I got to go back to the gym immediately. Testimony, the like. Oh, adjusting the head of my seat really helped with me. Take a look. It's not as bad. Public notice. I'm the board secretary. Public notice of this meeting pursuant to the Open Public Meetings Act has been given by the board secretary on March 4 and 6, 2025 in the following manner. Mm-hmm. Posted notice on the school bulletin board in the administration building transmitted to the courier post, Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Clerk of Cherry Hill Township. 4 and 6, 2025 in the following manner. Posted notice on the school bulletin board in the administration building transmitted to the courier post, Philadelphia Empire, and the term Mark, Cherry Hill Township. Please stand and join me with the Pledge of Allegiance. Clerk of cherry hill caption Please stand and join the pledge allegiance. Please stand and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance.
So we notice to the flag of the United States of America. I pledience. Of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One. To the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all. As one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice. Cross. Indivisible, with liberty and successes for all. That's a smartphone. It's a sugar. Mrs. Sugars, please call the roll. Mr. Sugars, please call the roll. Follow the roll. Dr. Braddock. Mr. Fain. Here. Dr. Dreisen. Brad. Here. Dr. Dreisen. Here. Here. Mr. Vane? Here. Dr. Dreisand? Here. You're .
This is Gallagher here. Mr. Greenbaum. Here. Mr. Mayor? Here. Ms. Palmer? Mrs. Gallagher, here. Mr. Greenbaum? Here. Mr. Mayor? Here. Ms. Palmer. Mrs. Gallagher? Here. Mr. Greenbaum. Mr. Mayor, Ms. Palmer. Here. Here. Here. Here. Ms. Stern. Mrs. Winters. Here. Ms. Stearns. Here. Mrs. Winters. Here, thank you. Welcome, everybody, to Board of Education. Here is stern. Here, this is winters. Here, thank you. Welcome, everybody, to the Board of Education. To the Board of Education. But we a presentation. High School West. Here, thank you. Welcome, everybody. We have no for recognition tonight, but we do have a presentation We have a preview of their spring usable. I am so excited. We have no or recognition tonight, but we do have a presentation We have a preview of their So exciting. Preview? We have no or recognition tonight, but we do have a presentation from high school west we have a preview of their spring musical irons Preview. Spring musical. I am so excited. Preview, Dr. Braddock. So we are doing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory March 28th. So we are doing Charlie and the Chocolate factory march 29.
So we are doing charlie and the chocolate Factory March 28th, 29th and 30th, April 4th and 6th. Going to introduce Julia DePalone. Then 30th, April 4th, 5th, and 6th. I'm going to introduce Julian Dapalone. 28, 29th, and 30th, April 4th, 5th, and 6th. Introduce Julian Depp alone who is to introduce fast. And we're going to do two numbers from the show. We're doing bandy. Going to… who's going to introduce um And two numbers from the show. We're doing Candyman, which you'll recognize. Who is going to introduce the And we're going to do two numbers from the show. We're doing Candyman, which you'll recognize from the 1971 movie, and another song written for the Broadway musical, Willy Wonka. 19. Movie and another song written for the Broadway musical, Willy Wonka Take a picture, Ms. Yeah? Is going to introduce the cast. We're going to do… Candyman, which you'll recognize from the 1971 movie and another song And for the Broadway musical, Willy Wonka Recording in progress.
Hi, I'm Toni Macriello. I'm a freshman and I'm Mike TV. Hi, I'm Maggie Reimer. I'm a senior and I'm Mrs. Tv. Hi. I'm Mike TV. Hi, I'm Tyler McGrath. I'm a senior and I'm playing Mr. Salt. Hi, I'm Julian Dapalone. I'm a senior and I'm playing Willy Wonka Hi, I'm Sophia Caprati. I'm a sophomore and I'm playing Charlie Bucket. Hi, I'm Sarah Herman. I'm a junior. I'm playing this group.
Hi, I'm Sydney Dun Krause and I am playing Augustus Bloop. Hi, my name is Colin Warren. I'm a freshman and I'm playing Mr. Beauregard. Hi, I'm Evan Green. I'm a senior and I'm playing Grandpa Joe. Hi, my name is Gabrielle Rappaport. I'm a senior and I'll be playing Verugas. Hi, I'm Tanasia Jackson and I'm a senior and I'm playing Violet Bernard.
Welcome to the mic. Okay, that's great. What's what I'm not covering?
My name is Willy Wonka. I make chocolate. Like, simply. Greatest invention in the entire history of the world Whoever could there be who doesn't love the tooth-tickling, dirtastical taste of a bar of soft milk chocolate. Except for dogs. It's poisonous to dogs. But apart from dogs, there comes a time when every chocolatier's life where the chocolate makes her is dark. Admitter! That's what he knows. It's time to lay down his spoon to hand it over to someone else. Someone new. The only question is…
Wrap it in a song. Suck it in the sauna. Strawberry lemon pie. I need to find a new… Me? A candy man. But who can catch a Candyman? Oh, right. A Candyman can. Yes, the Candyman can cause human problems. That makes the world taste good.
If I talk to the world. A world. I've been out there a very, very long time. Well, what are you waiting for? Let's go! Satisfying and delicious. Talk about your childhood, Mr. The dishes.
Sure. You're on a candy shop. Do you seriously not know any of this?
It's real. I'm obsessed. What does he look like? It must be like a thousand years old. It's not your body.
What? It's all the same thing. They copied him. Willy Walker turned his back on He shut up shop and he locked his factory. They say he used to I'm going to give the guy a call.
It's chocolate. Nobody ever goes out. One of the greatest mysteries of the chocolate making world. Who cares how this stuff's made as long as kids buy it? Oh, no. Only old people buy a chocolate now. He's not even advertised on TV. Imagine.
And then lo and behold, the explosion you heard was my cat.
You guys are amazing. I'm so excited. So I'm going to take a poll. How many board members are now going to go see The show. Yeah, we'll all be there. We're super excited. Thank you guys so much for coming out to our meeting tonight. We really appreciate it. Well, our second presentation is not as exciting. I'm sorry, Mrs. Sugars. I'm going to try to compete. You can sing it, Miss Sugars. No one wants that. No one wants that.
But we do have, in addition tonight, we have the initial budget presentation for 2025 and 26. Yes, this is going to be a little drier and not as exciting for sure, unfortunately. I should have gone first, probably, but… Anyway, so tonight we're going to talk about the 2526 budget.
We, as you know, will have another meeting next week where we will approve the budget. Tonight, we're just going to discuss it. Where we are in terms of development of the budget. As you know, we received our state aid numbers on February 25th. And so we don't, our 27th, we don't have a whole lot of turnaround time to develop the budget. The good news is, is that we can complete this process. Do our initial submission budget and then at some point we can have further discussion should we need to.
So let's jump right in. So let's talk about what changed this year, because one of the biggest changes that we saw this year was the loss of equalization aid. So I wanted to talk quickly about kind of what that looks like and how that calculation is done. So the state does what they call an adequacy budget calculation, and they take our students enrollment and they weight our student enrollment by various levels. So an elementary student would be weighed in at a 1.0.
And you go up to a high school student, which we weighed in at a 1.16. So the good news is that the total base cost that the state uses to calculate this adequacy budget was increased by 7.36%. The good news is that the state is recognizing that we do have increased costs when it comes to educating our students. Enrollment is then further weighted for at-risk students, LEP students, special education students, and speech only students.
And then that is… That is times a geographical cost factor adjustment, which each county has a different GCA. And so we're adjusted by the Camden County GCA. So local share then is determined. And the difference between the adequacy budget and the local share is what your equalization is. New this year, because I think many districts complained last year about the dramatic drop in aid.
We had an almost $7 million drop in aid last year is When they determine your local share, they use two factors. They use property values and they use district income. Property values this year was an average of three years, and so was district income. So in this particular calculation, they use three years as of October 23rd, 22nd and 21st to calculate our property values and they use district income as of 21, 2020, 20, and 2019.
The result of this is that In 2425, 398 or 68% of districts in the state received equalization aid. However, in 2526, that dropped to 275 or 48% of districts that received equalization aid. So what happened in Cherry Hill was our local share now exceeds our adequacy budget And what that results in is that we do not receive equalization aid.
And so that was a big factor for us. Even beyond this year, taking a look at this year. This is further concerning for future budget years. So I know this is a little hard to see on the screen, but I wanted to dive deeper into this calculation and I wanted to go back and look at previous year or so. I looked at everything from 22, 23 through 25, 26 because I wanted to see what changed.
So if you look at the one side, you can see that they are weighting our enrollment, you can see that the per pupil cost factor that they used has increased every year. And so that's a good thing. They've recognized those increases in costs. So if you look at the very bottom of the page, you can see that the total adequacy budget has increased every year. In 22, 23, it was at 170 million. And in 2526, we were up to 209 million. If you look at the other side where we're calculating our local fair share.
You can see how some of these factors have affected our calculation. If you look at the top up here, you can see that the equalized valuation has increased dramatically. Now, as I said, for 2526, they took a three-year average and that helped a little bit. But if you look over here, you can see that our actual equalized valuation for October of 2024 was significantly higher.
And then again, the same thing with the district income. They used a three-year average. However, you can also see looking over here to the right that the actual district income, had they just used straight numbers also increased as well. So when they calculate the local fair share. They use these multipliers. There's no explanation for the multipliers other than essentially what they're doing is they're starting at the end with their pot of money and they're working their way backwards. So if you look at how each of these multipliers have increased each year from the 22, 23 year, and you can see the percentages over on this side here.
You can see that by the time we got to 2526, There was a significant increase in both our equalized valuation and our district income that resulted in our local fair share of 210 million. Now that is what affected our ability to receive equalization aid because now we have an adequate a local fair share of 210 But we have an adequacy budget of 209. And over here, just to kind of take a look and see what our number would have been If we had used the multipliers from the 24, 25 year, you can see that we were well below our adequacy budget and we would have received a fairly significant amount of equalization aid.
So extremely disappointing. Again, they're working from the back end into these numbers. But that is essentially what happened. And as you can see, resulted in the district not receiving equalization aid this year. So interestingly enough, because they had issued a hold harmless, there was a memo that went out that held districts harmless to 3% of prior year aid. So interestingly, if you look at our state aid for this year.
Because they had to hold as 3% harmless. Our other aid categories now are significantly different than they were in prior years. And we did not receive the equalization aid. So you have to just wonder where these numbers are coming from and how they're being calculated and what is the process that the seed is using to back into these numbers. So not only did we lose the 3%, but unfortunately we also lost the stabilized aid.
We had received the stabilized aid last year after we had completed the budgeting process, and that allowed us to establish some of the things that we had cut. But we will not be receiving that this year. And in addition to that, had about an eight $880,000 cut. So when you combine those two together, we're looking at about a $4 million cut in state aid. Good news is, is we did receive a little bit more debt service aid and we did receive additional preschool aid. However, even with the preschool aid, that was also reduced because we had carryover from the 23-24 year, that amount was also reduced by $588,000 because we had carryover. That was not unique to Cherry Hill. That happened across the state.
So that's essentially what our state aid looks like going into the 2526 budget. This is the printout in our state aid packet that we received on the 27th that I find the most concerning. So if you look at this, you can see that our uncapped aid was at the $18 million mark. Our pre-year budget was 29,477. So our loss of aid was supposed to be $11,393,000.
We were held harmless to the 3%, which was the 884. And therefore, there's 10 million 500 that didn't get cut from us that potentially could have. And so I was able to attend a webinar last week through New Jersey Association of School Business Officials with state representatives. And they could not give us any assurances that the 3% hold harmless would be in effect moving forward. And could not give us any assurances as to what the formula would look like moving forward with a new governor coming in and other factors so um This to me is extremely concerning. And, you know.
Beyond the 2526 budget, you know, I think we have to be very cognizant of this as we move forward. So right now, and again, we're still working on the budget almost on a daily basis. You can see here when we compare our 24-25 budget to our 2526 budget. The budget is actually in terms of a little bit less than it was the year before. And primarily that is because of some of the losses of aid that we're experiencing.
And some other things. Right now, the budget that we have put together is at 256 122,121. It's 309 $1,000 less than the previous year. That would include an increase in taxes of 5.2 million, which would include a 2% increase, which we are permitted We have a 2% budget cap on our tax levy. So we would go to the full 2% and we would also add
The $1.3 million in banked cap that we have that is expiring this year. Our miscellaneous revenues are pretty static. They would stay the same. Our state aid, as you can see, is about 4 million less than it was the year before. We also saw a change in our federal aid. The federal aid that we receive in our general fund budget is not significant. However, we did see a decrease in that. This is semi funds that we receive it's comes through the state and the state apparently changed the way they bundle these funds. These numbers are given to us by the state. We don't have any control over them, but
The way that the state is managing them created a significant drop for us. There are districts across the state who receive a lot of semi money. And so I know that they're being very affected by that. Fund balance is our own kind of savings account. Our funding that we contribute to the budget each year. We have a small increase there. We had bumped that number up pretty significantly last year. Once you do that, that's your pattern. So we increased that slightly this year. And then capital reserve dollars coming out of the capital reserve account to fund the budget that is specifically used for projects.
In addition, we have been using about 4 million of that each year to offset the tax impact of the bond and principal interest payment. So at this point, a week before our budget is going to be voted on is where we stand right now. And you can see up top here. The changes in the budget, changes in our different categories. We have a decrease in salaries. We have a increase in benefits. I'll talk a little bit more about that.
And then decreases in most of our areas throughout the budget to get to that 309 million. So looking at that tax increase, as I said, that would entail the 2% tax increase. The tax impact of that would be about $112. The use of the expiring bank cap would be about $39. And then it's not a factor in because we are specifically voting on the general fund. The debt service was voted on through the bond referendum process, but we still have to pay back the debt each year. So we include the tax impact of the debt service increase just so you get the full picture.
We have a slight increase in our debt service this year and then we'll start to see decreases on that. And that's about 28 so total tax impact of the debt of the tax increase on the average assessed home of $227,000 is about $180. So how do we get here? How do we make decisions in terms of where we're going to cut. It's really a joint effort across the whole district really, particularly when you have to make these kinds of cuts. I always start by going through everything and doing just a general trimming of operational areas, supplies and equipment I look for
Changes year to year. Are there big increases? Are there areas that we need to take a look at? And trim. And so we always start with that. Unfortunately, when we started, we were looking at about a $6.5 million deficit between what we wanted to be in our budget and what could be in our budget. And so we had to look beyond just that trimming to kind of close that gap. So one of the things that we're looking at is we currently outsource our substitutes We have had permanent substitutes through that contracted service for the past I think three or four years, we would look to eliminate that permanent substitute
That was provided at every building. We would be looking to reduce some of our educational services that we provide that are provided by outside contractors. We unfortunately are going to have to take a look at personnel as well. As we do this, we do our best to try to through attrition, through retirements, through people that you know resign And through other factors, we do our best to try to minimize the impact of When we cut staffing, however, this year, you know, it was a place that we had to go. We got pretty lucky last year. We didn't actually have to riff anybody.
This year, we're hoping to get close to that as well. So 19 support positions. So this would be non-teaching positions. This would be everything from operational to other areas throughout the district. We would be looking to reconfigure the middle school. Sort of a junior high school model for the middle school We would be looking to make an administrative reduction. Reduction at the high school based on sectioning. But the good news is that we would also be able to take some of those folks and put them in some additional new positions in the budget. One would be an addition of a math coach. We have one position there.
And then interventionist at the elementary and middle level. We have five positions there and that would be two and a half at the elementary and two and a half at the middle level. Should we decide not to use the bank cap this year, we would have to start to look at other areas as well. This could potentially impact class sizes at the elementary. Program offerings at the secondary level. So a lot of the positions that we've been able to hire in the past few budget years.
Operational staff and then transportation. So those would be some of the things that if we decide not to use the bank cap that we would have to start taking a look at. Capital reserve considerations, much shorter list than there was last year. Our turf fields are due to be replaced. They're out of warranty at this point So we would start with West this year, replace that turf field and track resurfacing and then fencing district-wide, we have a lot of bad fencing in the district. So we would start looking at that. And as we do our projects and we're cleaning up our sites and doing site work.
We would prioritize some of that throughout the district. And then our contribution to debt service, which for the past couple of years has been about $4 million to minimize that impact. This would come out of capital reserve funding and we would use those funds for these various items. So as I mentioned, you know, we have to start thinking beyond the 20226 budget. The hold harmless from the state. There's no guarantee that that will be used in the future. As much as we hate to make personnel cuts, 70 to 75% of our budget personnel related, cuts to non-personal areas.
Only add up to so much. We've done that exercise a couple of times and looked at those numbers. Once you take out all of must-haves like insurance and utilities and you know transportation and those kinds of things. There's not a whole lot left to play with. If reductions in state aid continue, we're going to have to start taking a serious look at other areas as well. We've adjusted our revenue sources. Fund balance last year, we raised that significantly. And so that may have an impact on our ability in the future to make that $4 million contribution towards the debt repayment.
And use money for capital reserve projects. Extraordinary aid is another revenue that we receive from the state. It's reimbursement for special education costs. We were cautioned when we met with the state representatives that they have not increased that pot of money. So don't plan on getting additional extraordinary aid. That pot of money apparently has not been increased in some time. As we know, special education costs have increased every year, just like the rest of the budget.
And so the concern is that the limited pot is going to be spread even thinner. I left the extraordinary aid assumption this year at the same as it was last year. We have about 3.4 million at the banked cap available for 2627. There's no banked cap after that. You know, so being able to rely on bank cap or being able to expand beyond the 2% tax levy unfortunately may not be something that we could do indefinitely.
Tax levy, my concern is that it won't cover annual increases for the district. And also make up for losses in state aid. Excuse me. So this is, as I mentioned, a two-step process. So next week we will approve the initial submission budget. It has to be approved. Our deadline is March 19th. So we will have a board meeting on the 18th to approve that budget and submit it. Then the county will take a look at that budget and review it. They will finalize it and ask for any adjustments. They typically don't. They might ask for clarification, but not usually adjustments.
And then we will hold our public hearing on April 30th. And that is when we will have final board adoption. Excuse me again. We don't always change the budget between the initial submission and the public hearing budget. We have changed the budget in that timeframe as well. So, you know, we have an opportunity to continue to refine things and take a look at things and make changes if we need to. Thank you very much. So that's where we stand right now.
So I will open it up to questions. Before we go to questions, I just want to say I think as painful as this is, I think we have to be realistic. As Ms. Sugar said that this is the present and this is the future. I don't think we're going to be getting giant pots of money. And I think it's time to look at structural changes. That way we can live within our means.
So on that unhappy note. This is not the, I mean, I'm just, I'll speak for myself now this isn't the reason why I ran for board. Was to make painful cuts. I trust Ms. Sugars and her team to do their due diligence as they always do to make sure that we're minimizing impact on students. But having said that, I realize this is This is challenging for us and for the community. So board member questions. Dr. Braddock.
Ms. Sugars, thanks for the presentation. Did I read right that our federal aid expected in 2526 is $64,000, about 0.02% of overall budget. So that is… not the federal aid. You're thinking of like title and IDEA funds and things like that. Yeah, I'm thinking of our exposure to any federal legislation. So we don't know what that is right now. My understanding is that we're good for this year. It's future years that may be of concern. So those types of things are budgeted in our special revenue fund.
They're not part so there's part of three components. So we have our general fund, which is what we vote on because we vote on the tax levy to support the general fund. We have our special revenue fund, which is grants, and that's where those would be. It's also where the preschool program is. And then we have Fund 40, which is where we pay our debt. So that kind of funding would be in fund 20, Special Revenue Fund. And typically every year we budget at 85% of the prior year's amount. We're instructed to do it that way because our numbers for those titles and IDA won't come out until after the budget process is done.
Okay. So thank you. So the number that you're seeing is semi money. Okay. So that is like a Medicaid reimbursement that we receive through the state. Okay. Other questions from board members. This is your fame. Try to make sense when I ask this question. So going back to the slide, the state aid slide that shows equalization transportation special ed security aid. Yes, that one In reference to preschool aid.
I understand that it is… not just us that was reduced because of carryover. And I'm assuming carryover means that we didn't use all of the money that we were given last year. Okay. So from the 23-24 year. Okay, so if we, the seventh. Million four hundred thousand that we are receiving for this year. If we also have carryover from that would we continue to see a decrease in the aid that were given for subsequent years.
One would presume yes. One of the things they told us was that there were a lot of districts that had carryover this year, and that's why they opted to reduce by the 25%. I think it's a… The reason we had carryovers because the program started late, right? Because we didn't get our approvals until late, but they funded us for the full year Okay, so that's why we had carryover. But a lot of districts apparently had carryover. And I think this is sort of a stick maybe to say like.
Spend your money sure you know So as we are budgeting for this year. Our plan is to spend our money. So the reason I'm asking is I'm curious. I'm thinking through this. I'm curious. Do you anticipate or anybody involved in this process. Anticipate getting into a situation where we find 75 classrooms to put children at and we can fund all of the people and all of the kids. Will we either this year or potentially in the future get to the point where that is what they're giving us is not enough money because we do have opportunity to support more children.
So they will support us based on enrollment figures that we submit to them in the fall. Okay, so it's a little… It's difficult. You know, we kind of went back and forth with them this year in our projections because what we're finding, and I don't know if this is because preschool money is getting tighter I don't know you know this Whatever. When we were talking to them this year, they were much more interested in definites than they were proposals.
You know, we're opening 16 classrooms. We know we're going to open 16 classrooms because we're building 16 classrooms. So they were willing to fund that. They were not necessarily willing to say, well, we're going to work with this provider and that provider, we're going to ask them to expand their programs Unless we had some kind of had some kind of Commitment, they were not willing to speculate or provide funding on speculation. I suspect that's because, again, they're seeing a lot of carryover. I think they're wondering if, you know, I think there's more scrutiny on the projections that districts are using.
Because you're getting funding on it. So I think they're being a little more selective about what they're funding and what they're not funding. You might not be able to answer this question, which is okay, but just trying to think for future since this is kind of where we are now that it's not just about this year. Do you feel as though whatever we're given, that's where we're going to operate to? And that's probably where we'll draw the line. Okay. Yes. Okay. Yes. To answer your question, Mr. Fain, like, I mean, I… I don't think there's any appetite to be speculating on classrooms that we're not getting funding for. The state funds us per student and the amount of students they fund is the amount of students that
We serve through the program. Yeah, I guess I was just thinking if we're ever in a situation where we have the opportunity, the physical opportunity to support additional children, but the amount of money we're getting from the state aid for it Is lower than what we could potentially offer, would we ever be in a situation where we need to compensate for the additional kids that we can provide for? I think that would be up to the board at that time. Okay. Ms. Gallagher. Yeah, so I think it's a previous slide.
Another one. Yes. No, one more. Oh my gosh, one more. It's the one that has the capital reserve information. So actually, maybe it's further back than I thought. Okay, there we go. So the six points No, no, no. It was the one that actually has the figure on it. It's like… Oh. You had, there we go. This one. So where it says 6.9 million for capital reserve, is that the current balance or is that how much we need to transfer into the capital reserve? That's what we're proposing. We would transfer out of the capital reserve account into the budget. So it's a funding source. I didn't think we could take money out of capital reserve. We can take money out of capital reserve. We have to use it for capital projects.
I see. Okay. So we're not putting, okay, I see. Okay. And then, um. So for the total tax impact, is that for the year or per quarter? That's for the year. Okay. And then, you know, talking about creating budget that will set us up for the future you know obviously like state. I feel like this microphone is really loud. Obviously, state aid is questionable at best. I mean, I guess my question is is like what do we need to be looking at?
Right. Like, so if we have a finite percentage that we can increase taxes each year, which is, as you said in the meeting, we can't tax our way out of this, right? Like we have to find long-lasting solutions. But that we don't impact our educational requirements for our students. You know, what is it? That we need to do as a district, like how, because we're coming up on strategic planning right like What can we do to look at our strategic planning to match our budget with strategic planning so that we're like.
And this is probably more philosophical than you choose to answer, but it's like, I think I'm just trying to think like I was talking to Ms. Winters the other. It's like, how can we future proof our budget right so that we're not kind of in this like. Oh crap moment every year. I don't know. I don't know if that's a question, but I'm just curious from your perspective. I think you have to look at everything. I mean, I think you have to look at everything. You know, we started to do some of that this year. We started to look at busing, right? We started to look at other things. I think everything has to be looked at.
There aren't a lot of really easy answers here. There's no quick fix. The good thing is, as you make some of these changes, they will carry over into future years. So once you make some of these changes they will carry over and that will help your budget moving forward. You know, it's a fine line because you want to attract really good teachers. You want to pay them well, you want to support them. You are kind of locked in with what you're providing in terms of benefits.
The other category, which is the 25% that's left is a lot of things that there isn't a whole lot you can do about, you know, eventually when we finish HVAC projects, we'll have more utility efficiencies You know, but I think that unfortunately We're going to have to take a hard look at just about everything. And if I can interject just for a second as well. Okay, thank you. Ms. Gallagher, you mentioned strategic planning process and strategic planning is critical to this to budgeting. It's an interrelated What will happen as a result of the strategic planning process is that we establish priorities and goals for the district and moving forward
For the next five years, all of our spending, all of our budgeting, all of our allocations should be aligned with with those priorities and what those goals say. So, you know, we shouldn't do things just because it's the best idea of the day, but everything that we do and all of our spending should be focused and should be directed and it will be as we move forward so Dr. Dreisen. Thank you. I just wanted to build on the prior discussion and first express gratitude because if we go to the planning for the future.
Slide real quick. I just think it's important for the community to really focus on the last two bullets. As I'm new to the board, I mean, I just think there's some important takeaways there that looking two years out from now. There's no more banked cap if we continue on this trajectory. And then the last bullet, again, sometimes people ask the board. Are you going to use the 2%? And just looking here. The 2% doesn't even cover the annual increase in costs for the district. So this is just the state of affairs that we're in, but I think it's really important for the community to recognize.
So that's my comment. And just one quick clarification point. Since Dr. Braddock brought up federal aid, he did mention a number. So can you just clarify for the community what is our federal aid, and that is included in the budget, right? We planning to get that federal aid. In the budget? We are. I don't have those numbers. Just ballpark because he referenced a low number. We're probably talking about six to seven million dollars That's spread across our IDEA funding and our title funding. And again, that's in the Special Revenue Fund, which we will talk about next week.
But not for discussion tonight. Thank you This is probably a question for Dr. Morton. You know, one of the slides points out for possibilities of areas that could be impacted if we did not use bank cap. And realistically, they may be areas that could be impacted in the future anyway. Can you talk a little bit, Dr. Morton, about what it says class says at the elementary levels?
What that means. What could that possibly mean? And I guess for this year specifically, if we choose not to use, I guess. The bank cap or basically go to all the funding we possibly can go to from the tax impact. Yes, absolutely, Ms. Stern. So what wasn't included in the presentation were the possible things that could be lost if this budget was not adopted. And essentially what that amounts to various supports that we have in place at the elementary level
And supports that even additional supports that we want to put in at the elementary level that aligns with what research says about learning and how the um opportunity gaps and things like that are closed. The bottom line is if kids don't get it early on. It's very difficult for them to catch up. The research says that after third grade, they tend not to catch up. So we wanted to make sure that we preserved mathematics coaches, literary support teachers. We also want to make sure that we preserve adequate class sizes that allow our teachers to be able to personalize their instruction.
For students. So essentially what this means is if we raise class sizes, we move to a higher threshold. So in the lower grades, we can move to 22 kids in a class or in the upper grades upper elementary grades, that would mean 28 kids in a classroom Just becomes more difficult, again, for teachers to personalize and differentiate instruction. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it just makes it much more challenging And, you know, we want to avoid that If all possible.
Dr. Martin Wood, thank you for that. What is the state mandate, what is the cap, the class cap in elementary at the state level? The state level cap, I'd have to get information on the state level cap. I know um For us, grades four and five 26 students. Two, three, the lower grades, 22 students we have in the class pre-k 15 in a class I don't recall the state off the top of my head. I'd have to get that for you.
Okay, no, that's okay. Thanks. Incidentally, and I know this is not where we're going but I was visiting family who live in another country and they told me that their elementary classes have 40 kids in a class. I was a little blown away by that. Anyway, thank you for answering the question. Certainly a concern, certainly not I'd like to see a scope, but helpful to understand that that's You know, Mrs. Sugars, when you say everything's on the table, I guess that's You know, we have to be realistic about what we're looking at. So I hope we don't have to go there but
Yes, that's a possibility. Mr. Fain. I have a few things. Kind of continuing that discussion about looking into the future. Is there any benefit to Or maybe we can't even do this. I'm not sure. If we use Mencap this year and with the expectation that we are following the proposed budget, is there any benefit to setting us
Ourselves. Obviously, we don't want to cut things But is there a benefit to doing some of the things that are listed here, maybe staying away from class sizes, but doing some of the other things to set ourselves up for the future Knowing that this is probably coming down the line and that in the future not having a discussion again about class sizes and teachers and all this stuff knowing that we kind of set ourselves up this year for some of the things that don't directly impact education. I think you could think about that. I think, unfortunately, as we have seen.
Every budget year is its own unique set of challenges. 23, 24, we received $7 million more in state aid. You know, 24, 25, they took 7 million away so I think each budget year has its own challenges. I think that I like to say I think we need to start Talking about the budget, not in the budget season and start planning. So for instance, you know. Thinking about as we hire staff, you know, where are they on the guide?
As we have people retire. Do we need to replace those people? Those are some things that we can start to implement that will help us as we move forward maybe not as drastic as you know looking at cutting positions, but evaluating each position as they come up or thinking about what salaries we're establishing. Having perhaps conversations about benefits and what are some changes that we could talk and negotiate in terms of benefits.
Okay. I guess continuing that topic of discussion, I just want to clarify on the slide about draft budget status with the green highlights. This salary, yes, that one, the salary here, just to confirm, this includes our newly negotiated contract in current state. Yes, it does. Okay, that's pleasant. That's a pleasant surprise. And I should elaborate a little bit on the benefits there. One of the major increase that we saw in our health benefits was with our prescription.
We had locked into a two-year contract Unfortunately, the carrier has been losing money on us for the past two years. There's been a significant increase due to specialty drugs. Drugs like Ozempic and those kinds of things that have had a tremendous impact on prescription. And, you know. A lot of non-school districts, maybe businesses are not covering some of those things anymore.
So those are, I think, are some of the conversations that we might need to have. But that had a significant impact on the cost of our benefits this year. I think that's helpful to know. My last question is, I was hoping to just expand I think I have a general idea, but could we just… I don't know who this question is more appropriate for, but just expand a little bit on what it means to change the middle school model. And like what that looks like as someone next year I will understand, but I don't, you know, just to expand a little bit on what exactly that looks like and maybe if there is any, if we have any evidence to support
You know, I guess risks were worse benefits to doing so. Thank you. I can take that one. Yes. Anyway, so there's two general models as it relates to middle school education. Different pathways to you know get to a destination. So the model that we've had in place for I would say at least two decades now. Has been a model that has allowed for teaming. Teaming with the addition of an advisory period as well. What that does is it allows for students to be placed into smaller learning communities LCs, as they're called.
And what that does is it makes a larger school feel like a smaller school. So if you figure We have students that are coming from a number of smaller elementary schools that are typically sized at around 375 to 400 students or so. And then they're placed into a larger middle school with 800, 900 children, school can feel somewhat larger and more difficult to navigate. The smaller learning communities allows for that small school feel. It also places teachers on a team.
And those team of teachers teach the same group of students. They develop knowledge of the kids, familiarity with them, and the general thinking is that they're able to forge better relationships and support the children better. The inclusion of an advisory period allows for things like social emotional learning lessons to take place, music lessons take place during that time as well. And that's the model that's been followed. Another popular model is the traditional junior high school model.
Junior high school model eliminates the um smaller teaming environment. Teachers aren't necessarily on teams, but teachers are allocated across the department The junior high school model is a model that is more of a preparatory model for high school and it's the model that actually is run within our high schools itself. Our students are part of a larger departmental rotation and typically they're grouped with kids who are for the most part in the same grade or in the same course or content area as them.
The children won't really feel any difference with the junior high school model as opposed to the teaming model, other than there'll be with all of their peers, more so than just with the with the team. For a district, what it does is it provides greater cost efficiency you know no doubt about it. There's greater teacher utilization as well. The teaming model. Creates an inability to flexibly share staff.
In the same manner that we're able to do at the high school level. But if you think about it, it allows again for the reassignment of staff into critical areas. Academic culture because you eliminate the advisory period and there's a content area that's placed in its place And to think it is, again, it's a preparatory program for high school annually in our district elementary level goes through a sectioning process. High school level goes through a sectioning process.
And we allocate staff at each of those levels based upon student enrollment. Because we've used a teaming model in the past, we have not done the same. At the middle level, we have it so we haven't have it allocate staff based upon the availability or the creation of the team concept. Now, there are staff that gets added at times, but it's not the same section and process at all So in a time of plenty. That model is great. There's tremendous merits.
As we've stated this evening. Part of an examination of moving forward And doing something that's going to be sustainable over time, that's going to allow for our children to still experience The high quality of instruction and education that they've traditionally had And not impact their experience, also address other needs you know, it requires for us to strongly consider moving in this other direction.
Bridget, and then I'll come back to you, Renee, Ms. Palmer. Dr. Morton, since you mentioned the advisory periods in a revised middle school model. How would you anticipate that instrumental music, voice, some of those groups that would be impacted by that loss of advisory period. How would that be handled? Where would that take place? So we would craft all of that out. We would work that out in part of our planning.
The schedule. Middle school schedule will definitely need revision and adjustment. I can tell you from experience, you know, at the high school level there's time that's built in. During the midday break or the lunch break where students have like a homeroom designated Many lessons take place during that time. It's a possibility we could capture time there. But I think that there would need to be much more strategic planning around this to ensure that our students aren't losing any instruction that they may have had in the past.
Mr. Fain. It's a follow-up to that conversation. Dr. Morton, do you anticipate that there needs to be any preparation for the students that are currently in middle school transitioning from the current model to this potential new model? And in addition to that. Rising sixth graders To be honest, I'm not sure what PrEP has done as of now for elementary to middle, but does that look different? Do we need to do something Do we need to consider things to do for the students and maybe even the teachers transitioning to these models?
Yeah, so I wasn't around when the model initially was introduced. With this model. In cherry hill but my assumption is that The model was introduced in association with the sixth grade transition into middle school. So typically like sixth grade is that transitional year for kids. They're not officially junior high school kids yet but they're not Elementary kids any longer you know so we definitely will need to build something intentional and specific for our sixth grade children to help them to transition into the building more effectively. I think through effective communication and through general administrative protocol, teachers working with seventh and eighth graders, I think that they'll be fine.
But absolutely, I do believe we'll need to do something specific and intentional sixth grade students to help them transition in. Thank you. Mr. Payne, I think Mr. Green has an answer to your question about, or I think it was Ms. Stern's question about class sizes. So the only universally applicable class size limitation is on kindergarten. Which is 25 students except in high poverty district, it's 21. There are regulations that provide class size limits, but only for high poverty districts.
And then for various certain special education placements there are different class size limitations. Thank you. Certainly hope we would never consider going to 40 as exists in my families, community overseas. I mean, I do know there are districts in New Jersey that have 30, 35. It's out there and i mean i think You know, in Cherry Hill here, we have valued that class size piece for a long time and this board values it. So I'm really hoping that We don't have to go there.
Chris Winters, just one other point as well. One other note. Are there questions from members? The… junior high school model provides much greater predictability for us. Where we can actually predict what class size will be. With much greater reliability So, you know, we've had challenges in the past few years, particularly at Rosa. With class sizes, we'd be able to level things out and, you know, we'd be looking at class sizes probably about what we see at fifth grade.
In our district now. That would be an incredible change for some of our students, especially I know in certain classes where I'm hearing students up to up to the fire code in some classes. So that is certainly i mean I know that there's pluses and minuses to everything, but I'm certain that that would be a benefit if we could realize those efficiencies and lower class sizes at the middle level going forward. I'm looking to this side of the table because it's been quiet. Mr. Mayor. I'll make it last quite brief. First, Mr. Sugars, thank you.
I've been through a few of these now with you and I've seen the work that you and your team does in preparing Throughout all stages of the budget process. And while I know that you are, and this year is no different Than last disappointed in where the state aid numbers came in you're truly never surprised because you prepare. And while you're presenting to us some numbers and some figures and concerns, not just for this budget year, but ongoing.
For me, you know, I've always been competent in where those concerns come from and the preparation you do so. I appreciate that and thank you on behalf of the community here that relies on what you do to support all of our students. Just really more of a comment on You know, when you say these are things we may need to look at in the future if we don't go to the full bank cap, 2% plus bank cap. It's easy, I think, to look at that list as kind of nice to haves because they don't necessarily immediately look like they impact what for me is mission critical for the district, which is preparing all of our students for
Success in whatever their path is after they graduate. I think all of those things, they have an impact somewhere. So it's not as simple as putting up a list, at least for me and saying, well, these things aren't necessarily as important. It's really in some ways kind of a zero sum game. We take away from transportation we take away You know, some of these supports. That makes the mission that much more difficult. Not impossible because thankfully we have such a dedicated teaching staff and support staff.
So I don't look at those really as nice to haves, important to have. They're as critical as anything else. And that, for me, makes it so much harder to see that we may be in a position of having to do more than just talk about or look at. We know what that means. So that's a strange and almost depressing way of thanking you for putting us in a position of being able to talk about them responsibly, which I don't think is necessarily always done throughout the state.
Not going to be comfortable. It's not something I don't believe any of us look forward to but I'm thankful you put us in a position to do it in a way that is responsible and allows us to meet what remains mission critical for our students in our district. Scalagher. So I just want to make like kind of like one last comment. So actually, I was happy to see the additions of potential of the interventionalists and the math coach. Because on this day five years ago.
Covid was deemed a pandemic, right? And I was sitting here thinking about it, that like our youngest learners in our district, they will be with us for another eight years. So we really do need to consider that like the gaps that some of the students have lost, we need to continue to find ways to make up. So I was happy to see those additions I would love to see more, but obviously we have to you know, like we can't.
But that we also need to consider that for the next eight to 10 years, we could still be seeing the effects of of COVID and the learning losses that we saw there. So that was all I have to say. You stole my thunder. That's what I was about to say. No, I mean, I think… for me looking at this the lower class sizes at the middle level are one thing that I think will be beneficial. And I think I've been talking about the interventionists at the elementary level I think since the moment, you guys are probably sick of hearing me say it, since the moment I got on the board in 2022.
So I do think I do think and appreciate the administration's thoughtful reallocation of positions At both the middle and elementary levels of support struggling students because To Ms. Gallagher's point, when I talk to my friends, I hear about the sixth graders who Were first graders, you know, and they're still struggling. They're still struggling with foundational skills. They're still struggling with foundational reading and how much harder it is to catch them up and One thing that Mr. Greenbaum and I talked about is that high impact tutoring is coming back.
And that is an intervention. I mean, if you look around at the state and you ask like, what are the key interventions for achievement? It's high impact tutoring and it's preschool. I mean, those are the things that make the difference for children and achievement going forward. And I think You know, as dark as this budget picture is. I think where your treasure is, that's where your heart is also. And the things that we are supporting and adding our achievement focus. It really is. And that I think, is our mission at its core. And I'm proud of us and the administration for putting forward a budget that really prioritizes student achievement which is the reason why we're all here.
Mr. Greenbaum. Sorry, Renee. Thank you. So I've been relatively quiet tonight just because I've been asking a lot of these questions working directly with Dr. Morton and Mrs. Sugars over the last week or two. Just to ensure I understand it and can help support some of these discussions. But I want to reiterate some of the things that Mrs. Gallagher and Mrs. Winters said This budget, despite having some challenges, always starts with an emphasis of minimizing the impact on our students. It's always our first priority.
And starting to really look at structural changes with sustainable long-term savings. As Dr. Dreisen said, this is probably our new normal. We can't tax our way out of it. And we need to look at running leaner and more efficient. And that's where some of the proposed changes like going from the middle school to the junior high model are. More efficient use of our time and of our resources and just trying to run more efficiently so that year over year where it's costing us a little bit less to run the district. And just to reiterate what Mrs. Winter said.
There's a continued focus on academic supports and achievement. Despite the cuts, we're still focused on achievement and not losing sight of the need for those supports. As Mrs. Gallagher said, you know, we still have students catching up on some basic skills. And we see that when we look at our test scores at certain grade levels year after year. And that's not something we want to cut. We want to make sure this is still an achievement focused budget and we're still putting those supports in place. To close those proficiency and achievement gaps. And then lastly, I'll just say thank you very much to Mr. Sugars for working with the board and with her team and keeping these priorities in mind.
To help support our district and our students. So thank you very much. Just remember, Mr. Fain, we have a whole meeting of this again next week. Save it. No, you don't have to. I know. It's my last. Little group of questions and comments. So this, I… I'm very intrigued by the middle school thing. So I just want to make sure that I'm… This is Renee's last question. I promise. Because I keep thinking to myself, like, why haven't we discussed this sooner and done this sooner? Because it seems like a very huge cost saver to us. And to me, the it seems like there's a lot of benefit into doing this the new model so
Question kind of comment, do we anticipate this complicating redistricting of elementary school, which is coming down the pike? I would imagine no, but that's just something that I want to be mindful of. And then I also wanted to know if this, Dr. Morton, you had mentioned that there's opportunity to to better understand enrollment. Would this be the case for special education students as well, that there'd be a better understanding of how many students are enrolled or how we can accommodate the special education students in the middle school
Or maybe it doesn't impact them at all with this new model. I just want to make sure that I'm getting the full picture. We haven't touched in our plan, we haven't really touched special education. We preserve the allocations for what they were. Obviously, we definitely need to examine how programs are placed and things along those lines but we haven't address that in this presentation here. Okay. I promise I'm done. Ms. Stern. So… you know as part of the what and not the how You know, regarding the junior high model. I mean, I think that we have no choice but to look at structural changes. It's actually what the board has been asking for the entire time I've been on the board.
Let's not look at piecemeal. Small bites, but let's look at realistically, you know, from a bigger perspective, a successful educational perspective, how do we make these structural changes? And that's what you brought forward this year, Dr. Morton, with this proposal so I'm really pleased about it because I think that Look, I'm a product of junior high. I attended junior high, not middle school. And I went on to, you know. My terminal degree was a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania, so it's not so awful, right?
So, but you know, me as one example. But anyway, there are some concerns I have that I'm going to ask from the what perspective that they be addressed. I don't know how, because that's not up to us. I'm definitely, you know. Concerned about music and vocal arts. I think those are very strong programs in the district in general, very strong program at the middle school, current middle school level. And I want to make sure that we Maintain And make sure that those programs are supported and maintained.
Whatever way that looks And I don't, you know, but that's they're highlights of our really one of the many highlights of our district. I think, you know, although I don't, I never particularly thought as a general sense that it was important for kids to stay together with the same group of kids all the time because they really They don't. Even in middle school, by the way, when they go to specials or music or Even some of the math classes, you know, they're mixing in with other kids from other even grades at times so I don't think that's a bad thing. And I think as we look at the concept of supporting children to
Be more flexible. I don't think it's a bad thing. I do think we, however, need to, so I never thought that team in itself was so critically important that kids stand small groups the entire time. However, I certainly see benefits as a transitional piece. I do think the strong benefit of teams is the collaboration among colleagues. Small groups of, and I think it especially benefits our special ed kids. Having the gen ed teachers and and staff have close and regular interactions with the special ed teachers and staff. I think that's really important. So I don't know how that gets to happen in a junior high because quite frankly, I think it's much more difficult in that model. I think it's definitely not the same level
When you get to a larger place like a high school But I think that's really important. And then just lastly, I think the transitional piece, you know. There's a nurturance that goes on. In that transition, I'm thinking mostly of sixth grade But one of my colleagues, I don't recall actually who it was, and I apologize, but mentioned, you know, maybe it was Mr. Fain about, you know, even starting in fifth grade. You know, do the kids start to experience some of what they are going to experience at the middle level with switching classes or whatever. So I just You know, I think those considerations are important. I also think working in SEL, I think we do actually think as a district, we do a ton of sel
Integrated into the classroom overall. So I think there's opportunity there. Dr. Martin, you mentioned possibly homeroom, which, you know, I think could be, I also think our kids need a break in the middle of the day. The high schoolers can take study halls. They have phys ed you know they've You know they have ways in which they can take a break. They have a second, you know, they have homeroom. In their second LB. So I just want to ensure that our middle schoolers who are coming off of elementary school where there's recess, I think they have to have a brain break too so Those are kind of my all my high level asks.
In my support of the idea of moving to junior high. I would say, Ms. Stern, fear not. Because my when I first heard about this was that changes that impact instruction in this manner will come to the curriculum and instruction committee. And I expect that the budget is one piece of things, right? The budgetary piece is what we're discussing tonight. We will discuss it again next week. We're going to have a full meeting on budget next week. And we'll get more details. But the changes that we're talking about for the middle level, I think the CNI committee We'll be primed to discuss them and the impact on those students. And so we'll be seeking input from all board members
Especially those who have those who Middle schoolers have had middle schoolers and know what those key pieces are and interrogating you know and about how the things that we love about middle school We preserve them. I mean, going forward. And I think that's work that will be done. As we move on. Dr. Dreisen. Thank you. Just building on this discussion. Dr. Morton mentioned it a little bit tonight, and I might defer to you, Dr. Morton, if you want to expand, but in BNF committee this past week.
One of the things that I found reassuring was that we're speaking about this middle school change and model in the context of budget season. But this is something that the district would consider independent of our current budgetary environment. For a lot of the positive changes that Dr. Morton alluded to tonight, that even if we were in a positive budget scenario, we still might change the district might still recommend this and then use the savings towards other things because they believe In this model moving forward. So that's one. And then the second comment, as we're speaking about particularly this focus on transitioning from fifth to sixth grade and ensuring that those students, if we transition to this junior high model are primed for that. We can learn from our neighboring districts.
Who are employing the junior high school model. And that's something that we talked about that the district can can look to them for examples and lessons learned so that we don't repeat them. Dr. Morton, I'm not sure if there's anything you'd like to add. No, you summed it up well. You summed it up very well. Dr. Birdie is already on the piece of Dr. Connecting with other districts as well that employ this model so And I'm looking around. I see. Common peaceful board members.
I want to remind all of you, oh no, I was wrong, doctor. I would just like to add that I'm a product of middle school. And my terminal degree is a PhD from Penn State. I would like to add that my district had both. I went to a middle school for sixth and seventh, a junior high for eighth and ninth, and then a high school. And I am board president. This is all to say that I agree with what Dean said. There's things to preserve from the middle school model and other schools as well. That's all.
And I wanted a big time, Miriam. I know you did. We appreciate it. Fear not, board members. If you have other middle of the night thoughts about budget. We have scheduled a full meeting on just budget next week. So by then, I'm sure we will have all spoken to each other a little more and collaborated. The administration will have a few more answers to our many, many answers. And then we will prepare for the initial budget vote, which as I said this morning in my email to you is a checkpoint, but not the end.
Because then we move forward into the public hearing in April on the final vote. So stay tuned. All right, moving on on our agenda. There are no administrative reports tonight. And the next on our list is correspondence. Now, remember, you win correspondence if you're quick. So I think this week I'm starting on this side of the room. With Dr. Dreisen and we'll come around the circle this way.
He's deferring to his colleague, Ms. Palmer. I just do whatever you guys tell me just so you know. That's how this works up here. Okay, so on February 27th i uh well-timed attended the latest meeting of the Cherry Hill Fair Funding Committee. That group is doing. Very important work in light of the conversation we just had. There was a great discussion around the best strategies for outreach to our state legislature.
To voice our concerns. Share some more personal parent level impact of any budget cuts and this loss of state funding. So I encourage anybody who's interested in learning more, you can certainly visit the Fair Funding Cherry Hill Facebook page. They're also an Instagram Email Fairfunding. Chps at gmail.com. And I hope Alana does not mind that I plug. The next meeting will be March 27th. On Zoom at 7 p.m. And again, Facebook page has a lot of information.
I also went to see Mary Poppins At Cherry Hill West, I forget the exact date. It was the first weekend of the show, but it was phenomenal. I know a number of other board members did too. But I highly encourage everybody to go check out Charlie and the Chocolate factory too because we do that really well. So thank you. Dr. Raddick. I think for the sake of streamlining, I think you're talking about reading to the kitties, but I do want to say it was awesome reading to the kitties, but I'll wait until You say, so I read to the kitties. Good job, Ms. Stern. Nothing. Mr. Fain.
Sorry, I have a list. I was a busy bee on March 5th, I attended West Character Breakfast, which was very exciting. It's the first time I've done that. Where they highlighted multiple students that demonstrate, I actually have my program here. That demonstrate kindness, diversity, integrity, and respect. I thought it was very well coordinated. So kudos to the West staff and the students that received their awards I also attended the Camden County Educational Services Commission It's kind of a boring meeting. There's not really much to report for that. And then on March 8th, I also attended the annual military ball
Which was incredible. Major difference from last year. And shout out to Major Sergeant Costa and his his students in that program, growing the program from 25 students. We all know what we dealt with last year with enrollment for that. To 63 of the 8th. 8th of March. The students were, you can tell they were reinvigorated, very passionate about everything. And it was just a really, really awesome environment to be a part of. So I was very pleased to be a part of that. And I read at Kingston for Read Across America.
Mr. Greenbaum. Sure. I'll make it quick as part of Read Across America, I had the pleasure of reading to students at Stockton. In an LLD classroom and a kindergarten class, and they were very engaged and it was great. And I'll give a quick plug. Many of the board members and staff will be at the Harlem Wizards on Friday. So looking forward to that as well. Go get your tickets. Awesome. I too saw Mary Poppins and I'm going to do a different angle. I'm going to give a shout out to our Pitt. We are one of the few districts that has students perform the music for the musical. Many districts hire out professional musicians. So I think it's wonderful that our kids do that.
I also want to give a shout out to the stage crew. I was the final performance. They brought out the crew and you couldn't, I mean, the sheer amount of students involved in the performance. I mean, the cast is phenomenal, but just everybody there. And I did cry a little bit when they honored the seniors. So we've all been talking about reading. So we all did read across America. So can everybody just go around and say which schools they read at? I read at Thomas Paine and Clara Barton. Was it Woodcrest second graders? It was so much fun.
Kingston Elementary School. Stockton. Cadence Academy Preschool, Hart and Kingston. Kilmer. Woodcrest, Barton, Kilmer, and Payne. Awesome. So I am proud to say that Dr. Dreisen wins. It's not a competition. I had a blast. Everything is a competition on this board. It was just so much fun, as everyone said. It is super fun. And I have to say that… I was really proud of us that every school that requested a reader, we managed to get a board member there. And this is a PSA to all the schools. If you need a reader, we all really love doing it. So just keep asking and we magically show up to read books to students.
All right, Ms. Gallagher. Nothing. Last Wednesday, I was judging the DECA state competition and had the competition had It was a great pleasure to see so many Cherry Hill students. Preparing for it because of conflicts obviously i couldn't judge any of the cherry hill kids, but the Cherry Hill students had to have been the largest contingent in all of South Jersey.
And likely sent the most students onto the international competition just uh just another to nationals, just another shout out to the staff the expertise that they have, the passion, the students their skill, the effort that they put into it and the work You know, just ongoing to show just how stellar their performance is. Matched up against the best in the state. Hard to find anyone that's better than Cherry Hill.
Amazing. Dr. Dreisen? Thank you. Just to build on that past conversation, I think we all believe this, but since it's in the public forum. I think we all recognize that we represent all the kids in the district. And so it really is a goal of mine just personally to get out there and Because some of these schools I don't have a lot of engagement with. So I'm excited. It's a goal personally for me to try to get to each of the schools. And thank you for going the other order because I just needed to pull up this email. And so the other item for correspondence that I just wanted to point out for the board is that the Garden State Coalition of Schools, their March monthly meeting, they've actually made it in person, excuse me.
It's next Wednesday, March 19th. At the Franklin School District Board Office in Somerset, New Jersey. The guest speaker will be New Jersey Attorney General Matt Plattkin. So if anyone's interested, it would be great just to coordinate. And I also attended Mary Poppins. It was phenomenal. Thank you. Wonderful. Great job, everybody. All right, we are moving on to first public comment. There will be two opportunities for public comment this evening. This first public comment session is for board action items only, item 17 through 20.
There will be another public comment section for any topic at the end of the meeting. If you are a student in the district, you may comment on any agenda item during this first public comment period. Please identify yourself as a student. If you would like to speak, please identify the agenda item and clearly state your name and municipality. We will alternate between speakers here in the room and those online. Each speaker will be given a maximum of three minutes to speak and the timer on screen will indicate the amount of time you have remaining. Public comment is an opportunity for members of the community to comment on matters relevant to the operations of Cherry Hill Public School District or within the authority of the Cherry Hill Board of Education.
The board welcomes diverse opinions on relevant matters. Under established federal law governing reasonable restrictions on speech in public forums, statements which demean individual community members or groups. Or which are relevant to the operations of school district or repetitious will not be permitted. Community members who would like to present information not relevant to the school district are always welcome to communicate directly to the district superintendent. Board president and all board members via email or other alternative means. All right. So we always start in the room by custom.
Don't think there are any students who would like to approach the podium in the room. But I've always been surprised before. Let me just check online and see if there are any students. I don't see any students. Is there anyone in the room who would like to make first public comment? Is there anyone online who would like to make first public comments? Going once, going twice. I'm going to close first public comment.
We're going to move on to our board work session. I will go first with curriculum and instruction. Give my computer one minute to get it together. All right, C and I met on March 4th at 6 p.m. We had Ms. Gallagher attend the meeting with us as our swing-in member. Thank you, Ms. Gallagher, for joining Team CNI. We had the East Speech and Debate team come and give us a demonstration of what they do. That club has grown exponentially over the past four or five years and has become a juggernaut in South Jersey and beyond.
The meat of our meeting was the summer reading presentation by Ms. Megan Langman. And the topic for summer reading this year is dystopia and utopia. Take from that what you will. The kids picked it. Cni members and Ms. Gallagher have selected their books to read and review. Just a reminder, you've got one month. The clock is ticking. We did get an update on CKLA, which is our newly implemented curriculum at the elementary level. A lot of great updates about professional development. Really excited to see continuing coaching around special education.
I know that the implementation in special education has been a frequent topic in the CNI committee. So really nice to see the emphasis on that. We had a quarterly data review And we talked about MTSS supports for students at the elementary level, especially behavior supports at tier two and three. And we… decided not to do the end of the year dates. We're going to do that the next meeting because we ran out of time and BNF was coming in on our heels. Do any CNI members have anything to add or any questions from other board members?
Ms. Gallagher. Just specifically, when is the book due? Tomorrow. No. Well, it's not happening. At the April CNI meeting, which will be April 1st. Okay. And you can just, if you don't want to come join our club again, you could just send me a book report. Kim's writing it in her agenda provided by her teacher. For sure. Anybody else? All right, wonderful. Moving on to BNF, Mr. Greenbaum. Thank you. This will be rather brief because Basically, we just had a budget discussion. It was an early discussions of what we spent the first hour of our meeting tonight talking about.
And thank you very much, Dr. Dreisen, for joining us as a fourth. And bring some great discussion to bring some great discussion To the meeting. I'll give a very brief 10 second construction update. You know, obviously our priorities are on the budget right now. Every month we keep an eye on what's going on with construction. We have various projects progressing nicely. No real setbacks to report, which is always good. Significant progress with the APRs. We're seeing some progress on our preschool additions moving along.
And one of our new watch items is just keeping an eye on things like tariffs. Right now, some of the new tariffs on Canadian goods could impact paving projects over the summer. Asphalt uses a specific petroleum projects primarily from Canada. We still have till the summer. We'll see what the situation looks like then, but it's just something we keep an eye on. One last thing I wanted to call out is acceptance of donations. I usually wait till they appear on the action agenda.
But I wanted to mention this one now. It's very meaningful. There's a $1,500 donation from the McElvain family. In memory of Sarah McIlvain. Was High School West class of 97. And it's a donation for photography equipment to be used in the photography classes. And just want to say thank you and may your memory be a blessing. Thank you. All right. P&l is Mr. Mayor.
So in keeping with the president's rules. Of keeping these short, I'm going to do just that. Thank you to First of all, Dr. Mahan. Putting together the meeting notes. I know we've all had an opportunity to take a look at look at those we discussed a handful of policies, none of which were controversial one or two will just point out some of the discussions on one in particular was
That we are… Moving forward, of course, with the spectator role, the scene with the spectator code of conduct for interscholastic events, we discussed the the importance of having that new policy publicized as much as we can so that it's effective so that Those that are attending sports as spectators know that it's out there know what's expected of them. So that we discuss matters different ways that's going to And there was also some additional discussion just to ensure that those policies, and this is, we talked about it specifically with 5512, which was, of course, the HIV policy the importance of making sure that
The policy language is also mirrored elsewhere. So that when a a parent or student or anyone is looking on our website, they're seeing the same language and they're not confused. Even though we may know an administration staff knows that they mean the same thing and the practice is the same. If the words aren't the same, that can be confusing. Again, thank you Dr. Mann and her staff are ensuring that we're able to take care of that. We discussed also policy. 5701, which was on academic integrity. That's a policy which uh which addresses specifically what's expected of students with regards to their academic work and their pursuits.
And there was some discussion as to whether or not that should be extended To cover staff, teaching staff as well. At an outset, it was recognized that because this is one of those policies that resides within those groups of policies that discuss only those things that affect students and the student behavior and student expectations. It wouldn't be appropriate to do that and also to do that The thinking was that the teaching staff is not like a professional staff that publishes papers Along the lines of other professions and where those issues certainly are concerns.
That's just really not what the culture is with teaching staff not just within cherry hill but elsewhere. That essentially is it. There was no old business. There was no new business That was it. Any other P&L members have anything to add that I might have left out? Any questions? Seeing none. All done. All right, everybody get excited. Governance committee, Ms. Gallagher.
Thank you. So we actually had our first public meeting this past week and I realized I didn't know if my minutes would be put on to like the proper like district letterhead. So maybe I can get a blank copy and use that for the future because there's no like data and it looks very unofficial. So it was not governed. So maybe we can, as a side note, I can find out how I can Make it look more uniform like the other uniform committee meetings uh minutes
The one thing we finished was we finalized the chair roles and responsibilities that document is in SharePoint if anybody's interested in seeing there's a new governance folder and there should be a sub folder for roles and responsibilities. And as we finalize, we will add those in. We decided that I will be sending this out to all of the committee chairs for your signature so that we all have read, review, and understand that as a committee chair, we have specific tasks that we need to take, whether it be quarterly, yearly, monthly, just so we all are on the same page here.
We worked on our calendar. So next, so put on your calendars, April 23rd at 6 p.m, we'll be having NJSBA come and do a superintendent evaluation board and district goals and ethics training. It'll be Bam, bam, bam. So 6 p.m, April 23rd, it's a wednesday And then we also discussed our future. So as a board, we decided About a year or so ago to do quarterly evaluations for Dr. Morton so that we weren't just having one time once a year discussion so that if things come up, it can be kind of an ongoing conversation.
So we discussed the schedule for that. So our next quarterly at the board, we will do on Tuesday, March 25th. An email was sent out a couple days ago that shows that we have a template that we can use that was provided from NJSBA. And as we discussed, this is going to be trial and error. Let's use the template. Let's see how it goes. If it works, that's great. If not, maybe we can try to work it out in a better way. Did I write it i didn't. Shoot, I didn't put it here that we will do… I'll have to add this to the notes that our future quarterlies will be, so we have March, June.
September and then December. I didn't add that to my notes. Is it in there? Okay, so those are our quarter. Those will be our quarterly. Oh, I see it now. Those will be our quarterly And I'm sorry, I wrote CSA. That's a NJSBA term. I don't even know what CSA stands for. Thank you. So that means superintendent. And then finally, so we also discussed NJSBA certification. So there's a link.
Some of the things show up as blue and those are the links to the template and the NJSPA certification. So we discussed NJSBA certification. We weren't sure if we had to potentially vote on it, so we discussed with NJSBA and they mentioned that it could just be added as like a board goal. So that's something that we can discuss as a board. Oh, and one other thing we did discuss is working on board and district goals and because strategic planning is kind of finishing up at the end of may our first the June committee meeting will be our first time that as committees we will start to discuss board and district goals.
We had one public comment. And the community member mentioned being happy to see this. Committee and that just made a comment about having you know proper dates because our previous board training was not correct on the website. So just to make sure that as we're doing these trainings. They're on the website so that community can be involved as well. So any governance committee members have questions or comments. I feel like I rambled. Yes, Miss Winters.
Just a comment when we were talking about certification, there is board certification, but there's also individual member certification. I'd like to recognize Ms. Gallagher. Who has achieved. Certification. Njsb as certified member. She's our first one. Thank you. You receive a fun email with confetti. And if you're interested in that. You can Google NJSBA board member certification and they have a list of requirements.
So if anybody is interested. And I'll notice that this quarter maybe isn't the best because a lot of the quarter, the county NJSBA meetings are like teacher of the year. So they're very specific to that county but other quarters, there have been a lot of really good topics of discussion so the next Not this quarter, but the next quarter as I see that email come out, I can just kind of highlight some ones or just kind of make people aware that Take a look at them because I never think like, oh, we can go to other county meetings so we can.
So I think that's it. Any other comments or questions? Yes, Dr. Dreisen. Thank you. I just want to echo Ms. Winters as a newbie on the board, I just think it's really awesome and admirable. And for us newbies, if you look at the requirements, you actually need to attend an annual workshop. So the earliest we could get certified is after this October. But I think it's a goal that we can all aspire towards. I also, I suggested personally, it would mean that Ms. Winters and I are not qualified. But I think in a future state, I think members of the governance committee for this board should be certified. I think that could be something that we think about as requirements for being on the governance committee moving forwards.
Any other questions, comments? Yes. Ms. Palmer. Yeah, I just want to take a minute to acknowledge and thank Mrs. Gallagher for the work that's gone into and everyone else that's been involved in getting the governance committee off the ground. It will go a long way toward making us a stronger more focused, more driven. More cohesive board. Not that we're not already all of those things, but I think it's a nice level of accountability and I really appreciate, I know it's It's been kind of a Herculean effort to get it up and running, but I really appreciate it.
You're welcome. Yeah, it's a team effort. Yes, Dr. Braddock. Real quick. I don't want to put card before the horse, but like, is there plans after achieving certification for the board, which I assume of going through that master board certification? Well, I hopefully will not be on the board by then. Because it'll take approximately. So that's a future board decision. But they give you four years to achieve the first level.
Because, you know, here's the way to look at it. It's continuous improvement, right? That's the decision of the board as we move forward. I mean, I see the value in training. I see the value in keeping up with current things that are going on in education whatever in three years, you know, a new board will come in and I don't know, priorities might change your shift Sure. Like coming from my perspective, but I didn't even look, I didn't even get that far because about three years from now because um You know, Dr. Treysen, he said, you know, four years, let's go for five trainings a year. So, I mean, yes, I think we should be pushing ourselves to be
If they give us four years, maybe we can do it in three right but um You know, I think just looking at this first certification is a huge is a huge decision for us as a board and I think it shows the dedication that we all have to To just, as I said, like continuous improvement. So maybe once we get there, we can have that conversation. So thank you. Any other questions or comments? All right. Thank you.
Awesome. Thank you so much. I'm super excited about everything about leveling up like this. It's great. So we are moving on to the action agenda. Give me one minute to get there. I should be more well prepared because I'm always first, but I never am. All right. Superintendent recommends and I move the following 17.1 approval of attendance at conference and workshops for the 24-25 school year. Do I have a second? Mr. Fain, are there any questions?
Seeing them. Ms. Sugars, please call the vote. You may cast your votes. We have unanimous yes food. Thank you. Mr. Greenbaum. Bnf action agenda, the superintendent recommends and I move the following 18.1, approval of bill lists. 18.2, resolution for the award of change orders.
18.3, resolution for the award of contract renewals. 18.4, approval of license agreements for the Leocora Center. This is for graduation for High School West on June 20th. 18.5, approval of license agreement for the Leocora Center graduation for High School East, also on June 20th. 18.6 resolution to close dormant Special Revenue Fund 20, other local projects accounts. Do I have a second? Mrs. Stern, any questions?
Mr. Fain. Just one. I was hoping that you can clarify for in 18.2 where the additional funding is coming from for this Change order. Yes. So as you know, a couple of years ago, we had applied for Rod grants for the preschool projects. So we were awarded three of them. And we also had a capital reserve contribution because the ROD grants provide 40% the district had to 60%. So those funds have already been set aside for this project.
Our construction bids were lower than we anticipated. And so we certainly don't want to give any money back. So we are going to move some of the site work projects that complement the preschool projects into the Rod Grant and get the work done through those funds that have already been set aside. Thank you. Okay, any other questions? Nope. Seeing none, Mr. Sugars, please open the voting.
Board members, you may cast your votes. One comment, Mr. Lewis. So for item 18.1, the fourth bill list, I just need to abstain. I abstain from any payments related to Bayada. Home health care. Similarly, Mrs. Sugars, with respect to bill lists, I have to recuse myself from invoice to ESS. I'm also recusing myself from PO 505466.
Okay, we have two recusals. Mrs. Surefain. And Mr. Mayor. And one abstention, Dr. Dreisen. Other than that, we have a unanimous yes vote. All right. And next is human resources. Mr. Fing, can you move the HR agenda? Sure. Superintendent recommends and I move the following 19.1, termination of employment certificated 19.2, termination of employment, non-certificated 19.3 appointments certificated, 19.4 appointments non-certificated.
19.5 assignment salary change non-certificated and 19.6 other compensation certificated. Do I have a second? Mr. Mayor, does any… Can't answer any questions. Do you have a question? I have a comment. Comment question. I have a comment. I just want to recognize Ms. Sherry Turner at the Malberg Center is retiring. Miss Sherry was my son's preschool teacher. He was only at Malburg for one year because of COVID. It was his four-year-old year. And I cannot tell you the difference that she made in his life.
Because of the pandemic, he had been isolated at home pretty much since he was two. And she was the most caring, kind, wonderful, incredible patient, amazing preschool teacher. I don't want to get all choked up. I mean, that was the year they were all in masks for most of the year. And I remember the first day that he didn't wear a mask and he came out and I saw him smile. Like it was amazing. So thank you, Miss Sherry. And all the preschool staff for all the hard work you do every day for our youngest learners. You make such a difference. Any other questions or comments? Okay, Ms. Sugars, can you call the vote?
Board members, you may cast your votes. Mrs. Sugars, I'm going to recuse from 19.3D. To avoid a conflict of interest. Okay, other than Ms. Stern's recusal on 19.3D, we have a unanimous yes vote.
And we will move on to P&L. Mr. Mayor. Superintendent recommends that I move the following item 20.1, approval of harassment, intimidation, and bullying investigation decisions. And item 20.2, approval of harassment, intimidation and bullying hearing decisions, both 20.1 and 20.2 relate to those HIV matters which we heard on February 25th. Do I have a second? Mrs. Start. Are there any questions See none, Mr. Sergers, would you open the voting.
Board members, you may cast your votes. And we have a unanimous yes vote. Thank you. And nothing for governance tonight, but soon. Yes, definitely. Do any board members have new business this evening? Do any board members have old business this evening? All right, we are moving on to second public comment.
This is the second public comment section during which you may comment on any topic. If you would like to speak now, please clearly state your name and municipality. We will alternate between speakers here in the room and those that are online. Each speaker will be given a maximum of three minutes to speak. The timer on the screen will indicate the amount of time you have remaining. Public comment is an opportunity for members of the community to comment on matters relevant to the operations of the Cherry Hill Public School District or within the authority of the Cherry Hill Board of Education. The board welcomes diverse opinions on relevant matters. Under established federal law governing reasonable restrictions on speech in public forums, statements which demean individual community members or groups or which are irrelevant to the operations of the school district or repetitious will not be permitted.
Community members who would like to present information not relevant to the school district are always welcome to communicate directly to the district superintendent, board president, and all board members via email or other alternative means. Looking at the room, we will start in the room as we always do. Would anybody like to make second public comment? Please approach the microphone, state your name and municipality.
Yeah. I would like to thank you for the new data dashboard. I was very impressed with it. And I do think that it helps us to have that strong focus on our academic achievement And so we'll know that there's the high, the medium, and the low there, and it's out in the public and it keeps our attention. Our stakeholders know about it. I would like to thank the the opportunity here for having our West.
And I noticed that since it's Women's History Month, I just wanted to bring up the point that it's gender equality. Mary Poppins and Willy Wonka. So thank you. I did also want to say that in the movement around the new website. Somehow I was not able to find the 2020-2025 strategic goals because I was interested in looking at The aims and the KPIs. And I was glad to hear that this group is going to review on how well we have achieved those goals. So thank you for doing that. I could very clearly see the district goals for this year.
But I could not see the strategic holes in the details. So thank you. And I do commend all of you for your service and wish you the very best. Thank you. Thank you so much. Moving to the line, the first caller is the phone number ending in 788. It is your turn. Please unmute, state your name and municipality.
Go ahead and unmute. My name is Jeff Potowitz and I live in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. I hope you're hearing me. I'm talking about free school funding. Last year, we got approximately $6.1 million in preschool aid. That was for about 400 students. As far as I knew, maybe that's changed. We are doubling that number to closer to 800. However, we're only receiving $6.9 million in preschool aid next year as opposed to 6.1. Where's the extra money coming from? The state field, or are you changing that? We're not going to be going to 800, approximately 800 students, going up to 1,800. That's an important question.
That's a lot of money. The state says it's 15,500 students. I think it's closer to 25. But any way you look at it. Where is that extra money coming from and where is it being funneled to considering what's going on next year. Let's look at those numbers. What we know is that in 1989 with the aid we got from the state was approximately $20.5 million, more than we're going to be getting in direct state aid in fiscal year 27.
In fiscal year 2008, 2009, we received approximately $17 million in state aid. That was about 15, 16 years ago we received that. That will be about what we're going to get from fiscal year 2000 in fiscal year 2027. However, back in 2008, 2009, the state total SFR aid was 7.8 billion. And in fiscal and this year.
This year coming, it is $12 million. That's an increase of $4.2 billion in aid. And we are basically going to get our aid cut. There's a lot of money. It's not being spent here. And it's about time we get our fair share. By the way, equalization aid is aid that goes to our most at-risk children, and it's being cut down to nothing. Something is wrong. It's time you all fight for us. And that's the way to start.
The state is not caring about our disabled kids, our disabled kids or at-risk kids at all. And what's the story with that preschool? You're doubling the numbers and getting a lot less per pupil. Thank you very much. Two questions. Thank you, Dr. Podowitz. Going back to the room, please approach the microphone. State your name and municipality. Rick Shore, Cherry Hill. I've got good news and bad news.
First, the bad news. The board might not know this. But we are in a legal debate. With some Oprahs that I put in about three months ago So there's a battle to get OPR information. But I must thank the district Because I just put in an Oprah. And they got back to me pretty quick. The only problem with this, Oprah. Is according to the June 30th, 2024 Our federal funds were 11.2 million.
The numbers that were submitted to me are Several million dollars off. So I will resubmit. And try to get to the bottom of this. So with federal numbers itself at 11.2, we still haven't had an answer about the elimination of DEI. The other night, Ms. Roshkopf was speaking about DEI. Mr. Short, how is this relevant to this public school district?
How is it relevant? You are still teaching DEI. That's why. Mr. Ashkov said in a meeting she met with the Board of Education's meeting. Right. So I'm trying to give an example. Of that you're still teaching DEI because she said it right on the public record that she's still teaching DEI. So are we still teaching DEI? That's the question.
Let me continue on. Ms. Roshkopf also said that She thinks… Equity is fairness. Well, equity is not fairness. Equity is to have the same exact outcome for every single student in this district. So I have twins. There is no way in the world that we're going to have the same exact outcomes between every single student.
So I must say that Ms. Roskov, should learn a little more about DEI, because DEI, according to the Rutgers report, on November 13th 2023, 2024 causes a hostile environment for students. But this district continues on teaching DEI, promoting DEI, And it's breaking the executive order from the President of the United States.
So you're at risk right now for $11.2 million. At risk because you're still teaching dei Continue on. When are you going to stop teaching DEI? That just divides the community. Into groups. Dei has died. But you continue on. Thank you, Mr. Short. Going back to the line, I see Laura Ann's iPad. You are next. Please unmute.
In Einhorn, Cherry Hill, New Jersey. First of all, congratulations to Ms. Gallagher on her certification. For me, that shows a real commitment in your role as a school board member. With time, I'm sure you don't have enough of. So I appreciate that you took the extra mile. Secondly, I'm going to reiterate what I've asked before. In that please keep considering the fact that the fifth graders at Kingston Elementary School would be able to graduate in their new auditorium.
As I said before, they've had the process or had the opportunity to watch the process I'd like to see them have that opportunity. Thirdly, budget discussions are always very difficult. But I'm going to ask the question again that I asked at the last board meeting Are we applying for any grants? Because I suspect that on the national level. The local level and the state level that the more money we have the opportunity to apply for that we need to get started.
Because there's going to be a stampede If the dollars from DC and the state don't come to us. We already know they don't come to us as our money is given to other school districts. But I'd really like a commitment that our department grant writing is starting the process. I don't think we could afford to wait to not start looking as to the needs and the wants and the grants that are available to our district.
Thank you. Thank you so much for calling in. Going back to the room, please approach the microphone. State your name and municipality. Alana Harris, Cherry Hill. Chair of the Fair Funding Committee, a subset of Zone PTA. Since I was glad to hear the discussion about the budget, since the last meeting, the state aid funding numbers have been released and I'm disappointed to see once again that the state has chosen to cut our aid after years of severe underfunding. We as a community need to pass the largest bond in state history to make up for the shortcomings of the state underfunding us.
I do not want to be here again in 10 plus years. So I'm glad the board is considering alternatives so that we can live within our means. The Fair Funding Committee is being mobilized. We have TAGM Tuesday, where every Tuesday we're tagging assembly and state Senate members so they can hear how this cut will be detrimental to the district. We have phone call, email Friday, where every Friday we're calling or emailing similar messaging from Tuesday. We're organizing transportation to the assembly budget hearing on Tuesday, March 25th. We need to make sure the state knows Cherry Hill residents don't want to be underfunded again.
We should not continue to be cut year after year in our state aid. I'm asking you and the public to join us in this fight. Information is constantly shared on our Facebook and Instagram pages and is also emailed out. So if you're not already receiving our emails, please contact fairfundingchps at gmail.com and I'll add you to the distribution list. Thank you, Ms. Yaris. Thank you for all the work you do. Going back to the line, it's Candy Cummings. You are next. Please state your name and municipality.
Good evening, Candy Cummings, Zone PTA Chair, Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Earlier you heard from Mrs. Sugars and you just heard from Alana of the Fair Funding Committee about the cuts to our funding and what that means for our students. I urge you to raise your voices in support of our students. The FAIR Funding Committee makes this so easy. They have identified and provided email addresses, phone numbers, and social media handles for our local representatives as well as Senate and other assembly leadership.
All you need to do is take three minutes twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays. To send a message. You can do it right from your phone while you're sitting in the pickup line or while you're waiting at practice. In my opinion, no amount of time is too large or too small to fight for our students and the teachers and programs that they love and adore. I encourage you to join the fair funding committee. They meet once a month during the evening via Zoom. Meetings are posted on their Facebook and Instagram pages and you can find them by searching Fair Funding Cherry Hill on either platform.
Their email address is listed on their profile. So send them a message to get on their mailing list. It's important. Tell your neighbors, your grandparents, and your relatives to join in the fight for Cherry Hill Public Schools fair funding. Join your PTAs. Go to their meetings, spread the word. Fair funding and PTA is open to all community members and this is a great way to be heard. We need to stabilize our schools and support our students. And the easiest way for you to do that right now is to lend your voice to the Fair Funding Committee.
Thank you so much. Thank you for calling in. Going back to the room, my favorite at the mic, we have a student. Please state your name and municipality. My name is Rebecca Breezehoff. I would like to preface my comments by saying that I am speaking as a student and not as the West Student Board of Ed representative. I'm a senior at High School West. My years at West have been wonderful in everything I've done at West, I've found positive, inclusive culture where staff and students alike are determined to make not just our school but our wider community a better place. As a trans student.
This is particularly important to me. Whether I was studying hard to keep up with my rigorous course load and performing on the West stage with the theater or music programs or playing my heart out on the field hockey field, this school has supported me. In a district that works to support students from all backgrounds, identities, and experiences, empowering us to learn and grow, preparing us to thrive in an increasingly diverse world. This school has shaped me as a learner, an athlete, a performer, and a human being.
Right now, transgender students like me are particularly vulnerable. We are hearing in the news, we are hearing news headlines, seeing our identities debated on social media, and wondering what will Next, impact our life. To say it's not easy is an understatement. The 2024 U.S. National Survey on LGBTQ Plus youth mental health from the Trevor Project showed that 41% of transgender and non-binary youth in New Jersey seriously considered suicide in the past year. 67% experienced anxiety, 53% experienced depression, with 87% saying that recent politics negatively impacted their well-being.
Meanwhile, only 35% of trans and non-binary youth in New Jersey said their school was affirming. But the data shows over and over again that support saves lives. Your ongoing, clearly articulated support is more important than ever. I mean, it doesn't mean that we're getting it all right. All right every time, but every effort made matters. With that support, transgender students have the chance to thrive. I know I'll be taking everything I've learned in Cherry Hill schools with me as I head into my future endeavors. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Rebecca, for your comment. Going back online, I don't see anybody online. Going back to the room, is there anyone else who would like to make a comment? Nobody in the room, nobody online. I'm going to close second public comment and move on to superintendent's comments. Dr. Morton, take it away. Thank you very much, Ms. Winters. And that will not be very long, but I just want to say thank you again to Ms. Sugars for her work. With the budget. I hope everyone was really honed in and focused on the particular portion of a presentation where she focused on the nuance of the multipliers that are used each year.
To calculate local fair share. Now, thank you so much to the Fair Funding Committee. Thank you to the community for your advocacy efforts. But we really need to dial in and really hone in on that particular point that she made. These numbers or these multipliers are variables. They change each and every year. And as she articulated had the number remained the same as to what it was just a year ago we would be actually looking at increases.
And our state aid numbers and funding. You know, we want transparency as well. I think we need transparency as a community where we understand the mathematics and the formulas that go into computing these numbers. I couldn't explain it. I knew something was wrong. But Ms. Sugars was able to explain it and articulate it very well. So thank you all. I thank everyone for your future advocacy efforts as we move forward.
I also want to say thank you to all board members, community members, and everyone as part of the community who participated last week and our read across america week There was a great buzz in the schools The kids were overjoyed and excited, as were the staff members and administration. Thank you for your efforts. It truly makes a difference. And truly lets our kids know that there's a community behind them that's supporting them. Thank you, Rebecca, for your comments. I continue to marvel at your willingness to be brave and articulate the importance of support and what support should look like in schools and what support will continue to look like
And Cherry Hill Public Schools. I have a positive note from tonight. I'm not sure if everyone heard the news. But our High School West girls basketball team one their first the game tonight. And with that, they move on to their group three state championship game at Rutgers University on Saturday. Absolutely phenomenal. And what a long way, Mr. Butler, Mr. Dan Butler. Has brought that team. I told Dr. Burns, it clearly must be leadership because When I was the principal there, they didn't do as well. So we'll attribute their success to Dr. Burns.
Also, just to echo what Mr. Mayor had to say in reference to DECA competitions, sometimes, you know, it can be very easy to take things for granted. And I don't take it for granted that Cherry Hill has represented itself Every year at the DECA competition with distinction. And this year was no different. Our kids performed admirably. They did outstanding. Thank you to Ms. Barati. Who helped to facilitate coverage and a media story that 6ABC did on the DECA students from high school east I'd also like to send a loud kudos and shout.
To Mr. Greg DeWolf, teacher from high school east who was inducted into the DECA Hall of Fame this year how amazing is that? Inducting to the DECA Hall of Fame. I'll end with those comments and just say have a great night, everyone. Thank you so much for your comments. We always appreciate the good news around the district. And with that. I make a motion to adjourn the meeting. Do I have a second? Dr. Braddock, all in favor