e e e e e e e okay good evening everyone happy St Patrick's Day I'm sorry we can't serve
beer but it's okay um okay in accordance with the requirements of the open public meetings act chapter 231 pl1 1975 announcement I wish to announce that the New Jersey open public meeting 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 bur and chattam Township the library of the chatam The chatam Courier The Daily Record The Star Ledger and tap Mr Dilla M Ross here M Alan here Mr
delandro here M Peck here Mr Ryan here Mr Smith here M Weber here Dr Zang here M here nine president in the county perfect if you're able please stand to join us for the pledge ofan the flag
here to my left United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation under God indivisible with do that okay I have no additional comments at this time I'm going to hands it over
to Dr Lusa thank you Miss chiarelli uh we have a packed agenda for the most part tonight and um we will begin with a student set of student presentations and I'll preface this by saying a few months
ago I was in the Middle School uh at the end of the day for some reason or another kind of wandering around and two of our Rockstar teachers Jessica uh leus and uh James hitchings pulled me into the room where they do their work with the taco cats which is our Middle School
robotics team and uh I know many people in the audience know all about the taco cats uh and then maybe a month or two later uh I ran into another Superstar teacher at our high school Julie Ryan who we stole from another District about 10 years ago uh who has build help
helped to build our Advanced robotics program at the high school and uh she mentioned hey maybe we can come back to the board a board meeting some point in the future because uh in the past they had come every few years to kind of demonstrate what the kids were up to so
of course I said yes um I wasn't even thinking that March 17th was actually St Patrick's Day and people might have other plans but uh all the students here have generously uh donated their time tonight to kind of show us what they do
uh in the robotics world so I'm going to ask Jessica and James to come up first with their students I'll hand them the microphone and they can talk about what they're doing and what they're up to and then uh after Jess and James are here with their students Julie will come up with some of our high school all right you go over there wherever
you're comfortable up you go if you guys are presenting you can come back here with me yeah if you're talking come back here with me all right all right all right we're
organized good evening and thank you guys for having us tonight my and I'm a teacher at the chattam middle school and also the coach of the taco cat robotics team um I've been working with this team since it started in 2017 and back then we were known as cougar Nation I was at
the time the only coach for about four years and then Mr hitchings joined us as an assistant coach which was really awesome that happened in 2021 in 2023 our team team and some of these members are still on the team now they propos changing the name we used to be known as
cougar nation and they noticed that our team number 34043 was a palindrome and they said can we be team taco cat and I said yes draw me a logo and that's what is on their shirts um so we are an lll robotics team which ST which which
stands for first Lego League we are part of the same first robotics family as the high school team just competing in the Middle School Division in F we do have a lot of interest in our school for this program but we are on our team and we are required to
have two coaches as part of our league we not only build and program a robot but also engage in a research project to help our community which is based around a central theme each year team members meet with and get feedback from various industry professionals including our
chadam mayor our team creates mentorship and community outreach opportunities for team members and introduces them to the skills they will need when they get to the high school robotics team hello I'm James hitchings I'm a assistant coach and a teacher of Design Technology at the middle school don't
worry Bard I'm not here to talk Union stuff tonight so um so I just wanted to talk a little bit about how the team prepares for their competitions uh we hold practice twice a week until about 5:00 pm and leading up into competitions the students come down during their study halls they're there for extended
practices they work really really hard um they also uh throughout the school year participate in some team building activities they'll talk about some of those as we go our competitions are all day events Saturdays and Sundays um and at our competitions um I'll talk a little bit about some of the awards that
we've won in the past we also have uh what we call an offseason after our competitions where the students compete against each other um and also against us and that's their chance to kind of build new code try new things uh and come up with things so we have had a
really successful season this year um some of the awards we've won in the past uh in 2017 they got the robot design award and a second pa place core values award uh in 2022 they got the first place motivate award that was our first year going to championships 2023 we got
the robot design award second place research award first place motivate award at championships again uh and then at that championships they got 11th Place out of 80 te teams and then in 2024 we got second place in Robot Games engineering Excellence award first place
in the motivate award at championships and they got 12th Place out of 80 in the Championships and that when we do the math of that the top 25% of New Jersey goes to championships of f through the entire league so we're about the top 4%
of New Jersey um some other major accomplishments uh one of our seniors from the robotics team uh was on this uh team with us a few years years ago where they created a plan to rework the traffic in chatam and they were invited to talk with the mayor about their plan
uh unfortunately that was also the time the world shut down so that never actually came on um but that was something that was really cool they were invited to a round table with the Mayors to talk about that uh and this year our team raised
$2,160 for the paic river Coalition which they donated in order to keep the chadam rivers and waterways is clear I'm now going to introduce you to our team members who will talk a little bit and then some of our members on stage will show you some of their robots so this is
Ryan thank you for having us this evening my name is Ryan and I'm a six grader and this is my first year on the team up there on the left in the light blue shirt is vivon in the middle is Vier on the right is sh here is Shreya and the right is shyav VI's in seventh
grade and me Von me vona and shamov are in sixth grade grade we are excited to talk to you about our what our team does our accomplishments and show you some of our robots and code if it's okay with you we'd like to come up on stage with some robots and attachments while the rest of
the team presents my name is elica and I'm in seventh grade and this is my first year on the on the team each year FL provides a new team for a robot game and research project this year's theme focused on exploring the oceans we chose to research how Plastics affect sonar Exploration collaborating with industry
professionals like chadam Township mayor Miss Ewald and local W water quality experts like Miss linge the director of water quality programs for the Great Swamp our team meets every Tuesday and Wednesday after school until 5: and sometimes later we also meet on Fridays at each other's houses to maximize
efficiency and for some team bonding time so far we have spent over 180 hours working together with more time with more to come we focus on building strong teamwork conducting research and documenting everything in our engineering notebook for robot game we created Chromebook which operates
autonomous autonomously completing tasks without human control it features motorcycle wheels for traction a color sensor to activate codes and a universal attachment system for quick changes all driven by custom functions and precise programming in the first Lego League F the the robot is designed to
autonomously complete a series of missions on the gamefield with a with within a set time limit in the 2024 to 2025 season the challenge focuses on marine ecosystems with task tasks such as raising Coral leaves releasing sharks and deploying artificial habitats the
robot must be programmed to navigate the field interact with objects and perform these specific missions to Max score the maximum points possible hello my name is Sebastian I'm in seventh grade this is my second year on the team as a team we compete about three times a year our first formal
competition is regional qualifiers where about 30 teams compete against each other six teams advance to championships based on their scores in four categories robot performance Innovation project robot design and gracious professionalism or core values teams
must be in the top 25% of all four categories to be eligible for advancement we've Advanced the championships for the past three years and we're judged in the same categories as qualifiers our championships we are the there are the 80 of the best teams in New Jersey and the eastern PA area
competing sharing ideas and having a ton of fun we placed 11th and 12th in the past 2 years in the Rob overall in the robot game we go code and run an autonomous robot which means we are not controlling it we do all of the coding ahead of time so the robot relies on the
gyro color distance force and motor sensors part of our score is a presentation of our innovational research project about a topic improve related to improving ocean exploration this year we also have a presentation about our robot design or attachments
and code where we talked about our EX acceleration deceleration code which new for us this year my name is Henry I'm an eighth grade Captain this is my second year on the team in F we use our core values to create a meaningful experience for
everyone we explore new skills and ideas together while using creativity and persistence to solve problems we apply what we learn to improve our world while embracing our differences we understand that we are stronger when we work together and above all we have fun while
programming we use critical thinking to enhance our code we created a function so that a single movement is a series of complex math equations to determine the speed at any moment and maintain a straight heading you can see examples of our
code in our offseason we experiment with new coding techniques two of the new techniques we are working on are exponential acceleration and P in our move forward and backward code we accelerate at a linear speed we're currently working on accelerating at an
exponential rate acceleration prevents the robot from skidding when starting and exponential acceleration gives us better control over this we use a rise overrun formula for our slope to accelerate exponentially instead of
accelerating at constant speed we use yal Ab to the X power where B is our rate of change providing a smoother and more accurate acceleration deceleration we use a Java sensor to maintain a specific heading while using variables in our code that perform equations P ID
stands for proportional integral derivative into our code to make our robot more precise PID uses integrals and derivatives to flatten a line making the robot go perfectly straight my name is Rion and I'm an
eighth grade captain and this is my third year on the team in my 3 years on the team I've had many great experiences I learned to be a better teammate and how to persevere through difficulties we faced lots of issues and obstacles but we kept going and got through it we understand that what we learned together is more important than winning I have
learned how to think quickly on my feet and react to CH changing circumstances through our robot design and Innovation project I have learned to be a better public speaker and present my ideas to my peers and adults I have learned how to demonstrate and apply gracious professionalism in all that I do as a
team we have explored Advanced programming and computer science principles we've applied skills that we have learned in math science Ela and Social Studies classes we have learned how to conduct research and find Innovation innovative solutions to real world problems in our
community together we have experienced successes and failures one year at our qualifiers competition our robots code was accidentally erased and we were able to work together as a team and still Advance championships that year we were very proud of this achievement I would like it I would like to take a moment to
thank thank my coaches for all the all the time they put into this program before competitions I would go during study hall to get extra time to work on the robot Miss lice and Mr hitchings gave up that extra time to help us prepare for competition even though I beat Miss lce and Mr richings in our
offseason competition last year I still consider them my mentors and have become very close with them over the years I remember the lessons they thought taught me for the rest of my life so thank you for your time this evening um it's really great to be able to have these guys come in and show you their
work we are super super proud of the work that these students have done so we'll ask our taco cats to start packing it up on the board and we will turn you over to Miss Ryan and the high school team good here
great all right great job taco cats you guys did awesome um my name is Julie Ryan and as Dr Lusa said um I'm the design and Technology teacher at the high school and I spearheaded creating the advanced robotics program when I was hired in 2014 uh prior to the pandemic I really
was out here with the kids quite frequently and when I realized Dr Lusa was at the end of his time here with us at uh school districts of the chatam figured we needed to get back here at least once again before he moves on um so thank you again for all your support uh both from the school district and the
board of education for everything you've helped us achieve over the last 10 years it's been a very very fun um challenging but exciting ride so uh my students have a very similar theme that they're doing at the high school that the taco cats just
shared their experience they are competing the First Tech Challenge which is the high school division of the first uh robotic sector and they are also building designing and collaborating to build a robot for what the needs are of that Year's Challenge and they are also
trying to fundraise to meet the needs of their program outside of the school district support where we really differ is the high schoolers similar to our middle schoolers are spread really thin they have really really high rigorous schedules they're all involved in athletics uh many of our members are
currently preparing for the spring musical this week and to really make sure we could have a really strong foundational program we found a way to work it inside of our curriculum so they actually work together inside the classroom but then also during lunches and after school with me uh to have
enough time to actually create these robots the ones that they're going to show you that are in front of you right now there's no instruction list they don't know how to really put them together when they're given the parts and they have to figure out how to do that maybe they have have Hands-On
knowledge with tools and machines but sometimes we have to learn what an allen key is and how to use a driver to tighten a lock nut it all kind of comes together in the room depending on their prior experience and ultimately it's always a really great collaborative experience for them over the years we've
won a ton of awards uh we've gone to the state championship eight out of the 10 years uh We've Advanced to the world championship three times and the year that we actually placed in the top 10 in The Innovation Challenge within the world Championship was during the pandemic year in 2021 uh they continue
to surprise me they always come in exceeding my expectations and working together to do new exciting things uh so this year we had a group of 18 students in total so I have two teams um and 12 of them are seniors they're all
graduating this year all 12 are moving on to stem careers which is really exciting um and the remaining six that are still in me still with me next year will most likely be moving on to stem relas careers as well um at this time I'm going to let them take over because they are the stars of the show and just
thank you again for your time up to you there you go thank you sir so we put a lot of effort into building these robots right each year so we start out um with just a challenge and so from there
there's a lot of talking um and brainstorming and trying to figure out which designs we want to go with how we want to do different things so this year we had a game element we had to pick up and so there's a lot of talking about how we're going to grab that and so
inevitably UNT for things don't go as we plan so we've built these robots up we spent yeah months working on these and then they unfortunately do not work out sometimes and that problem solving that
we then do um to still compete or to uh succeed within the competition is really important and it's a skill that I think all of us um have had to use and have really honed through the program um like for instance I think we were outside of
the size um constraints this year and so we ended up fixing that and we able to compete um but there's a lot of stuff that we learn outside of the technical stuff right so um we have 3D printed
parts we have all sorts of stuff on this but there's a lot more value than just that technical aspect um to these the this program we um learn how to collaborate and design these
robots uh we have to do fundraising Outreach we're looking for um mentors sponsors and we're trying to fundraise so we can buy um parts that may be would be helpful or we need to uh do stuff for
the challenge so there's a lot of that there's a lot of um time management making sure we get our bot done on time so it's really just a really challenging um problem to approach and in the end I think we're all better for
it for uh this program G passed the mic too hi my name is Daniel Steiner and I'm the team captain for chadam 9853 robotics team so as a team this year we've really been the rookie team the other chadam team 11248 has had a lot of returning members but in some ways well
we've been disadvantaged to have so many new members I think it's also a privilege working with so many new people we've really been able to develop both as individuals and as a team many of these people have never had any experience in robotics before they haven't been on the middle school team they don't take stem classes and through
this program of Robotics that chadam has it's able to open so many doors for so many individuals to let them into a field of stem that they never could otherwise do and for that like I'm so proud of the entire team and what they've been able to accomplish this year so I'm going to pass off to J now talk a little um this year I learned
leared a lot about CAD through one of our members he's a senior I'm a level one and he taught me so much about Cad and how to design stuff um on our robot we have this bucket here and we went through a lot of uh designs to get that
bucket right but yeah he just taught me so much um also this year we focus on Outreach to try and get more kids involved with robotics um our main Outreach event was a devil's game where we reached uh thousands of people we demonstrate our
robots from last year I'm going pack pass it to Jack hi I'm Jack lman this is my first year doing the program and I'm really enjoying it so one thing we did is that we built a robot like over many different iterations initially we have
we currently have these two parts which is like a bucket and an arm they used to be just one big part we managed to change it and split up to two it's really awesome to seeing how a robot evolves over the course of the season
and how we perform additionally we also have many fun things ahead of us now that the season is over and we get to do more skills-based work in the offseason so we can improve for future Seasons um so this is arbot obviously um so the beginning of the year we started
with sort of like just one really long arm um and then as we went through the season we sort of like it was trial and error um and we found that this sort of worked a little better with two arms um yeah it took a lot it took a lot of time and a
lot of like teamwork and a lot of collaboration um to figure out what could really work and like what would be stable and what could work with like um the competition like environment so do we want a demo okay
here all right so now we're going to show off the robots the the fun part right so we took very different approaches to the challenge this year there were some new elements that were so we had an expansion limit this year so our robot could only expand so far
and that was a pretty big uh design challenge that wasn't previously a consideration and so both teams took a look at that and um approached it from sorry very different angles so 9853 used
an active intake that uses Motors to pick up the scoring elements and put them in a little bucket so that they can then be scored whereas um sl112 48 used two claws that hand off to each other um both utilize um 3D printed elements that
we designed and made ourselves and um we wired the Bots we do all of this from scratch so it it goes from metal pieces filament on a spool and um lexan in a closet to the bot you see before
you um if anyone has any questions we'd be happy to answer them too yep swib and and Stanley preschool are those sponsors yeah so we've had the privilege as a team of being sponsored by a number
of different companies um through the program we've been able to go around and talk to different local businesses and different broad organizations both ones we have personal connections to and one who never would have otherwise been able to interact with and get sponsorships from
them awesome any other questions picked it up it looks like you can use these to clean up your room like scoop and pick up some of the other cool things that these robots can do right is we can
drive sideways so your normal car and stuff like that can't do that right but we can strafe sideways we can drive diagonally Go in all sorts of directions if someone wants to show that off quickly might yeah there so we can strafe sideways we can drive diagonally
we can go all in all directions it's pretty cool um and so we not only build these robots we program them as well so these are all uh built and program from scratch um so
it's pretty cool very cool very cool that's thank you guys m one more question y so congratulations first of all you're all amazing and this is really fun to watch and impressive tell us about how many hours
you work on it and what do you do when the off season are you still working on robotics in the offseason too yeah so for our team at least for 9853 I would say that average team member probably spends at least 15 to 20 hours a week working on a robot it
really is like a Varsity Sport it's a full-time commitment you know um every member of our team we love working on it and it's it's a huge Hobby and a huge part of our Lives um even once the season is over as it is now you know while we have't Advanced States we're still working on our robots we're
preparing for next year and we're ready to come back and have an even better season I have a question for you guys do you think this experience help you decide or know better where you want to what you want to do for college yeah um I started in CS so I
started with like CSP and CSA and then um I talked to Miss Ryan cuz she did python with me or like I took her python class and I asked her like oh like I was recommended for advanced robotics like should I take it do you think um and she told me yeah like you should try it out and I did and I think it like did really
solidify like I want to do like Cs and like some form of like engineering or something like that um I always knew I wanted to go into Medicine of like any kind um but when I took the introduction to robotics last year I was like really inspired by
all of the um robots that we had made even though they were very simple designs um there was this one project that I remember that Miss Ryan made us do when there was a substitute and it was talking about how robotics was influencing the world currently and I
stumbled upon this article from Penn State talking about Prosthetics that they made in their biomedical engineering um department so from there I was just very like immersed and motivated and I wanted to do Advanced robotics the next year and um now I plan
to major in biomedical engineering and like start a surgical instrument or prosthetic company in the future so I'd say it really influenced my life that's awesome wow and I for me I was fortunate enough to be on the roox
team in the Middle School actually and U do FL through that and then the interest kind of continued because I loved doing that so I took basic Robotics and I continued on to robotics in the high school and um I'm
currently uh I've applied to colleges helping to do mechanical engineering so yeah awesome yeah so thank you guys for your time thank you conat thank you guys thank you all very very much thank you Miss Ryan and Mr hitchings and Miss
lius um you guys don't have to stick around to hear the budget presentation you all can go if you want to and the next item on my agenda is the budget presentation so the board members can head on down to the seats same
that's true Nick can you just change the view so it's full screen yes the last one and I remember the one 10 or 11 years ago when we created a Robotics and uh and design program which we hadn't really had before at least not
K12 all right all right well I'll start by uh thanking the members of the finance committee uh we had unusual schedules the past couple of weeks and uh they all were very patient in trying to figure out a time or multiple times to talk uh
which culminated in a meeting just yesterday afternoon um and it was a a thoughtful discussion one that considered uh many different variables as we were putting together the budget so a giant thank you to the uh the finance committee so some familiar kinds
of talking points for the most part uh our expenses continue to rise uh and I'll get into that in a minute our revenues have also increased uh in part that's due to to modest amounts of state aid that have been increasing for us over the past eight years ever since uh
a law known as S2 took effect um our enrollment as I've mentioned before has hit its its bottoming out at the elementary school level and now is starting to rise so our smallest uh cohorts of students right
now are in fourth and fifth grade and then they're a little bit larger in the grades 1 through three uh and then uh something that we've talked a lot about but now is becoming more of a reality is that Governor Murphy and I'll get to this in
a second uh has uh proposed to require full day kindergarten for free for all students in New Jersey uh imminently though we don't have a specific timeline uh so big picture expenses uh
our collective bargaining agreements all fall within 3 and 3 and a half% in terms of annual increases our health benefits premium this year Rose 13.1% uh that's actually slightly less than the state health benefits plan is
rising uh but it's in line with uh industrywide Trends in terms of health benefits increases inflation is still elevated at least it's much higher than 2% and uh for us like very specific that last bullet there uh the transportation
CPI that the state sets and then uh our vendors must conform to is at 3.57% and of course in terms of expenses we have really been marching on a direction toward trying to implement
full day kindergarten ideally for free uh but this current year is many of you know we do have full- day kindergarten running for all students in the district although at a uh tuition rate of $5,000 so looking uh a little bit more closely
then at the revenues that are possible um the tax levy last year was just shy of $75 million the state the Department of Education that is each year tells districts uh whether it can exceed a 2%
tax levy increase and by how much it may consider increasing its tax levy beyond the 2% and uh for those of you who've been attending these meetings the most common adjustment to the tax levy that we've received over the years is in health insurance because the way that
New Jersey Law currently works is that essentially the amount of of your state of your health benefits increase that falls within the State Health Benefit increase is permitted to be passed into the tax levy uh so that is something
that's kind of common there in the second bullet we frequently get a health insurance adjustment to the tax levy if the board would like to use it uh in line with what the state health benefits uh uh health insurance increases in addition to that this year
if you look at that top bullet we received an enrollment adjustment from the state uh and that just means that the state believes that our enrollment has increased um to an extent that we can exceed the tax levy beyond the 2% cap so even though our enrollment has
been declining uh year over year over year over year the way the formula uh or or the way the state calculates the tax levy that is permissible to a school district uh the state determined that we qualified for a slight enrollment
adjustment of $232,000 following along in that second bullet beyond the health insurance adjustment we have banked cap so uh last year Mr Smith uh commented multiple times during this process that we were leaving taxing Authority on the on the
table or the Board of Education was leaving taxing Authority on the table there was an un uh an unpursued amount of $930,000 that arose from our health insurance adjustment last year that the board did not roll into the tax levy so
that second bullet there in the second uh in the middle of the screen refers to the bank cap that is carrying forward from last year and then at the bottom there you can see that our state aid uh rose again and uh like I just said for the past eight years we've been
receiving gradually more and more state aid to put us back uh Beyond where we were initially when we lost most of our Aid in the 20091 school year returning to full day kindergarten uh when I began as assistant
superintendent in 2010 uh 80% of the districts in New Jersey offered full day kindergarten 20% did not which means there were about a 100 districts in New Jersey when I was assistant superintendent that did not have full day kindergarten the 100 districts have
turned into fewer than 10 and almost all of the nine have plans to offer and Implement free full day kindergarten now uh so we have gradually our cohort has shrunk and shrunk and shrunk over the years and now we're at a point where we
are probably staring free full day kindergarten in the face based on uh the legislative support for it and the uh Governor's statements recently both in the State of the State address and also in his budget address our path toward full day
kindergarten as you probably know is that the year that the pandemic hit that was the first year we had opened up two sections of full day kindergarten that we selected on a lottery basis and charged $7,000 per seat for
uh that year once the pandemic began and schools were closed in March we refunded about onethird of the tuition and the following year which was the year we were open but many districts were not open at least to the extent that we were the 2020 21 school year we weren't able
to offer any full day kindergarten that would because of spacing constraints and The Way We Were needed to use our classrooms to open up school for as many students as possible once the pandemic uh subsided a little bit in the 2122 school year we returned to offering uh
full day kindergarten on a tuition basis and this current year this year is the first time in the school district's history that we have all of our students who are enrolled in kindergarten in full day and the only reason that was possible this year is because we relocated three sections of third grade
over to Lafayette and Cheryl Russo and and the team of teachers there were able to take on 66 students uh in this school building uh at least right next door uh and this year because we were able to increase the total number of students in
full day kindergarten uh you remember the Board of Education reduced the tuition rate from $7,000 to $5,000 for the current school year so we have a budgeted amount of $1 million in the current uh school year budget relating to tuition for full day
kindergarten uh in part because we in large part because we opened up full day kindergarten for everyone we've seen an increase in kindergarteners this year it historically was the case that uh we'd see somewhere between a 30 40% increase
in students between kindergarten and first grade because many of our parents would opt to enroll their students in private private full day options for kindergarten and then once their children completed the private year they would come to us in first grade and we'd see a giant jump and enrollment uh from
kindergarten of first grade uh this year we've seen a predict ictable increase in kindergarten students because full day kindergarten tends to be much more attractive to parents for a variety of reasons and they were happy that we were able to accommodate all students and
this you know little chart just shows that our 12th grade uh these are by year our 12th graders and our kindergarteners our 12th grade has kind of stayed somewhat flat over the past bunch of years it's about to decline
because after we get through the current eighth graders really um there aren't any more numbers that approach 300 they really start to drift down and in fourth and fifth grade right now we have about 240 students in a class and more like
250 in grades 1 through three so the 300 days are are coming to an end uh but little by little our enrollments in kindergarten first and second grade are ticking up and I should just point out the 201920 kindergarten number is a little bit of an anomaly because these
are the numbers at the end of the year except the 229 is current day but the 167 reflects how many parents pulled their kids out of kindergarten altogether when the pandemic hit uh we also uh of course have some expenses related to the reconfiguration
and I just want to remind everyone the only reason that we are reconfiguring the grade levels in the district is to be able to offer full day kindergarten there is no other reason that we were that we wanted to take on that level of stress and change uh the reason to do so
was to move our third graders out of the current K through3 buildings and into Lafayette so that we had classroom space available for full day kindergarten so obviously we're on the precipice of now implementing that uh when the when the coming school year begins uh and so we
have some costs uh most of them relatively minor uh in the form of of making some adjustments to uh chattam Middle School the construction is the most expensive item on this list and that is something that we're accomplishing out of capital reserve
primarily so the proposed budget to get to the sort of the punch lines here um in includes no increase in Staffing no headcount increase even though our enrollment is starting to pick up a little bit at the elementary level uh it includes the funding necessary to finish
the reconfiguration it maintains all other District programming programming just like the robotics Club here the athletic programs that we offer for the first time in probably 10 or 12 years we're increasing this we are proposing or the
board is to increase the Student Activity fee that we charge at chatam high school that's just a flat fee that we charge any student to participate in whatever activities they want to participate in from $150 to $200 and again this year for the second or third consecutive Year we're raising the
subscription bus fee to account for the kinds of increases in transportation that we're experiencing and we're also proposing the inclusion of full day kindergarten for all families and all students for free with no tuition charge so uh looking at the revenues
then uh and kind of the numbers and detail behind what I just uh what I just explained uh the proposed 25 26 I should say 2526 I apologize budget shows an increase to the tax levy
of 4.7 6% uh and it leaves available if you look at the very bottom row of this table uh about $400,000 in banked cap which would be
unused tax levy Authority that the board is not choosing to exercise this year that it could uh choose to exercise next year or the year after this is just overview of major expenses um and you can see and we'll
post this of course online but our health benefits costs are really the the the the number that is jumping the most on this particular chart or table excuse me the impact to the tax uh the the tax
bill for every $100,000 of assess value in each municipality as well as the home that's assessed at the average uh as you can see is $43 rough roughly in the burrow per 100K of assess value and $53 in the township and so if you multiply
those numbers by 10 that's what would what you would that's what the impact would be on a million dooll home the average home assessment in the burrow is $995,000 roughly and the average assessment in the township is $863,000 and for the average assessed homes uh
the annual impact is estimated to be about $433 and $461 in the burrow and the township respectively um just want to note and you know these kinds of tables are are have been common place over the years uh
but in Morris County if you look at all the pre prek through 12 school districts uh and you take from the uh taxpayer guide to education spending off of the State website the doe website that is our budgetary cost per pupil is still
very low uh compared to to most other districts or all other districts in the county and looking at a per pupil expenditure with 3500 students and we're just shy of 3600 right now um
$500 equates $1.75 million so you can see how if you had a difference of between the school district of the cadams and some other uh District on this list like Pary of $1,000,000 time3 3,500 is a lot of money
it adds up uh so even though the board is uh the the finance committee of the board is recommending a levy increase of 4.76% relative to other districts nearby
and relative to the rate of inflation over the past seven years or so um the committee not to speak for them believes that this is still a responsible budget and that it's important to uh take on full day kindergarten for free finally
after all the years that we've been working uh to get to this point some uncertainties that still remain as we look forward Beyond just this budget is that of course Federal funding is something that um we're
asking a lot of questions about there is a lot of change in Washington DC uh our federal funding comes primarily in the form of Ida funding this is related to special education students and our enrollments and programs in special
education uh so we get about a million doll a year of that uh there are rumors about how much or how little that may be reduced we don't have any answers about that yet uh of course there are additional housing developments that we
know will come on uh as a matter of the fourth round obligations that uh municipalities have and this is the final year of Governor Murphy's term term second term so like when I said that for the past eight years we've been receiving additional state aid that
largely has to do with a law that uh that he signed in his second year uh called S2 so once we have a change in Administration in Trenton we could also see changes in posture toward uh school funding at least for districts like us so that's it I'll ask the board
members to come back up and the finance committee can chime in and other board members can ask questions last time you get to sit thank you for the presentation drusa um hold on Nick's got to turn you on thank you for the presentation Dr
Lusa um it's amazing to look at at some of these charts and where inflation is gone um it's it's no secret that um you know we've been dealing with Rising costs for years we've been very transparent about it um in addition we
passed a um we passed a uh increase for the ca um our health insurance has been going up 10 12 133% a year um and at this point with uh Trenton being very clear that
full day kindergarten was on the table um uh the committee decided this was the best logical decision on the finance committee I I just I just ni is mine on thanks Nick I also just wanted to point out Bradley we talked about offering full
day kindergarten now makes us eligible for additional grant money so I think it's important that we're getting ahead of that before that um that money dries up oh yeah Murphy was very clear that in addition to um all the benefits received from um from this cohort of kids in uh
age five and lower and and what having them in District um at an earlier age does uh for early intervention Etc that full day kindergarten helps towards that and also um he hinted at the fact that
free preschool and um or Aid towards preschool would also be uh in the cards but only if you offered a full day uh kindergarten program and that would be Revenue positive Revenue positive correct which we're ineligible for now we are
currently ineligible for it along with the other District that's charging tuition right out of 608 districts in the state there's only one other I think believe there's two there are nine that are that are not offering full day kindergarten I believe two that are
charging is that accurate I don't I don't know I know we're the only one who offers only full day and charges for it as the only option so one also caring very little debt they're also carrying very very little
debt um were there any line items that we were able to reduce or eliminate on the budget without sacrificing education that saved us a significant amount of money I wouldn't say anything saved us a significant amount of money like we
always do if we think that we don't need if we think that there are sections that are reducing in any one department or one grade level we then reduce accordingly in terms of our headcount um I think Mr Dila would probably answer that we took a little
bit money out of Maintenance and and maybe Capital that he would have liked to have in there um you can jump in Peter about any specific reductions yeah I I I mean there is no big amount of money or one
account that you could say oh that has been over budgeted for years and years uh over the past few years we tighten the belt uh every year um so we're able to continue to explore efficiencies and purchasing by using different co-ops uh
and state contracted vendors so there's not any big any big cut anywhere out anywhere in the budget it's all kind of nickel and dime spots of going through and just trying to be tighten and be smarter can I ask one more question of course
how does busing impact kindergarteners are they they ride their own bus they ride the bus with first and second graders right like they even now they ride with other students in the in those schools the what we will deal with next
year though are more bus routes because of expanding the Middle School to um to include fifth grade and because we're trying to preserve subscription ition busing at the same levels roughly that we offer it now because a lot of folks
we could in other words not add on as many new bus routes but that would mean that fewer families who don't qualify based on distance would not have the option of having their kid ride a bus even though they're a little closer to the school then enables them to to be
guaranteed busing so we're trying to preserve the ability of parents to opt for subscription busing if they want it the other thing the other thing I would mention drsan mentioned it in the go up commensurate with the
affordable housing um buying in in the burrow and in the counter yeah especially since we're already seeing it we're already seeing it we're already seeing exponential increase exponential increase there and exponential increase in in
healthcare yeah it's very hard to fight a 133% increase when you're dealing a big number yeah and our health benefits broker met with the finance committee uh in the fall to discuss trends that are happening across the industry and as you
probably all know this the uh the class of drugs the weight weight loss class of drugs that are now being applied to other ailments and that are you know incredible and life-changing for so many people still cost a lot of money but they're being prescribed at higher and
higher rates and so across the entire industry prescription costs are what are driving uh health insurance increases overall and that's true of us question are there any cuts to the to larger not right
now this is why one of the line items in the equipment budget is new microphones um can you repeat Kate Kate can you just repeat your question I could he you oh I asked if any of the cuts in the budget will lead to larger class sizes got it yes and so at the
current time we did not we maintained headcount essentially except in places where we feel we we don't need the headcount right right right uh and then we've increased in places where we think we do so it's about a flat headcount budget with about a flat
enrollment in past years that was the only lever we kind of had left so we've had a lot of issues this year like roof Replacements and boilers and Bricks falling off and how does that get
addressed in the next budget are we ant I would anticipate we have the same or more amount of work to do with aging buildings uh with aging buildings there is always something to be done as I have said in the past hour
roof area is equivalent to the size of seven football fields so no matter it seems we do a roof every year and the roofs have 20 to 25 year lives uh we've been able to manage the majority of our Capital work from the capital spending
uh what happens every year the district puts together you know if you look at this budget a $96 million budget we do our best to spend less than $996 million um by trying to restrict purch orders as the you know we get into the
second half of the school year to make sure people actually need what they want or you know what they budgeted and the excess funds at the end of the year we've been routinely depositing uh anywhere from two to uh as much as $4 million in capital reserve to
pay for the projects by doing this and banking the money um the district has been I guess prudent and not continually going for hey we need need a referendum so because we have Capital items and we
have roofs and hvac's that we haven't a been able to replace um work done this summer was included in last year's budget uh we're taking advantage of the state's SDA program where they offer 40% of reimbursement for a certain class
of projects so two of the roofs that were done last summer uh will be getting 40% of the cost back and all of the HVAC the HVAC univent Replacements that will be done at the high school middle school and Lafayette this summer we will get
40% of that money back so the district outlays all the money once all the work's done the state approves they send us a check so that'll go back into the capital reserve for future projects so we try to be as uh prudent as uh we can
and mindful of you know how the money gets spent and when and space out uh improvements but you have to remember that uh our newest school is 60 years old you know or the original section of any of the newer buildings is 60 years
old and I believe that's the middle school was the last uh the middle school and the high school the last two buildings you know to be constructed and all the buildings have had subsequent additions so we do our best and I will say that uh the supervisor of buildings
and ground John catalo does a great job managing and trying to keep everything uh in the best working order as possible I'll just excuse me point out to on the addendum there uh is budget information the reason it's an the
reason it's an addendum is that we didn't meet until 3:00 yesterday and the presentation that I just put up wasn't completed until about 8:00 so the addendum contains the typical resolutions for the budget and within that resolution are items that are being
funded through a withdrawal from capital reserve so there are roof Replacements there uh that Peter mentioned for chadam high school we do have some of the work at the middle school included in next year's budget some of it we're doing out of this current Year's budget and those
types of uh adjustments at the middle school involve primarily taking oversized double classrooms and making them that that are now a single classroom turning them into two classrooms but a lot those rooms that we're targeting are original to the
building with original equipment with original flooring that contains asbest so they have to be abated um there's a Lafayette boiler replacement on here uh I'm guessing that's an original boiler probably and Lafayette was built I think
in the 1950s so that's got some age to it um and then there's some other equipment and electrical panel upgrade at Lafayette so you can see kind of how we're trying to pick off projects uh in the Aging buildings as
each summer passes and and we've got some work at the middle school this year but the majority of the spending is really on Aging infrastructure at ac across the buildings particularly Lafayette this summer anyone else any other
questions thanks for hard work also uh important to know this is budget the actual budget's not passed until next month so if there are more questions that the board members have that we need to address we can still address
those corre yep yeah only other item I'll I'll jump ahead a little bit under our curriculum section is an amendment to the school calendar uh we still have three days that are are extra if you will built into the calendar for inclement weather
we only had to close schools one day so far this year uh this winter uh so if the weather holds the next couple of weeks and of course spring break is the week after next hard to believe but we're almost at Spring break uh if we get there and we don't have any
inclement weather the three days that I'm recommending we convert into days of no school would be April 21st that's a Monday and that's the day after Easter and then May 22nd and May 23rd which which are the Thursday and Friday before Memorial Day weekend so Memorial Day
weekend would be long uh the Thursday Friday and Monday would all comprise a Memorial Day holiday weekend uh so if the board acts that way or or accepts that recommendation under the curriculum section we would then make the adjustments and email the the parent
Community either tomorrow or Wednesday to let them note that school will not be in session those days okay perfect excellent um okay anybody have any other questions for Dr Lusa before we move
on okay um thanks to the finance committee for all of your work and Dr Lusa obviously um meeting on Sundays is never fun but you guys did what you had to do so thank you for that um okay moving on to business administrators report very concise um all of the
planning for the summer construction uh projects and all the summer maintenance is well underway uh we're gearing up to get started on Tuesday June 17th which is the uh I guess two days after school is closed the school graduates and the
teachers are all done okay perfect and our student Le on summer everyone um I'm just going to keep this kind of brief but but I just want to go over a few things that happened these past couple weeks so for sports obviously you know our winter
sports were pretty good this year as they usually are so we have some County Champions we have boys and girls fencing and then boys and girls swimming we County Champions and then for sectional or group Champions we have boys and girls swimming again girls basketball boys track and girls fencing so congratulations to all of them and then
good luck to our spring athletes for school events um back on um February 13th we had our first like uh our first at least in a while school spirit event which was super fun we had it with um it was 9th and 10th graders and then it was 11th and 12th graders during different um class periods but it was the day
before winter break so it really kind of helped get the school together um right before our big break which was it was super fun I really really enjoyed it um and then we also this past last week we had um Juniors had four days of NG NG NJ
GPA testing which was just basically our graduation requirement where we did two days of English um testing and then two days of math testing which was great to get that over with and then um this past Friday we had our PTO fashion show this was definitely huge success they sold
Ravel tickets um had a ton of different fundraisers going on with some awesome awesome sponsors and funny skits of course and the students seemed like they had a really good really fun time so yeah and then uh coming up this week we have our spring musical the music band which you can see from all the stuff
behind me um so it will be going on from wedes this Wednesday March 19th through this Saturday March 22nd um show times and ticket sales can be found on the STS website that's all awesome perfect thank you so much summer
um okay moving on to our committee reports for personnel Miss Weber yes thank you an Personnel committee met on March 5th we talked about two main topics um Beth gave us a little glimpse into some preliminary Staffing numbers
um as we mentioned during the budget presentation or Dr Lusa mentioned that we're staying Staffing neutral and Beth also gave us a summary of um updates on updating the hiring process updating and documenting the hiring procedures and the goal of that
is to be more deliberate uh more consistent um and and Implement best practices so that team is hard at work you know working through and normalizing all of those procedures so that was those are the two highlights perfect amazing uh curriculum Miss Ross sure the
curriculum committee also met on March 5th uh Dr Donna who debriefed us on the reconfiguration process that is moving along at a steady clip the third and fifth grade teachers um had visits at their respective new buildings and there's packing plans and classroom assignments that are being
determined uh I have a couple of notes for school calendars there's going to be an early dismissal planned on May 13th for grades K to3 to accommodate kindergarten orientation and the middle school will also be dismissed early that day so that fourth and fifth graders can
visit the building uh we went through a schedule of some of the spring testing dates I won't read all through all of them but something to note is that there'll be a delayed opening on May 19th and 20th at the high school and I'm wondering if we can maybe highlight that on the calendar
when we send out the new one there were some Rumblings that some of the high school parents were caught off guard for the early dismissals last last week I mean I'm sorry the delayed open opening last week um we also talked about the
proposed changes to a new textbook for AP Psychology due to a change in some of the topics that are going to be included we haven't voted on that yet but it is available in the central office for any board members that would like to review it and then at our January meeting we
had the principles here um of the middle school and the high school to discuss new course offerings um now that those selections are underway by students there'll be a determination of what class will run um based on enrollment and uh then the curriculum profiles will be written in the spring
that's it I don't have the April date for our next meeting off the top of my head but we'll report on that I don't know Peter do you have the date for the April curriculum meeting give me one second I okay thank you April
9th okay thank perfect thank you thank you uh finance and Facilities Mr Smith yes uh we met uh back on February 12th and then as Dr Lusa discussed again last night uh yesterday afternoon I should
say uh we went through the budget for 2526 um just to reiterate we talked about given the ca increase uh the health insurance increase um we started out at a base level that we were going to need to be way above the 2% tax ly
and then we backed into how we were going to get there uh combined with the use of health benefit waiver and Bank cap as discussed uh we finally got to the point where we could offer free full day kindergarten perfect and our next
meeting is we have a meeting actually scheduled for this Wednesday like in two days we don't need that I don't think because we just met uh yesterday so we can foro the policy committee meeting and the finance Comm committee meeting that was on the schedule for this Wednesday
night okay great and for policy and planning Mr Ryan yeah policy met on February 12th uh we discussed a uh an add a district residency request
uh it's a a student that's here in the district that's moving and they wish to stay in the district RCT in pay tuition we the committee accepted that recommendation uh we also discussed the uh individual student
learning program as it relates to exemptions for PE uh we have 71 students right now that enoy enjoy that exemption uh 35 of them are in sports programs that we offer here at the high
school so those students will remain uh exempt from PE during the season um 10 students are in rowing six of those are seniors 16 are in dance uh and nine of those are seniors so we have a total of
10 students impacted by um eliminating the the exemption uh the committee remains in support of eliminating the exemption we also discussed the uh some of the executive orders that
have come out from Washington and the impact that they may have in the future on some of our policies uh we do need to have a policy committee meeting I think we should probably keep this one as it relates to some of those executive
orders but we can move it I don't think we shouldn't wait another month okay and that's it okay perfect thanks um any lays on reports meeting uh last week which I wasn't able
to attend but I did get an email today from Carol not who was retiring on yes really buckle up everybody who's involved in sports in town she's retiring April 1st April 1st that like two weeks April first she's out she's
she's been I don't think it's a joke so she uh she's been in the school she's been working in town for 39 and a half years she's done great work here and she's retiring know who she is our kids have all she's all touched what's
in some way shape or form is there a replacement she just sent an email today I okay just literally available for whomever will take her place you know I predict it'll be three people to take her place totally oh my God she's done so much it's just I don't know how it's
going to happen but it's someone's going to have to replace her all right congratulations Carol NADA um okay perfect um moving on to the minutes I'd like to move the minutes from the last meeting February 3rd
meeting and as a reminder Mr Smith and Dr Zang do need to abstain okay uh the minutes from the February 3rd meeting Miss Ross yes Miss Allen yes Mr delandro yes M peek Mr Ryan yes Mr Smith same
Miss Weber yes Dr Zang M Chelli yes minutes past 702 perfect amazing um okay perfect this is our uh first opportunity for public commentary uh hearing of 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 please
and if you don't mind just signing in and just stating where you're from that'd be great thank you is there um is there a pen I should use thank you all right hi my name is Emily Smith
I'm a freshman here at chadam high school esteemed members of the chadam Board of Education I'm here speaking on behalf of the many students impacted by the decision to disband the ISL program I currently dance at Studio algro in
Madison which is obviously not a CHS provided sport I dance almost 14 hours a week which leaves very little time to support a rigorous academic schedule and an intensive sport on top of that it creates uncertainty with scheduling here at chadam high school we have a fantastic
array of diverse electives and so many courses we can take to broaden our Horizons there are so many courses I'm interested in such as Ceramics creative writing fashion design and more however with The Disappearance of ISL I'm
worried I will miss out on not only the necessary credits but the experiences I would have to give up by taking another full year study hall despite all of this I don't want to come here and sit up here and complaint I know that there are several liabilities and several reasons to get
rid of this program um and it would but I was wondering if it would be possible for chadam high school to format ISL much like the student internship program where Studios Dojo any other organization could apply to be
a part of our RSL program that way they would be responsible for our schedule any other liabilities and everything that we now have chadam high school responsible for they would be a part of the P participating facility and automatically
be entitled to a gym exemption along with the current paragraph and reasons that we we could Curr have our students exempt I'm already aware of the many students who unfortunately choose to exploit this
opportunity and my goal today is to have you guys as the Board of Education consider the impact on the honest students individual education by eliminating the gym exemption we all deserve an equal opportunity to Lear learn and grows people without balancing
an impossible schedule you have the power to make art time here at one of the best schools in the country even better thank you for your time consideration and I hope your decision is in the best interest of the entire chadam Community I'm happy to take all questions thank
you hello um my name is Meredith eert tuminaro and I'm also here to speak on behalf of the ISL program um my son Kai couldn't be here tonight and he's the one that um had benefited from it for the last few years he's a rower um and
there's many rowers in chadam across different clubs and they all face kind of the same challenges obviously it's not something that's offered out of chatam high school but it's been such a huge benefit but it's also such a huge time commitment for them my practi is
two to three hours every single day all year around including Saturdays and races on Sundays it's a grueling schedule where my son would leave the house at 7:45 a.m. for school and get home probably about 8:00 every night after like all the kids in the carpool
were dropped off and this isn't him alone there's several kids on his team um that suffer the same kind of you know heavy heavy load from rowing but it's taught them so much my son was benefited so much from rowing he became much more
athletic he took on challenges that were definitely outside of his wheelhouse um he became a coxen and he learned a lot about leadership and quick decision making and kind of handling himself Under Pressure things that he may not have been exposed to had he not done
this program um right now he actually gave up his ISL and he's back in gym and he is the one that um when he ended his winter season he went right to um the person in charge of it and kind of dropped you know his ISL and went right
to JY so he is one of the Honest Kids and I feel like a lot of the kids in the rowing program are um you know they they work really hard and it's something that he could never have done had he not had the ISL um in the fall semester he's a senior now he was rowing and that was
his only study hall and he was taking calculus physics 2 um he had an honors engineering like design class and he was writing countless you know student essay like personal statements for college so there's no way he could have achieved
that without the ISL in place and still rode and done what he loved so in in defense of all the kids it's not going to affect my son next year maybe in the future it'll affect my younger freshman but in in defense of all the kids who need this program please don't cut it
because it is really really valuable for them and I'd like to think there's more kids that don't take advantage of it and really really desperately need it so that's all I just wanted to say thank you very much for your time thank you so much
uh good evening to all Bill Heap uh chattan burough happy St Patrick's Day um I guess it's time to offer my full and unconditional surrender with regard to full day kindergarten uh I've always wondered why
it has taken so long I never understood the politics of this especially with the team in charge down in Trenton um it just seemed to me odd that they never got around to doing it it appears that Mr Murphy on his way out the door is going to do it because it doesn't
cost them anything and uh Trenton is very good at uh issuing mandates that they have no intention of paying for uh another item I will uh take issue with your spending per pupil as I
usually do uh you have it at 19 and change the full budget is approaching 95 million plus or minus uh when I divide that by 3,500 students and I can't do that in my head sorry but I will say
that that's probably 25,000 plus per student um and that has been a a really Market increase in the spending per pupil over the past several years one of the reasons is that you've had a favorable budget process in the sense
that uh we have lost student population we are down 400 plus or minus students uh 10 12% that's not nothing it's 400 less mouths to feed and so when you uh do the
uh spending per pupil numbers uh it is pretty substantial and I don't think anybody can really argue that we're not spending enough money thanks thank you Mr he hi Michelle Clark chadam Township I'm here for two reasons first I want to
acknowledge the retirement of Karen ler she was the first person I met when I registered my oldest daughter at chadam that was my first exposure and as you all know my three kids all traveled through these schools and I don't think I could have asked better in that moment
and I'm so happy for her retirement I know she will be messed but she's truly made an impact I'm here also tonight to show my support for um one of the Personnel items for the appointment of Dr Audra burger for the supervisor of literacy and Technology education I have
had the true honor of working with Audra for the past 13 years in Melbourne she is a master at all things literacy and I'm so excited for the families the teachers the students to be able to work with her and learn from her and if audre
can't be down the hall for me she'll have to be down the street for me so this is a big win for chadam I'm excited for her and I'm excited for all of you thank you and happy St Patrick's Day sorry who are you again okay thank you everybody I'm going
to close this portion of the public commentary and move on to our regular agenda so for our regular action items for personnel Miss Weber yes you may comment com I don't mind uh the young
lady that spoke about ISL um and the and the rower's mom I I just want to put the I love the idea of the companies applying because you you thought it through and it's some procedure but I just want to reiterate what we covered a couple of a couple of items a couple of
meetings ago it's not just the physical hours the Mandate goes beyond the physical hours and the specific activity and and then I'm not going to go that deep into it but we have no control over the Personnel at those agencies even if they apply we have no idea what they do background checks and the Personnel you
know changes they have somebody in for a season and then they lose that person again I mean we see it in the news all too often that some of these programs don't have um you know they have some people that especially in chapsticks it's in the news swimming it's it's not pretty um
but the school specifically the superintendent certificates is kind of on the line they're attesting that yes they're meeting the curriculum and the private programs for-profit private programs are not designed to meet the state mandated CC curriculum so not only does it do we not meet the curriculum
not only are we not able to audit it not only are we not able to do background checks you know if we have a student that gets audited and doesn't have the gym credit they can't graduate so it's not just one thing and we certainly we love all the kids that do these extracurricular activities we absolutely
encourage it and there's tons of benefits I mean countless benefits it just doesn't fit well now um you know anymore and it's not the work I mean Doug Walker Dr Walker said they'll do the work that's not the problem it's all those other things and
and I could probably list 12 more but those are the highlights so sorry I just want to comment um because I thought it was a great idea that she had but there's some complications to that as well right I don't know if Mike wants to add are you good um I'm good on the on the ISL I
think you said it all but I am I'm a little annoyed that Michelle Clark stole my thunder about the people retiring and our new big appointment so I'll get to that once Miss chiarelli gets into the Personnel section of the agenda okay perfect so for personnel Miss Weber here
we are okay yes there might be some highlights apparently there are I'll talk slow um I'd like to move action items A1 through a23 on the regular agenda and there's a correction of a22 on the agendum yeah so I'll jump in here now
and just say uh there's not a person sitting at this table who doesn't feel some type of affection for one of the people retiring on this list here we've got some real Main Stays massive contributors to chatam I'm not going to go through the entire list but Kim Lonzo
has been here certainly longer than I have and has touched so many so many I guess I am going to go through a she she's touched so many so many students lives that uh it's amazing Karen leer I can't tell you how many people say
exactly what Michelle said about the care that she delivered to so many of our students and of course she was really my right-hand technical person during the pandemic and dealing with some uh some tough times Phyllis leenta uh she's the central office uh most
veteran Administrative Assistant she's been a parent here both of her children went through uh she's wonderful Debbie Conan in the Middle School office helps run the whole entire ire show there uh and her I taught her daughter back in the day 20 something years ago Mike deya
was hired with me SPS libr uh library media specialist and he's worked in the other elementary schools and then of course two of our most devoted most caring individuals in the district Maryann Costa and Linda Gart and many of you know Maryann Costa through uh some
of the students that she's cared for over the years so I'd wish all of them the best uh and then of course number seven on the agenda for like 10 years now or so I've heard about you know in education circles are kind of small you hear about some Legend in another District you hear about someone who's a
clown in another District you all this gossip I've been hearing literally for 10 years about some rock star named Dr Audrey Berger uh over at Milburn and there's got to be a way we can get her here there's got to be a way we can get her here I've heard that honestly like
15 20 times probably over the past 10 years and sure enough I'm stepping away and uh Dr danu and Dr sortino find a way to get uh audre burger here so I want to welcome her to the school district of the cadams I think she'll be very happy working with the team we have and we
look forward to bringing her on board uh officially very soon so amazing welcome okay say something you want to say something Dr burer were you waiting for Mike to leave good
move uh I don't think in my life I've ever been called a Legend um or a rock star certainly not in one sentence when I go home I will share with my husband what people have said about me so that he can maybe um adopt some of the language um thank you very much for having me here I'm very excited to join
the school district of the cadams and as much as I guess my name is floated out there I have heard about chadam over and over again as well and of course I live locally so I'm very aware of um the spectacular reputation of the school district I'm incredibly excited to be here I've been impressed the entire way
through this process um and even more tonight because I got a chance to see some of the Fantastic programs that are offered in the chatam and I know it's just a tiny drop um but seeing the sets of The Music Man and the props that I've been sitting behind um all night I'm a big theater fan so that was exciting for
me the AV students and the robotics team which I'm very happy I did not have to follow um but I'm incredibly excited to be here um and see even more of it as I progress Through The Years thank you so much amazing congratulations and welcome aboard we're happy to have you the
meetings are taped so you could just show your husband all the kind words okay perfect so I'm gonna second Jill okay that's what I was waiting for just second I just did I just seconded agenda items A1 to 23 and the correction on a22
M Russ yes M Allen yes Mr delandro yes M peek yes Mr Ryan yes Mr Smith yes Miss Weber yes Dr Zang yes and Miss chiarelli yes agenda item is passed 90 welcome Dr
bur amazing thank you um finance and Facilities Mr Smith sure I move agenda items B1 to b19 on the regular agenda which includes uh two generous donations one from Mr erands on behalf of the
baseball club of chadam for baseball Outfield fence windscreen and also a donation from the Lafayette PTO uh to be used towards new and upgraded basketball hoops for the Lafayette gym thank you for those donations um I also want to
move B20 on the addendum which is the preliminary 2526 budget that Dr Lusa presented on second second for Mr delis with no further questions M uh agenda items B1 through 19 and the
addendum of B20 M Ross yes Mr Allen Miss Allen sorry yes Mr delandro yes m p yes Mr Ryan yes Mr Smith yes M Weber yes Dr Zang yes and M Chelli yes agenda items
pass 90 perfect um okay moving on to curriculum M Ross yes I'd like to move C1 through C4 and a reminder that C4 is the changes to the calendar to include the extra unused snow days
AG agenda items C1 to C4 M Ross Yes M Allen yes Mr delandro yes Ms peek yes Mr Ryan yes Mr Smith yes M Weber yes Dr Zang yes and M Chelli yes agenda items pass
90 okay perfect and policy we have nothing okay moving on to board business anybody have anything else they want to discuss that we have't already no okay good um this is our second
opportunity for public commentary as stated earlier if you would not mind keeping it brief signing in introducing yourself very briefly um I have heard rumors of uh prek uh coming on The
Horizon and I'm wondering if you uh know anything about that whether it would be mandatory whether it would be uh or whether the district would be in any uh way able to accommodate that and uh maybe these are just the same rumors
that I heard 15 or 20 years ago about kindergarten but it might give me something to uh uh still come to meetings for thanks well I want you to come to meetings long after I'm gone so uh one of Governor Murphy's centerpieces
in his term has been the expansion of uh preschool Universal pre and the state has funded Universal pre in its uh in its fiscal budgets for the past number of years at this point the majority of districts in New Jersey do have uh
Universal preschool and many of them have have gotten there through funding from the state and there's an application process that districts can pursue many of our colleagues Dr sortino and and my and I we have colleagues that have talked to us about their uh
experience in submitting the application for uh preschool expansion and um they've been very satisfied and pleased with how how that has been received by the state so there are two Pathways now that we will have more space in our K
through two school buildings one pathway would be through the um the application process that the state offers and in this current proposed fiscal budget for 26 there is uh there remains preschool funding that's one pathway the other
pathway would be through a tuition program which some districts also operate uh so there's nothing definitive but in the future that is something that the Board of Education under Dr sortino's um Direction and and guidance can explore as a potential Revenue
source and a potential way to expand uh Early Childhood offerings to the children in this community okay we have no executive session correct unless Miss Grant tells us we need an executive session we don't have
an exe we do not have an executive session okay perfect all right well we'll close this public commentary and we will adjourn the meeting thank you everybody happy St Patrick's Day thanks for coming s e
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e e e power CBL Go Side pouches thank you so much for helping to clean up doesn't seem like you're cleaning up your show though wor