They call me [music] Yes. Oh. Oh. Hello. Okay. Yeah, we are. Okay. Good evening, everyone. We're going to get going. You guys ready down here? Crystal Sandra? Yep. Okay. Um, in accordance with the requirements
of the Open Public Meetings Act, chapter 231 PL1975 announcement, I wish to announce that the New Jersey Open Public Meetings Law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or
acted upon. In accordance with the provisions of this act, the school district of the Cadams Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date, time, and place thereof posted in the board administrative offices sent to the clerks of Chattam Burough and Chattam Township, the library of the
Chadams, the Chattam Courier, the Daily Record, and TAP online news. Mr. Jquilla, Miss [music] Ross, Miss Allen here, Mr. Delandro, Miss Peek here,
Mr. Ryan here, Mr. Smith, Miss Weber here, Dr. Zang, and Miss Cherelli here, eight accounted for. Ready to roll. Okay, perfect. Um, please join us for the pledge of allegiance. If you are
able to stand, the flag is to my left. To the flag of the United States of America and to the stands nation with liberty and justice. Uhhuh. Okay.
Okay. I don't have any additional comments at this time. Looks like Dr. Sortino has a [clears throat] Okay. Oh, I hear a little bit of kickback. Thank you, Nick.
So, I'd like to congratulate Chattam High School students who participated in a field trip to collaborate with NYU's robotics department. It was a great day for all of them. I want to thank the CMS Pro leaders who held a volley thon event in December which raised $718 in total
for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Congratulations to Liam Keller who was chosen to conduct the region one intermediate orchestra this year which is a huge honor. So congratulations Mr. Keller. Thank you to the CEF for bringing the New Jersey
Symph Symphony Orchestra. They sent coaches to work with our Lafayette, CMS, and CHS band and Orchestra students. I would also like to thank the CEF for approving phase one of the elementary literacy grant in the amount of $64,000 for the upcoming school year. We're very
excited to get started with that initiative. Congratulations to boys and girls swimming team state champions. I'd like to thank Sally Simon Fay who was featured in an article about how she supports underserved communities throughout New Jersey in particular the
Newark community. So thank you very much Miss Simon Fay. CMS did a wonderful job with Something Rotten Jr. The teachers cast and crew spent a lot of time preparing for that show and I had an opportunity to see it. They did a phenomenal job. Thank you to Mr. to
Herdina and the CMS families who collected soup cans for the super bowl for the uh pantry in Chattam. So, thank you very much. Thank you once again to our custodial staff and maintenance team for the insane amount of snow that they took care of during the last storm. It's
been a really busy winter and once again our schools were able to safely open and function because of their hard work. So, thank you. Congratulations to Matthew Bedoya who was chosen as a representative from CHS for the 2026 Morris County Unsung Hero Awards ceremony that was held at Handover Park
High School. Congratulations, Matthew. And CMS Junior Model UN did a great job at their recent trip. So, congratulations to them. Um, there are some points on the agenda that I'd like to, you know, review, which is that we will have a change in the school
calendar to give back the two snow days and to add additional days for state testing. So, the board will vote on that later. And I also just want to take a minute to acknowledge Kate Dantis, our supervisor of health and well-being, who is on tonight's agenda it as a
resignation. She has done a tremendous job for the students, the staff, and the families of Cadam. She's a tremendous asset to the district. She has consistently gone above and beyond. She is a truly phenomenal human being and she will be greatly missed by all of us. So Kate, thank you for everything you've
done and you will be missed. Um, and without further ado, I have quite a large budget presentation that I'm going to jump into. So if the board would like to take a seat and I'm going to go back to the podium. Tonight, I'll go through the preliminary budget presentation for the 2627
school year for the school district of the Chadams. I'll walk through district highlights, the budget process, the various options that the finance committee and board explored, and then I'll finally review the proposed budget for the upcoming school year. So, the school district at a glance, we have six
schools throughout the district. We serve approximately 3600 students. We have around 420 certificated staff. That's not counting the many maintainers, secretaries, custodians, etc. that help service our schools. Um there are 43 districts in Morris County
and there are about 10 that are 10 others that are similar in size to the school district. We offer an education for students ages 3 to 21. Our 18 to 21 program is known as Cougar Academy. That's our specialized workbased learning program
where students have an opportunity to explore their local community. They look to job placements, post-secary educational experiences, etc. The high school offers 30 AP courses. Uh, and then we have support services throughout the district, a tier three mental health
program, and a gifted and talented program as well to meet the varied needs of our students. Last year's AP data reflects that there were 13 1,367 total course enrollments in the AP courses at Chattam High School. You'll
note that there are around,00 high school students. So many of these students took more than one AP course. Of that number, 1,157 sat for the AP exam associated with that course. 85% overall took the exam. And
of that 85%, 97% of those students scored a three or higher. A success rate is considered a score three or of or above. So 97% of students achieve that goal in 2025.
Nationality scholarship finalist and 202. So 69 were awarded and 72 were earned so language. So break down language 41 student
the class of 202 college which includes work etc. The most attended schools class of 25 students college
seven are present both at the high school and our middle school. This is how we nurture our students so that they know what they want in their secondary lives.
over body which is an extremely impressive speak to our department. There are many the middle school has
many as well orchestra etc etc throughout the school district issues that are related to finance for example earlier Earlier this year we shared that project 1.3 million which
was a surprise for our planning purposes but something that was discussed publicly for the intention of transparency department of education meetings occurred throughout business administrators from our district and we will be participating throughout the
entire year. all of the financial discussions on one basis in our own administrative meetings and then there are finance committee meetings that also usually discuss budgets, capital projects and any other finance. Those finance committee meetings are
then discussed at meetings to encourage the public to remain. As I shared in the letter to the community, our major budget for this year includes the loss of approximately
a million dollars in tuition revenue. We also hired kindergarten teachers and this is all done in accordance with New Jersey public enacted by Dr. Murphy that requires pre kindergarten by the 2029 2030 school
year. So we reconfigured the district and implemented full day in school. Additionally, our health care benefits have increased dramatically. So we have a 17.6% increase in health insurance upcom.
budget. I will say that many other and districts throughout the state are experiencing similar budget increases, especially in relation to healthare and that while 7.6 is an absolutely astronomical number,
there are many districts throughout the state facing 29% increases andor% premium increases. So, while it is a tremendous amount of money, we actually are fortunate. As a reminder, The 2% tax cap is a
permanent part of statuto. That is the 2% increase that is allowed for tax increase each year. Within that 10% tax, we also have the option when there are benefit costs that exceed
state that cap as well as increases that are larger than 2% state allows for additional tax without. So specifically for our district, our enrollment increased with the additional
housing that was built in the township in the burough and also with the implementation of school year. There were additional schools added to our schools. Because of that, we allowed an enrollment increase of $1.4 million number in the top right. Our health
benefit adjustment that was allowed was $2.5 million. This then allowed the board to consider total limited increases 2% to the maximum amount of 7.61% for more county districts
comparatively for spending. While planning for next year, we started really looking at the deficit of $4 million and how we would address that deficit in a responsible and construction sound way. And so the
biggest way to do that is by looking at staff reduction. So we've implemented staff reductions across the district to keep a balanced budget. This impacts a variety of staff hours throughout and school. And these reductions include a
mix of retirement, resition elimination. In the future, if the economic climate continues the way it does and the museums continue to increase, um while we were able to avoid direct
programming, clubs, activities, services, etc. the upcoming school year. I can tell you that in the future we will start looking at reduction to athletics plus cuts to visual and performing arts
programs potentially classes limiting classes for courses and electives. Right now requests the number of sections we run. We would need to look at a more responsible manner going forward. We would need to limit the number of
electives and potentially look at redistricing and software. And some people might ask what software means. That would mean that you're buying a house that is in the Milan Avenue district area and then register
that your child's free. So our major expense category health benefits and salaries and transportation. Those are our three primary drivers. Uh you'll see an increase of 12.6 million in health benefits from last year's budget to 16%
of the operating budget for the upcoming year which is a tremendous increase. This is a breakdown of the overall expense categories. This will be posted on our website and I also plan to send a link to the family via email.
We collect $340,000 of tuition revenue. This is New York special education programs that collect $140,000 in revenue as well as our general education preschool and school age general education students.
Our overall revenues are as well. You'll see the tax account for the majority of our revenues. We get approximately $5 million in state aid, which is 6% increase from last year's maximum amount
allowed. As I mentioned earlier, the board has considered the finance has considered anywhere 3.88 8 tax increase all the way up to a 7.61 tax increase. These options have the various details submitted which
include the amount of cuts that we made overall the staff members associated with those cuts as well as the taxation for the burrow and the township. You'll notice that every single option with the exception of option which is the maximum
amount allowed it that there were a million dollars cut to even get a balance and attempted balance budget. So no matter what that staffing were component of balancing budget the board
primarily considered a 5.9996.99 tax increase as they 3.2 million in 3.2 $50 million in cut would directly affect programming, class size, and many other
aspects of what makes Chattam and special place that it is. That is also included in the 5.99% annual tax impact and that in burrow would be a monthly impact of $71 in the
township would be a monthly impact of 51. The average borrow was a million and the average spend in time was $878,000. Both of these were done budget for the school year. We're looking at a
variety of initiatives as I mentioned earlier the elementary literacy program continuing to expand and enhance the challenges program at curriculum mapping is a software program that the district will implement for the upcoming school year that will allow parents and
families and staff members to quickly and efficiently the curriculum as well as the pacing guide. We'll continue to look to implement new courses such as our AI course at the high school, continuous professional development to ensure that our teachers are meeting the
needs of our students and then continuous curriculum provision. Our capital project, the CMS project, which again was described as our uh architects originally thought that it
would be a smaller project. It then was expanded when they realized that the rest of the bricks were not secured safely. So, this is a safety issue at CMS of $1.3 million. The Washington roof needs work at the cost of $450,000.
The building picture is hyperl to the right there. classroom ceilings in CMS. There are two rules that require an updated ceiling to uh address climate issues as well as that's at
$140,000. The CHS intercom project which is directly related to safety is $600,000 and the lobby ground will be updated at a cost of $50,000 and the BTO will also be contributing towards that project.
Thank you. And you'll know that these capital projects do not need the turf. And here is why. Our capital right now stand at $5.2 million. We have a planned withdrawal to the project that I just listed for you for $3.5 million and a
remaining balance of $1.7 million. the turf fields. Um these are turf fields that showing you separation and damage and surfaces. You'll also see a cost estimate of 1.6 to 2.4 million to replace those turf
fields. We do not have funding in capital reserves to cover the cost of the turf field with the many other projects that need to be done for the safety and students. This is where the finance has started
talking about the fall looking at a referendum which would address Hoover and field conversion of instruction spaces updates to back such as modernization and accessibility improvements and
potentially other capital projects to be determined after an extensive review of the district by the district architects and the Supervisor budget resources are listed here listed here which is just our district as well
as the department of ed. He's doing back on stage. Yeah, that's good. 100%. Very efficient. very efficient and colorful [laughter] in lots of ways
figuratively and literally. Okay. Just getting text messages. She told him Mr. Smith would like to say something. Are we good? Hello. You're good.
Good. Well, thank you for putting that presentation together. It was uh very well done and we spent a significant amount of time going through. Um sorry, can you hear me better? We spent a significant amount of time going through uh over the course of a few weeks all
the different options. We've talked at Nauseium about the different levers that we can pull, including personnel. Unfortunately, we're kind of at the point where there's not enough a lot of fat left. And we had to have some really hard conversations. And the reality is
is that, you know, the state of New Jersey, as we've discussed, is not set up for people to have 30 AP courses and salary increases in line with what we want to pay teachers and the sports programming we have and all the extracurriculars uh activities we have.
Um, but we felt that we got to a place where with about a 5% reduction in staff, we were able to push through a mid-level tax increase. It still hurts. We didn't want any tax increase, but we got to a
point, at least for this year, where we didn't affect programming uh negatively. Unfortunately, going forward, we're going to have to have those conversations. But um thank you for putting that together and uh does anyone have any
questions? You hear me? Can you just announce the tax increase again? I think that a lot of the um presentation was garbled unfortunately for those listening. Um so the tax increase is 5.99%. When Emily was speaking. Yes.
Now there was an echo on the there was an echo. So great. It was a 5.99% increase with a potential for referendum in the fall to pay for the turf fields and other necessary capital projects. So
5.99% increase. And if you go through the four different scenarios because I think there wasn't they weren't able to hear those as well. Let me just pull it up. That was what $53 per million dollar house in the in the township. $51. I'm just pulling up the presentation. My
understanding I'm hearing is that there were some sound issues. I'm sorry. 53 and 71. Correct. So there were four options for taxes, tax increases, 3.88%, 5.99%, 6.99%,
and 7.61. The finance committee landed with a $5.99% tax increase, which involved $1.5 million in cuts related to staff reductions. So, there were 20 staff
reductions and an average tax increase in the bureau of $71 per month and the township at $51 per month. 71 and 51. So, I have a question. Obviously, we don't have a crystal ball, but I'm wondering if you've heard anything from
the New Jersey Department of Education regarding their priorities with finding healthc care alternatives or negotiation. Is it coming from the governor's office? I mean, obviously, next year we're going to be right back in the same place again unless
healthcare and transportation and special services are somehow accommodated. especially healthcare. They surveyed uh informally surveyed Morris County districts and there were only three districts that had lower
increases than ours for health insurance premiums. The average the informal average was 22.7% increase and some districts were as high as 29% 33 and 30%. So comparatively
we're pretty lucky with a 17.6% 6% premium increase, which is highly concerning because it is not sustainable financially. Uh I can tell you that health insurance is something that we talk about extensively in all of the superintendent meetings, but there
unfortunately is not just a quick and easy solution to this issue. And so, you know, my understanding is that the commissioner and Governor Cheryl are definitely looking extensively at this issue, but I would be surprised if there
is a quick fix by next year. Sorry. I just Thank you, Dr. Sartina. The presentation was great. Um, if [snorts] we look like a bunch of sad sacks, that's because nobody's happy with this budget. I mean, nobody's happy about cutting $1.5 million. And, you know, Bradley just said, you know,
there's no fat to be had. Like, this is this is core. This is we're just trying to minimize the disruption and the impact. That's why Dr. Sartino said, you know, it's across the board. We didn't just focus on a school or a grade. It I mean, it was a deep dive and an analysis, but it it was painful. Um, and
then we had to let go of some of those other projects, the the turfs, the bathrooms. Um, and se several residents, a few are here, um, few are not, would say, you know, you got to let the voters decide if they want think that's important or not. So, that's where we're at on those referendums. You have to tell us, you know,
and unfortunately, we saw what happened a neighboring district. They're they're actually closing a whole building down and they still haven't been able to balance their budgets, right? Several. You mean reading the paper all the time, they're closing buildings. So, not read you hear it on the news. they were picketing and you know and we've said before in previous years, right? Like the state has set up for
schools to be really on a level playing field and we there are things we have to do. We have to give history classes and English classes. We don't have to give 30 AP courses and dozens of sports and all this stuff. So that's kind of where we're at. There's no more fat to be had
and we're going into another budget next year which is it's it's a really it's really difficult. Yeah. Aunt just mentioned some are either doing away with sports or you know pay to play fully you know fully push the cost off to the parents. That's right. Um which is not ideal in a public school. Right. That doesn't look the
playing field works in a neighboring school district where the they're 8.9%. I can't hear Chris. Taxes are taxes are going 8.9%. But I mean the math doesn't work Bradley as you've said a hundred times. Like how can the state expect any district any
district to make this work if your health insurance is going up anywhere between 17% and 30 something% and you're allowed you know 2% and then you know 3% of waiverss every how much can you cut at some point you know I think we just go to the state
and say no moss give us a loan like you do every other district that defaults on their on their bills I mean I know it's an extreme but it's frustrating or you go through a a referendum like we went through a couple towns away from here where it was like a big hit,
right? Tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars, right? A real a real hit. So, I feel, you know, the finance committee, we we got to a point where it's not great. We have to raise taxes. We don't want to raise taxes ever, but we're we're at a
point now where we, you know, live to fight another day without a hit in programming, without a hit in sports. And, you know, we'll see what next year brings. And it was a I'll say lively finance meeting. It was I'm going to stay away from contentious
but it was it was it was lively. It was a lot of I mean I think we ended up with a a good final product but it was um hours and hours of discussion and you know what's we kept saying what's the right thing to do? What's the right thing to do? What's the right thing to do? And this is you know the worst of
you know everything was a bad choice but this was the best. Yeah. Really? But we're all still friends. Um but it's it's just not nobody's thrilled with this. And you know, we we talk about next
year. Um we're we are fortunate that the health health uh insurance increase was only 17% this year, right? [clears throat] Next year it could be worse, right? Yeah. So we're already
starting out next year at 5%. If we have the same health care situation, hopefully it's better. We're basically hoping for a miracle next year and and a smaller capital reserve,
right? For for the unknown that could come up similar to the middle school wall or whatever. And then let's say Bradley we get hit with some unknown that's you know way beyond our capacity to pay. Is the process that you would then go to the
county and ask to tap into their emergency funds and just justify the need. Okay. For capital reserve emergency. Yeah. Or you run another referendum but that takes time. There's but yeah you have to go to the county. Thanks.
And the big issue with all the districts is no one wants to get to the point where they don't balance the budget because the county then comes in and just says, you know what, football axe, baseball axed, AP classes axed. We balance the budget for you. No more plays. Plays gone. We we've decided to balance
the budget for you. So you don't ever want to get to that point. Any other questions? Well, I guess it's just more a concern on the So, on the capital budget needs, you know, obviously
maintenance, we had a we had a lot of unexpected maintenance issues this year with things like the brick work. The turf fields I guess have been on our radar for a couple years, but what is the expected percent of
uh or dollar amount that we typically spend? Like did we have a a 10% increase in unexpected capital expenditures on building maintenance this year? or what what's our typical typically
e excluding the the middle school brick project that with the 1.3 million in next year's budget and what we spent this year on the first two sections um that were in dire need of repair. Typically the maintenance is somewhat
con consistent going yeartoear maybe with a 5% increase excluding major catastrophes like that happened at the middle school you know so we try to try to manage the you know the repairs but then again when you have a few schools
that are or most of your schools that have the majority of the building over 60 years old some of the original infrastructure just wears out and needs constant repairs. We've been trying to be methodical in replacing key elements so that we don't have ongoing repairs.
But, you know, we need need more replacements than we have funding. You know, so it's a pick and choose as to what needs to get done first. And that's part of part of the of the projects that we've identified. We're we're gonna that we think might be
coming up. we're going to identify for the referendum process if that's the direction we go and see uh you know truly go to the taxpayers and say this is a menu of everything we need and allow them to vote on it. Any other questions? You good to move
on? Yeah. Okay. All right, moving on to the business administrator's report. For me, it's a fairly concise report. Um, now that the capital projects that are in the budget have all been finalized, I've been working with the
architect and the supervisor of buildings and grounds to make sure everything is in place so all the construction uh can start uh once school's over. uh the we'll be working with the head of technology and the high school principal
on selecting the best uh intercom system for the high school replacement. That's it. Okay, perfect. Thank you. And student leazison report Avery. Hi everyone. Um going to keep this short, but we just closed out our winter
sports season. So now we're moving into the spring sports. Um our fashion show went well. So many people came. Um, I think every single seat in that gym was filled. Um, the seniors killed it. They had so much energy. So much fun to watch. Um, we also had two high school
seniors win awards at the Art Administrators of New Jersey hosted at Keen University. Um, so Sydney and Nina won the Emerging Artist Exhibition. So, huge congrats to them. And then we had eight students recognized for their writing. Um, and they received so many
awards at the 2026 Scholastic Writing Awards Competition. Um, this awards competition has recognized some of America's most celebrated artists when they were teenagers like Stephen King. So, huge congrats to our writers. Um, we also have some new short films directed by CHS students which premiered in movie
theaters last month. Um, they're going to be uploaded to the CHS Pulse on YouTube, so definitely check those out. We had our last day of NJ GPA testing today. We had reading, writing, and math um throughout last week and then today was math. Um and then lastly, we have
our spring musical coming up the 16th through the 18th. Um the performances are here. You can see our stage in works behind us. Um the tickets are on sale now, so make sure to get them before they sell out. But yeah, that's all I have. Okay, perfect. Thanks, Avery. Um okay,
moving on to our committee reports for personnel. Miss Weber. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Ann. I appreciate it. Um, so it's been a busy world in HR. As you notice on the agenda, there's several retirements, um, several resignations. There's also some
transfers within the the district. And because our teachers are rock stars when there's a leave replacement, instead of, you know, hiring from the outside, a lot of our teachers, you know, agree or they agree to take on an extra class. So, instead of five sections, they have six sections. So, there's a lot you'll see
quite a bit of that um where our teachers again once again stepped up to to cover an extra class. There's um ju just some job description updates and I also wanted to just thank our HR department. They've been doing uh Sarah and her team have been doing a review,
you know, fresh eyes. It's always get get, you know, we do things the same way over and over and we think, oh, we're doing a great job. So, it's nice to have a fresh set of eyes on the books just to say, you know what, we can improve. So, thank you for your team for catching some errors, some efficiencies. So, it's it's been it's very much appreciated and
thank you. I'm sure you're going to save us some money there. And we we thank you very much. And I'll just yell at Beth Grant who who left it that way. [laughter] I'm teasing. I talk to Beth Grant all the time. She's a friend of mine. Um Okay, perfect. When are you meeting again?
I don't know. Okay, don't worry about it. Um um the meeting on April 8th, I think. Same day as curriculum. April 8th. Yeah, April 8th. Perfect. Um, for curriculum, Miss Ross.
Yes. Uh, curriculum met on March 4th. Uh, we covered many topics including the, uh, scheduling at CMS. Uh, parents of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders have made their class selections, and there the number of periods, uh, and the
schedule remains, you know, pretty much unchanged for grades six through eight. Uh the administrative team is looking to uh continue to examine the fifth grade schedule to see if any adjustments can be made there. Uh we discussed AI which always continues to be top of mind. Uh
as we mentioned at the high school, two teachers developed an AI course for the fall. It's called AI literacy and society. And currently there are enough students enrolled that there will be two sections running next year. at the middle school. Um there is a
collaboration with a company called AI for education that worked on the PD day with teachers and they are developing lessons for grades six through eight that will be embedded in both the library curriculum and core classes. They're going to talk about things like
what is AI, how does it work, how does it impact uh students brain development, and the ethics around AI in general. I know we had some questions emailed in about potentially considering uh a change in start time for the middle
school and uh we had some discussions with the transportation coordinator and uh it's really not feasible at this time. The reason a multitude but the middle school has shared routes um with the high school in Southern Boulevard
which creates a lot of schedule dependencies for the buses. So alter um alter altering excuse me those routes would require a significant and cost prohibited changes that will not be undertaken at this time. Um as Avery mentioned today was the last day of the
NJ GPA test uh for high school proficiency uh graduation proficiency assessment and as you may have read the roll out of the new testing system little challenging across the state. So, we had some uh even later start times today for the delayed opening and we
really appreciate everybody's patience as uh we administered the Verizon assessment for the first time. Um ELA curriculum work. Katie Harms and her team are engaged in extensive curriculum work which will continue throughout the summer. There's a focus on strengthening
fun foundational literacy particularly for grades K to two by incorporating decodable texts and revising reading and writing units. Uh the team has submitted a grant application to CF to help fund the dec decodable readers for all K to2
classrooms which are fairly expensive. So that would be an amazing plus. Um lastly, screen time. We continue to discuss screen time particularly among the elementary students gathering data about usage and a goal of creating some
norms to guide the overall use of devices during classroom instruction. So that's it for me if there's any questions but um like uh per personnel our next meeting for curriculum will be on April 8th. Thanks.
Okay, moving on to finance and facilities. Mr. Smith, um finance and facilities met over the course of February and early March uh 100 times uh to discuss the 2627 budget. As we
said, we uh settled on a tax increase of 5.99% um and uh I don't know when we're meeting again, Mr. Dquilla. April 15th. April 15th, we are meeting again. Okay, perfect. And policy and planning,
Mr. Ryan. Policy [clears throat] and planning has not met. We are waiting for updates from Strauss yesterday on some of the policy documents that we have for editing. Uh we are meeting again on April 15th.
Okay, perfect. Thank you. Um any liaison reports for anybody? I have a quick one for CF. um they are really looking for trustees and volunteers to join. There are opportunities across multiple committees. So if anyone is interested, you can just uh take a look on the CF
homepage um and reach out to them directly there. Okay, perfect. Um I'd like to make a motion to move the minutes from the February 2nd public and executive
session. Only Miss Pek and Mr. Ryan need to abstain. Okay. Chris seconded it. Oh, thank you. Uh February 2nd, regular executive minutes. Miss Ross, yes.
Miss Allen, yes. Mr. Delandro, yes. Miss Peek, Mr. Ryan, Miss Smith, Mr. Smith, yes. And Miss Chigarelli, yes. pass 62.
Okay, perfect. Thank you. Um, okay. This is going to be our first opportunity for public commentary. Hearing of the citizens during the public commentary section of the agenda is an opportunity for any member of the public to be heard about issues which are or are not topics scheduled for the current meeting. To
help facilitate an orderly meeting and to permit all to be heard, speakers will be asked to limit their comments to a reasonable length of time. And if you could please just sign in and state your name and where you are from, that would be great. Hello. Oh, okay. Hello.
Hi, Ed Barakin. Tap in the chat. Uh, I didn't in your presentation, I didn't see anything about state aid and I wondering if it increased with the enrollment increase. And the other question I have is on the referendum,
how would that work? or do you have a plan in mind like are you going to prioritize or put them all together or whatever? Mhm. Yeah, we'll do we'll answer questions at the end, but we'll take note [laughter] down.
There you go. Oh, no. Hi, Jennifer Fury, a special education teacher at Southern Boulevard, and I'm here to represent Southern Boulevard staff and the CEA and just give a couple of um notable items that
we celebrated uh recently. So, uh, so far this year, the CA has given $24,000 back to the community through NJA grant money, uh, through programs like the senior citizen dinner that takes place prior to attending the Chattam High
School, uh, play and a Chinese New Year event. Recently at Southern, we celebrated Worldwide Social Emotional Learning Day where we focused on a growth mindset through hands-on activities and collaborative groupings with students.
Students learned a lot about making mistakes by exploring various inventors and inventions and uh often their long paths to success. In honor of ReadAcross America, students participated in a tournament of books and selected an overall winner from 16
different options. Our students and staff overwhelmingly selected the book of no pictures by BJ Novak and our PTA generously offered to purchase a book for each of our classrooms in honor of the event. And lastly, we would like to
thank our PTO uh that was also instrumental in setting up our beautiful new mural that uh was painted at the beginning of March. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you so much. Good evening to all. Bill Heap, uh,
Hillside Avenue. I don't know where to begin. Um, I will say this. It seems like we're living in the land of never enough. Um, and I'm wondering if anybody else in this room besides me thinks that a
hundred million dollars, and I'm rounding up a few bucks, but I think we can officially say we've crossed the hundred million dollar mark. Does anybody besides me think that that's an astounding a breathtaking amount of money to spend
on uh our school district? Um if you do the math, I'm I'm 3,600 kids divided into 100 million is I can't really do it in my head, but I'm thinking somewhere around $28,000 a student. I didn't the the comparison
chart wasn't up there long enough for me to see where Chadam stood. I saw Mountain Lakes at the top with about $31,000 a student. So, we're really not far behind them. Um, I will also say that you've had over the past five or
six years um the good fortune of having very uh favorable budget cycles. What could be better than having a decreasing student enrollment at the same time budgets are going up? something that you didn't
really have to justify to anybody. And that only occurs in places like Cadam. I'm sure if any one of you in your day jobs in the real world told your bosses that your headcount was down 10 12% but
you needed more money, you might have a little explaining to do. Um, we provide a very generous education budget to families in this town. You get twothirds of the pie. I don't know how
much you want. Uh, but I don't know, for instance, Irvington spends 15% of their pie. Not that I want to live there. Uh, but it's just an extraordinary amount of money. And what's happening, I think, is that uh we
are providing that subsidy, but there are plenty of people who aren't sticking around this town long enough to help pay down their fair share of that subsidy. And so, increasingly, the hot potato is being passed along to those of us who choose to stay.
And um you had the opportunity to charge for a couple of more years of kindergarten. We're on perfect legal ground. I know
the law kicks in in 2930. I know it's not going to solve all of your budget problems, but money is money. And I don't know why you decided Oh, I'm sorry, Chris. Got a minute.
Okay. Um I don't know why you decided to not accept that money. and and and it's tough when you when you leave it on the table and then start crying poverty. Um I understand that the budget is going to go up 6% with the bonus the added bonus
of a referendum. So it it's going to go up quite a bit more than that. And it just seems to me that uh every once in a while maybe enough is enough uh because you're you're really sucking all the oxygen out of the town's budget. Uh I'm
sure that the the burough and the township have not weighed in yet, but their increases in healthcare are probably along the same lines as yours. So, uh we're going to be facing uh some pretty stiff increases. And as far as uh the affordability goes that I heard
everybody, every politician screaming about, well, uh it's going to be pretty difficult to achieve that affordability. Got it, Chris. Thanks. Hi everyone, Jackie Parinady, a new resident to Chadam. Thank you, Ann. Um,
but longtime spouse of an educator in the district. I wanted to offer a potential suggestion. I recognize it's maybe not going to have a benefit in the short term, but maybe for the longer term. Um, we're coming from a town where
full day paid preschool was a newer development. Um, the enrollment um increased very quickly. So, it started out where we were offering a half-day program, extended it into a full day program. Um, the priority um student was
of course those that were were from Wayne. So, um, Wayne residents, but then they also offered it to the surrounding towns. And I can say having three kids, one of them nine, [laughter] and the other six, but then a baby that will be entering preschool in the future, wait
lists for surrounding schools like Kirby, are extensive. I've heard 18 to 24 months. Um, and they are currently um having Morristown's preschool happen, you know, directly through their building. So, I think it could be a
potential income source for the district in the future. I know that there are some challenges in terms of understanding what potential enrollment could look like that staffing in terms of making sure you have enough principles in order to accommodate
something like that. um would represent different considerations but would be very happy to talk about my experience having been um PTO president and working very closely with the principal who founded that um program in Wayne. So thank you for everything all of you do.
Very happy to be in town and looking forward to attending more of these. Anybody else? Okay, I'm going to close this portion of the um public commentary section. There will be another one later in the meeting and we'll go ahead
and answer some of those questions that um came up. So, starting with Mr. Barakian's questions, Emily. Yep. Okay. So, our state aid last year was $5.46 million. For the upcoming school
year, we received the increase of 6% which is the maximum amount allowed allowed in state aid increases. Governor Cheryl has capped uh that you can go up six or down six so that districts can plan more appropriately because as you saw coming into the school year,
districts lost a ton of money and were not able to function. And so she had communicated that the most it could swing either way would be 6%. So we received the increase of 6% at $5.8 million. Just to put that in perspective, uh Dover is another
district in Morris County with a similar enrollment to Chadam. While a completely different socioeconomic status is present in that community, this state provided Dover with $60 million in state aid. We received 5.8. So to Mr. Heap's point, you're right, Mr. Heap. The local
taxpayers are very much carrying the burden of significant taxes to support the schools. Um I you someone else had uh Ed had asked about the referendum projects. Um the finance committee has just started
talking about the referendum and that really will you know evolve as the months come come about. Um but I would imagine that the projects would be lumped together the turf fields as well as the capital projects that need to occur within the building.
Um Mrs. Perinati welcome. Uh you had asked about full day preschool. We did two years ago. I began looking at that in my former role and Dr. Rosenthal had attended uh the preschool grant program to learn more about it as well. Um if we
were to expand preschool to accommodate approximately 260 students, which is the current kindergarten enrollment, we would need at least $1.5 million in staffing. And we would then have to charge so much in tuition that it probably would not be super feasible.
So, we most definitely looked at it and looked at it as a potential revenue raiser. But with the staffing, classrooms, playgrounds, um, etc. that would be associated with the implementation of full day preschool, it really was not a a viable revenue source for the district. It really would cost
more than it it would make. Um, and Mr. Heap, you had talked about a decrease in enrollment and an increase in costs. The only thing I can share to that is that in my prior role um in special services, there are state and
federal laws that guide the education of all students. And while our enrollment might be going down, there still are students with some significant needs that require a very costly education either in district or out of district to meet the least restrictive environments
um and a free and appropriate education standard. And so I understand that from an outsers's perspective it might look like enrollment is decreasing but it very much is a at this point increasing which is why we got the enrollment waiver but also the needs continue to
increase and they are quite costly and there are state and federal laws that govern that. It's not just that we want to do the right thing, which we absolutely do, but there are also um significant costs associated, you know, financially, legally, etc. for not
implementing the appropriate education for these students. And just to further that, that that is another one of those items that we have to provide. Correct. similar to a history class and an English class. The the cuts that would have had to happen to not show a
5.9% increase would have significantly impacted programming in the district and had a massive reduction in staff. And at this point, we were we didn't want to reduce any staff, but we kind of met at a point where we've we
we got the budget down to only a 5.9% tax increase by reducing 20 members. It's a big number. In spite of extraordinary expenses. Big number. In spite of extraordinary expenses. Yep. And Bill, I just wanted to talk about
the full day kindergarten. While on the on the calendar, we have two more years. It was a tremendous effort to move, reconfigure to make that happen. There's no way that we could have just said, you know what, keep collecting tuition and it's still not done. We're still not
done with the physical logistics of the reconstruction to to make that happen. But in order to have full day kindergarten, we had to then move the third graders out. We had then had to move the fifth graders down to the middle school. We had to reconfigured things. But so we couldn't have flipped a switch. So, and you you've been here for the last 15 years with me. We've
also been saying for the last five or so, you know what? It's a public school. We we we we're charging tuition and it's a phenomenal income source, but not everybody can pay seven grand, 14 grand. And we were going to get there anyway. And you've heard us say it over and over and over again because I know you sit
there every meeting that we've been, it's no surprise. And it's not like, oh my gosh, we just thought we don't need a million and a half. Of course, we need a million and a half. We also need to provide the best education we can afford. So cutting 20 headcounts, I I I take exception to the fact that we don't
have to justify it to anybody. Well, you're kidding me, right? We have to justify it to ourselves, to our administrators, to every resident, everybody we see on the street. And you're saying, "No, we're hold left holding the bag." Well, take a look at the board. None of our kids are still in school, but we still have to offer a
quality education that we can afford. It's going to get tight. You just heard Bradley. We're going to start we're going to have to start cutting into some of those programs. But again, we're going to keep trying to do the right thing and make sure we keep the the quality of education as high as we possibly can that that we can afford.
And we did we did I mean I know Mr. Ryan's going to remember this. As enrollment went down, we did manage to enroll, you know, we did manage the um staffing. We started cutting people. I don't if you recall, we were crucified for letting go of a um either a reading specialist or a media specialist. I
mean, crucified. You you don't support teaching. How dare you? Blah blah blah. You hate books. You hate books. I mean, and we got crucified for it. But you know what? That was the right thing to do because the the the staffing person was not optimally scheduled. You can't have a a a staff member with only two sections.
So, it's not fair to say, oh, enrollment went down and you and you and you just keep, you know, going out to the bank and asking for more money. 33% increase, 2% income. I mean, you know, it's expenses. You know, you run your own business. If expenses go up, yeah, at work, if my expenses go up 30%, I'm
going to need more money to cover my payroll. So, I mean, you've been here long enough, you know that, so I know some of it what you're saying is a little bit um you you know the math, Bill. So, to say, you know, we don't have to justify it to anybody. And gosh, enough is enough.
It's a little unfair, but you know, I hear what you're saying, but our expenses are through the roof, and we're doing the best we can, and none of us are happy about it. And we're holding the bag, too. But thanks. And we're still keeping the per pupil cost way down compared to most
districts. Yeah, it was at the bottom of the chart if you of the We were at like what 21 Mr. Heaps getting to 28,000. I think we we had 21 20 20 20,700. He just did a rough back of the envelope. Million divided by
divided by children. That's a very rough estimate. It's it's because you don't count everything, Bill. It's I mean we could tell you the formula, but like transportation I believe is not counted, right? Um there's a few other things that that escape me
and it's not fair to pick on Mountain Lakes by the way because they have a the Lake Drive they have the Lake Drive school which is included. So I always feel bad when like oh my god Mountain Lakes is charging 31. It it they have a they have a school for the deaf that gets included into their budget. So it's really not apples to apples. So you kind of we try to take
the second one down and go from there. I do think it's important to also note that the in the past four years we've reduced administrators, a dean of students at CHS, the Lafayette assistant principal, one supervisor of health and well-being, and the world language
supervisor as the numbers have continued to go down, which is tremendous. That's a lot of that was more than a half a million dollars in and director of educational technology. Way more. I mean, each year half a million dollars have been cutting. One thing that seems like a big standout for us is that
that you had up on the slide was that we have 30 we had 30 AP classes this year. Now I know from having students having gone through the district very recently and one still in school that in this highly competitive get into
college nature having choice in APs is really important. Um, but I also want to know how does cutting APS actually even save us money because aren't we don't we schedule these classes to be at
capa at the same capacity as regular correct but right now we're scheduling at capacity whereas potentially you could reduce the number of teachers that even are offering AP sections. So instead of offering 30, you might offer 20 and
reduce the number of staff in its entirety and push those into other electives. So you would get your third choice or fourth choice or not a choice on your list, right? Is there such a thing? I know I know that there are districts that are doing
paytoplay in sports, but is there any districts that are doing pay for course programming or does that have to be provided by the by the board? My understanding is it would have to be pro it would have to be provided a core academic experience. Do you have to offer 30 AP courses? No. Um we do that
to offer our high school students the most opportunities possible in their postsecary choices. Yeah. I'd rather see them pay for extracurriculars which is probably not far down the road. Any other questions?
Okay, now we'll move on to our regular agenda uh for personnel. Miss Weber. Yes. Thank you, Ann. I'd like to move items A1 through A33 on the regular agenda. And there's a some corrections on the addendum in for item number 16. I
need a second. I'll second it. Great. And second it. Um I just want to point out that on item number one, we have a few retirements. I want to know if all the executive secretaries got together one night and said, "You know what? We're gonna resign now." [laughter] So, it's going to be I mean, Reena at the high school, Cindy at the
high school, and uh Maria at Washington Avenue. They're pretty much establishment staples here. So, that's going to be a big gap, but you know, I'm I'm happy for them. I'm glad they get to enjoy their retirement, but uh it's comical that they're all leaving at the same time.
I echo your sentiments. They are the first face you see when you walk in. They welcome everyone. They know the families, the students. They are the best. So, we are very sad to lose all of them, but I'm also very happy for all of them. They have very fun plans.
Agenda items A1 to 33 and the addendum item of A16. Miss Ross. Yes. Miss Allen, yes. Mr. Dellesandro, yes. Miss Peek, yes. Mr. Ryan, yes. Mr. Smith, yes. Miss Weber, yes. And Miss Cherelli, yes.
Agenda items pass 80. Okay, great. Thank you for finance and facilities, Mr. Smith. Yes. [snorts] I would like to move uh agenda items B1 to B26 plus the addendum B27 to a vote. Uh we have a
many donations here that I want to highlight. Starting with donation from Mr. and Mrs. Robert Weber, Joel Weber next to me uh to be uh used for students that are experiencing food insecurity. We have a donation from an anonymous donor uh to offset the cost of CMS field
trip. We have a donation on behalf of Christopher Leonard uh to be used at this principal's discretion. Um, we have a number of Chinese New Year donations including Aviv Spa Springfield, Peter Hair Studio in East Hanover. Um, we have
a donation uh as the result of Juliana Vaglio finishing second in the 55 meter dash at the 50th anniversary Colgate women's games for second and third grade. Um, Colgate Palm Olive is making a donation used for the library and media center class at Lafayette Avenue
School. Um, we have a Sage local recreational improvement grant for Lafayette Avenue School playground. Uh, a donation from the Burrow of Chadam, uh, the Cadam Township Volunteer Fire Department and the Green Village Fire Department, uh, to be used for the after
the fire assembly. Um, we have a donation from Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth David to be used for Chattam High School TV production. Uh, a donation from the Chattam Booster Club for a basketball shooting machine. and also the Chattam Basketball Club for the same basketball
shooting machine and um a donation from the Southern Boulevard PTO for uh a library reading corner. So, thank you. Oh, and one more on the addendum, a donation from Southern Boulevard uh to offset the cost of renovating restrooms. Thank you for all those.
Oh, that's from the Lafayette PTO. I'm sorry, I have to correct number 27. That is the Lafayette PTO. Lafayette P. is a semi- typo. The resol the body is correct. The heading is wrong. Sorry, that's my fault. Oh, SPS PTO is the PTO for the for Okay,
sorry. I seconded all that. Chris seconded. I'm doing my part. Agenda items B1 through 26, addendum B27, corrected to be the donation from the Lafayette PTO. Miss Ross,
yes. Miss Allen, yes. Mr. Delandro, yes. Miss Peek, yes. Mr. Ryan, yes. Mr. Smith, yes. Miss Weber, yes. And Miss Chickelli, yes. Agenda items pass 8 Z. Okay, great. Um, moving on to
curriculum. Miss Ross. Yes. I'd like to move action items C1 to C4 on the regular agenda. Um, do we want to talk about the uh quickly on C4 the school calendar changes? Um,
so May 4th, delayed opening at the high school um for NJSLA testing. May 13th, early dismissal at a few of the schools. May 22nd, schools will be closed for an unused school day, snow day, excuse me.
And Tuesday, May 26th, also uh district closure for the unused snow day. Okay. Thank you. Um question on the HIVs. Oh yeah, go ahead. Have we seen an improvement since it
didn't look like it in reading the report since we did some extra things at CMS? No, we continue to see some significant issues uh throughout the district related to um race and
hate-based language. Um but we continue to see the most at CMS and graffiti and graffiti. Yes. It's not a h but it's not a hit but it's it's an issue. It's Yes. Yes. Very much so. So the
administration continues to look at various ways to work with students [clears throat] there to educate and provide remediation when there are incidents. So the counselor's administrative team are working on a plan is bad. I just want to point out that this is one of the first years on
typically when we have um leftover snow days we do the Thursday and Friday before Memorial Day and some of us that are used to it will probably just say oh great Thursday Friday but it's the Friday Monday this year Friday it's the Friday Tuesday so still come to
school on Thursday before um but this I think this will be a nice change it up a little bit for the Tuesday totally I just need somebody to I'll second it. Agenda item C1 to C4. Miss Ross,
yes. Miss Allen, yes. Mr. Delandro, yep. Miss Peek, yes. Mr. Ryan, yes. Mr. Smith, yes. Miss Weber, yes. And Miss Chikarelli, yes. Agenda items pass 80. Okay, great. Thank you. Um, nothing for
policy. Moving on to board business. And there's an update for the uh 202526 calendar for kindergarten screening and student visits. Who has that? Mary, do you want to talk about the kindergarten screenings for May 13th? [laughter]
That caught up. Um yes. So on May 13th, if you'll recall, the past two years, we have indeed done a um kindergarten screening at each of our schools. And in order to make that possible, we need all staff um on deck. So we do dismiss the students in those schools early. Um if
you follow through, when we go to place students um coming out of kindergarten, going into first grade, going into second grade, we have a snapshot as to what their behaviors and what their personalities are like. So students that are coming into kindergarten but have not gone through our preschool if if we
don't have any eyes on them, you really are taking a great um risk not having um any oversight of the class lists. So even though it's just a small snapshot, we are able to gather some important information about the students so that we can create um balanced class lists
because once the list is set, we need to live with it for the remainder of the year. So um it's a lot of work for the teachers um and it extends far beyond just our kindergarten staff, but the feedback from the teachers as well as from the principles is that it is a good
exercise and it has led us to have good results as we develop the class list. Also, on that day, our students from fourth grade will be going down to CMS and the feedback that we received last year was that it was much less overwhelming for them to be able to
navigate around the building without the rest of the students there. So, um, while it is somewhat of a disruption having a delayed opening or rather an early dismissal for those schools, we do think on both sides, um, it's a benefit for everyone. Got it. Okay, perfect. Um,
we're now on to our second opportunity for public comment. Again, if you do have something to say, if you could please just sign in and introduce yourself, that would be great. [snorts] Bill Heap again, Hillside Avenue. Uh, I'm going to uh respectfully push back
on two items. Uh, yes, Jill, I've been here a long time and I've always urged you to charge tuition for full day kindergarten. A lot of tuition. The demographer pointed out at the last meeting in February that this is a
wealthy town. Now, I understand that in with within the small subset of people that kindergarten tuition uh affects, there will be some people who won't be able to pay. I understand that they get subsidized. But uh the the taxpayers get
get crushed by the thorough and efficient standard. It is open-ended, completely open-ended and lopsided. And we have no defense against that. This is one of the very few areas where taxpayers had some leverage over the
system and it's probably never going to happen again. So, you might as well have taken advantage of it while you can or you could. Uh the second thing is the u comparison numbers spending per pupil.
Uh, if you're going to tell me that we're spending $20,000 per student, that comes out to, I think, if I do the math right, 72 million in budget. I'd take that budget. Uh, I think at the very least it's it's a little bit disingenuous. If the state allows you to
back out some numbers for comparison, okay, they do, but that doesn't mean the money isn't being spent. And at the very least on these charts, there probably should be a a number in parenthesis, the true spending number. I'm a simple guy. I do simple math. I take a hundred
million and divide it by 3600 students and I'm coming out with something like $28,000. Now, if it's anything less than that, I'd be happy to hear it, but I think that's it. And uh a sidebyside comparison at the very least uh would give a true picture of what the spending
per pupil is. Thanks. Okay. Um, do we have an executive? Okay. So, that concludes our meeting for the evening. Thank you for coming for all of you that came out and uh, everybody get home safe.