the celebrity school which just opened
up uh last week. Lastly, um they'd like to they're going to participate in the country fair on September 27th. Um, they're actually gonna sponsor a dunk tank. So, they're looking for Charlie to be the guest of honor at the dunk tank. So,
we have video of Mr. Tuma in the dunk tank. If anybody wants to see it, we can send it to you. Actually, if we get your consent, we could put on the website. Sounds good. And and it's open to anybody on board as well. So, I'll just leave it. I raised the most money when I was in
that dump. I saw a lot I saw a lot of people pitching pretty heavily to dump you. So, I'm sure a lot of money was spent. That'll raise money for the referendum. He's so close. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, next up is Cag. I
unfortunately have no report. Um, so can I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? Do I need a second session? No, we don't need a second session. Uh, can I have a motion to adjurnn the meeting? Motion. Second.
Thank you. All in favor? Is that your That's This.