Good evening, everybody. I'd like to call this meeting of the Board of Education to order. Mr. Schimp, can you please call the roll? Dr. Braddock? Here. Mr. Fain. Here. Ms. Cummings? Dr. Jason here. Mr. Greenbaum. Here. Ms. Manzano? Here. Ms. Palmer. Here. Ms. Winters. Here, thank you. Public notice of this meeting pursuant to the open public meetings act has been given by the Board Secretary on March 19, 2026 in the following manner. Posted notice on the school bulletin board at the administration building posted on the board's official website and transmitted to the clerk of Cherry Hill Township.
Please rise and join me in saying the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and live streamed. We are going to start with what I assure you is the best part of the meeting. It's board recognition for our students, and I see so many of our students here. Dr. Morton, please take it away.
All right, fantastic. So I think we have some first place winners here from High School East, who are going to come up first, and grace us with the excellence of songs. Welcome, Ms. Lockhart and Acapella. Thank you so much for having us. I'm excited to present. Stay tuned from Cherry Hill East High School. They are East's competitive a cappella group, and they've had some great success this year. They entered the ICHSA Varsity Vocals a cappella competition started out.
262 groups in the nation, and they made it all the way till finals, placing fifth in the country last Friday. Receiving Best Soloist Awards for our Three Girls Up Front, Sydney, Isabella, and Reagan. We have Best Vocal Percussion with Jakori Howard, Best Bass with Justin Malik, Best Choreography, done by Isabella Myers, lots of awards and accolades, and we're very proud.
And they're gonna sing their final song of their set for you, Bird Set Free. Here we go.
So…
Oh, man.
And just to say their names out loud, we have over here from our right, we have Carissa Tyrell, Knight Lou, Parker Wilson, Shia Snyder, Dominic Esposito, and a Natalie. Up front, we have Sydney Brown. Behind her, Karina Cowan. Then we have Isabella. Myers and behind Jameer Rose, and Taylor… I'm sorry, I called you your sister, Sophia Park, and then we have Reagan Dattis, and Aiden Smeglin, Pia Vertuccio, Jeremy Perlow, Christina Burbilis, Jakory Howard, and Justin Malik. Thank you so much.
That was absolutely incredible. Thank you guys so much for coming to perform tonight. And congratulations on all your success. Fifth in the nation. I believe it. I believe it. So I'm going to ask Ms. Nina Barati to come up. She's our public information officer for the next few presentations.
We're doing. So I'll tell you. I believe next we have High School West in science. It's a tough act to follow, but we'll see what we can do. You can start singing for us at any time. Nope, nope. Um, today we're here to recognize some of Cherry Hill's brightest, uh, future scientists. Students that enroll in the research and science class at Cherry Hill West, they develop their own novel question.
The complete detailed literature review, design and implement their own project, and then present their findings at the COIL Science Star in March. This year was a particularly special group of students, many having taken the course for the second or third time, which is pretty neat. found, uh, they really enjoy research. Um, all of these students demonstrated tremendous grit, uh, determination, and patience. This year, 6 of the 11 West students who participated at Coriel placed in their category and then three went on to be recognized at the DelVal Invitational Science Fair in April.
So I'm just going to call out the students, and you guys could come up and grab your… plaques or please? Um, Ava McCullough? Should we see first place in behavioral science with her project titled The Influence of Autonomy and Group Size on Myth Taking Behavior. Michael Drea, he had second place in behavioral science. The impact of musical psychological phenomena on focus and concentration.
Chase Irwin, he won first place in engineering at Coryell at DelVal. He was awarded an honorable mention and a special award winner as well, St. Gobain's foundational sustainability award for engineering for his project development of novel seawall designs to protect metropolitan areas in the face of sea level rise. Daphne Mintez? I said that wrong. Third place at Coriel, honorable mention at DelVal, a diagnosis of transposition of the great arteries, and the emotional impact on caregivers.
Ann Ruby earned second place on the category medicine and health for her project, The Effects of MCT Oil on Seizure activity in Wild and Gabageric mutagenic C. Elegans. And last but not least, Katie Griscom earned 1st place at Coryell and first place at DelVal in the category of microbiology for her project, Assessing the prophylactic Potential of Natural Compounds in Pseudomonous fluorescence biofilm Development.
The students have a bright future ahead of them, and I'm excited to see where they end up. Thank you, and congratulations to all of you. Those are wonderful, wonderful projects. I'm not going to pretend I understand most of them. Good evening. I'm here to recognize Sarah Veda, who also from Jerry Hill East, went to, uh, the… Coriel Science Fair where she won and was able to move on to the Delaware Valley Science Fair, where she won first place in her category of behavioral science, I believe is the category. They changed it.
She's now moving on to the International Science and Engineering Fair. Uh, she was awarded the Silver Prize for all freshmen at the Delaware Valley Science Fair. For her project, entitled Accent or Impediment Using Machine Learning to Prevent Speech Misdiagnosis. in children. So she's done incredible work. We're very proud of everything she's done.
Congratulations. Greetings, everyone. I'm J.D. Mundy, currently Cherry Hills only Latin teacher. One was finishing his 32nd year in public schools, one who is finishing his 30th year in Cherry Hill. I'm here tonight to invite you all to join me in recognizing and celebrating our Latin stars. But before I begin, let me say that all of them have learned Latin in mixed-level classes, where there's a wide range of student abilities and a wide range of student efforts. Nonetheless, these mixed-level classes are where even students who sometimes struggle academically.
can be successful. Enjoying learning a lot of material and enjoying earning solid grades to show for it. Fun facts, our Latin stars once upon a time participated in the Junior Classic League's national convention. There they placed 11th in the country in Kurtamen. Third in the country in Latin 2 grammar, and first in the country in Latin 3. Latin poetry reading comprehension. Yes, first in the country. They have a tradition of excellence that continues even still. And such a sissy. I'm such a softie, I'm such a soft guy. Please forgive my tendencies. Fun fact, this year on the reading section of the SATs, 92% of our 25 Latin stars who took the test earned a 600 or higher. This year, their median score is a 710.
This year, two earned perfect scores. Fun facts on the Seal of biliteracy test this year. All seven of my seniors who earned the prize earned it while still in their third year of Latin. Now, let's take a look at the National Latin Exam. This year our Latin stars are in 29 awards, including 10 gold medals, including two perfect scores. By the way, it's now 51 times that our Latin stars have earned perfect scores on the national Latin exam. Please hold your applause until the last student is named. Please stand when you are called, and then we can go up and shake hands with our superintendent and principals when we're done. So here we go.
A shoke Bardidwaj. Julian Asman, Corbin Bucci, Elena Calderwood, James Caspellan, Daniel Castanada. Excuse me. Lucas Colazzo, Luke Davis, Chase Engelson, Riley Fleming, Paxton Fletcher, Jacob Henderson, Chase Irwin, Josh Jason, Agreem Khapri, Connor Lamb. Stand up as we go here, guys. Brown La Paula, Claire Lee, Emily Lynn, Ivy Meyer, Chris Morris, Trista Agallo, Sam Park, Alan Q. Nicole Shoyole, Hannah Tang, Ethan Xiong.
Ava Yup and Amy Zong. You may applaud.
Now let's take a look at Kurtamen, the Latin word for contest. It is an academic competition where teams answer question on ancient Greece and Rome's language, history, mythology, literature, and daily life. It's a test of speed and knowledge. Since 1997, 54 times our Latin stars have played this placed first in South Jersey. 18 times we've been third in the state, 25 times we've been second in the state, and 11 times they have placed first in the state. Note well in the three of the past five years, they have been state champions. This year, one of our teams was just five points away from a state championship. Truly the tradition of our Latin star success in Kurtamen stands strong this year, too.
Please join me now in recognizing this year's South Jersey Regional Champions in Kurtamen. Please stand when your name is called. If you're already standing, stay standing. Let's see. We have here Trey Azera. Ben Fields, Connor Lamb. Claire Lee. Alex Peck, Roanoke Pathic. Max Pooh, Chris Morris, Alan Q. Luca Ricci, Naresh Vasudevan. Ava Yip and Amy Zong.
You may applaud. There can be great benefit in taking advantage of exceptional opportunities and seizing the day carpe diem. I'm glad that we are here tonight in part to recognize our Latin stars. I cherish the express support of the promotion of excellence. I love that our award winners included academically diverse students.
who have taken advantage of lots of opportunities to grow and experience their own successes. Carpe Diem. Yet again, I invite you all to join me in celebrating our Latin stars. Thank you, everybody. And farewell all. Congratulations to all of our scholars. Very impressive.
Thank you, everyone, and thank you to all the students who came out tonight to spend some time with us. This really is the best part of the meeting. Being able to see. the excellence that our students are achieving at both high schools, East and West, in the vocal arts. in science and in language. Great accomplishments. It turns out everyone was here for Latin.
And it turns out they all did listen to me when I say that was the best part of the meeting. But next on our agenda. Sorry, Mr. Schimps, it's not the best part of the meeting for me, but maybe for you, it's the public hearing on the budget, 2627 budget. you'll be doing the presentation.
Well, thank you very much, Miss Winters. I'm actually going to going to begin today. Mr. Schimp and I are going to collaborate on tonight's presentation. The district budget itself is the superintendent Superintendent's recommendation. So I'll try to. provide some context behind the recommendation, and answer a few of the questions as well that have been percolating throughout the community and information that, um, I've been made aware of. Anyway, so next slide, Mr. Shell. So just to provide some context as to where we are as a district for this year, and the challenge that's faced. The structural budget gap is anything unlike it's unlike anything that we've seen.
Here in Cherry Hill Public Schools, uh, certainly, um, you know, within my time and 18 years in the district. The structural gap this year was $29 million, and obviously this represents a deficit in revenue. that's needed in order to be able to sustain district operations as reflected in what it is that we have traditionally done as a district and the services that we've been able to traditionally provide for our students.
Mr. Schemp will get into some of the specifics around where the gap was created, but nonetheless, years and years and years of underfunding at the state level, heavily, heavily contributed to this strain that we're experiencing. So with this, there's been a reality that we need to tear off the band-aid and to level the ship, right, as we move forward to ensure that what we do is sustainable, not just for next year, but for years to come, and that we're not faced.
with a situation where we have such an enormous, enormous, uh, enormous gap. So this challenge that we're facing, and you can move to the next slide as well, this challenge that we're facing is one that is not specific to Cherry Hill. This is a challenge that has spread far and wide throughout this state. A simple. Search on New Jersey budget crisis. Google search will reveal these headlines here. There are districts far and districts near who are first… who are equally facing this crisis together. There's a convergence of a number of different factors that.
you know, again, have contributed to this, but certainly we have not been immune from this budget crisis as well, and some of the concerns that have, um… manifested themselves across the State. So, as we begin to look at this and to analyze this process, it's been a month, months-long journey for us that started. literally as early as the beginning of this school year, uh, from September on. Mr. Schemp, who began probably in August, maybe a week or two after he actually began, came and sat in my office, and during one of our one-on-ones and said, hey, uh, Dr. Morton, we have a significant.
challenge in terms of matching our revenue with our operating expenses, and we have utilized surplus in the past, non-renewable surplus as well, to fund the gaps that we've had in the past in order to maintain things, and he started to vocalize the, you know, those concerns. We carry those forward as well, and vocalizing those to the community also. But part of the process this year has involved what's called a zero-based budgeting model. We've put much information out about what that zero-based budgeted model essentially is.
But in layman's terms, what that means is that every single expenditure or line item was evaluated for its return on investment. Every single item, uh, 32 to 3,500. different items that had traditionally been allocated for, budgeted for, uh, were reviewed, and reviewed for necessity in moving forward. Uh, this was a critical piece in this budgeting process, because every dollar that's saved in operational costs.
are dollars that we're able to save and having to identify cuts with personnel or cuts with overarching programming, again, that the community has come to expect, and what, you know, those things that we believe are essential and important. for educating our students. So that operational review and reduction strategy is one that had taken place over several, several different months. And along with the administrative team as well, the team and Mr. Schemp were able to identify $8 million in savings. So the $8 million were definitely.
significant for us. Uh, with the $8 million, there was also an additional deficit that remained, uh, that we were required to look at staffing reductions as well, in order to ensure that we're closing, uh, the gap. That number was approximately 6.5 million, and we were intentional in terms of holding staff positions and not moving forward with filling vacancies. probably since the month of November or so, we didn't fill any vacancies. Just with the mindset that we we wanted to be able to manage as much as many positional loss through an attrition process. Attrition essentially is.
vacancies, and not real people. So there's a difference in positions being cut and people being cut. This is a relational business. We are invested in our people. We're invested in ensuring that. While we may have to eliminate positions, we don't want those to always materialize into people. So as much as possible, and when and wherever possible, what we tend to look to do is to restructure in a way where we are able to hold people and use them in a different manner, and allow those individuals to still… to be able to impact.
our students in the manner that they have, um, they have done traditionally. So that was the the strategic part. So the operational savings themselves. Those savings include supplies, training. technology purchases. curricular revisions, consulting cost. We looked at all of our subscription services. Nothing, nothing at all was too small, and um… down to the $100. There were $100 items in here that were identified up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in items that were identified that we feel that we felt could be trimmed away that would still allow us to be able to move forward with purpose.
implement again the instructional program that we have traditionally implemented, but allow us to to operate in an efficient manner, even if it, you know, causes a little bit of challenge for us in moving forward. The essential thing for us is that, again, we want to maintain our core operations and our core instructional program. Again, as I mentioned, the total savings were $8 million.
Again, these these statements, we believe, are those that will be sustainable as we move forward. There will be reoccurring costs for us as we move forward. And again. These savings allow us to offset the cuts in any type of personnel or additional cuts in personnel or programming. Next slide. So again, it was necessary as well that we looked at personnel cuts as well. And there was a strategy that we that we utilized in looking at this.
the start of this process begins with attrition, and it begins with positions that we have that may be vacant, and positions that may be able to be shifted in a way that allows us to continue to provide. the structural instruction and structural operational things that allow us to continue to move forward again. So we look at non-personnel initially, and then we move on to or non-instructional personnel. I'm sorry.
And then move on to instructional personnel as a last resource and as a last option. So through the method and through the strategy that we were able to utilize, we're at about 84%. of the positions that we've identified. There are 70 positions, but 84% of those positions will be eliminated, but those are being eliminated through attrition. Those aren't… people and jobs that are… that are actually being lost.
Next slide, please. So there have been questions that have been asked about, um… How, or the rationale and how these… reductions were identified, and how they are shared across the district, and how they impact various groups within the district. You know, my philosophy, again, is that we're one district, but we do look at things from an aspect to as to not overly.
overwhelm one particular area, and we attempt to do things in a way that's proportional, and that actually makes sense, and again, allows us to still be able to move forward with purpose and accomplish our overarching goals. So this chart here. um, list the various employee groups that exist within the district. And there's also a percentage of representation of what this group… how much staffing they represent within the district. Uh, I know it may be difficult to see this up here, but this presentation is also.
on the agenda, and it's viewable for everyone to see. There was concern that was initiated and offered about staffing as it relates from 2019 and 20 to today. And questions about where increases in staffing have occurred. So this list here, again, lists each of the positions or all of the positions, and the attribution of how many staff are included.
Now, there are over 1,700 staff members that we have within the district, right? So 1,700 staff members can sort of figure out the mathematics with the percentage is here. But naturally. Our educational assistants and our. CHEA are the Cherry Hill Educational Association constitute the greatest percentage of staff that we have available. There were questions about the percentage of administrators that we have assigned here within the district, and questions about or concerns that administrative staffing has risen over the years.
As you'll see in the next series of slides, that is simply inaccurate. What we have done is that we reconstituted administrative positions. In other words, we renamed those positions, retitled those positions based upon the prevailing needs that we've had as a district. And what our current needs today are. But… CHASA, Chasa that would be representative of administrative positions. They represented about 2.4 to about 2.5% of our overall staffing allocation and 2019, 2020.
represents just about the same amount today as well in our current budget. Non-affiliated administrators, that would be administrators that work directly within the superintendent's cabinet. There are actually 9 members of the team. Uh, there were eight members in 2019, 2020. There are 9 members of that team today. So you'll see this. our non-affiliated administrators represented about a half of a percent of the districts allocated staff, and that number has remained pretty consistent.
non-certified, non-affiliated administrators as well. I believe there's 5 that are within that category. That number moved from 4 to 5. This is what represents the increase that you'll see there. But very, very small attribution of total staff within the district. These individuals are. a director of technology, director of facilities, and individuals within that category as well. Um, so as you can see, overall, in total, in terms of administrative positions that have been added to the district over the seven-year period, there have been two positions that have been added. Our user-friendly budget that's posted on our district website, user-friendly budget.
list all of the contracted positions that are evident within that budget year that have salary of $75,000 or over. But that is not an exhaustive list of all the staff members that we have within the building, or within. within the district or within the building here at the central office. Next slide. So just just wanted to do a couple of additional comparisons as well as to where we are as a district, and how many administrative staff, and what the ratios are compared to neighboring districts. You'll see a number of districts here. I'm not going to read them all in particular.
But if you look at the student to administrator ratio of these neighboring districts, you'll see Cherry Hills at the bottom of the list. Our number is 212 students, 212 students to every one administrator that we have. Here within the district. That number, again, has been consistently low. We operate very lean. We have very experienced administrative staff and individuals who know the district very well, many who have operated from within the schools.
themselves and can actually, uh, I call it 2X the work, right? So they're able to create greater efficiencies for us because they're able to deliver more based upon the knowledge that they have of the district. If you look at it through another lens as well, and this all comes from the NJDOE's school performance report and information that's that's readily available online. There are 96 K to 12 districts.
statewide, that have at least 3,500 students enrolled. Our district is the fourth lowest of that 96 list in terms of staffing ratios for administrators per student, and also. administrators per faculty. So fourth lowest in both of those, uh, comparisons as well. I want to take an opportunity as well to address class size. So, within this recommendation, there have been an inclusion of two additional students to the maximum class size caps.
Right, so this information was included in the Budget Clarity Hub that we sent out and we shared with the community. We also just wanted to run a comparison with two neighboring districts. This information for these two districts is actually online. It's on their website, so it's information that's readily accessible as well. But just to see where. where we compare…
So I see I see your sign. I'm gonna ask that we're not going to do that while the superintendent is speaking. There'll be an opportunity for public comment later in the meeting. There is an opportunity for public comment on the budget immediately following the budget presentation. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. I appreciate it. So maximum class size caps, again, compare favorably with two neighboring districts. Our maximum class size caps are just that. They're maximum.
class size caps that, in other words, that says the the class size and those so so those specific grades cannot go over that number. Do we anticipate that the class ops caps will be exceeded? What we anticipate is that we will have a similar scenario to what we experience currently. There are class size caps that exist currently. And in many instances, in many sections or many classes across the district, rather, the vast majority of classes across the district, the number does not reach the cap, it certainly does not exceed the cap. There are many that run.
Well, well below that number as to where we are. This number here. uh, just represents current projections as of today. Well, as of a couple of days ago, when when we did this presentation. But this this represents what the average. uh, students per class will be in each grade level across the district, based upon our numbers currently, right? With the class size increases. So, kindergarten does not change. We wanted to honor honor requests of our building-based administrators.
request that we maintain where we are with class size numbers. So on average, and again, there could be deviation, right, depending upon what school one is attending. But on average, kindergarten will have 19.9 students per class. and so on and so forth as we as we move down that list. Uh, first grade, second grade. And third grade, as of today, are still below the cap of 22 that we currently.
operate under grades 4 and grades. 5. are beneath the 26 cap that we operate under, uh, currently in spite of the proposal to move up to 28. So, we absolutely recognize that there are many challenges that are associated with the recommendations as they've been presented. We don't desire to cut any positions. We don't desire to change anything.
However, the reality of a $29 million budget deficit puts us in a position where difficult decisions have to be made. And. Restructuring has to be done in a way that allows us to be as fiscally responsible and as fiscally conservative as possible. Next slide, please. Actually, okay, I'm going to pass it over to Mr. Schiff, who's gonna do a deep dive into the numbers for us, and then I'll come back at the end.
All right. Thank you. So this is kind of just a repeat of a lot of what we've been saying for the last couple months here, but balancing this budget. It was a very difficult task, and it's driven by not only rising or continuing rising expenditures, but also a lack of revenue to support those increases in in our fixed cost expenditures. So like Dr. Morton said, it became evident very early on that we were facing and at the time when we originally made these estimates, that there was still an unknown with what state aid would be.
Um, and I'll get into state aid in a little bit. But as I've said, the State, you know, coming into 2526 actually refer to Cherry Hill as overfunded. According to the formula. Cherry Hill received over $10 million more than what the formula called for in 2526. So not only were we looking at rising costs. a lack of surplus, so to speak, because we've dedicated it and utilized it to balance these tough budgets over the last several years. But we're also facing down the potential for the state to come in and reduce state aid by that 10 million.
Um, we had a new governor come in, so that budget address of hers was delayed, so we did not get state aid numbers until mid-March. And fortunately, we were held harmless to a 3% reduction, which I'll again get into. But things early on were looking actually far more dire, believe it or not, than where we currently sit. Um, so again, we started with a $29 million deficit. We realized early on that without that surplus that we've used to balance budgets in the past, that we were going to have to utilize.
Um, taxing authority to help close that gap. Um, but in addition to that. 14 and a half million dollars had to be cut out before we even looked at that levy increase. So that's… that's kind of a breakdown of where the $29 million was made up. So $14.5 million of that was through reductions. And the other is being made up on the local tax levy. And again, I'll get into the reason why for that. So this is. really the nuts and bolts and the number side of the presentation, and what I do want to suggest is, for those of you who have not visited the Budget Clarity Hub that we posted several weeks ago, or some of you who may not have visited it recently.
We have posted a public-facing document, which we're just calling a budget book, which includes an extensive deep dive into all of these figures, and I would recommend that the public take advantage of that as well to get additional clarification on what we're looking at. So this is just an overall revenue versus expenditure. Keep in mind this here. This slide is for the total budget. So that includes all 3 of our major fund components, which is our general operating fund or general fund, which is pretty much.
the vast majority of the day-to-day operations here of the district. Special Revenue Fund, which. is mainly made up of federal and state grants, which are in addition to the general fund. So those… those funds are really very targeted, and they can only be used for certain things. And they cannot supplant. They are to supplement, you know, the general fund expenditures and instruction. And the last piece of the budget being the debt service on the bonds that were issued back in 2022.
So you can see here, and I want to draw your attention to the decreasing fund balances you'll see at the bottom. And if you go to that budget book, you'll see some graphs and things really showing that this problem is not new, this financial issue. There has been a financial… issue for several years, as you can see, expenditures have exceeded revenues for several of the past fiscals. How we made that difference up or how the district made that difference up was mainly through unassigned fund balance and surplus.
Um, so it was clear several years ago that there was a structural imbalance that would need to be corrected at some point. And unfortunately, this 26-27 is the year where these reductions have to be made, because we simply no longer have surpluses. to band-aid this issue and continue to kick it down the road. Um… Keep in mind, you know, some of what you see here as far as. other uses of funds and things, or other financing sources. Again, those are the dedication of surplus and withdrawals from our capital reserve account to continue funding some projects that are outside the scope of the bond. But more importantly, it keeps those expenditures from taking away things.
or taking away from things in the general fund itself. So it's important, and I've talked about this a lot at the last several meetings. that we maintain a healthy capital reserve, so that as we continue to address capital needs. We don't have to reduce other areas of the budget to do those things. So all in all, just to kind of paint the full picture, the total budget of all 3 of those major funds is just over 307 million dollars. It's actually about a $2.7 million decrease from 2526, or just just under 1%.
So I'm going to kind of stick to the general fund. And again, that being the main day-to-day operational piece of the budget. And you can see here overall, we're anticipating total revenues to increase about $12.6 million dollars. Vast majority of that, again, is unfortunately coming through the tax levy, because that's the only revenue source that we really can control. And again, a major driving factor for the need to increase that tax levy. is the exhaustion, again, of those surplus funds. So in 25-26, $13 million.
of unassigned fund balance was used to balance this current year's budget. We're projecting about 3.7 million. In 26-27 to utilize. So that's… Before we even started anything, that was already a $10 million shortfall that we had, and that's where… that's what's generating this increase, or requesting increase in the tax levy. You'll see a slight increase in state aid. And again, I'll get into state aid a little bit more. Overall, categorical, or the formula aid of state aid, we did see about a $900,000 reduction or 3%. The reason you see an increase there is there's another piece.
of state aid that comes through and extraordinary aid column, and that's for extraordinary costs associated with some of our special education expenditures or students that are educated out of district. So we are anticipating an increase in State funding from that level, so that's where you see that level. shift up. Other financing sources. It's a bit of a misnomer, but you'll see in 2526, prior year encumbrances, or things that were encumbered in the 24-25 budget were not yet paid. That gets rolled into that budgetary category. So that's.
That's the main difference there, but all in all, in the general fund, we're anticipating about a 5.3% increase in revenues. I think more importantly, you'll see below, and these are some of the broader categories of expenditures, and again, I would lead you to that budget book document where you'll see this broken down in much greater detail. Um, overall expenditures are only increasing $1.5 million, or 0.6%. I think most importantly, what you see here is.
an attempt to no longer rely on those non-recurring revenues. So again, we're… this budget is really being driven by the need to increase our sustainable revenues, i.e. Our tax levy. That's about 90% of what funds our operating budget, and a reduction in overall expenditures. or recurring expenditures, and that's what we've done throughout the last several months in this process. So this is just a little bit deeper of a dive into our revenue categories again for the general fund. You can see we are proposing a 7.3 6% increase on the general fund portion of the tax levy. You'll see some of our other miscellaneous revenue categories.
listed here. And then, under the state sources, that's where you can see all of the categories of state aid. Again, keep in mind that the Formula 8 is what decreased that 3%. The state, believe it or not, when they ran the formula this year. Um, I mentioned earlier that in 2526, we were about $10.5 million overfunded. by the state holding us to that 3% cap, or that 3% reduction cap, we're still $3.7 million overfunded, according to again, that state formula. So we have to keep that in mind as we navigate future budgets as well.
So if we don't have substantial increases in enrollment, and as long as the, uh. The value of the community's property and the income levels continue to rise, more of the burden of funding our schools will continue to shift to the local taxpayer versus the state level. And that's what we're experiencing. These are a couple just snippets from the budget book. Again, this is just a breakdown of the expenditure categories a little bit further, and this will give you an idea of where some of those $14.5 million in reductions are coming from.
The State of New Jersey requires school districts as part of their accounting to categorize expenditures into 4 really major component categories here. This is what you're seeing is at the at the program and or function level. This is… Everything from our regular programs and instruction, our special ed, to our attendance office, our health services, our guidance counselors, our custodians, our child study team members. It's just a full encapsulation of all of the expenditure categories that make up the general fund.
of the school district budget. So again, overall expenditures are going to increase about $1.5 million, or 0.6% in 2627. So capital reserves again. I mentioned we we are going to continue to utilize some of our capital reserve funds. Keep in mind again that this is not taking away from anything in the general fund. These are funds dedicated specifically for capital needs. Um… Again, the the with the bond referendum, that work continues.
But at the onset prior to the referendum vote, the needs of the district or the capital needs of the districts actually were in excess of $400 million at that time. the bond had to be pared back considerably because the district didn't have the debt capacity to go out for that full amount. So there are things that had to be removed from that bond, um. That are now coming due, essentially, that the district has to cover. So, as you all know, all three of our middle schools are currently under construction, and some of the technological-type things were pulled out, so we're going to be looking to finish those telecore system upgrades at both Beck and Rosa.
We're going to be taking on, actually, tonight, this evening, we have a resolution on the agenda to award AGC contract for the West High School West lower level weight room and team room renovations. This is a portion again of those renovations that had to be pulled out of that bond. So in total, we're looking at about $3.1 million of capital work that's coming out of this capital reserve fund that's in addition to the bonds. This is just a look at the debt service.
On, uh, those bonds that I had just mentioned. One of the things that occurred or is occurring in 26-27 is the way the amortization schedule on the 20-year life of the bonds is situated, there's a significant reduction in the principal and interest payments. Going into 26, 27 that provided an opportunity where the district had committed to paying down each year of the bond about 4 million dollars, which took that burden off of the local tax levy. But with that reduction in the principal and interest, we can lower that district commitment to $2 million, thereby preserving.
additional capital reserve funds that have been going towards this without any tax levy impact on the homeowners themselves. So all in all, you can see it's about a 10.5% decrease. So we're going from about $29.2 million in principal and interest payments to 26. 0.1 million. So all in all, this is just a a breakdown of the components of that 7.46. And again, what you're seeing here, the 6.7 6 is including that debt service portion. So districts are held to a 2% property tax levy cap. But there are several exceptions. One of those exceptions being extraordinary increases in health benefit costs. That's something.
That, again, you've heard me and the district talk about for the last several months, that the district was originally at the early onset of our renewal with our carriers, about a $14 million increase we were looking at. We were able to negotiate that down to about $10 million. But again, that far exceeded something that a 2% increase on the levy could sustain. And that's… Not even talking about salary increases or transportation increases, or our energy costs, or any of our other fixed costs. So 2% on that levy generates about $4 million.
utilizing the health benefits waiver, which allows us to increase the levy to cover those extraordinary increases that we're going to experience in 27. It's another 7.4 million. Uh, that you can see there. And the district also has about 3.3 million in bank cap, and what that is, is taxing authority that the district had in the past, or in the last 3 fiscals, that they could have raised taxes, but chose not to. So the state of New Jersey allows us to bank that, or hold that ability to raise the levy.
In the event that it's needed and the board chooses to use it, we can in those future years. So 3.3 million or almost 3.4 million was set to expire, meaning we wouldn't be able to utilize that in future years. If not in 2627. So we are recommending using that amount as well. So the total increase on the. general fund tax levies, about 14.8 million. The impact of that on the average assessed home, which is $227,000 here in Cherry Hill, is about $424, and that's here, the way I've displayed it is on a fiscal year basis. So that's an increase that the average homeowner will see.
from July of 2026 through June of 2027. Again, within that budget book, there's a clearer explanation or a deeper dive into because taxes are collected on a calendar year basis and not a fiscal, you'll see different numbers as to what that impact will be. But this is what the projected impact on the fiscal year. would be. So again, all in all, if you include the reduction on the debt service side of the tax levy, it's about a 14.7 million increase, which amounts to about $420 over the next over the fiscal year 2627.
Yeah. And as we begin to close, I just want to highlight and elevate a few of the things that are important for us and that we want to ensure is preserved in this this budget recommendation so that. This district remains the district that we all know and expect. So we maintain the full-day preschool program for nearly 900 students next year. We maintain a full-day kindergarten program at the current class cap. We maintain supports at the elementary level, including interventionists at every school.
Um, so dedication and support that we've had from the board last year, and where we added 5.5 interventionists across the district, uh, and math coaches as well. We maintain our elementary encore offerings, including music, art, Spanish, tag, and instruction in computer science. We maintain a robust MTSS, a multi-tiered system of supports model for students in need of additional support. We continue the implementation of our CKLA Amplify Literacy program at the elementary level. We also continue with the implementation of our Eureka Mass Square program at the elementary and middle levels as well.
This budget allows us to maintain the intervention enrichment period at the elementary level, and the what I need period at the middle level, and also seminar at the high school level, where we provide supports. We continue instruction for our multilingual learners. as well within this budget. Next slide. We also maintain literacy teacher coaches at every elementary building. We maintain a robust course of study catalog at our high schools, which includes 33 advanced placement courses offered. Every school maintains a nurse, including two at the high schools.
We maintain special education programs and services in compliance with IEPs and state mandates, and we're actually even expanding funding for our special education programs as we expand inclusive opportunities. We continue to focus on, again, expanding inclusive opportunities within the district. We maintain student assistance counselors at the secondary schools, guidance counselors at all of our schools, media specialists at all of our schools. Importantly, for many of our students who come to school for.
Um, the additional things that they participate in, our athletics programs, performing arts, clubs, extracurriculars, uh, multi-curricular opportunities, co-curricular opportunities, um, are still in place with no additional activity fees or anything else. We maintain professional development as we move forward for our staff as well. Most importantly, and next slide, please, we believe that this budget allows us to continue to implement with full fidelity our strategic plan 2030 and our portrait.
of a Cherry Hill Public Schools graduate with Fidelity as well. And with that. Close, and I'll turn it back over to you, Miss Wernes. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I'm now going to open it up to board member questions and comments, and then after that will be the public comment period specifically for the budget. Are there any board members who have questions or comments on the budget this evening? Dr. Braddock. Uh, no questions. We've seen this over and over again.
It sucks. Like, I… I broke my… broke my own rule, and then I wrote something down, and I was gonna read from it, but I don't want to do that anymore. I'd rather just talk about it and talk about what this has been for me, and I assume others will as well. I play hockey. I hurt my eye. You can see I have, like, a black eye a little bit. And I was kind of hoping when I got hit, I realized I was hurt, and I hope I was hurt more than I was, so I could miss this meeting. Maybe, uh… skirt this sort of thing, but there's no dodging it. Um…
I guess the first thing I want to mention is in line with. what the heroic Alana Yaris has been talking about for weeks, months, years, and how broken the fair funding formula is. And I know that you've all heard it before, but there's something I just came across that I want to read in relation to this. that maybe can help us avoid this kind of mess in the future. I just came across an article in the New Jersey Monitor. New Jersey school funding formula needs to change the education chief says.
Jersey school funding formula should be changed to be more predictable and transparent following years of steep aid swings that have spurred school closures in some districts, said state Education Commissioner Lily Lowe to the Assembly Budget Committee on Wednesday. This article is from less than two weeks ago. Lawmakers should also consider a broader examination of how the formula determines funding levels for districts, given the changes they face to their needs since New Jersey enacted the formula in 2008, she said. This question of how we're looking at schools really need is one that I think requires us all to look carefully to say there are better ways to do it, she told the panel. They know.
They know… The work that Alan is doing, and trying to rally the community to get the formula fixed, I think is the biggest piece to solve this order issue. Clearly, we're beyond that for this year, but they know, and I think we all. The community, the board asked community members needs to keep pressuring the state because they know, and I think we're at an inflection point where we can start fixing this formula. from a supply side. On the demand side, on a more, I guess.
I don't even know, just frustration point. for me. One of the biggest things we've talked about in the budget for the last several weeks over and over again are rising healthcare costs. And it occurred to me that we often talk about this, but we often stop when we have this discussion about healthcare costs are up, so our costs have to go up. But then, that's where the conversation stops, so… Being curious and wanting to avoid my own work, I thought I would look up why, and it's easy to point the blame at conglomerates and politicians.
But I think we, and when I say we, I mean everybody in this room and everybody in Cherry Hill and the voting public need to look at the kinds of policies that allow conglomeration of major. medical organizations, that's a driving factor of rising healthcare costs. Um, that's a bigger question than it's beyond our… our point of being here. But I think there is room for the community, for us.
to put pressure on these inflection points, and I think. Um, it's incumbent on us to do so, especially. To our local politicians to represent us in the state funding formula to… in terms of state funding formula. Um, I don't have a clock, but I think it's about 3 minutes, so I'll shut up. But I do wish me and my black guy. were a little less morose than I am. Thank you, Dr. Braddock. Other board member comments, Miss Chafane. I do have one question. For Mr. Shin. So you gave us a lot of data. Thank you for that. I think that there is one thing that was kind of, you said it, but I don't think that it's getting enough emphasis. And we've talked about it many times, but if you could, you gave us a figure of what our local tax levy contributes to the overall.
budget. Could you give us that figure again? The proposed… so for 2627, it would be roughly 90% of total revenue. And which… what… do you know what it is now? Well, it's not much different then. No, no. So, do you also know what a very ballpark average is for districts… districts throughout the state, and what they contribute? That that depends on the district, and it varies widely depending upon the wealth of the community and it's… formula is calculated what the formula believes the community can afford to contribute towards the schools. Would you argue it's significantly less than 80 something?
I would. Okay. So my point is that I think that out of all of the numbers and the figures that we're discussing that and everything that Dr. Braddock just brought up, I think that that is something really important for us to focus on is that. I'm looking at the numbers of the people that are calling into this meeting and that are sitting in this room right now, and I would say that we have over a thousand percent more people paying attention to this meeting than we traditionally do. So clearly, people are listening, and from my perspective, and the thing that I think is most important for me to point… to get across tonight.
is that this is not new, and this is something that we've been challenged with year after year after year, but going into this vote, what I want everybody to know from my perspective is, um. This is the first year that I feel… Again, this is just my own personal feelings. This is the first year that I feel like we've had real conversations about what's going on in the path forward, and I'd like to say thank you to you and Dr. Moore and all the work that you put into this budget, because it was.
very clear, very real, and the process that we went through as a board this year, and I mean no disrespect from the past, but this year felt. It just felt different, and I am very hopeful for what we're looking at for the years to come, and I'm… I am hopeful and trusting that the way that this budget was created is going to set us up for a better picture looking forward for next year. That being said, going into the vote, there are still some things that I feel as though we can.
continue to look at and do differently. I've challenged my fellow board members to start looking forward to some certain things that I think that we need to look into, um, specifically what we require for graduation in Cherry Hill. There's some things, as you all hear tonight, we're looking at class sizes. There's things in Cherry Hill that we do differently than other districts in the state. And so I'm challenging us to continue to look at the things that we can… we can analyze that, you know, and weigh our options with, as I just mentioned, our graduation requirements. Also, the busing and what we do with busing, and some of the services that we provide that maybe we can look a little deeper into. But I did want to make sure that I highlighted.
The fact that this year's zero-based budgeting and the way that this was put together. I feel like I'm going into next year a lot more hopeful than dreadful, as I have in the prior years. So I just wanted to make sure that I highlighted that, and thank you. Other board member comments. Miss Manzano. I just want to echo both Dr. Braddock and Mr. Fain's thank yous to Mr. Schimp, Dr. Morton. This stinks for my first time having to be a part of a budget.
I think that with my comment 2 weeks ago, people kind of know where I stand about. what things I think we should have, what things I think we need to look at. But I couldn't have been more made aware from the clear information that you both provided for us. So I want to thank you for that. I also want to thank Alana Yaris for everything that she is doing. with fair funding, and I hope that every single 359 of you online and the multitude of people in here continue fighting that fight, because we are in deep, and I, like Mrs. Surefain, feel hopeful for the future, even though this year.
Seems to be a little challenging, so thank you. Thank you. Other board member comments, Mr. Greenbaum. Thank you. I'll keep my comments brief. But I want to recognize the hard work that went into meeting these challenges. Thank you very much to Mr. Schimp, the finance department, and everyone who helped close the close the gaps while keeping our students a priority. We keep saying it, but it bears repeating. The funding formula is broken. We face skyrocketing costs, but reduced state aid yet again. The only option of options available to us are more cuts and a greater local share. We need something better than permission to make up the difference ourselves.
Tonight we're making difficult decisions, but the advocacy does not stop. The board is committed to working with our lawmakers for State aid that increases this cost increase for a way to respond to costs that are outside of our control, and for a formula that works for Jerry Ham. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Dreisen. Thank you. First, st I actually want to thank everyone in the community for all their outreach. Please know that I appreciate the time and effort that went into all of your emails.
Just as a reminder, you know, in accordance with New Jersey law and our policy, individual board members is an individual board member, we can't respond. But and I can only speak for myself. I I definitely took the time to read all the emails and consider everything that you shared. And with that said, I do want to thank Ms. Winters and Dr. Morton, because that was a big lift, that in their roles, they responded to all that outreach. So I definitely appreciated all the community engagement. And so then as regarding the decision tonight is the community has seen, I vote no when I think it is in the best interest of students in Cherry Hill in our district. And that has made me an outlier on the board at times. But I believe that's my responsibility as an elected board member.
In this case, though, I think voting no tonight may be the easier decision, but unfortunately not the responsible one. Voting no tonight would not accomplish anything, in my opinion, and really just reflect our collective frustration with the situation we find ourselves in, but not contribute to finding a solution. And so the board is legally required to pass a budget by the State's deadline. We also do not determine the individual line items in the budget, just as a reminder. That's the responsibility of district administration. As I think others have already said tonight, there are two solutions to the problem we're facing. Either raise property taxes, cut the budget, or both. The district administration has recommended both, and we are voting on that recommendation tonight.
If we don't like this, as others have already said, we need to place the blame where it belongs. That's with the legislature for passing the costs on to us locally. Thank you. Thank you for your comment, Miss Palmer. So New Jersey is home to about 600 public school districts, and this year, fewer than 200 of them saw reductions in their state aid. Of those, I think it was about 175. Cherry Hill received the 14th largest state aid reduction in the state of New Jersey. We've spoken ad nauseam about, you know, the fact that we as taxpayers.
compensate, you know, cover 90% of the district's budget. And I don't say that to make an excuse or to downplay, you know, the the seriousness of the discussion that we're here to have tonight. But to highlight instead that the situation we are in is not a result of wasteful spending. It's not a result of administrative bloat. It's not… any one person or group's fault, it just is the unfortunate reality that we face. And until.
Something changes at the state level until something changes with the state aid formula, we're going to continue to be in this position, because the non-controllable costs are where we're seeing increases. And the reality… the other reality is that 80% of our budget is. people, it's positions, it's personnel. So we don't have many other levers to pull other than to adjust. your position count. And the unfortunate reality is that that does weather any of us at this table, administration included, might… I speak for myself alone.
But whether we want to make those decisions or not, the reality is it trickles down and it impacts what we are able to support. What programs we offer. And the reality is, we just simply, as a district, cannot afford to support the status quo. Um, it's painful. It's not something that I personally love. But that is our reality. And, you know, I have seen firsthand, many of us at this table have had the same conversations I've seen and I've read every single email that has come into us over the last few weeks.
We've had those same conversations, and I can't tell you how many times we've sat at a table or one-on-one with each other and said, can we find this money somewhere else? What else can we cut? We don't want to do it. The reality is. There are no other places, right? No matter what you… could you theoretically find the money elsewhere? Maybe, and it would have been just as painful or worse of a cut. So, you know, I want to publicly thank Mr. Schimp, Dr. Morton. the building level teams for coming up with a budget that, while it is not without pain, continues to center the students, and I personally truly do believe that even if the way we deliver our education changes.
Our students will be okay, and the quality of the education that they receive will still be good. And so that's why, you know, I happen to agree with Dr. Dryson. I personally will tell all of you that I will vote yes tonight because we are statutorily bound to do that. And I know with certainty, with comfort, that the decisions that are on the table, the decisions that have been made, the recommendations that have been made continue to center the students and are the best possible scenario.
Our work continues. I personally am helping to advocate for more state funding and much needed changes to the formula until that happens. This is where we are. I'd love to see some supplemental aid, and then we have a conversation about. How can we use that money? But you know, thank you for the work that has gone into it. Thank you to the community for making your voices heard. It has been heard. I have personally received it, read every word that has been sent. understand where you're coming from. So thank you.
Thank you. Any other board member comments this evening. Seeing none, I am going to make a very brief comment, because I know you guys are all waiting. I want to echo the board members who thank the community for their engagement with us. I read all of your emails. I tried to respond personally to every single email I received. Please, please know, and you can verify with Dr. Morton and Mr. Shimp that we chased down literally everything you emailed us. Everything you sent us, we turned around and asked, is this true? Why is it true? Is it not true? What can we do? Is there anything more we can do?
I promise you that we all did that, all nine of us. So thank you for your engagement in helping us to try to solve this problem. And we did try to solve it as best as we could. This budget is incredibly challenging. $29 million is a gap that we just couldn't cover. We, as Dr. Dreisen said, it was… it's the both-and budget. It's the worst of all possible worlds. We are raising property taxes to the maximum amount that we are allowed to. Which is incredibly painful for our families. We all live here. I saw somewhere online, somebody said the board member should be forced to live in Cherry Hill. We do. We all live here. We all have children here, and we're all volunteering to do this the best that we can.
We could not close the gap, even going to the maximum tax impact, which none of us wanted to do. We could not close the gap, even with all the cuts that we looked for, we could not close the gap. I spent the weekend going back through literally everything line by line to try to find some way to fix this. We could not close the gap. And so, therefore. at this point, our options are to vote yes or vote no, and as Dr. Dreisen said, I know a lot of you emailed us and said, vote no. I looked and saw what happens to other districts who do that. You know what happens when they vote? No. The State just enacts a budget over their heads.
Us voting no tonight wouldn't restore any of the things everybody's angry about. The only way we do that is if we come together as a community and do what we did two years ago and get supplemental aid. The simple answer here is that we can't fix this without more money. There is no more money to fix it. None of us want to do this tonight. I have good news though. I am so loud and annoying that I got myself invited to a meeting on Friday with Assemblyman Greenwald's office. I'm going, as the representative of Cherry Hill with five other school districts from South Jersey. We are all going together. It is a mix of board members.
Business administrators and superintendents, and we are going to go in there, and we are going to tell them exactly what is wrong. and why it's their responsibility to help us fix it, because 90% on local property taxes is literally insane. I don't understand how anybody could think that's our fair share. We have paid our fair share, and more than that. the community. passed a bond referendum above any that's ever been passed in the state. You voted to raise your taxes to help fix our schools.
We're paying that now, and we did it, and we should do it, because we invest in our schools, and we invest in our families. But I look out tonight at this community audience, and I see my children's teachers. And I see my friends and it is breaking my heart, and I want you to know that. But I will vote yes tonight. Because that's what we were elected to do. We were elected to pass a budget, and a budget will be passed. And I want you to know that all you people who are here tonight really angry about this like we are, please turn it around and contact Majority Leader Greenwald's office before I show up there on Friday, because when I show up there, if I've showed up there after days of Cherry Hill people.
Calling and emailing and telling them what is wrong, maybe they will listen to me. All the other districts coming with me, they don't have the numbers. They are wonderful school districts, but we are the largest school districts in South Jersey. We are the ones who can make ourselves heard. So please, I know you're all angry tonight, and I'm angry too. and you're gonna come and express all the things that you wish were different, and I wish they were different, too. But if you really want to make a difference, have me walk in there on Friday with all you guys behind me. They can't ignore that.
That's my comment. Please. call him. He's gonna love me for saying that, huh? Seeing no other board member comments, I'm going to open it up to the first public comment section of the night. This is on budget only, so public comments at this point will be only on the budget, which is agenda item 5.4. You don't have to line up, it's cool, because I'm going to be going in between people in the room and people online, and just so everybody in the room knows, there are almost 400 people online right now.
Your comments will be limited to the budget. Everybody will have 3 min. The 3-minute timer will show on the screen. I will be holding everybody to a strict 3-minute. comment, because there are, like, 500 people in the meeting. So if I cut you off, it's not personal, it's because I need to get through everybody's comment. If you are a student, and I see several of them in the room. Students always speak first at board meetings. If you are a student in the room.
You should be online right now to speak. If you are a student online, you should put an S after your name and I will call on you first if you are a student. You must provide your name and your municipality. All your comments should be directed to me as the chair of the meeting. We're not addressing the rest of the audience. We're not addressing other people at the table. We're not yelling at anybody else. If you have something to say, you say it to me as the chair of the meeting. As long as your comment is related to the budget, it's good to go for 3 min. If you have comments that cannot be expressed in 3 min. I encourage you to email the board.
As you heard, we read them all and we chased all your comments down with questions. Please feel free to continue to contact us 'cause this is not over tonight. I'm going to start in the room. This is our custom. I see we have a student first. She's asking if her microphone is on. Hello, hello? It is on. So when Mr. Shimp turns on the timer, it's going to say 3 minutes on the screen, then you get to start. You just tell me your name, and what town you live in, and then you can say whatever you want to say. Go. Hello, my name is Addie Chertok. Um, I'm from the Woodcrest neighborhood.
And I'm here to speak to you about an important issue at my school, Woodcress Elementary. Um, I don't know if you heard, but they might be removing the inclusion classroom for first grade. I want you to hear me out how I feel about this. First of all, everyone at Woodcrest is always like saying that this is a school that we try to include everyone, always teaching us to be kind to all students. And if they care about that, why are they removing the inclusion classroom as include in the name?
The budget cuts are, like, making teachers have to move out of the schools, and some teachers move out by purpose since they want to be with another teacher. This is taking away the path for current students and incoming students. I have a younger sister who needs to be in the inclusion class, and if she can't go, I just can't imagine. She's already in a different school, and it's really hard without me to be there with her. And my friend's sister has to move to a new school, or she will get no resources.
And switching to a new school is really hard. If you leave all your friends, and if you have a sibling, the parents can't keep track of anything at different schools. You're an only child. It's really hard. Overall, this is how I feel about this issue, and I hope that we can still keep it at my school. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Since we have just one minute on there, I just want to, you know, I'll explain how you balance the budget and everything on the way home. But, um, you know, the budget does say very specifically that you're not.
cutting education, special education services. It's everywhere. It's in this presentation, it's online. So, you know, we don't know what's going to happen, right? It might be that, you know, Woodcrest does have a first-grade inclusion classroom, but that's not what we're hearing, and it's very confusing to us when all the messaging is saying there's not cutting services, when it sounds like they're cutting services. So that's our, you know, why we're really here today. Thank you again. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. I don't see anybody with an S after their name online, so I'm going to continue with students in the room.
You can go ahead, you can give us your name and your town, and you have 3 minutes. Hi, my name is Shalomet Yeris and I live in Cherry Hill Township. And at my school, I have been told that next year you will be increasing the class sizes. So for this year for me, I have had terrible progress because there are so many bad kids in my fourth grade. I don't want the class sizing class sizes increased. Because if we were, then it would be a possibility that next year you'd only need two teachers at Joyce Kilmer, and if we only needed two teachers in the 5th grade, then it would be a possibility that you would cut the teachers. And the possibility of that happening.
would mean that there would be a lot more bad kids together with the good kids, and it would just overrule. the good kids, and it would just punish everyone, and people could possibly be annoyed, and then it wouldn't… and it wouldn't be helpful for our education. So next year, I don't want the class sizes to be increased, so then I don't have a problem, so that then no one has a problem with there being a lot of bad kids and barely any good kids to help out with the teachers.
Thank you. Thank you for your comment. I'm looking online, I don't see anybody with an S next to their name. If you're a student online, please put an S next to your name and raise your hand. I'm going to continue with students in the room. Go ahead. You have 3 min. Hello, my name is Hunter Cohen, and I go to Bret Hart, and I love computer science so much. Ever since I heard Miss Woods was not going to teach computer science, I was devastated. Taking away computer science teachers.
It's like taking a puppy from its mom. Miss Woods is a nice, kind, helpful, and caring person. I could go on and talk about how kind she is, but I'm not. When I started school in kindergarten and walked into the computer science room, it felt like. a whole nother world. Every week, I would not just look forward to the class, I would look forward to seeing the best teacher, Miss Woods. Ms. Woods is a computer mastermind, expert, and a genius.
Miss Palathis' class, aka my class, came up with something that'll shock you. We made a petition, and we got 235 signatures that want computer science back. Board members, please bring back computer science teachers, especially Miss Woods. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Thank you, sweetheart.
Before we move on, I just want to ask our technologists in the back. I'm getting some correspondence from the community that they're unable to raise their hands online. I do see a lot of hands raised. I'm seeing nodding heads. If you're out there and you're having trouble raising your hand, keep trying. I do see a lot of raised hands, but I'm going to continue right now with students in the room. Hi, my name is Leah Malavi, and I'm a junior at Cherry Hill East. I know this was already touched on a little bit, but I'd like to direct the budget crisis issue towards a topic that I hope people think just a little bit more about, that being funding extracurriculars.
I used to be the type of freshman that swore up and down that I would never join an extracurricular. I honestly had no reason for it, but I was so against the idea of staying at school longer than I already do, since school is really tiring. But lo and behold, I am now proudly on leadership boards representing clubs that I love. However, I'm afraid that a lot are put at stake. Cherry Hill provides students with the proper resources. In this case, clubs to find their passions, things that they can learn to love about themselves. And through these resources, I have found my love for public speaking.
But the funding aspect puts it all at risk. I haven't been provided many details about how my clubs will be affected, but I know that for clubs that are competitive, such as a few of mine, a lot of the time the district pays for our busings and our registration fees. Next year, I will be a senior. College applications will take up much of my time, and these extracurriculars are my escape from the stress. If I did not live in Cherry Hill and I did not move here, the high school that I would have gone to doesn't have clubs such as Model UN and Speech and debate. The ones that allow me to speak up without any shame, and the ones that help me find myself.
Now I can only hope that if these budget cuts do go through, that they will not affect my last year in this district. We are supposed to provide students with the necessary resources to represent themselves and find pride in themselves, because we are Cherry Hill. But if extracurricular funding is lessened because of the budget cuts, then clubs that are dependent, no matter to what extent on the district to support them, and their goals will be put in jeopardy. I wasn't supposed to be here today. Right now, I should be studying for my AP exams. But as soon as I heard about budget cuts that could affect myself and others from my school, I knew that the right thing to do was to come and stand here.
sharing my perspective to you all. I am only one person. one student, and even though I only have 3 minutes to speak, it would be wrong of me to ignore an issue that could affect Cherry Hill extracurriculars for years to come. The idea that incoming freshmen who are starting high school could have the same experience as me. Finding themselves through extracurriculars that they never thought they would do, and having that chance taken away scares me. They could find their love for sports. Well, medicine, because that is what our funding helps us do.
Collectively, as a community, it is possible to help them be like me and so many others, to help them find their own pride and talent. But it is only possible if more people advocate for the proper funding. Thank you for your comment. Seeing no students online. I will continue with the room. Go ahead. It's your turn. Your name and your municipality, and then your comment. Hi, I'm Lillian Tummings, and I'm a sophomore at Cherry Hill East High School. Originally, I came here tonight concerned about the elementary issue. I have a little sister and a few little cousins, and they don't know exactly what's going on, except for the fact that.
They might be put into classrooms where they won't get the proper attention. Um, I see and heard a lot of what you guys are doing, I love it, and at the high school level, I do wish maybe a little bit more work with students to see what we can do on our end, other than just emailing, and what we can help you do. I'm not exactly sure how you guys are able to fundraise on your own, but we have clubs who do their own fundraising, they do bake sales, and we would love to help you all. There weren't a lot of us who were able to be here tonight due to, like we said, other, um.
important issues like studying and other extracurriculars, but I was very happy to attend, see and hear some stuff, see other students here who I know are doing their best to work, and I hope to hear more. The Budget Club was a little. a little vague, in my opinion, when I went to go look, but coming to the meeting definitely cleared a lot of my concerns. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other students in the room who wish to speak? Students?
Current Cherry Hill Public School students. Are there any students online who wish to speak? I don't see any students in the room or online right now. Students, if you are motivated and impassioned to speak. All you need to do is step up or put an SF dream, and I will call on you before any of the grown-ups, because you're all studying and doing your homework and all the things that students do. But right now I'm going to switch to the line for our first online caller. It's Kate de Gracia. Kate. It's your turn. Please unmute. Give us your name and municipality. You have 3 min.
Yes, my name is Kate DeGrazia, and I'm in Point of Woods. Um, I have a couple of questions for you as the board in reference to the budget specifically. As a parent of an elementary and a preschooler, one of the big red flags I see in wasting money. Is when there are 6 separate buses that come to Cooper from the same neighborhood going to separate campuses with different children. To me, this seems like a large waste of money in transportation costs.
that we could easily rectify by taking the time to sit down and route in a methodical and logical way, as well as ensuring that our students are going into places maybe together, right? Group together, so that we're saving on these transportation costs. And so my question to you is, did you look at those transportation costs on a small scale? And then my other question is, I come from California, where our districts have grant writers, and the grant writer is a paid position by the district.
Whose sole job is to write for federal and state grants. Is that a position that you can create or that is a role that's already filled where somebody is actively fighting for funding for our district? Okay. So, Mr. Grazia, I'm just going to clarify for you and everybody. When the board does public comment, we… it's not like a Q&A where we answer questions directly. Otherwise, this would take about 500 h. Instead, we take down all your comments, and then we refer them to the superintendent and members of his administration to answer those questions.
So you won't get a direct response tonight, but we are all taking notes and listening, and we will follow up. Okay. Great. Thank you. It's my first meeting ever, so thanks. All right. No, and I appreciate it, and if you have more thoughts, please email us and you will definitely get a response back from me or Dr. Morton or a member of his team. Okay, thank you for calling in going back to the room. We have our first grown-up in the room, no less special than the students. Hi, my name is Irina Amado Mount Laurel. I am an educator at Clara Barton Elementary School.
I'm speaking to you tonight on behalf of the educators at Barton Elementary and the, um, first grade. Interventionists. I'm here to express our deep concern regarding proposed staff cuttings staffing cuts and their direct impact on our student population. As Barton is the largest elementary school in the district. I'm sorry. The potential reduction in intervention support poses a significant threat to our ability to provide equitable and necessary interventions for our students at Clara Barton.
Currently, our school supports approximately 100 students, which accounts for roughly 20% of our total student population. This includes 20 Booth students and 20 kindergartners who are receiving vital early intervention services. Our projections indicate that 60% of our students currently receiving support will not be seen if there is a reduction in interventionist staffing at Barton. If we are restricted to only one interventionist, even at maximum capacity, the most we can service.
I'm sorry, I've lost my place again. The most we can service is 40 students of our lowest students. This represents a mere 8% of our total student body, leaving a vast number of at-risk learners without the support they require to succeed. We will continue to advocate for fair funding for our district, and should that funding be secured, we urgently ask that these interventionists.
positions be prioritized. The data clearly shows that these roles are not effective elective. They are foundational to our students' academic growth. We are committed to the success of every child at Barton. But we cannot maintain these results without adequate staffing. We ask the board to consider the unique scale of our school and the high volume of our student whose progress depends on these interventions. Thank you for your time.
and your dedication to our students at Cherry Hill. Thank you for your comment. Going back to the line, the next caller is David Russinski. David, it's your turn. Please unmute and give us your name and municipality. David, we're not hearing you. Make sure you're not muted. Now I can. Go ahead.
Can you hear now? Okay, so, um, Zoom meetings are fantastic. Um… So, you know, I, number one, want to credit all the work that everyone has done to get us to this point. It's, um, unfortunately, it's like, you know, giving credits to somebody who's gonna cut your legs off, you know? Even though you have an infection, and you're better for the end of it. It's still not… it's still not great, you're missing your legs. Um… So, just in lieu of the financial situation where we are, our costs as residents, as you well know, have gone up exceedingly in the last 3 years. A lot of these costs are outside of what we already pay in property taxes. And, you know, this recent.
you know, conflict we have with Iran has now brought gas prices up to $4.15 a gallon as of today. Energy costs are slated to continue to skyrocket due to a lot of, you know, cost, uh, AI developments, and so on and so forth. you know, our costs are going to continue to increase. So one of the things I think, you know, my concern is, we've done a significant amount of cutting. I don't know if we can do any more, so next year, based on this current, you know, student aid, state aid model, um, and our funding situation.
We're once again probably gonna have to raise property taxes significantly, as our healthcare costs, you know, are, according to the state, expected to go up again by double-digit amounts. So, my question would be the board, obviously not to be answered tonight, would be. what's the plan for next year when we're back in this, you know, I fear we're gonna be back in the same situation again, talking about tax increases, and reduced… I don't know how much more we can reduce services. Um, so, that being said, uh, solutions.
Um, obviously, you know, addressing our legislators and addressing our… in Trenton has not yielded us the real results that we need, and I think it's time we have to take proactive steps to figure out new solutions. One of which could be, you know, we start having in-person meetings to get people more politically engaged, and we set a schedule, and we start doing that now. Um, because this… the current status quo of. getting… not getting state aid, and then being frustrated about it, and then say, okay, we have to cut programs and increase costs is not gonna work. It's this model, the funding education as it is now and into the future, via property taxes, is completely unsustainable.
And now we have to take steps to change that and come up with a new funding model. So I think school year's almost over, now would be a good time to do… to start coming up with plans on doing that. What we've done in the past has failed. Thank you for your comment. And I just want to point people in the direction of the incomparable Alana Yaris and Cherry Hill Fair funding. If you're looking to continue the conversation and get involved. She is your person.
go ahead, approach the microphone, give us your name and municipality. Hello, Sarah Rivera. I'm a Knullwood resident in Cherry Hill. I'm a Kilmer mom of three and a Carusi mom of one. I'm here to talk about ROI, specifically Mrs. Wilcox. I'm here for one reason. For her. I have… Yes. I will email you everything I have. I was crossing off the paragraphs just to make it a little shorter. But on the list of proposed budget cuts to follow up on the last woman from Clara Barton are the Elementary Reading Interventionist roles.
At Kilmer, the interventionist is filled by Miss Sandra Wilcox, and if you lose her, the student population will feel the impact in year one. And the state test scores will show it by third grade. If you need to cut the roll, I understand. Unfortunately. we're in tough times, and I commend all of you, because this is a thankless job, and in our own lives, we have to cut costs in our own homes when times are tight. Same thing here. So I have a solution. Um, and the solution is to reposition or create a new title.
for Mrs. Wilcox from her current role as reading interventionist to either a K-2 literacy specialist or an early intervention specialist role specifically for Kilmer. I don't need to go into all the details about the challenges that Kilmer has that's specific to. you know, all of Cherry Hill. Um, her literacy support model is unlike any other in the district, um, and that's because Mrs. Wilcox took this role and ran with it. Um, I would love for any of you to follow her. She found gaps, she developed systems, she trains K-2 teachers. Her methods are proven, and her results.
Her data is there. So, if you ask her for it, she has it. I'm sure she's already emailed you to begin with. You cannot put a price tag on intrinsic motivation, and that is what she has. Under her leadership, looking at my time, um, structured reading support is provided to every first grade student, and now extends into second grade as well. This year alone, I asked her for the numbers. I had to drag it out of her. 152 students received literacy support. She meets with 96 groups.
per week. If you want to talk about ROI, just… I just pulled all data from her, so 2023 to 2024, um, only 3 out of 34 students, which were slated for special ed, were able to be given the skills. To move into general education. The cost of special ed is a fortune, as we all know. And this woman. is able to get in there quickly and give the children. She trains the administrative… she trains the EAs. She works with all of the teachers, she works with all of the incoming students. It's in Kilmer. We have kids all the time coming in.
Um, brand new. Uh, there's so much here, um, but she basically has a 360 approach on a personal note. two of my children worked with Mrs. Wilcox. My current third grader, when he was in first grade. Um, I knew he was… had some struggles with reading. And, um, I went to the back-to-school night, and the parent-teacher conference, and she was in there with Mrs. Turley. And she said, I want you to get his eyes checked. And my son is dyslexic, he has a lot of problems. I said, oh, he can see things a mile away. She said, get his eyes checked.
Took them to the eye doctors. His left eye was completely not being used. And so it's things like that, that makes her… she needs a title. Make one for her. Thank you for your comment. Going back to the line, the next person is Christine Blizzard Robel. It's your turn. Please unmute and give us your name and municipality. You have 3 minutes. Hi, thank you for your time. I understand this is a very hard decision, and you're stuck between a rock and a hard place. I'm an educator as well. I know there will be the upset families, no matter what cuts need to be made, but I'm trying to understand the priorities behind this year's budget decisions. We are facing the loss of approximately 70 positions and increases in class sizes.
But at the same time, the district is allocating over $20 million to transportation. Under New Jersey law, busing is required for students who live more than 2 miles from school. Yet we are continuing to provide courtesy transportation for students who live under that threshold. My question is, why are we choosing to fund non-mandated transportation at this level while cutting teachers and programs that directly affect all students? Would the board consider revisiting these transportation practices so that we can preserve staffing, maintain reasonable class sizes?
and protect programs that benefit all students. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your comment. Go ahead. Please approach the microphone. Give us your name and municipality. Hi, my name is Jennifer Bailey, and I live in Cherry Valley and Cherry, uh, in Cherry Hill. And so I'm not just a parent in the District of Thomas Payne, I'm actually a product of it. I attended Thomas Payne, Carusian West, and the district helped shape who I am today. At Thomas Payne, I actually received the interventional reading support, and it made me a lifelong lover of reading. At Karusi, I was introduced to computer science. I learned Excel there, something I still use every single day. At West, I had the opportunity to explore the arts, athletics, business programs, and student government.
things that helped shape me. I love my experience here so much that I chose to raise my own children here, and they're going to actually follow the exact same path. And that's why I'm standing here tonight. I understand that budgets are complex. I understand that difficult decisions have to be made, but I'm struggling to understand how this district arrived at a place where cutting labor, cutting our teachers, our teacher positions. became part of the solution. In my professional life, I actually work as a cost reduction consultant for healthcare systems, and in every engagement without exception, we avoid touching the frontline labor first, because the frontline people are the people that matter. They're the people that make the organization who it is.
So my question is, how do we get here? And what makes it even harder is to understand how we are getting these cuts when residents are still facing a tax increase. We're asking to be paying more and receiving less. For many families, Cherry Hill is becoming increasingly unaffordable. And yet the return on investment is shrinking as services, programs, and staff positions are reduced. This disconnect is what's concerning. Have we truly exhausted every opportunity before reducing teacher positions and increasing class sizes? For example, the preschool program. I understand there's great funding and it's still costs the district. And if that state funding goes away, will the burden fall on Cherry Hill taxpayers? What's our long-term plan? Have we reviewed all the line items associated with the preschool with the same level of scrutiny?
For instance, over $200,000 spent on a teacher-coach salary in 2025. How are those roles evaluated for necessity and impact? What about contracts? When was transportation last put out to bid? Food and nutrition services? Why are we agreeing to contracts with automatic CPI-based increases? How are we addressing rising health insurance costs? Have broker fees been negotiated or competitively bid? Have we evaluated plan design, including the high-cost medications to ensure sustainability? Have we looked internally at the purchase services? Do we know our cost per square foot for environmental services?
Have we evaluated whether functions like EVS, IT, or landscaping should be insourced or outsourced based on cost efficiency? Are we leveraging group purchasing organizations to reduce costs on supplies and technology? Are we evaluating utilization? Do we truly need to provide every student with a Chromebook, or can that be optimized? Finally, one of the simplest tools that I use in every single engagement that I have at the hospital is searching for unclaimed funds. It's free, it takes minutes, and when I searched, I found multiple entries tied to the Cherry Hill Public School District. So I have to ask if those have been pursued, how can we say that we've done everything possible before cutting these positions?
Once we cut people, we're not just cutting the bottom line, we're cutting programs and support systems for students like I once was. Thank you for your comment. Going back online, the next person is a caller with a phone number ending in 788. Please unmute and give us your name and municipality. My name is Jeff Podowitz, and I live in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. In a letter to the editor of the blog, Remapping Debate, dated 2011. That's 15 years ago, I stated how much we are being cheated by the state funding formula. The state has been constantly shifting their funding responsibilities.
onto our community. Okay. While the state wanted to take more control of the education of our Cherry Hill students, I see now that our school administrators, with probable support of our school board members. Um, our school board members are doing what state legislative leaderships desire at the expense of our community, and K-12 students and all students with disabilities.
This is happening as preschool is being expanded to an estimated 900 for 2026, 2027, and by 2029, that number will double. Services are expanding for these preschool students, and the classes are limited to 15 students. with a teacher, plus a paraprofessional. The state mandates that these numbers of support personnel that are dedicated to preschool. They mandate all these things, alright? Including social workers, nurses, child study teams, needed testing, needing health exams, okay, the state requirements are extensive, and the total cost per student is greater than the total cost per student in K through 12.
Great, which is over $25,000 pursuit. The very first year, we were promised by the state, with great fanfare, that we would get $3.4 million in expansion aid. You know how much we received? $1 million. You cannot believe what you're being told. We only received $1 million, or $1 million. Okay? Okay, from our capital reserve funds to project involving preschool expansion have been 14.4.5 million were transferred from the capital reserve to pay for 16 classrooms of preschool expansion students. That is for construction only, not what goes in, not the desks, not everything else.
One teacher, one, and one aide, plus that. That was $14.5 million. Take it away from our capital reserve. That was just the tip of the iceberg, alright? Understand that? Okay? Um… And, believe it or not, our state leaderships feel that we are not paying enough. To our… of our… of our… of our costs. That's the way our state officials feel, alright? And it's going to get worse if you didn't understand that already. It is going to get worse. Preschool expansion is a drain. That's what you should be discussing. That's what you should be stopping. That's where a large portion of our money is going. It's going to be 17 to 1800 kids.
Thank you, Dr. Potowicz. Dr. Potowicz, thank you for your comment. We appreciate it. Going back to the room. Good evening. My name is Ryan Nolan. I live in the Colwick neighborhood. I'm a parent of a first grader at Thomas Payne Elementary and a son in the preschool program at Discovery Corner. Unlike my friend you heard before me, we are first-generation Charlie Hill residents. When we moved here, we weren't sure this would be a long-term home. We thought maybe 5 to 10 years, and then we might move somewhere else for our children to begin school.
But that changed. We built a community here. We've been blown away by principal Gleason and the teachers across Thomas Payne. What started as a temporary stop became a place where I intend to raise our children. And a big part of this decision was this school district. Tonight, I've listened to members of this community who grew up here, who sat in these classrooms, who benefited from these programs and the students, and who say they who they are who they are because of what Cherry Hill gave them. That's what we want for our children. At Thomas Plain, it's not just a light line item that includes Miss Alcamo, a reading specialist. For many students. She's not just a role. She's the difference between struggling and succeeding. She's the support for the kids who just need a bit of extra support.
She's kind, she's empathetic, and she's really, really good at her job. She's gotten so many of our young readers, K through two, back on track. That kind of support changes trajectories. It's foundational. It's early literacy. And once that support's gone, we're asking our classroom teachers already stretched thin to fill in the larger gaps. The same is true with programs like computer science at elementary level. This is not an extra. This is exposure. This is opportunity. There are moments where students discover interest early on that shape who they become, and this is a specific person.
This is Miss Henry. Miss Henry, who passionately loves her job so much, she sent an email to the entire first grade classes to let us know how much he loved our children, how much they were engaging in computer science. They're learning to code in first grade. This is incredible. And to think that our second grade teachers and our first grade teachers are going to teach these things, it's not realistic. I'm here, and what is better than that? A teacher who's so passionately teaching the kids, and kids loving that, that thirst for knowledge. That sounds like the perfect partnership.
I'm asking you not to look at a line item at Thomas Paine, to look and consider Miss Alcamo, the years that she has spent, the lives, lives that she's changed between K and 2, and please don't take away computer science. And in 2026, when AI is coming, I think it is so great my child knows how to code, and to take that away and just view it as an encore line item is not authentic. We elected you, we are asking you to listen to us. Please save Ms. Alcamo. Please save Miss Henry.
Thank you for your comment. Going back to the line, the next caller is Lori Gibson-Parker. It's your turn. Please unmute and give us your name and municipality. Yes. Hi, can you hear me? Hi, my name is Lori Gibson Parker. I live in Willemboro. I am an educator at Beck Middle School. I have 2 2 points. One. my heart hurts this year when we went to the junior high model, because I'm watching students, especially our most vulnerable students, fall through the cracks with the junior high model scheduling. So I am really begging that that gets visited again and looked at, so that we are able to service all our students.
Um, the second part. President Winters. that public. I'm a very active… um, public education activists on all levels of the Education Association. And not only… I agree with everything that you said, hopefully you will feel the support on Friday. We are asking everybody, including community members, and even those outside of our community members, because as one of the other callers has stated. We can no longer be reactive, but we need to start making meetings, emails.
um, texting, calling at all levels, and yes, it does start with Greenwald. Even if y'all see him in the supermarket, stop him. Have a conversation. He will talk. But it's going to take everybody to come together, whether you live or work there, because it's not just Cherry Hill, but we are taking the brunt of it. Thank you for your comment. Going back to the room, please give us your name and municipality. You have 3 minutes.
Hi, my name is Dr. Laura Pendergast, and I'm here with Meredith Levin as part of CPAG leadership. Cpag represents parents and guardians of students with IEPs and 504s. Um, and first we want to start from a place of gratitude. No one runs for office or accepts a leadership position expecting that they're about to get slammed with historic and really unfair budget cuts. So thank you for doing what you can do to try and forge a path forward. And we know that there are no easy answers.
Um, I came a few weeks ago with three asks, pared it down a bit here. So today I'm here with one ask. And my ask is when it comes to class sizes. Count our kids to. Count all kids. count kids with disabilities. Every child should count towards the class cap, including students from self-contained classrooms who push in to Gen Ed classrooms for a portion of the day.
Those kids, our kids, should count in the class caps, too. Um, inclusion should be, and I think everybody agrees on this, a key part of the path forward in our district. Research shows that inclusion benefits students, um, both with and without disabilities. But it requires resources. Our teachers are amazing, but they can't do it all. They do need support, so the support that we're asking for tonight is to count our students in the class caps when they push into Gen Ed classes.
Um, as a reminder, if anyone wants to join CPAC or give us input, email us at cherryhillcpag@gmail.com, and we urge everyone to listen carefully to what Alana Gyres is going to say about fair funding. Let's not let Lou Greenwald's phone go silent for one second this week. Like, I'm not kidding. Not for one second. Make that phone ring all week. Um… We will also be sending out our CPAG snapshot shortly with additional information on how to get involved with fair funding. Thank you, everyone.
Thank you for your comment. Going back to the line, the next caller is Kim Gallagher. Kim, please unmute and give us your name and municipality. Kim Gallagher, Cherry Hill. I just want to say to the board member who didn't want to show up because it's hard to vote on the budget, please remember you were voted in to make these hard decisions. While I also agree that healthcare costs are significantly higher, the district and all districts are forced to cover certain medical plans per the state. So it goes back to the state.
On that as well. I know you're not going to be able to answer these questions necessarily, but uh… From watching the presentation, I have a couple questions. So, why wasn't preschool… general education preschool considered in cutting the total cost of general education preschool education and transportation costs were not a line item on the budget. discussed tonight. How much are we spending, and how much could that have gone to our K-12 students?
In addition, why wasn't courtesy busing considered to be removed? We're not mandated to bus people below the 2 mile threshold, and we're not getting compensated or reimbursed for it. So I don't know why we're still paying for it. Um, I'm also still not entirely understanding how the budget sets us up for the future. Um, I assume that the fund balance plays a role, but. My concern is next year, and how all of these cuts kind of set us up so that we don't have to make significantly significant cuts next year, and also raise taxes again. And I'm also just going to say one thing that.
when it was discussed about taxes being, um. We pay taxes quarterly, and we'll see them from July 1st to June 30th. Actually, we're going to see that forever. So, and then June 1st of 2027, we'll just have a greater tax increase on top. So, it's not like this money resets. That tax increase will go on in perpetuity. Finally, um… The last comment was that these cuts won't impact strategic plan or goals. And just because you say it doesn't mean it's true. If you wanted to prove that point, you should have woven that into the budget and how these cuts won't impact outcomes. For many parents speaking.
It seems like some of these cuts are significantly going to impact student outcomes. And me having students with IEPs, you know, it's a great concern as to how these cuts are going to negatively impact my child and all the children with IEPs or kids on the margins. The worst part is, is that this comment really doesn't even matter, because we were told prior to public comment that the budget's going to pass anyway. So it's kind of upsetting that we're all waiting in line to talk, and it's moot.
Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Going back to the room. Good evening. My name is Kelly Lukasiak, and I'm a Surrey Place East resident and an educator out of district. I want to begin by acknowledging Board President Winters advocacy in Trenton. She showed up. She fought for this district, and she's still fighting. She said what needed to be said. I appreciate that effort, genuinely and sincerely. And I believe her when she told the Legislature that cutting teaching positions threatens to decimate the progress Cherry Hill has made that these are caring and talented staff dedicated to helping our children every day. I believe every word of that, which is that.
Which is exactly why I'm standing here tonight with questions. The district's own audited financials show that instructional positions have already been declining. According to the 2024-2025 records, regular classroom positions dropped from 736 to 713 in a single year. Special education dropped from 282 to 270. That is nearly 60 instructional positions already gone. Meanwhile, general administration actually grew by one position. Tonight, you are being asked to cut 70 more. My question is simply, has the ratio between administrative and instructional cuts been scrutinized as carefully as the classroom cuts have?
I also ask, has the district explored converting eligible Title I schools from targeted assistance to school-wide status, which would unlock significantly more flexible federal funding for programs and staff. Superintendent Morton's letter stated that students will continue to receive Spanish and computer science through restructured delivery model with respect, attrition and vacancy still represent positions being eliminated. A vacancy that is not filled is a cut. Retirement that is not replaced is a cut. The question is not whether someone received a layoff notice. The question is whether students will have fewer certified teachers in front of them next year. The audited financials already show us the answer is yes.
The New Jersey Student Learning Standards explicitly state that the students must engage in both world language and computer science, and neither would come at the expense of the other. We just heard tonight about the incredible success of the Latin program. Imagine what restructuring world language does to that momentum for future students. Cherry Hill High School students are entitled to pursue the New Jersey State Seal of Biliteracy earned by more than 62,000 of their peers statewide, cutting certified Spanish instruction puts that credential out of reach. So I'd like to know, who is delivering Spanish and computer science instruction next year?
Is it a certified world language and computer science teacher? Or is that responsibility being redistributed to homeroom teachers already responsible for math, science, social studies, English, language arts, SEL, and morning meetings? These are not the same thing. A classroom teacher absorbing Spanish or computer science on top of a full instructional day is not a program. It is an unfunded mandate on already overburdened educators. I'm not here to be confrontational. These children deserve better than what this budget asked them to absorb. I appreciate your time. Thank you.
Going back to the line, it simply says Zoom user. It's your turn, please unmute and give us your name and municipality. Hi, uh, my name is Dana T. I live in Mount Laurel, but I teach in Cherry Hill High School East for 23 years. Um, the reason why I'm speaking tonight is this budget crisis has been framed around employee benefits being one of the biggest cost drivers. And yes, health benefits are a major cost driver, but not because educators and school staff are refusing to contribute.
We do contribute. I pay over $7,770 per year for family coverage. I've been a member of the I've been teaching in Cherry Hill for 23 years. The real problem is year after year double digit increases in health insurance premiums. That problem cannot be solved by blaming employees. District administration, or the Board of Education. We need our… we need to direct our frustration to where change is actually possible. Our state legislature.
They have the ability to address the broken system driving these costs. So I'm asking our community to stand together with CHEA, the Board of Ed and District Administration, and direct our anger, our frustration, and our advocacy toward Trenton. Where this problem can actually be fixed. Thank you. Just going to ask you for one minute. Did I see a student get up and get on the line to speak?
Sorry, former board president, you know the rules. Hi, my name is Lila Roseneri. I'm a student at Cherry Hill East. I just wanted to reiterate like kind of what that student said earlier. I do activities at East, and it's been like really great for me, and I haven't heard anything about like what that's gonna look like if there's going to be cuts there. And I also, like, I do agree that the budget should get passed. Like, I think that there should be a way that, like, we allocate the sources differently, maybe?
And, um, yeah, that's it. Thank you, Lila. Mr. Mcelvain. Andy McIlhain, Cherry Hill like to kind of share some things that I think I've learned in 42 years of coming and speaking at this microphone. Uh, 1st of all, public schools exist to deliver educational services of all kinds to promote the common good of an educated population.
State of New Jersey pays $13 billion in state aid to schools of a total estimated cost of $40 billion. That's about 30%. I think that's a rough number that you were asked. Public education is very expensive. Public schools in New Jersey are revenue bound. Every year they must raise the funding to pay for the educational services they intend to deliver. So through direct aid from the state, but mostly from local property taxes.
This… they do so through a complex set of calculations known as the funding formula, which you've heard a lot about, developed under mobile court challenges to the inadequate funding system over the last 50 years. This year, the legislature, in developing their annual budget, increased last year's allocation to public schools statewide by 3.8%, about $750 million, increasing aid by up to 6% in 401 districts. Totaling over $800 million, while cutting aid to 173 district by $56 million, and if that number strikes you as strange, it is. Cherry Hill was reduced by over by 884.
1,317, the 14th largest cut in out of the 700… or 560 districts. There are no good solutions to the problem created by the legislature and the funding formula in developing the budget. The board can increase property taxes, cut expenses. The result are local fair share, air quotes, of the cost of educating our kids. keeps increasing, and the services keep decreasing. Property taxes now make up 90% of the annual Cherry Hill budget. Over the last 3 years, Cherry Hill has lost over $22 million in state aid, and hundreds of millions of dollars.
Over the last 40 years. Placing blame is easy. Finding solutions is difficult. That is what the district must do every year as long as the legislature can pass on the rising cost of public education each year to local taxpayers. If placing blame is necessary. The fault is the reliance on a calculation of wealth-based property values and income as an indication of ability to pay, rising house values don't pay bills, nor do vacant commercial properties. It is our school children who will suffer the dispute.
consequences of a broken system, and we will continue to have the same annual conversation that we have heard for the last 40 years in my experience, and more until that changes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mcelvain. I think 40 years. I'm still sitting here having this conversation. I'm going to be really angry. I'm angry already on the line. I do see someone who has said they are a student. Trey the student. It is your turn. Please unmute and give us your name and municipality.
Hello, my name is Trey Azzaro, Cherry Hull. I'm a student from Cherry Hill High School East, and I'd like to implore you, as the board, to keep in mind the current status of our school and households as of now. In our current state, property taxes are already absurdly high, increasing almost $1,000 each year. While some families struggle to provide for themselves, we pride ourselves on being a community based on diversity, equality, and mutual care. Yeah, increasing property taxes would simultaneously discriminate against those who are barely getting by, and who have lived here their whole entire lives.
Keep in mind the schools too. In one of my classrooms last year, a tile hung from the ceiling the whole entire year. Mold remained in the walls of another, causing me to experience nausea and headaches while trying to focus and learn. a whole wing of my school is sinking, and our auditorium is flooded. These budget cuts will make issues which are already bad worse to change this for the future, I'd like to call back to something you as a board claim. That being that the budget is discussed.
throughout the year. Please take more accountability and transparency in our budget before these crises reach points like they have tonight. As I often have to wonder where money is when the school is literally falling by its seams. I, as a 16-year-old student, aspiring teacher, and someone who benefited from special education myself, love Cherry Hill for everything it is and all the opportunities that it provides. Please, do not let that change. Thank you.
Thank you for your comment, Trey, and thank you for calling in. Go ahead, it's your turn. Hi, my name is Trish Weinberg. I'm from the Cherry Valley neighborhood of Cherry Hill. I have a first grader at Thomas Payne, and I'm a first grade teacher myself at a neighboring district. Um, I understand that this is an impossible situation, and I know the reality is that cuts need to be made, but… it's just so hard to wrap my head around all of this information. I can't stop thinking about the kids, and I can't stop thinking about the teachers. And I think one of the board members said tonight that most of the kids, or that the kids will be fine.
And I agree. I think a lot of the kids will be fine, but I think it's fair to say that a lot of them won't. A lot of the kids will be impacted by this. Um, I've taught classes as large as 29 students, and I've had a class as small as 12, and I can tell you there is a huge difference for all parties involved. And even before this budget, the demands and the responsibilities that are being put on teachers. plates on a daily basis, it's just not sustainable. So to just say that it will be fine when you're putting however many more students in their class, it really does make a difference.
So really, I guess my plea to you is that we don't make this decision and then just, you know, what's done is done. Can we please follow up with our teachers and our building principals? Can we look at Dibble scores in the elementary at the elementary level? Can we look at state testing scores, analyze them over time. find ways to support the teachers who, you know, I speak from experience, we're drowning. We're drowning in it every day. It is so hard, and this makes it just that much harder. Can we please make sure that we are following up and finding out how we can best support them.
so that our kids can get the best education possible. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Going back to the line, the next caller is Deneen Fletcher. It's your turn. Please unmute. Good evening. I'm Deneen Pletcher from Cherry Hill, a proud Pta and fair funding mom of Thomas Payne and Carusi students. I wanted to thank the executive leadership team and volunteer board members here, along with Miss Yarnas for your efforts and nonstop time to address the budget this year due to what is a ridiculous ongoing state formula nightmare that a third consecutive governor of New Jersey continues to perpetuate.
And what our career local politicians have ignored after Cherry Hill residents continue to pay our fair share in top taxes year over year. Your time should be used so much more productively, and this pulls you away from focusing education for our children and from spending time with your families, I'm sure. As shared earlier, this issue is not new. I'm disappointed to hear that the fiscal security of Cherry Hill School District is an item that seemingly kind of falls off as a top ongoing priority from this agenda. You're waiting for state aid outcomes like it's going to be a positive outcome when, for years, it's always been reliably negative, unfortunately.
Max increases in taxes is not an acceptable band-aid, as described at the top tonight by our superintendent. Uh, the education from pre-K through high school is imperative for productive and successful students. I have been here way too many times at these board meetings. to discuss how expanding class sizes is not acceptable. Expanding class sizes is a hard stop, and should never be on the table for the content and speed you are educating the children on. I implore you to head over to my child's class in fourth grade at Thomas Payne, Ms. Gilman.
Ms. Gellman is a boss, an amazing teacher, and has been for decades. We are so lucky to have her. Not only was her class size expanded about four or five years ago, this past year, the classroom itself was cut in half. She moved to the smaller classroom. The children are literally on top of each other. The board members here represents our community. This community is clearly expressing what they voted for you to do, making a decision before listening to the community is just disrespectful, and quite honestly, irresponsible. Stop expanding the class sizes like you had at Thomas Payne for the last five years. Stop expanding our taxes.
The state has a deadline, but they bear no responsibility to our children for countless years of inappropriate funding, quote unquote funding. They can't have their cake and eat it, too. This is hard, but we need to be stronger, and we will be. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Going back to the room. My name is Chris Rothman, and I'm a Cherry Hill resident, and my children are third-generation Cherry Hill students. Over the past few weeks, I have repeatedly attempted to engage and get concrete answers on the practical impact of these cuts. We all know enrollment is not equally divided amongst our elementary schools.
The Budget Clarity Hub does not reflect this nuance, and does not provide a school-by-school breakdown of the impacts of increased class sizes, and average is not appropriate here. What's the median? I asked for that breakdown, and you told me that that was not… that I was not legally entitled to it. So we put it together ourselves for Thomas Payne. As these images show, a classroom of 16 is far different than a classroom of 24. It's dramatic. For some reason, you chose to hide this information, and we needed to figure it out on our own.
I'm not ignorant to the fact that Thomas Paine is under enrolled. We all know that, but we want you to understand that that means the impact for the kids in that building is going to be huge. They're going from this to that. You're taking away the second grade teacher and the third grade teacher. That means it's two classrooms. We know how many kids are in that room right now. We know how many are going to be there next year. We know that. It's 8 more. Okay? My other concern, beyond the changes themselves, is how they were communicated, or in other words, how they were not communicated.
This hasn't been a dialogue, and it's been far from collaborative. Why are we having a meeting like this? And you're asking the community ideas. When you're voting. Okay. We're well aware of the unique time constraints around this process. However, you knew in mid-January that your health insurance premiums and prescription drug prices increased significantly. Given that labor costs account for 80% of the budget, you knew the budgetary implications then, and you could have started preparing parents for those eventualities. You started the zero balance budgeting process then. Why didn't you involve the community then?
Why didn't you ask for our input on those line items then? Why didn't you ask what our priorities are? You have hundreds of people in this room who have ideas. They have professional expertise. They want to help. They want to make sure their kids don't have that. But now we don't have a choice, and that's the most frustrating process. This is not a discussion. All of us just get to stand here and hope that you go back and do the research, and I know you're wonderful volunteers, and you will do that. But this is useless.
It's not helpful. It's too late. Where was this in January? There's hundreds of people on Zoom. This is crazy. And we're also upset, but we're mostly upset that there were probably solutions, and now they're not there. Thank you for your comment. Going back to the line, the next caller is Carolina Bevid.
Carolina Bevid, Cherry Hill. Carolina Bebbitt, Cherry Hill. Um, making a comment about the budget is difficult because there are so many facets, but I'm going to do my best. So I get that the state has backed districts like ours into a corner, but listening to everyone repeatedly blame the state is really tiresome, because, like Miss Trefain astutely pointed out, reduced state aid is predictable. The message on pre-K funding from the Murphy administration was obvious. Take the money now, or another district will. Cherry Hill applied for grants, which is for the grants, which is understandable.
Because in addition to the educational benefits, our board's logic was that Cherry Hill taxpayers are paying into this system, so why shouldn't our district get some of that money back? I didn't support that choice, but I do get it. But it is a tricky tactic. This is the trap. The state encouraged districts to implement these programs and then left Cherry Hill holding costs we cannot comfortably sustain. Meanwhile, more of our tax dollars are sent elsewhere to support other districts, while Cherry Hill was told to make painful cuts at home. Trust me, I understand the benefits of pre-K. My mom spent her entire teaching career as a pre-K teacher.
But fiscal responsibility matters. I'd love to renovate my backyard. It would improve my property value and give my kids space to play. But it's not in my family's budget, so I can't. Even if someone offered to subsidize it, I still couldn't afford it. So the bottom line, as the mom of a 6th and 7th grader who are still suffering from COVID fallout and the budget cuts that vastly impacted middle school last year, I am so sick of things continually getting worse instead of better for them. I'm not asking for a yes or no vote on this budget. The board already told us where they stand. But I am asking that moving forward, the board be more responsible with our money. Mr. Shimp seems competent, so I hope the board follows his direction. Thank you.
Thank you for your comment. Going back to the room. Hello! My name is Angela Keck. I am a Cherry Hill resident in the Brandywoods neighborhood. I'm also an educator with over 20 years experience in education as both an elementary classroom teacher and a reading interventionist. I'm also a proud product of K to 12 Cherry Hill Public School education. Myself and other Thomas Payne parents are very concerned about the impact of these cuts. Thomas Payne Elementary is seemingly being disproportionately impacted by these proposed cuts. According to the district's budget hub, the community was told to expect only a slight.
increase in class sizes. Approximately 2 students per class across the district, according to your to your budget hub. That is not the reality of Thomas Paine. The elimination of one second grade and one third grade classroom will result in class sizing increasing by approximately 30%, 33% in those grades. My daughter is currently thriving in a second grade class of 18 students. Based on current enrollment, she will likely enter a third grade classroom of 27 children next year. That is not a slight increase.
That is a fundamental change in her learning environment that exceeds your projected maximum class size caps. Thomas Payne is only one of six schools in Cherry Hill Elementary Schools designated to provide targeted assistance for Title I students. A significant increase in class size will disproportionately affect these learners, students who require intentional, differentiated instruction and close progress monitoring to meet state academic standards. It is the district's responsibility to ensure these students receive accelerated, high-quality instruction while carefully tracking their growth.
Under this proposed budget, that responsibility becomes nearly impossible to fill. You are placing our remaining educators in an untenable position. Clara Barton is also one of the 6 schools designated for targeted Title I assistance. However, Barton's fourth grade classes currently enroll about 20 to 21 students. In contrast, Thomas Pain's current 4th grade classes have grown to 26 students due to prior reductions. This disparity is clear. If we are committed to equity, we cannot ignore the imbalance in how these cuts are being distributed among schools serving similar populations.
I've already witnessed the impact, as I mentioned, in previous reductions. My fourth grade son is currently in a class of 26 students due to earlier budget cuts that reduced 4th and fifth grade sections. Because of the limited space, there is no carpet area. Students rarely leave their desks. group work, one of the most research-supported and effective instructional strategies, is difficult to do because of noise constraints and lack of physical space. Uh, this is not a reflection on Miss Branley, shout out on her outstanding teacher who is working tirelessly within significant constraints. It is a reflection of systemic decisions that are eroding the quality of the educational experience for our children.
Can you promise class sizes won't exceed those maximum caps you presented, especially considering the special education students that push in for those various subjects. Additionally, I come from a district who cut computer science in elementary three years ago. I teach a state testing grade, and the gap is noticeable between my students and my own children. No matter how you restructure it, there will be skills lost. Please reinstate Mrs. Henry, our beloved computer science teacher, and the other computer science teachers. Thank you so much. Thank you for your comment. Going back to the line, the next person, it just says iPhone. Please unmute and give us your name and municipality.
iPhone, it's your turn. Hello, this is Rick Short. Can you hear me? We can. Q. First off, I want to thank the teachers that are speaking here tonight. I'll tell you what, I really think the teachers should be running this district and not this board. And I also want to thank some of the parents that have spoken tonight. up for the teachers. That's my first thing. My second thing is this. I'm very concerned that it almost seems like tonight's vote is already.
pre-known. I mean, the board board members just basically said they were going to vote yes. So what I'm very concerned about tonight is, is that this administration brought them in a closed session. And they warn them that if they all vote no, that the county commissioners are still gonna override it. So it doesn't matter. So that's very concerning to me, what was said in that closed session. And I really hope that our board members weren't coached to automatically say no. Now moving on to security. Again, last year's budget had $1,000,000.
We don't have fencing. What we don't have, we have fencing, but we don't have gates. Is that in this year's budget? We don't have fencing in the back of schools where wildlife can come in. Again, we have doors that can't lock. We have over 15 schools that can't lock in a lockdown. Certain doors in schools can't lock. I mean, what is this board doing? Do you even care? Do you even care for the teachers and the safety? And again, it all goes back to pre-K, the cost of pre-K.
4.1 million dollars extra in cost. You can't deny it. In the last 3 years, pre-K has increased bus costs $4.11 million. You can't deny that $8 million. in new school buildings have cost through capital reserved. Again, we cannot keep Ford doing pre-K. We need to stop Pre-K and just make it for a head start. That's the solution for pre-K. We are going to be back saying the same thing. So you do have an opportunity tonight to correct what you did wrong, and you do have a right to vote no after all these.
Amazing teachers speak, these amazing parents speak, and even these children that speak. I was impressed, too. Please vote no! Just make a sign that you care. Thank you for your comment. Going back to the room, next speaker. Laurie Neary, Cherry Hill, and having served on the board, you do need to pass a budget, or ethically you could be censured. So I'm sure you weren't told in.
executive to, you know, be bullied into voting, um, you have to take a vote. I'd like to thank Mr. Schimp. It does leave me rather upset after having served on the board that this is the first time I felt like I heard a budget process and understood and and having lived professionally zero-based budgeting. I'm grateful we're looking at that and doing it in that method. However, I am concerned, as the previous callers, even more so this year, next year.
Um, and the year after that. If we're nearing 90% of our budget funded through our taxes. and it goes up next year. It doesn't take rocket science to understand in five years. I don't have a public school. It's private, because we're fully funding it. So this state has epically failed us. And I said it 10 years ago, and I said it… then when I spoke at the Senate hearings, it's not about a formula. That's so broken, it's like, we don't have a formula. We have a dart that we throw at a wall, and we allocate funding.
And our legislators need to step forward and speak up for us, equalizing our aid based on income and housing values in a district where you have millionaires and you have homelessness is ridiculous and offensive. We need to restructure the system entirely. Our legislators need to help us now, but I can't pay 90% of my budget, and everybody else in this state. My wallet is not that deep. I can barely pay the bills and buy groceries.
Let alone fund my neighbor's school, fund the town over, and fund fully my district. So people do need to scream. Don't call, shout. because it is broken, and that is why we are here. We can't fund through property values and still have a home. It's not real. And then say, well, your value is going up. If I leave. and I sell it, it goes up. Otherwise, it's meaningless. So, I appreciate the challenges, I appreciate the concerns for all our teachers.
I absolutely agree with previous commenters. We have to start furthest from the student. I understand you have the budget, and you're passing everything in it, but they are the resources that are there on the ground with our kids. They're dealing with mine every day. I have a thorough appreciation. for what they go through, they're saints. Miss Haynes is saint. My youngest is giving this place a rum for its money, but… Please, just be mindful of that, and hold our legislators and our state accountable, because we have been paying, um, $350 million dollars is what we paid to make up the shortfall for the last 15 years. Thank you.
Thank you for your comment. The next caller is Megan Oceanic. It's your turn. Please unmute. Hi, I am someone who just recently moved to Cherry Hill because of the strength of its school and the reputation is a big part of why I think families like myself choose to live here and why we're also willing to pay the slightly higher property taxes that already exist compared to our.
neighboring towns, and tonight we're hearing a lot about how taxes are going up, and programs and staffing are being cut, and I really appreciate all the data and the number, but it's not just a budget issue, and I feel like that's the piece of the story that's. being missed in communicating with the community and with parents. it's not just a budget issue. It's a long-term risk to the quality of education and to the value of this community. And while I understand there's constraints, it feels like we're just focused on short-term fix upon short-term fix. There needs to be a strategy for the long term.
And we need to have actual thought and hear you say, what's the actual plan to protect and sustain the quality of our schools and the value of our community? Because that's not being included in the story and needs to be. part of the conversation that the community also has a seat at the table with. Thank you for your comment. Going back to the room.
And I'm Hoon Cherry Hill. So thank you, Miss Neary. You said it so eloquently. But it's been going on since 1990, and I would not suggest just calling Lou Greenwald's office, but you also have Melinda Kane and Jim Beach. And for some reason, Jim Beach's tape is always on, so good luck getting a real person. The other thing I have a concern with having part of fair funding for several years is last six to eight months we've had no administrative representation. At times we would have the PR person or.
the Ba person attend to give us some insight, and I think that's not fair to all the people who have been showing up. It feels like we don't have the full support of administration as well as the Board of Education. I will bring up, because it is part of the budget process. that you're still adding $38,000. Plus, for travel, but I would like to know, when our staff goes on these. convention, or what have you. Do you even know the trickle-down effect to the students and the teachers? I've never really heard it discussed in CNI. And quite frankly, you do have the largest administrative team in my 42 years of living in Cherry Hill.
Finally, let's stop blaming the teachers for the increase in healthcare costs. It's not just teachers. There's, what, 1,700 employees? Everybody has a healthcare plan. I myself paid $611 for GLP, not for weight loss, but for diabetes. So we're all facing that crisis. I don't want to hear the teachers blamed anymore staff. I will say this. If this budget was a single family home or a business, it would be in bankruptcy. So I don't know what the future plans are, Mr. Schimp. I'm still kind of confused as to the revenue source.
But I didn't hear anything in the future about expanding SAC. We've added 6 new all-purpose rooms. We indeed, we would increase staff, but we could also increase revenue, which is, quite frankly, since some of you do follow Facebook, is desperately needed in this town. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Going back online, the next caller is Josh Rothman. Thank you. My name is Josh Rothman and I'm a Cherry Hill parent.
I I am 1st commenting on something that was in the PowerPoint earlier. The chart compared 2019, 2020 to this year, 2025, 2026, and we're talking about the admin positions. But that's not a relevant comparison. The question is, which admin jobs are being cut in the proposed budget, and that PowerPoint did not appear to answer that question. I also want to highlight the impacts on pain, where my kids go to school.
I echo my good friends, Ryan Nolan, my wife Chris Rothman, my friends Angela Keck and Trish Weinberg, who have all spoken about class size. It is a real problem. The other problem is Mrs. Alcamo and Mrs. Henry, who were talked about earlier. They are truly incredible, and to see them cut is heartbreaking. These increased class sizes are not how we teach in the modern era. As it is, our strongest learners cannot focus when they have teachers who have to focus on 24, 26 kids. Are learners in need of extra support, cannot get that extra support when a teacher's focus is pulled in 24 to 26 different directions.
People move to Cherry Hill because our schools are the best of the best, beacons on the hill. I worry about what they will become. Members of the board, I thank you for sacrificing your time to serve. And I really do commend you for that. These are thankless jobs, but you also had to run for board, and to do so, you made certain promises. And I worry this budget breaks those promises. Miss Winters, when I voted for you back in 2025, I did so based on your promise for academic achievement for all students.
barely a year has gone by the first budget since that time, and now you're sharing that we're cutting positions for literacy, increasing class sizes, removing teachers. You all ran on those promises. Voting yes for this budget would not. Hold true to the promises that you made. And it's also something that we will all remember the next time that you make promises like those. What you see before you today is an entire community of people who were all upset about this budget and urging you.
To vote no. You are here to represent those individuals. These are hard choices, we know they're hard choices. We lost the fair funding fight, no doubt. But budget is policy, and policy is choice. Voting yes means that you've made the wrong choices. You have the choice to do the right thing. Vote no, restore computer science, restore literacy, decrease class sizes. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Going back.
Ready? Good evening. My name is Sandra Wilcox, and I'm a first grade reading support teacher at Joyce Kilmer Elementary School. My role is to ensure that all first grade students develop the foundational literacy skills they need to become successful readers. I do this by monitoring student progress, providing targeted instruction, training, educational assistance. And coordinating support across classroom so that students receive the help they need until they reach mastery.
I understand that the district is facing a very difficult budget decisions, and I truly respect the complexity of these choices. However, I would like to share that this position mean what this position means for the students of Joyce Kilmer School. Over time, this role has evolved into a comprehensive system of support that reaches all first grade students, some years, kindergartners, and like this year, second graders.
Across the week, the educational assistants and I. We service approximately 150 instructional slots. Meaning every seat is filled with a student receiving targeted support, many of whom are seen multiple times a day. Some up to three times a day, based on their level of need. These are students who need explicit foundational instruction in order to become readers. Foundational skills are the building blocks of reading, including rhyming and counting words, identifying sounds, blending, understanding letter-sound relationships.
Without these skills, students cannot become proficient readers. Basic skills intervention is an important role as well in the district, but its structure is different from the model that we created at Kilmer. BSI provides 30 minutes of support per day per grade level. And it services across grades K to 5, typically working with small groups of 5 or fewer. students at a time. These students are often. These sessions are often a half hour.
or more. Well, half hour. And these and they need these students are. They need support across. multiple areas of reading, including, like, foundational schools, fluency, morphology, comprehension, and writing. At the beginning of the school year, the BSI team and I supported approximately 32% of the Kilmer population. However, the needs at Kilmer extend far beyond that. This structure alone can support.
The model we have developed goes beyond traditional intervention. The educational assistants and I provide ongoing specific skill instruction throughout the day. Students are supported until they master the skill and then can be exited. And then we are able to bring in another student who needs support. This allows us to continuously reach more children and respond immediately to their needs. Miss Wilcox, I'm really sorry about your time is up. Okay. If you can send us the full text of your statement, that way we can read it. I know 3 min was not enough for you to say what needed to be said. All right. Thank you. We appreciate it.
Thank you. Going back to the line, the next caller is Jen Nadio. We can. Okay, can you hear me? Okay, terrific. I'm Jen Nadio. I'm the president of the Cherry Hill Special Education PTA, and we wanted to make a statement tonight.
Thank you to the board for the time and effort you've put into reviewing the numbers and working through a very difficult budget process. While this outcome is truly disappointing, very disappointing, we also understand that this budget will pass tonight, regardless of what is said here this evening. That said, it's important to recognize how many people are here tonight. This level of engagement matters, and it's critical that we don't let this momentum fade once this budget goes into effect.
Our involvement can't be reactive. It has to be proactive. And as a member of Zone PTA and a part of the Fair Funding Committee, which we now think should be called the SFRA Committee on Zone PTA, Cherry Hill Special Education PTA has consistently shown up. and advocated for all students within this district and the special education community. That advocacy will not stop. It will continue regardless of this budget. If anything, this moment.
Challenges us to work harder and smarter to find ways to support our entire community and ensure our students continue to learn, grow, and receive what they need. We are going to continue to watch. Listen and stay engaged, and we will continue to partner with families to ensure that services are delivered as outlined in each student's IEP 504 or general education classroom.
It is so imperative that we all work together as a school district. So that our children learn. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comment. I am being told I have a student on the line, Anna Bardunis, if you are a student. Please unmute. It's your turn.
Sure, go ahead. Hi, yes, thank you so much, I really appreciate it. So good evening. I was actually at the meeting earlier. Unfortunately, I had to leave, but I was able to stay for the presentation. But my name is Anna Bardunias. I'm the current school president of Terry Hill High School East. And I'm here today to talk about what I think most people were there to talk about, other than the people that were there for Latin and the amazing a cappella group. Um, and I'm here to talk today about our budget. And I think it is truly one of the most difficult topics to discuss, because I can confidently say that. I know that we don't want to cut anything, it's not fun. Um, every staff member, administrator, and activity that I've participated in, I truly have… has truly had a positive impact on my experience. Um, as a senior, I've been very sentimental, and I'm constantly.
Considering experiences from high school, middle school, or even at the elementary school level, that I'm really grateful to have experienced. There's so many experiences district-wide including like student government. I've been… I'm grateful enough to be able to attend, um, like, leadership training conventions, so many field trips that have truly been impactful to my learning. Um, and these experiences, which I was so lucky to be a part of, have shaped me into the kind of person, um, that I…
is confident enough to stand or speak in front of you right now, and these are experiences are what every student deserves to graduate with in the Cherry Hill High School… in the Cherry Hill District. So even just yesterday, I had such a great experience when I was actually with Dr. Morton, and we headed over to the elementary schools. We had a discussion of leadership, and these kids are so excited at the thought of being an educated leader, someone who's confident, someone who's kind, and someone who looks for the good. And I just hope as we, as someone leaving the district next year. That the same character-building experiences are available for students, whether they be field trips, extracurricular activities, sports, elective classes, or even just having the most supportive staff members.
And I hope these are still available. These experiences are the ones that teach individuals and inspire them to work hard and bring kindness in everything they do. I just hope students can continue to grow, learn, and evolve in the school district just as I did, and just as they deserve to. Thank you so much. Thank you for your comment, thank you for calling in. Going back to the room. I see a familiar face. So I get to introduce myself as a parent. Your name and municipality, please, sir.
Steve Redfern, Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He leaves for five minutes and he forgets how it works. I forgot. I still know my address, though. Resident and parent. So, two things. Um, I'm not here to blame, I'm not here to say what should be cut, what shouldn't be cut. We have… we have a few issues in the state. One is the state funding. This is an area I believe you and I were involved in this about 10 years ago. It wasn't Ms. Yaris, but it was Missy Lang that was in charge of the state funding. We talked about it for over three, four years, and we're back here again.
I'm encouraging the community to start to rally around this. Okay, we come back here every spring. I was president for nine years, and we've been doing it 3, 4 or 5 years, and we keep speaking to the same people. I caution speaking to the legislators for one reason. Okay, I'm not saying not to do it, but be careful what their solutions are, because I'm going to bet a little bit that there's solutions may be something about. staff and their health benefits and how gracious they are, and how wonderful they are. I even heard a comment in a board meeting recently about Chris Christie was on the right path with Chapter 78. But Chapter 78, when that was created, was put on the backs of staff to pay for school funding.
In essence, okay? This has to be fixed. Okay? We can't keep spending the spring bringing everybody out and doing this. So this community has to start the work, has to gather around, and if it is going around, Assemblyman Greenwalk, go to his colleagues in Trenton. Talk to his colleagues and bug his colleagues to the point where his colleagues go to him and say, meet with them. Okay, maybe that's a part of it. Health benefits. This is a problem across the state. I'm working with other locals. Mr. Goldthrop, Bureau District, former district is facing this issue right now.
Okay, we have to look at health benefits and how we can fix this crisis. When I started in CHEA, we went to the State Employees Health Benefit Plan. Want to know why? It saved us $1.5 million. Then we got out of it, and we went private. You know what's happening now? The private brokers are saying to you. at 12%. And you're like, geez, 12%, and they're like, you can go back in the state plan, because that's 25% increase. Go ahead, jump in there. We have to figure out a solution to that, okay, across the state and across the country. Mr. Greenbaum, I remember last year when you made the comment, and I've heard it tonight, and I agree with you 100%.
I'll get updates on what my home's valued at. If I sell my home, I'm not gonna find a home, whatever I made off my home, because I still owe on the mortgage. So it's ridiculous how they figure it out. It needs to be fixed, okay? So I don't envy this job. Miss Winters, you and I know each other. Dr. Morton, you do too. We've been… I've been through this 9 years, the last 3 or 4, I went up to Trenton and spoke. So I appreciate the time you put into it, but we've got to address the real problems and not blame people, not use things like health benefits, because then the people behind me think it's their fault.
or contractual agreements, and then the people behind me think it's their fault. Thank you for your comment. Going to the line, the next caller is Ashley Dekter. Ms. Dexter, please unmute.
Ashley Dector, if you're there, you're still on mute. Alright, I'm going to come back to you. I'm going to go to the room. Alana Yaris. Oh, you were supposed to say that part. It's okay. Your name has been mentioned so many times tonight, it's like we spoke you into existence. Alana Harris, Cherry Hill. Um, I'm thankful to a previous speaker who said that it was Missy Lang who brought the Fair Funding Committee to Cherry Hill. It wasn't me. Um, I've just made it more public and known in the past few years as chair. Another previous caller said that the fair funding fight has been lost, and if that were true, then the $7 million we got from the state in 2008.
or 2009, um, would be even less than what we get today, and at least we get $28 million, even though that's still a drop in the bucket and not enough. At least it's more than the $7 million we used to get. Um… Under SFRI and S2, Cherry Hill was only fully funded once. One year of fully funding a district does not make up for the years of underfunding, and so in order to close the budget gap, the previous board said, we are going to defer maintenance on our buildings until we could no longer defer maintenance on our buildings, and that was then passed on to the taxpayers to vote on.
The largest bond in state history, which comes up time and time again in the state, but what, as funding continues to be cut year after year from the state, and I'm thankful that we did a zero-based budgeting this year. What are we going to have to defer so that we can still keep our class sizes to a reasonable number? We can still keep our educational staff and not defer maintenance on our buildings that we have to, in 20 years, pass another largest bond in state history.
Fair funding is going to be revamped a little bit, and instead of ramping up high gear January to May, we're gonna start in August. The budget is voted on for the state. June 30th, and in August, FAIR funding is going to start pushing, even though you're on summer vacation, fair funding's not going to take a vacation, um, because it just needs to be heard from us year-round. We need to push the governor so that.
The governor will give Cherry Hill the money it deserves in the budget that's originally put out, because we know the formula's not working, and we know they're throwing darts at a board and just making it up, and Cherry Hill is getting the short end of that stick, and we don't want to anymore. Um, so. If you want to get involved, you can email fairfundingchps@gmail.com. Thank you. Thank you. And truly, thank you for all you do. You're also a volunteer. with seven children who leads the fight, so thank you, Ms. Yaris.
Um, next caller is Megan P. Hi, can you hear me? Oh, good, better than last time. Okay. We can. Uh, my name is Megan. I live in Cherry Hill. I have two children in the district and also work at Russell Knight. I want the board to know we appreciate your work. We know that you deeply care. Miss Winters. Thank you for pushing hard in Trenton, and good luck on Friday.
So I'm going to agree with other comments that I wish this discussion had started a lot earlier in the year, so we'd have more time to actually figure this out and come up with something that's more palatable and just better long term. Uh, so I'm hoping we can remember that for next year. My biggest concern right now is increasing our class sizes. It's no secret that a smaller class size directly impacts test scores. And I see kids every day that struggle to keep focus, and I can't even imagine how that's going to work when you add more kids to the classroom.
Besides that, practically speaking, how are you going to fit more kids, more desks, more stuff in these classrooms? They're bursting at the seams, and as silly as it, I don't even think they have enough backpack hooks, let alone space for. all the stuff that comes with it. And finally, the strain of increasing a class with the teachers. You already know they have so much they're expected to cover their district. There's district mandated tasks that they have to cover.
for all these kids, and then if you add more people, they have to take all that material, all that. mandated tasks, everything they are required to do in the same amount of time. It's not sustainable, and it's just not a reasonable expectation. And finally, I'm going to end off with computer science. So last week I happened to be in fourth grade classroom while they were having computer science. It's the first time I've ever been in that class.
The first thing I will tell you was this classroom, which is probably the most chatty group I've ever been around was dead silence. They were so engaged as a group, they were so into this game they were playing, they were just having fun. But they were learning coding. These are 11 and 12-year-old kids. I have no idea how to code. These kids were learning it. The mom and me is so relieved that my kids are out of elementary school as of next year, and that I know they got this experience for all five years.
But as an educator and someone who loves these kids at the school, I'm so disappointed for everyone left behind. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. going back to the room. Dr. Jones, Cherry Hill. Just so you know, I'm the one who brought Alana here. Um, so I'll take credit for that. You get the credit. But with my parents nearly 50 years ago who made the choice to move our families east from Philadelphia. I doubt they would guess that their grandchildren would not be growing up in part of the Cherry Hill School, just 5 miles from where I grew up.
It is plain and simple. The state has decided that our students are the casualty of the cuts, and that our children's education is valued differently. When a son in Scharfenberger, who does not even represent us, stands up better for the children of Cherry Hill than our own two elected leaders, we have a problem. And we've built our… we have saved the state countless times. We passed the biggest bond in history because that's what we do in Cherry Hill. We fund education. The state? Not so much. The state's hamstrings district with a budget calendar, yet the state can go past June 30th simply by shutting down. We can't shut down a school district because we have to keep educating. It is a 12-month-a-year operation.
Did you explain the summer, making sure that we're set for the year, and every day after that is we're constantly working. I say this as an educator myself. My children will be here until 2043. Process that for a minute. I… my… the last time we had a bond was when I was a student. We have a problem with the state valuing Cherry Hill and other districts like us differently. It just ends now. We must make the voice of Cherry Hill ring out across every holotron to the newest assembly… to the new… to the Assembly Budget Chair, to the Senate Budget Chair, all the way across the new Commissioner of Education into the halls of Trenton.
Mikey, Shareholder administration will know where Cherry Hill stands on what we need. As on the inventor Miner will understand that, yes, while things are different where she lives, our children are also impacted by homelessness. and other insecurities, including not knowing when the meals are gonna fix. You should not be playing games, and I appreciate everything that Miss Winters has done. Thank you for being annoying and being persistent and using everything you did when you worked in the halls of Trenton. We benefit from that every day. Thank you.
Thank you, Dr. Yaris. Going back to the line, the next caller is Ashley. Sorry about that. I'm showing that I only have 49 seconds, though. Can I have my timer reset? Well, yep, you've been reset. Sorry, there's a slight lag. No worries, I'll get started. Um, so hi, my name is Ashley. I'm a Knowledge mother of both a preschooler and third grader at Kilmer. My other credentials include being a Cherry Valley Swim Club member, a soccer and t-ball parent, and I'm also a Kilmer, Karusi, and West alum.
My experience after my husband and I invested our life savings into a major renovation on the west side has continued to grow worse. When my third grader started receiving Title I services in first grade with Miss Wilcox, Kilmer was one of few Title I schools on the west side. Now, as of today, West Side schools are all Title I. The town and school district has continued to depreciate our assets on this side, most notably ignoring the growing population at Kilmer in the most recent elementary enrollment balancing decisions.
Kilmer, who was right behind Barton, is anticipated to be highly overcrowded. And instead, funds are being invested in physically expanding an east side middle school. Kilmer is no longer being considered for a solution. Instead, we're learning that staffing cuts of 70 plus teachers are pending, some from Kilmer, a title one school that is staying afloat essentially completely off of funding and grants. And this is because Cherry Hill has continued to sell us off for funding, as we have seen with Title I. becoming a choice district for inner cities to come to loans for the bond refereeum, and recently the Murphy preschool Expansion Fund.
Selling out to this funding has resulted in the loss of creative teaching and competitive curriculums, as we are required to abide by bland and boring workbook curriculums prioritized marketing specific types of services for economically disadvantaged families. The preschool has no nurse or principal on site, no gym or art teachers. There's no adult or private bathrooms for teachers or faculty, no library or gymnasium. How are we offering competitive schools that will drive quality and educated teachers that are going to want to work with our districts?
Preschoolers are expected to spend all day in the same box with two outdoor breaks. Meanwhile, Malberg, who is operating in the old half-day preschool building, is still utilizing their gymnasium and encore spaces from when their program used to be, including things like music, art, and library. What we have now is a daycare program tailored specifically for a certain population. Now, because of Mrs. Wilcox, my daughter was able to test out of needing additional reading services and has not had her skills relapse. I'm forever thankful for her dedication to my daughter's success, and I am sure many others on this call as well. Currently, the elementary day allows a 40-minute I&E time slot. So let's all do that math together.
We have 28 students, that's 1 minute and 42 seconds a teacher has to dedicate to catching each student up on a lesson that they might be struggling with. Oh, I see I'm out of time. All right. I'll hold the rest. But thank you for your consideration. Thank you. And if you have more things that you can fit into the 3-minute comment, please email us. Going back to the room. Hi, I'm Pat Berenson. I'm a 40-year resident of Cherry Hill. 3 generations in our family have gone through Cherry Hill School system. As a matter of fact, my husband last weekend just celebrated his 50th reunion for Cherry Hill East.
And so we're all very happy to live in Cherry Hill and for all these good reasons. When he was a student in the system, Cherry Hill had an excellent reputation when we sent our three daughters to school here. still had an excellent reputation. And my daughter decided to move, other daughter decided to move back to this state because she wanted her children to have an excellent Cherry Hill education. I understand the funding issues. I understand the state issues. I cannot understand putting money into the preschool program. I just find that over the top. The core objective of this school board and this school district is K.
through 12. Preschool is an added bonus that cost the people that go nothing. It costs the township, it costs. It costs the teachers, it costs the teachers benefits, it costs the transportation. There was no, to my knowledge, there was no… income limit when attending that program. It's a free daycare. We're not going to be able to sustain that, because our job is K through 12, and that's where the money should go. Thank you for listening.
Thank you for your comment. There's no one left online for the moment, so… Well, I was hoping for a still captive audience. My name is Shannon Schmidt, and I am a material resident, proud Colwick neighbor, and I represent my 2 kids at Cruci, one at Thomas Payne, and also I'm here on behalf of the Thomas Payne Pta. Um, I share in what many of our community members have shared tonight about their concerns, but also about the call for transparency, more of it. I echo that I think Mr. Schimp and the board has done a great job this year in explaining it. I think putting it in the layman's terms has been really helpful.
My comment is just on behalf of our board. We would like to be a steward of information. So I'm offering up our Pta board to be a hub. Send me the info, and we'll get it out. As you saw tonight, Thomas Payne loves an event, and will show up. So I ask that you please send me the info, tell us where to go, tell us what to say. And we're happy to get that out. So thank you so much. Appreciate your volunteer hours. Thank you for your comment. There's no one online right now, so please feel free to approach the microphone.
Hi, my name is Rachel Hain. I am a resident, a parent, and a teacher. I'm not going to read the notes that I prepared. I have two things to say. Thank you to the board for listening. To so much from so many people, and to, um… I would really love to help channel all the anger at the people who keep the funding formula at the state level a secret. I have heard that parts of that formula are.
um, being gaykept or protected, and I would love to ask a lot of questions in the realm of why is that not open information? And I would love… to hear what I can do to channel a lot of questions at why that formula is not public information. Thank you. Thank you for your comment.
Wally Batista, Cherry Hill. 10 years ago, Sunday. Then Superintendent. Joe Milosh instructed my then-principal at Rosa Middle School. to insert, to write a documented discussion memo. And the reason for that memo, which I still have a copy of, and I wear it like a badge of courage. It's for my advocacy for Spanish and technology. Here we are, almost 10 years to the day. Deja vu all over again.
Very emotional. I can hear my voice shaking, and because when I get emotional, sometimes I say things, so I'm gonna… I'm gonna use my diplomatic immunity as CHEA president. I'm going to talk to you about the other thing that I heard here, and it was about our students and the pilot program. I came to this country at the age of 5. from a Spanish-speaking country, I was a multilingual learner, ESL student, who received supplemental services. I talk a lot. Thank you to my teachers who helped me learn the language, and to help me become not just Wally Batista, Dr. Waleska Batista.
I know that it is not your fault, not anybody's fault here. And we have to stand united. And I love the comments that I heard from everybody here. We have a problem that needs to be fixed, and… Greg Louie is here. We have these signs. If you can show the community here. We need to get these signs out there because we need people to advocate. Because when I hear these comments. All I can think of is a girl like me. I had the resources available, but. How about all those little Wallies that are out there that won't have these services? I worry.
So we need to come out, and we need to be loud, and we need to, um, just really knock their doors down, because we cannot fail our most vulnerable students. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Patusa. And thank you for all you do on behalf of our teachers and students. I don't see anyone else online. Is there anyone else in the room who would like to speak on the budget specifically?
Seeing no one else online, and no one else in the room, I'm going to close the public comment section on the budget. Never fear there's 2 more public comment sections in the meeting. They laugh, but it's true. I want to thank the community for all of your comments tonight, and for those of you who are seeking even more things to know about the budget, I want to just, again. ask you to go to the Budget Clarity Hub, there is a new document posted there. It's called the 2026-2027 Budget Book, and Mr. Shim put this together.
for all of us to understand better how the budget works for me, who reads words, it's got a lot of words to explain things. For Adam, who reads in numbers, it's got a lot of numbers to explain things. No matter how you need to explain, the information is there. If you're really interested in this topic and you want to do a deeper dive and you want to know how the budget connects to the strategic plan, our priorities, Portrait for the Graduate, our vision, our mission, all of these things, if you want historical information, plans for the future, what does this look like?
Really, just please go and click on the new budget book. It's there, and it explains it all for you. I spent all weekend reading it. And I liked it. Thank you, Mr. Shim. Oh yeah, Dr. Morton. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Winters, and thank you for everyone who made comments this evening. Definitely very impassioned and very impactful. We absolutely hear you and see you. I just want to clarify a couple of things. Uh, they have not… there have been no…
uh, special education cuts of any position or any reassignments based upon budget. Annually, what we do is we actually look at the enrollment of students that are designated or entitled to a program. If there are no students remaining in a building for the next year. the constituted teacher position. What we'll do is we'll just shift that staff to a building where there are students within a building. So if there is an Icr.
need that exists this year, but the ICR need does not exist in the following year, then that staffing allocation will follow the staff member to the place where there is a need. So that's the only reason that there would be any moves in special education at this point. And that's an annual process. Uh, there's a question about Title I, uh, targeted assistance or shipped to school-wide programs. We actually have done that this year. Miss Daplin has worked with all of our staff and our directors as well have worked with our.
building principles to shift to a school-wide programs model. What that does is that allows for the entire building to benefit from Title I, Title I funding rather than just it being targeted to a small population for those who are in need. As I mentioned during the presentation, this budget does continue to support the extracurriculars, the clubs, the co-curriculars, none of that stuff gets touched at all in this budget. Um, there are absolutely concerns around.
The timeline that's established for the budget and the way things are rolled out. There's a compressed timeline that happens because the release of state aid occurs two days typically after the governor's budget address. This year, the governor's budget address was pushed back because there were. There was a new governor that came in, so I forgot the exact date, but that was pushed back, I believe, into early March. Right? Early March, so it created a time compressed format for us where we received state aid numbers, and then we received our healthcare premium numbers, almost around the same time. And there is very, very little time for us to respond and to act.
Um, and then the last piece, thank you to all of the wonderful Thomas Payne faculty, Kilmer faculty, everybody else who came out and spoke about the great things that happened within the buildings. It really, truly makes me happy, particularly as someone who came from the buildings and watched that work. firsthand, every single day, you know, our staff do an amazing job. We will continue to monitor sections, elementary sections, as we move forward in this process. There's in and outs, there's give and take, so things will not be finalized until.
Until the summer, so we'll look at sections, we'll make sure that, um, you know, we run sections at levels where it is appropriate and where we can continue to have the experiences described today. So that's very important for us, but thank you for that time. Thank you. The superintendent recommends, and I move the following action item 5.3 and 5.4, adoption of the 2026-2027 budget. Do I have a second?
Mr. Greenbaum seconds. Mr. Schimp, can you please call a roll call vote? Dr. Braddock. with regret, resolve, and respect for the community, especially Miss Yaris. Yes. Ms. Rafain. For the reasons that I had stated earlier, I am a no. Miss Cummings. Dr. Dreiser. Yes. Yes. Mr. Greenbaum? Yes, Ms. Manzano. With thanks to our administration, teachers, and community. Yes.
Ms. Palmer? Yes. Ms. Winters? Yes. Motion carries. But we move on. We persevere, because it's not over yet. I'm gonna move on to a much better part of the meeting, which is our student representatives to the board. And Dr. Braddock is going to tell me he doesn't remember. I don't have it in me tonight. He doesn't have it in tonight. The West students are pointing to east.
The E students are telling me that's fine. Sure, said the E students. And then, ladies and gentlemen, once you're done with your student representative reports, you are absolutely free to leave, because this has been an incredibly long meeting, and I know you have all kinds of things to do. Max says, not really, because he's already mentally in college. All right, starting with academics, college night for sophomores will be held at East tomorrow evening, where our guidance counselors will thoroughly walk students and their parents or guardians to the various factors that go into the college admissions process.
Students have been diligently taking the NJSLA test today and yesterday, and will conclude tomorrow. We are proud of every student's hard work and focus throughout the test. Moving on to activities, the Spanish National Honor Society hosted a Noche de Juegos, or game night on April 8th. Members bonded over a range of board games from the United States and Latin America. The Hispanic Heritage Club, similarly hosted La Noche Latina on the 10th. Students celebrated Hispanic culture in a night of fun, friends, and food. Mr. East, an important East tradition, was held on the 16th, where 9 contestants competed for the prestigious title. Third place went to Lucas Ortega, aka Mr. Renaissance Man, and second place went to Ben Sauter, aka Mr. Slaughter. Nate Aguelo, aka Mr. Bucco, was officially named Mr. East 2026.
East Model UN hosted GSPAN, our annual Model UN conference on April 18th. More than 200 students from 19 schools were in attendance. The event was entirely run by a team of around 25 East students who all did a great job. The class of 2026 held a movie night on the football field the evening of the 18th. Members of the senior class gathered to watch Mamma Mia in preparation for senior prom, the theme of which is also Mamma Mia. four of these culture clubs attended and performed at Beck's first multicultural Day. These students spoke with the middle schoolers and introduced them to the benefits of joining our culture clubs in the future.
the class of 2027 celebrated junior prom during the evening of April 23rd with the theme when in Rome. Thank you to the class of 2027 Student Government for organizing the event. More than 20 students from East Deca are currently in Atlanta, Georgia, for the International Career Development Conference, the highest level DECA competition in the world. Good luck to all of our competitors who will be getting their results right about now, and we'll be returning tomorrow. And finally, congratulations to the student newspaper Eastside's online page on recently being named a finalist for the prestigious National Student Press Association Pacemaker Award.
Moving on to athletics, East hosted the annual East versus West Spring Athletics Day on Saturday, April 25th. Families, students, staff, alumni, and community members were all in attendance for a fun day in celebration of not only a high performing or high performing athletic teams, but also in celebration of the pride and unity that defined the Cherry Hill community. During Eastverse with athletics Day, the East Girls softball team completed a 4-0 shutout over West. Congrats to junior pitcher Sarah Harrison, who threw a no-hitter and posted a career high of 17 strikeouts. Congratulations to a team of three sophomores and one junior who won first place in their heat for girls track at the University of Pennsylvania Relays.
Also, congratulations to the Boys Track Distance Team on placing second at the Medley Relays in Woodbury last weekend. East Boys Golf is off to an extremely impressive 10-0 start to the season. Junior Tyler Whitney won the Camden County Individual Championship with a score of 73. Whitney also tied the individual school record against Camden Catholic with a score of 32. On April 15th, the team overall broke the homeschool record with a score of 138 against Shawnee. We're extremely excited to see what the golf team continues to accomplish throughout the rest of the season as one of the top teams in the state.
East Girls Golf is also off to an excellent start on the season, taking home first place at the Camden County Open with Amita Oberoi securing first place individually. The boys' tennis team had a strong showing at this year's Camden County Tennis Championship, coming away with the winner and the finalist for the Camden County singles title, and the finalist for the Camden County Doubles title. Finally, congratulations to East La Crosse senior Nolan Cruz, who became the sixth player in East Lacrosse history to score 100 career goals. Cruz also tied a single game goal record against West with nine goals scored. Also, congrats to senior goalie Josh Hammer, who eclipsed 600 career saves.
and is nearing East's all-time record with 652 saves. And finally, with arts. the East Chamber concert was held on April 15th. Seven groups, including four string quartets and three Wyndham brass groups, performed. Another congratulations to Stay Tuned, and thanks for the incredible performance earlier for their incredible performance in the ICHSA competition, including their amazing win in the Mid-Atlantic Quarterfinals, making it to the Nationals in New York, and all of the individual accolades won by its members. Inductions for Pavas, the Performing and Visual Arts Society, were held on the 23rd. Throughout the day, students in the society ran an art show full of student artwork, culminating in their inductions that evening. Congratulations to all of the inductees.
The winter instrumental Concert will be held this Thursday, the 30th at West. Attendance is free, so be sure to come and support all of the incredible groups performing. Coffee House, East annual charity performance will be held this Friday, May 1st, in the cafeteria at East. Good luck to all the student acts and performances. This year's partner charity is Puzzle Pieces Squared, a nonprofit organization that creates opportunities for those with autism in the tri-state area. As April is Autism Awareness Month, we remain dedicated to supporting students with autism at EAST and encourage everyone to come out and support both our performers and the charity.
One acts the final theater performance of the year will be held on May 8th at West. Come see the student directed collection of one at plays. Tickets will be sold at the door. And on a final note, everyone at East is very excited about and grateful for the ongoing renovations to the auditorium, and in the meantime, we thank West for being such gracious hosts for all of our events. That's all from us. Thank you. Thank you so much. I saw the ropes hanging down from the auditorium today, and I was wondering if they were just student zip lines or what was going on. I have no idea, but it's going to be really cool.
Moving on to High School West. Good evening. We hope everyone has been enjoying the warmer weather and has enjoyed the cherry blossoms while they lasted. Starting off with the extras. We held our annual Star Games on April 24th with all three middle schools attending and various elementary schools. The day was amazing and filled with activities like face painting. Dancing with the Eagles cheerleaders, getting drum lessons from the Eagles band line, field games, water ice, and more. Thank you to all of our volunteers from East and West who made this event possible. Take your Child to Work Day was on the 23rd of April this month. Thank you to our student activities for arranging such a fun scavenger hunt for the children.
Juniors, the senior year is right across the corner. Make sure to schedule your senior year portraits between May 11th and May 15th, and seniors, scholarship deadlines are approaching quickly, so submit all of your last couple applications. Junior prom tickets were just sold all this week and last week, scheduled from May 14th at the Collingswood Ballroom. We hope to see you there. And seeing your prom tickets are scheduled to go on sale for May 11th to the 15th. We hope everyone has a blast at the Lucian Dominion on June 4th.
As for academics, there was NJSLA testing for freshmen and juniors on April 27th, 28th, and 29th. Sophomores and seniors had a late arrival. Good luck to all testing and great job for all of your hard work so far. There was a mandatory senior meeting on April 27, th where we discussed all end of the year events for seniors. We had 2 guest speakers from our community as well. We can't wait for all of the fun events. West's annual Night of Stars will take place on April 29th. This is where faculty members recognize outstanding students who go above and beyond, both in and out of the classroom.
On April 18th, our Model UN team attended East MUN. They had such a blast, and praised East for such a well-organized event. We hope to host our own conference in the future years. As for athletics, after beating East Boys Volleyball in a rematch, West Boys Volleyball be East in the third set. As for a West baseball team is thriving, beating East in the Battle of the Hill, remaining undefeated at 13-0. The hill really is purple. West Girls Lacrosse had an overwhelming win against East in their game on Saturday. Go Lady Lions!
As for arts, West Arts students and teachers had finished up their beautiful mural at the Jefferson Hospital, adding warmth to the waiting room area, with cherry blossom trees and other iconic landmarks of the South Jersey area. Softs had their final show on April 19th, where the author, Shayna Tubb, came out to support and meet with the students afterwards. Auditions for One X and rehearsals have been held as each grade level prepares for their performance. We can't wait for one acts on May 16th.
Finally, our Cherry Hill Police Club met April 15th, where the department brought their canine dog, allowing students to further understand their work. Interviews have included for our internship program ran by Ms. Castellani. Congratulations to everyone who has received the position. Speaking of internships, West and E students who worked internships this year will be presenting their informational presentations about what they've learned on April 29th for a large audience of faculty and family. April was Arab American Heritage Month. This month, we celebrate our culture, our history, and the amazing work Arab Americans are doing all over the world. And I say this as the Arab Culture Association president.
Thank you, that's all. Thank you guys so much, and I mean it when I say if you've had it with the board tonight, you are totally free to go. It's been a long night. Dean's done. It's like they're playing chicken with each other to see which student gets up first. They're all good. Okay, believe it or not, we're back to public comment, everybody. It's first public comment now. This is for action items 12 through 15 only tonight. So 1st public comment is for action items 12 through 15.
If you wish to speak on any topic other than these action items, you may speak during second public comment. Speakers must provide their name and municipality. Students may comment on any topic during this public comment period by identifying themselves as a student. We will alternate between speakers in the room and those wishing to comment online. Each speaker has three minutes to speak, and the timer on the screen will indicate the amount of time remaining. All statements, questions, and comments will be addressed to the chair, and your inquiry may or may not be addressed by administration at the close of the session. Is there anyone who would like to make first public comment tonight on board action items 12 through 15, please approach the microphone.
Alana Years, Cherry Hill. I brought this up last month, and it doesn't look like it was changed for this agenda, but you're voting on 11 for minutes and work session and agenda from last month, and it seems like the public can't speak on it. Not that they want to, but I just want to bring it to your attention again. Thank you. You are correct. I'm going to amend myself. Action item 11 is an action item. Unfortunately, at this point in the night, I'm just reading what they put in front of me, like that movie Anchorman, but it is action items 11. 11 is an action item, so if anybody would like to speak on our.
thrilling minutes. They're welcome to do so at this time. Going back to the line, give me one second. I'm sorry, I'm switching between. Different things. I see 2 hands raised. Just to make sure these are for only the action items. If you have a general comment or another comment on the budget that would be during second public comment later in the meeting. But our first hand raise is Amanda Clear. Amanda, if you can unmute and give us your name, municipality, and the action item on which you are speaking.
Amanda, you're still on mute. Alright, I'm going to switch to the other caller. It's the phone number ending in 788. It is your turn. Please unmute and give us your name, municipality, and the action item on which you are speaking. My name is Jeff Podowitz, and I live in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Um, let's see, item 13.3, resolution for the award of bids. It's bondwork.
And it's for renovations of the, uh… of F wing rate room, and, um… other sports things in Cherry Hill West. And the total bid is $5,685,198. How many square feet is that? Um, and please, everyone, kind of look at it. 13.3, because that's 5,685,198 for renovations. Now, assuming, let's say it's 10,000 square… it's 10,000 square feet, that's $568 per square feet.
Fair point. That's a lot of money for resolution… for renovations. 500 seat… that's not new construction, that's renovations. So, I mean, how many square feet is that? Really, I want to know what the square footage is. And you can look at all the work that'll be done, but that doesn't include, like, lockers and things like that, and that's gonna come out of our capital reserve fund, what goes inside of that. And there's, you know, there are a lot of things, you know, lockers are expensive and other things like that. Uh, carpeting, I don't think that's included. If there's carpeting, um, that's a lot of money.
So, um, and then there's 25% soft costs. So everything in the bond has a soft cost. So all the constructions, what's added to the bond cost is 25% for soft costs. So we're talking about over a million dollars in soft costs for this. Um, so that's in addition to the 568. 5,068,685,000. When it comes to bond costs, it's another million. So, when it comes to bond funds, that's probably the equivalent of over $6 million. And that's on every dollar. Every toilet bowl there, every, um…
Every nail, there's 25% soft costs in our bond. I want you to understand, plus the interest we gotta pay, so 630… $363 million bond ends up being about $500 million total, with the state taking about 33% of it, and we're responsible for the best. So exactly, tell me about that. So, the 25% soft cost. Or addition to that. Everyone, please look at that. The other thing is this, um, $742,000 for, um, psychological services. Um, is that… are we doing that for preschool, too? From, uh, Effective Solutions, Inc.
And then it's another 8,000 for during the summer, which is very reasonable. However… Bye. Thank you, Dr. Padowicz. Thank you for your comment. We appreciate it. Going back to the room. Dr. Yoni Yaris, Cherry Hill. I'm doing a right turn on this one. So it's item… 13… 15.3 waiver field trips. Totally fine about it. Just want to give a shout out to the incredible work that Christine Morella continues to do year after year at Rosa, and that year after year, we are constantly bringing our students down to the final competition for National History Day.
And now that also expanded to the east, but that doesn't happen without the work of Christy Morella, and all that she's done, I want to give her a massive shout out for that, because it is very impressive to be able to continually produce year after year, that level of work from students who are only in eighth grade. Thank you. Thank you. Go kids in blue. And looking back to the line, I don't see anybody else's hand raised for first public comment. Is there anybody else in the room for 1st public comment?
Please approach the microphone. Rick Short, Cherry Hill. Madam President, my question is, do you care about any of these bond projects, and what the prices are that they're costing. Madam President, last time I spoke about a bond project. You guys didn't even know where the location was for the safety device. Now, let's go into… 13.3 in a little more detail. Um, at Cherry Hill West project is costing, uh, what is it, $5.3 is the maximum travel expenditure.
13.4, then, Madam President, thank you. Uh, let's get back to the cost of that, uh, that bond project. It's 5 million, I think, well, 5,005 or whatever. It's… it's basically a million dollars over cost from the original. Cherry Hill tomorrow, which was projected at 4.5 million, if you add it up correctly. So we're a million dollars over, but does anyone care? Ladies and gentlemen, does anyone care that they're missing. uh, bleachers in this. Does anyone care? Um… I don't know.
Does anyone… so, I understand that I have to speak to here, but… Why wouldn't another board member ask the question, like… Hey, where are the bleachers in this project? And hey, with the other project at East. Where are the bleachers in this project? Because when everything was added up. It had the bleachers in it. So did we already pay for bleachers? So now that. That project costs $5.5, now we have to add how much for the other bleachers at Jones and the other gym.
Is that another 1.5 million? Do you guys care about… anything. Right. It's like a million dollars! And like… Nobody cares. You're all going to vote yes, nobody's gonna ask a question. It's right there. I hope. I hope one of the board members says, you know, before we vote on this, where's the bleachers? I think that would be… Um, what do you call it?
Stewardship, good stewardship. to ask the question of how, or what happened to the bleachers in the project? Or are we just not getting new bleachers? Is that what's going to happen? We're not getting new bleachers? When you said we're getting new bleachers? Um, I really hope. It's clarified before you give an honest vote.
Thank you for your comment. Going back to the line, let me see if there's any other callers. I don't see anybody else online. I don't… is there anyone else in the room who would like to make first public comment this evening? On an action item. This is where the action is, people. I don't see anyone else in the room. I don't see anyone else online, so I'm going to close first public comment. And now we are going to move to… Sorry, as I switch between things.
Correspondence. Mr. Schimp, have you received any correspondence in your role as board secretary? I have received a lot of correspondence. Over the course of the last few weeks, but I believe… That's awesome, because so did I. Yes. But I'll just say we certainly appreciate all the correspondence and we did our absolute best to try to reply to everyone. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um, I also received a lot of correspondence, and I think I replied to everybody, at least I tried to. I'm now going to turn it over to Dr. Morton for the superintendent's report.
I don't… I don't have much, uh, this evening. I just, um… Again, thank everyone for their comments earlier today. I just want to say this Friday is National Principals Day. Please be sure to. Thank the child's principal this Friday for their efforts. It's a tremendous amount of effort, tremendous amount of responsibility as well running a school. Uh, as we move into the month of May, next week is Teacher Appreciation Week, so we want to make sure that we extend gratitude to the individuals who, uh, impact our children.
directly and so greatly, uh, so that's very important. There's a few other, uh, appreciations that, in the month of May as well. It's, um, Mental Health Awareness Month. Um, it's also Asian American and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month. the month of May, and it's also Military Appreciation Month. Dr. Dreisen, thank you so much for your service. And we say thank you for the service to all of our military veterans and active military personnel as well.
Thank you. Thank you. Moving on to old business. Do any board members have any old business they'd like to raise this evening? Dr. Dreisen. Thank you. I thought it would be most efficient to address here just on the, um… the maximum travel expenditure. We discussed that in a prior meeting, and it's item 13.3 here, so Mr. Schimp or Mr. Greenbaum, if you could just clarify, because as presented tonight in 13.3, it appears that this could be slightly higher than last year. Can you clarify if the maximum travel expenditure for.
2026-2027, how it compares to the prior year? Yeah. So… The resolution's a bit misleading, and I was trying to be consistent with the way it was presented. Last April. So over what's not included, what you see here for 2526 was the what was estimated to be spent from a federal level, federal grant level, which I believe was 43,000 if memory serves from the email I sent earlier.
So, all in all, for 26-27, it's a tad bit lower. Again, this is a maximum, not to exceed cap. It doesn't mean what we're going to spend, it just means we can't exceed it unless we come back to the board to request that level. But it is slightly lower than 2526. Thank you. Can I ask a follow-up question? Can you tell us how much of the maximum travel expenditure was spent last year? Just so we have a sense of it? Yeah, about 35% misague problem whispered there. Yeah. So for 2526 for current year, I mean, for the general fund contribution, the max was 206 175 as of March 20th, when this resolution first appeared on the agenda last month, about 72,750 had been spent to date.
I'll also just add. Travel expenditure is also a bit miscellaneous the way the state categorizes it, but that includes registration fees for professional development events. things like school board convention and conferences. PDs that teachers attend, those registration fees are a part of that. Thank you for clarifying. I just wanted to make sure that everybody understood what that agenda item represents. I appreciate it. Are there any other items of old business this evening?
Seeing none, I'm going to move into the action items. I'd like to make a motion to approve the 2020… the March 2026 minutes as presented. Do I have a second? Miss Palmer, are there any questions or comments on the minutes? Mr. Schiff, please open the vote. Mr. Schimp, I just have to abstain from 11.2 and 11.3, as I wasn't present for those items.
Motion carries. Thank you. Moving on to CNI, the superintendent recommends and I move the following. Items 12.1 through 12.6 as presented. Do I have a second? Mr. Fain, are there any questions on CNI this evening? Mr. Shim, please open the vote. Mr. Schimp, I'll need to abstain. I'm sorry.
and Mr. Schimp, I need to abstain on 12.3. Motion carries. Thank you. Mr. Greenbaum, can you move the BNF agenda? Thank you. The superintendent recommends, and I move the following action agenda items 13.2 through 13.6 as presented. Do I have a second? Dr. Brannock. Any questions? Yes, Ms. Winters. Mr. Schimp, can you please clarify agenda item 13.4?
Yep. 13.4 is the award of bids for the lower level locker rooms, team rooms, and weight rooms that are below the, um… Jones Gymnasium. There are no bleachers involved with the team room projects. This is not a renovation of the gymnasium space. I'll also add that it appears it's slightly over budget. Keep in mind that 1.5 million of that is being funded through capital reserve. Thank you for clarifying. That's what I thought it was. Are there any board member questions on the locker room renovations at high school West?
much needed. Yes. All right. Any any other questions on these items? Yes, go right ahead. Can I make a quick comment? Just a quick shout out congratulations to Miss Chambers and the chamber choir at Cherry Hill West on their donation. Their award winnings from the 101 Christmas choir concert. You can see how long it takes to get those things. They won that in. They placed in that in December. So congratulations again. Thank you, and I'll interject with with a brief comment. This is a great place to read through the the donations. I just want to say, thank you for a very generous donation from Beck PTA in the amount of $10,000 to be used to furnish the renovated courtyard at Beck. Thank you very much.
And as Ms. Manzano said, a donation from B101 radio station to be used from… The B101 Christmas Coral Contest winnings to buy new coral robes at High School West. Thank you very much. Any other questions or comments? Okay, seeing none, Mr. Schimp, please open the voting.
Mr. Shimp, I am a yes on everything but need to abstain on bill list number 3 on agenda item 13.2 on the payments to Bancroft. Motion carries. Thank you. Mr. Fang, can you move the HR agenda, please? Superintendent recommends and I move the following 14.2 through 14.9 as presented. Do I have a second? Miss Manzano, any questions or comments? Seeing none, Mr. Shimp, can you please open the voting?
Motion carries. Thank you. Ms. Palmer. Can you move the P&L agenda, please? I can… the superintendent recommends, and I move the following agenda items 15.1 through 15.3 as presented. Do I have a second? Miss Manzano, are there any board member questions or comments? Mrs. Sure. Can I just clarify when 15.2, when these were from? Thank you. Under the new format. We don't have room for that. So these are the hibs that were discussed on.
April 14th the last meeting. Okay, thank you. Any other questions or comments? Okay, seeing none, Mr. Schimp, can you open the vote? Mr. Schimp, I have to abstain from 15.2, as I was not present in that meeting.
Mr. Shinkai, too, have to abstain from 15.2. Noted. Motion carries. Thank you. No agenda items for governance this evening, so moving on to new business, is there any new business to be raised this evening? Seeing no new business, I'm going to move on to second public comment. This is the second public comment section for any topic. If you would like to speak now, please identify the agenda item and clearly state your name and municipality. We will alternate between speakers in the room and those that are online.
Each speaker will be given a maximum of 3 min to speak, and the timer on the screen will indicate the amount of time that you are speaking. Public comment is an opportunity for members of the community to provide input to the Board of Education on educational issues. The board welcomes diverse opinions on relevant matters. However, statements that are abusive, obscene, or which demean are defamatory to any individual or any group of individuals will not be tolerated, as such comments are disruptive to the orderly operation of this meeting. Speakers wishing to provide the board with information not relevant to district operations may communicate directly with the superintendent and the Board President via email or other alternative means.
As by custom, we start in the room. Is there anyone who would like to make second public comment this evening? Sarah Jocelyn, Cherry Hill. I just had two brief comments. First, I would like to indicate that I heard a speaker that talked about motivational interviewing.
And this is a way of encouraging students that may not have clarity over their future path for careers. to identify that path, and so I wasn't sure whether that technique was being used here or had been considered. Um, I'm not suggesting I know a resource for you, but it was a new topic to me, and I know that we're very much encouraging our young people to all have a plan when they graduate. So, I thought I would mention that. The second is a question, and I am not an expert on Title I.
But, um, in having a Title I school, I believe it's required that you have a parent group that gives advisory. And I wasn't sure… I have not heard anything negative or positive on that, but I'm just checking in and making sure that we have that parent group in place, because I did hear in the other comments a concern about. The move for Title I schools in the west side of Cherry Hill. That was how it was referenced. And I think there needs to be some clarity about what that means, so that it's not viewed in a negative way. So that's my comment there.
Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Going online. The first caller's name is Rosen. Please unmute and give us your full name and your municipality. Hi, it's Mindy Rose in Cherry Hill. Just a quick question about the West locker room renovations, and I'm questioning. I know there was questions about it being handicap accessible, and I was wondering whether that was accomplished. So, I know I should have raised my hand before you voted. But if you can give me that answer, I'd appreciate it, or I'll send you a an email to respond to. Okay, thanks so much.
Bye. Thanks. Thank you, Miss Rosen, for your phone call. Going back to the room for second public comment. Hi, uh, I don't even know why I'm bothering to say my name again. I'm Chris Rothman, um, and I just wanted to thank the board as well as the administration for taking all of my questions and thoughtfully responding to them over the last two weeks. I've greatly appreciated it, and as you can see, like, our Thomas Bain community came out in full support to… really figure out how we can solve this problem, and I would like to propose.
A different way to do this process next year, so that way the community can be more involved in the timeline, and that way you, as you heard, there's a lot of members of our community who have professional expertise. who can point out things that, because you're so busy doing everything else, you might not know what's happening in the room, you might not know what the room sizes are, how things work that way, and to have, like, a more collaborative experience. I know you already meet with the Zone PTA regularly.
But frankly, we didn't even know that you could submit questions to the Zone PTA for review. So there's a lot of things that the ball's getting dropped on, and the community just doesn't feel like they have a voice in the process. And it should start in September. Um, and just start talking to us and figuring out how it's going, and… because this is going to happen again next year. It just is, and we should just assume that it is, and if it doesn't, fantastic! We have a backup plan, but… start asking, and we want to help, and we want to be part of the process, and, um, I just want to say thank you for… taking the time.
just while you're here, I just want to offer that board members do go out to different schools through their PTAs to have more collaborative conversations. This format is challenging because we're receiving your public comment, but we can't really respond. So I know we have one upcoming scheduled at Cooper. And this is something that the board loves to do, but we're like vampires. We can't come unless we're invited. So as long as you invite us in, we show up, and then we can have more of a collaborative conversation back and forth dialogue, things that are specific to your school community. So if that's something you're looking for, that's something that other PTAs have found helpful.
That's really helpful to know, and we can definitely make that happen, so thank you for that. You're welcome. going back online. The next person is phone number ending in 788. It is your turn. Please unmute and give us your name and municipality. My name is Jeff Podowitz, I live in Cherry Hill, and I'm just winging this, so let's see what happens, because I'm timing it. Um, first, um, back to that, there's a… back to 13.3. 1.5 million in capital reserved, you mean the bond money wasn't enough?
I mean, that makes no sense at all. Um, that's a lot of extra money to pay for it. And how much was the square footage? I want to know how much we're paying for square foot with a 10,000 square foot, that's 565. Uh, that's 560, $80, $68 a square foot for renovation. That's absurd. So, how many square feet is it? Alright, but okay, fine. And we pay for capital reserve. Um, school funding. I've been watching this for 20 years. People have… some people have done it further, so I've done it at least 20 years. I was a member of the Chapter board that actually wanted our school board to.
To do something, and they didn't do it, and CHEPTA was part of the Cheerio Special Ed PTA, was actually part of a, um… Our lawsuit… I think I briefed to the Supreme Court on SFIRA, uh, one by Disability Rights New Jersey. Yeah, it didn't work, unfortunately. Well, it worked, but it didn't work for us. Know that the Education Law Center, that book believes that we are cheating the rest of the state. They wrote an article to that effect. Um, they believe that we are actually gaining.
Too much money, and another idea they had was that the property taxes that we get for Cherry Hill Mall should all go to the state, because it's a regional mall, and therefore it would only be fair that that money should not go to Cherry Hill, but should go for property taxes, but should go to the state, and they can distribute to all the districts, and that's what's going to happen with preschool expansion, with preschool expansion, the Education Law Center says, and it was on MJ Spotlight News, that they were actually that it was not. The problem is it's not as successful as it should be in the former AVID districts, and to make preschool more successful, they need more money because it's being underfunded in those districts, so therefore money needs to be spent on it. That's for the… and take it away from other people, which is us. So, if you think… so when it comes to preschool expansion, the money that we do get, which is not necessarily the money we were told, not 3.4.
million, but 1 million, all right, will be even less, especially in two years. We'll get even less. And you need to read more about preschool expansion. Basically, the state is… what they're doing is they're shifting responsibility for public services. Of kids, uh, that's daycare and other things on the individual community. I've read it, I see what they're doing. In fact, they want infant and toddler care also. So they want to move next to toddler care, because it gets people back to work. Um, paid for by our taxes. Meanwhile, our other kids don't have enough money, and the state says we have plenty. So, like I said, I've been doing this for years. We've been cheated for about over $100 million.
Thank you, Dr. Padowicz. Thank you for your statement. Going back to the room, is there anyone else who would like to make second public comment this evening? Please approach the microphone. Robert Short Cherry Hill. Thank you, Madam President, for the clarification. Now we officially know that we were 2 million dollars over budget. Uh, for the West part one, Jim, because in the… Cherry Hill tomorrow it says, uh… 4 mil. Hold on here.
Gene locker room. Yeah, it says 2 million. But we ended up spending 4 million. So yeah, we were 2 million over. And then on top of that, like Mr. Potowitz said, we used an extra 1.5. To finish it off. Whew. That's a lot of teachers. Okay, um, next question is, uh, has to do with pre-K. So are we legally bond? You know, I am aware that we've taken rod grants for Kilmer and Malberg.
So we've fulfilled our mission, correct? We've filled those classrooms. Are we bonded to do anything else? Like, did we sign a contract that we must have 1,700 students in five years? I mean, this is a pressing question, because. Nobody trusts, uh, anything basically said by this board. I mean, um, you know, recently you just commented about busing costs. Now, I'll give Mr. Schimp the benefit of the doubt. It is his first year. Miss Sugars, uh, would, uh, line out a timeline.
of what the history of what busing cost. But, Mr. Schiff, it's his first year, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but if he presents it again next year, then it would actually mean that, you know, you're trying to hide some cost or something here, because we really don't know. What we do know over the last 3 years. We spent an extra $4.1 million, and… because that's using Miss Sugar's numbers and what, uh, Mr. Schimp said online. So, we spent $4.1 extra million dollars in pre-K, so are we?
Are we quantified that we had to have this 1700? Because it's… everybody's telling you it's costing you… it's gonna kill you, but you keep trucking away, and you… you almost unanimously voted for it. I mean, I couldn't believe it was almost a unanimous vote. Um, obviously, you don't care about teachers, uh, you know, these teachers are actually here begging for their jobs, and you could have used… and it was funny that you didn't mention that you could use bond interest. You didn't mention that at all in any of your presentations, but you did at your first presentation with board member Palmer and Mr. Schiff, he said right on the thing that you could use bond interest to save teachers. Like I said, you could have saved 10 teachers, you could have saved 20 teachers.
You could have done something. But… you didn't. You didn't care about the teachers. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Going back to the line, the next caller's name is Barbara. Please unmute and give us your name and municipality. Hi, Barbara, I'm from Cherry Hill. I just making a comment on the superintendent's remarks. May, it seems was left out is also Jewish American history, Jewish American Heritage Month.
Um, I was also disappointed last year. It seemed that it was left out of a lot of, um. a lot of, um, paperwork and a lot of things that were sent home on emails, um, along with basically being very underrepresented in the school, so… Hopefully this year that changes and hopefully it's recognized. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Going back to the room. Is there anyone who would like to make second public comment?
Going back online. The next caller is the incomparable Alana Yaris. Please unmute and give us your name and municipality. Alana Yaris, Cherry Hill. I finally drove by Rosa and saw that the signage was up, and it says Giacomo S. Rosa Middle School. Beck says Henry C. Beck Middle School, but Carusi just says Carusi Middle School. Um, please board, have it added to your agenda at some point to discuss the naming of Carusu Middle School and the lettering in the building, as it's named for a person, John A. Kernsey Middle School, the way Beck and Rose are.
Thank you for your comment. The next caller is Alana's best friend, Dr. Yoni Yaris. Dr. Yoni Yaris Cherry Hill. Just didn't get a chance to stay with us during my first public comment, because focused on the budgeting process. But also just wanted to thank the board and administration for focusing so much on the arts. I shared an email earlier with some of the members of the administration. and such that you had a chance to go over to Karuzi and see their musical Matilda. That is one of the most inclusive theater programs through their incredible work of Mr. G and Mr. Miss Miss Mert. I just really created a fostered a culture of inclusion. You saw it again.
with the elementary music concert on Monday for Kilmer that was hosted at West. Uh, and on a different note, has there been any discussion about fusing our theaters once they're now fully renovated through the next couple of years, as revenue generators? Uh, my family spent far too much time at, uh, one of our local Overbrook High School where ZZ Dance hosted their. Um, annual recitals. And I'm sure that Overbrook did very well from that. So if any chance for us being able to monetize those spaces like Voorhees does in other places. I don't. It's not going to close huge draft, but it could just help.
perhaps cover a couple of things, or help be able to use that to generate costs to help making and covering upkeep. Thank you so much. Oh, and also, thank you to all you for sitting through tonight. This is a volunteer. You start sacrificing so much, uh, both the board and the administration. Um, we are very grateful to all of you. Thank you, Dr. Yaris. Is there anyone else in the room who would like to make second public comment? Seeing no one in the room. I'm looking online. Is there anyone online who would like to make second public comment this evening?
See, no hands raised online. I see no one in the room. I'm going to close second public comment for tonight. Next, we have Board Member Activity. Board members will also be limited to 3 min, just like the public is. Miss Palmer, can I start with you tonight? For board member activity? You sure can. Um, April has been a very busy month for me in terms of board member engagement. Um… maybe 2 weeks ago, I had the opportunity to stop by Chasepta Spring Family Fun Night at Thomas Payne Elementary School, which was a great, uh, a great event, and was happy to see some members of the community, and.
I think there's a teacher who might be an English cheerleader who led some dance sessions there, so that was… that was a really nice event. So at SUFS at Terriel West, I think a total of three times. The middle school preview, and then two separate performances. Again, phenomenal, and I'm sure others on the board, a number of us attended, so I'm sure others will talk about that, too. I had the opportunity last Saturday to spend pretty much the entire day at East for the spring sports. activities day. I know, I'm totally blanking on the official name of the event, because it's 10.30 at night. But we started with middle school track at about 8 am a little after 8 am, and we stayed through, I think.
at least the East versus West Varsity baseball game, saw a little bit of lacrosse, um, little plug for the West baseball team. If you have not had a chance to watch one of their games this year, they are phenomenal. No knock on East, but West is just really something special this year. um, attended the Star Games on Thursday with a number of my board colleagues, which, again, is a highlight of the week. And then this weekend spent my whole weekend with the cast of Matilda at their performances at Karusi. Dr. Yoris stole a little bit of my thunder at the performances themselves were fantastic.
all of the things Dr. Yarra said about the inclusive environment that's been created there, but I just want to take a second to thank Mr. G, Mr. Ginturo, Dan Ginturo is a teacher in the building, and Miss Mert. And, you know, being a middle school drama director, as Mrs. Manzano can attest to, is a little bit like herding cats. I mean that in the best possible way, but middle schoolers are middle schoolers, and the fact that, you know. They put on the production that they do. is a testament to the work that they themselves put in.
the way that they lead the students. It is a student-led production, but it could not be done without their support, so thank you to them. I will end it there. Colleagues who attended other things, feel free to elaborate. Thank you, Miss Palmer, Dr. Dryson. No comments from me tonight. Mr. Greenbaum. Thank you. I also joined some of my colleagues at the Star Games. I won't elaborate too much, but always, uh… So it's exciting to see the the kids competing. I'm excited. It was my first time joining in person, and it was, uh, it was very enjoyable.
And then I filled in for Ms. Cummings at the last fair funding meeting. Tonight's theme, Advocate, contact our legislators, join the fight, fair funding, CHPS at gmail.com, and that'll do it. Thank you. I went to a couple of things. I made an appearance to see the beginning of Model UN at East. It was incredible. Shout out to the amazing Max Kukupka, who was right up there leading the parade of students. It really is incredible to see. the way that students come together and lead and put something together that is so meaningful, not only just for High School East, but for all the other high school students that attended. So thank you to the student leaders for that.
I am someone who… was into those things when I was in high school, so it felt like a coming home, and it was just really inspiring to see all the students there. I also attended star games and was shocked to see a student who had gone to preschool with my daughter, who's now a high schooler competing in star games, and I don't know how the time flew by, technically. She's a freshman at West, and it just blew my mind. And then I was at SUFS twice. Once with my daughter, which was very meaningful, and then once with my son, which was meaningful in a totally different way, I cried through it, sobbed both times. I cannot say enough about stops. I can't say enough about the opportunity for the district, the leadership at West to bring it.
to our community, the students that were involved, all the students, the cast, the crew, the pit, I keep saying it, most other high schools do not have student pits, especially for music that's that complicated. The pit was amazing, too. Shout out to Mr. Sagetty and the West students who were in the pit. They did wonderfully, and to have the writer and original star of SUFS come see them on Sunday, the energy was incredible. The end of every song, everybody was screaming with joy with how amazing it was. So, again, amazing to High School West, and every single person over there who supported SOFS. It was just incredible.
Miss Manzano, well, you took most of my self's thunder, but I did get to see stuffs twice at the middle school preview, um, and then on Sunday, which was pretty cool to meet, or to see Shana Taub. Um, and I will leave everybody with this, some of the lyrics from Keep Marching On From SUFS. The path will be twisted and risky and slow, but keep marching, keep marching. Will you fail or prevail? Well, you may never know, but keep marching, keep marching, because your ancestors are all the proof you need, the progress is possible, not guaranteed. It will only be made if we keep marching.
keep marching on. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Fain. Um, so I also had the opportunity to attend Karusi's musical, Matilda. in the spring, and I thought it was very, very good. Um, it was the third of the third that I went to, all the middle school plays this year, um, but just a shout out to the commitment to the roles of these kids, and it was… it was very entertaining in my entire family enjoyed it as well. Something else that this actually occurred quite some time ago, but with the awards that we presented tonight to the students, um, I just… I don't… I didn't mention this before, but I actually attended the research night with to see the students that were here tonight.
Um, showcasing the awards that they won at some, you know, bigger scale. Um, I really just wanted to commend, um, Mr. Grillo, I hope I'm saying that correctly, and all of the work that he's doing with these students. Their ability to not only do the research, first of all, be interested in research, which is. A rarity in itself, but performing the research and speaking to it, I was very impressed at how well they spoke to the research that they conducted, and um… what they got out of it. So, I mean, winning first, second, third place at these conferences that they're going to, I think, speaks for itself, but I really did just want to give Mr. Grillo the respect and the, um.
You know, the kudos that he deserves for the work that he's doing with these students. Thank you. Dr. Raddock. My favorite event of the year, the Star Games. I know people already mentioned it, but this is the first year I went with two little girls. It's a bit of a challenge, but fun. I found out Abby really likes late 90s pop music and clapping for the schools as they come in. She was very happy with the schools when they came in. So the star games are always a good time, so I was glad to attend that with both my girls not having childcare has its benefits sometimes.
Also, I want to thank the community member who, at my attempt at levity, invoked remind me about my responsibilities to the board. I mean. Now, that reminder, I might not go to future meetings the day after I have surgery, like tonight. So thank you to that community member. Here's your pop quiz, though. Do you remember what I told you the names of the two high school mascots are? Wesley and Crimson. Abby really liked uh she liked I think she liked Wesley uh more than Crimson which is a shame because Crimson is going to be her mascot.
Well, you never know. I'll have one at each next year. You never know what they're gonna do. Oh my goodness, yeah. Yeah. Um… Any other board member activity? I think we did it. So… I am going to move on to Superintendent's comments. Just one comment. I'd like to, uh, just say thank you to Ms. Bharati and to the commenter for, uh, reminding me that I missed. I did miss Jewish American Heritage Month and the acknowledgement, so I would like to acknowledge. May is also Jewish American Heritage Month. We wish everyone.
uh, phenomenal, phenomenal month. Have a good night, everyone. Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to adjourn. Is there a second? Commerce seconds all board members in favor? It is unanimous. The meeting is adjourned.