[Music] Heat. Heat. [Music]
[Applause] [Applause] That one here. Heat. Heat. [Applause] [Applause]
[Music] [Applause]
Big five. Thank you. scratch all that. So now we're doing space. Welcome Good afternoon everyone. My name is Margaret Kefir and I have the honor and privilege of being the fine and performing arts supervisor K through 12.
Um I have the best job in the world because I get to work with the best students. Um could you give them a round of applause for their for their songs this morning as they welcomed you? Just want to tell you a little bit about the two groups you're going to hear from
today. Um this is our jazz band. It is a class. Um and they have a couple distinctions. They play second in regionals for um our regional jazz band competition. They were second this year. So we're really excited about that.
[Applause] You'll also be hearing from a special group, our octet today, made up of students of various grades from our different vocal groups. Recently, we had our teen arts um festival and down in
Millville, and we had five of our vocal groups advanced to states. Um that means we are representing all of Cumberland County and Cape May County. We had two soloists and we had seven pieces of
artwork and one that was distinguished that would be touring. So out of the categories for vocal, Milville swept everything for large group instrumental and small group instrumental. Um we are
representing Cumberland County and Kate May County. So that is um attributed to three things. the hard work of our teachers, Mr. Rob Dantis, Mr. Joe Cino is in the back running sound lights and PowerPoint, and then you'll meet in a few minutes um Mr.
Adams and Miss Katherine Pepe. So, and then of course our amazingly talented students and the support and care that we get from our parents, our school, and our community. And that's how this year, for the 14th year in a
row, we were awarded best communities of music for the state of New Jersey. And I'm going to turn it over. [Music]
Look at me. I'm as helpless as a kitten up a tree. And I feel like I'm clinging to a cloud. I can't
understand. I get misty just holding your hand. Walk my way and thousands begin to play. Or it might be the sound of
your music I hear. I get misty the moment you're near. You can say that you're leading me on, but it's just what I want you to do.
Don't youice how I'm lost? That's why I'm following you on my own. Would I wander through this one
alone? Never knowing my right foot from my left, my hat from my glove. I'm too misty and too much in love.
[Music] on my own. I wonder through this wonderland
alone, never knowing my right foot from my left, my heart from a glove. I'm too misty and too much in love. [Music]
That music I hear I get misty and too much in love. [Music] [Applause]
No, I knew it. One, two, [Music] three. [Music]
Heat. Hey, Heat. [Applause] [Music]
Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
Hey la. [Music]
Heat. Heat. [Music] la. Hey
[Music] [Music] H. [Music]
Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music]
[Applause] [Music] Good. Thank you so much. Let's hear it one more time for our amazing jazz band. Thank you so much for coming out today. Uh my name is uh Mr. Matthew Adams. I'm the coral director here
alongside of uh Miss Katherine Pepe. We're going to give our jazz band members who are singing in the octet a minute to put their instrument away and then we're going to bring the octet on in a few minutes. Uh we also uh have the opportunity to perform at the Teen Arts
Award night tonight at the Levo Theater. It is a night where we honor all the award members and all the uh performers that are moving on to the state level. So that is a great opportunity for us tonight. If you are free and want to hear our chamber choir perform, um you
can come to the Levoy Theater at 6:30 p.m. All right, we're gonna have uh 20 seconds and they'll be ready. Thank you. time. You can spend it when you can save it to take a little time in a minute when you're in it. Can you feel
the passing time is an illusion confusion when they tell you now it's time to get over time to work and time to waste and there's no time left to hold their time to tell them how you feel while there's still time to 11:32 a.m. I said I will flies of
[Music] time you can spend when you spend you're running out of time you can save it in a minute you're in it feel passing time is an illusion confusion they tell you now it's time to get older to work
to waste there's no time left to Time to tell them 11 a.m. [Music] time you can you're running out of
it. Can you feel passing is an illusion? They tell you it when you spend it when you're running out of time. You can save it, but to save it in a minute. They say time to get older, time to work, and time to waste. And there's
no time left to hold time to tell them how you feel. time 11:32 a.m. the dinner time I will fl [Music] [Applause] That was a selection called Time by Lucy
Cook. And um this style of coral music is um uh called chamber music or sometimes called magical singing. And it is especially challenging and impressive because the number of singers on each part is in this case two and sometimes
one. And um the responsibility to hold down um all the technique and the harmony and the breathing uh gets amplified. So, um, it's very impressive, uh, what they're able to do as, um, young adults and high school students to, uh, pull off, uh, performance to
this caliber. So, thank you so much. We're going to do one more and it's a tra traditional song called The Lord Bless You and Keep You that you might recognize. Thank you so much. [Music] bless you and keep
you. The Lord lift his countenance upon you and give you peace. And give you peace. give you
[Music] peace to shine upon you and be gracious to you and be gracious.
The Lord be gracious, gracious to you. Amen. [Music] Amen.
[Music] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. [Music]
[Applause] Thank you. Um we again thank you for all the support and the care and um everything that Milvville gives us. Again, one more round of applause for our students. We're going to close the front curtain and continue with our um
and one last thing as you're leaving. Uh please take a few minutes to view the artwork that is around. Um, these are pieces that are created by our students in more than nine different art classes here at Milville High School. Thank you again.
So just to to follow that's very simple. So now I just get up here and speak. First I break something very important. Um so just for our regular uh just to conduct a regular chamber meeting. Um uh we'll start with just a quick pledge of allegiance. If you all
don't mind standing. 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. Thanks
everybody. Mr. D can still hear me. I started uh doing this stuff for these events like 20 years ago. So if that ages him at all, I think it's his first or second year. So I was in the jazz band doing stuff for people out here. So full circle. Um just thanks just a one
quick more round of applause for just the students, the the the singers, the jazz band. Just really remarkable. uh just acknowledge the corporate uh corporate sponsors. We have Diamond sponsors Arc International and Duran, Milville Savings Bank, Ocean First, Gold Sponsors, Mint Insurance, Allen
Associates, Silver Members and Spir, The Authority, City Mill, South Jersey Gas, New Jersey Motorsports Park, and the Christy Funeral Home. So, thanks again to all of our growing list of sponsors here. Um if I can get Jerry up here for just a moment, our executive director to sort of state what's coming up in the
the next few weeks. Find out if I broke something important. Thank you, Mr. President. Uh, I'd rather listen to music than listen to me, but uh I'll take about one minute of your time. Um, we just want to mention tomorrow night, uh, this is a busy week for the chamber. We have our
lunchon today. Thank you to the superintendent, his team, students. Uh, what a remarkable day. Um, I think we're collaborating a lot more. Let's do it. Um, so tomorrow night is Pride and Milville. There are still seats
available. Actually, we're getting calls today to see if they tickets are still for sale. They are. We have h uh handed in our headcount for tomorrow. But if you are interested in joining us, feel free to go online and register for that
event. I just want to uh make you aware that uh our next luncheon will be at the New Jersey Motorsports Park on June 11th and the Holly City Development Corporation will make a presentation that day and tell us about all the good
things that they are doing. And if you happen to follow that video that was uh running during the students presentation, uh we have a cornhole tournament scheduled for September 6th. And on Saturday, yes, Saturday, October
11th, we will be holding our second annual golf classic at White Oaks Country Club. So, please make sure you go to our website, check out all the good things that we are doing, and if you are not a member of the Milville Chamber, this is a great opportunity for you to join what is an outstanding
organization with some great leadership. Uh, so please see Rob or myself about how to become a member of our organization. And Rob, I turn it back to you. Thanks, Jerry. So, yeah, Pride of Noval tomorrow should be a really solid event. Craig Atinson's the Pride Milward
winner. So, uh he's a character, so you should come out just to see him alone. Um so, just to present our our outstanding student. Um when I was sent this uh uh CV, just the the accolades on this are are never ending. So, Kamaya Harden, it's very exciting that uh
picked here to be the uh uh student of the year. Uh just to list a few of these with graduation set to be next month, committed to Penn State. uh GPA 4.3 class rank 10 out of 410 that's not 10% 10 out of 410 a mock trial member uh
spring track and field JV and varsity national honor society also working various jobs during this uh all these AP statistics AP English AP English AP US history the list goes on academic letter the last three years national honor society member American Legion auxiliary
jersey girl uh girl state and and leaders club and the class president. I'm not sure class president should be at the at the top. So just a really uh star in the in the school system here and just very impressive. So be of the mil chamber, I'd just like to get her up here just to present this award. Miss
Harden, if you'll come up [Applause] So, just we have a a nice award here, a certificate and a scholarship on behalf of the chamber, $500. So, that's I'm
going to open this down here since I already broke something today. So, yeah. Yeah. You want to hold it? Yeah. [Applause] Yeah, baby. Where's that?
Um, I just want to thank my parents, my family, my teachers, and especially my coach, Dana Kalaba, for just pushing me for the past four years and getting me to where I am. Thank you. Yeah, that's the iPhone 6, I think. Congratulations again. Um, now for the,
uh, Mobile High School's teacher of the year, uh, Mr. David Khan. I should just say a brief introduction for him. Uh, having just met him, just central casting for what I'm about to describe here. A proud 1987 graduate of Milville High School, Mr. David Khan has built a remarkable career grounded in service,
leadership, and deep commitment to justice and community. After high school, he studied political science, psychology, and criminal justice at Widner and Cumberland County College, laying the foundation for what would become a decorated and distinguished path in law enforcement. Mr. Khan began his law enforcement journey with the
Vinland Police Department before accepting a position with the Millville Police Department in 1994. In ' 04, Detective Khan joined the New Jersey Human Services Police, where he soon deployed to the US Marshall's Fugitive Task Force. His investigative career continued at the New York Attorney General's office, where he played a
crucial role in exposing a massive retail theft ring and protecting over a 100 victims at the violent developmental center. For his work, he and his team were named special investigators of the year. Later, Detective Khan joined the FBI's white collar crime task force. His work extended into under undercover
operations including firearms and narcotics investigations in Atlanta and New York City. After a lifetime of service, Detective Khan retired from law enforcement in 2018. But his commitment to helping others never ceased. That same year, Detective Khan began his journey in education as a long-term
substitute teacher here in Milville Milo's high school law enforcement class, part of the school's career and technical education program. In December 18, he was selected for the permanent position and amid the challenges of co 19 returned to college to earn his official CTE
certification. Beyond the classroom, Mr. Khan continues to shape student life in transformative ways. He proposed and helped launch the Milville High School boys lacrosse team, which is now in its second year as a varsity program. He also initiated the school's peer tutoring program, enlisting students from Avid, National Honor Society, and
other organizations to serve as academic mentors and college application guides for their peers. In 2020, recognizing the need for basic necessities, Mr. Khan founded Khan's Clothing Cabinet, a compassionate project that began with four racks of donated clothing. It since evolved into the Bolt Closet, now a full
classroom stocked with clothes, jackets, dressear, and toiletries, currently managed by Regina Williams. Mr. Cons constant and enthusiastic presence at school sponsored events. Consistently showing his support for students across a wide range of activities including athletics, theater productions, academic
competitions, music performances, club events, and community service initiatives. His commitment to student success extends far beyond the classroom, making him a trusted mentor and role model throughout the school community. Today, Mr. Khan brings his real world experience, passion, and heart to the classroom, inspiring students at Milville High School with
stories of justice, ethics, and resilience. His impact as an educator is just as powerful as his legacy in law enforcement. And it's no surprise he's been honored as the 2025 teacher of the year. So give a big round of applause here. Mr. on. Got it.
Um, thank you. Um, I I do want to say uh congratulations to Kamaya. Um, I don't think it's a coincidence that she's the student of the year and also I taught her. So, um, so so it's not a coincidence. Um,
I'm I'm truly humbled honestly. Um, I was shocked when I learned uh that I was selected to be the teacher of the year. Um, I may have teared up a little bit. In my 27year law enforcement
career, I've had hundreds of uh accom accommodations and um awards and out of all of them, this is the most meaningful thing honestly. uh means the most to me uh especially at this part in my career. Um to be able to to mentor
high school students and provide them an opportunity to learn firsthand what it's like to be in law enforcement. Um not what you see on TV and not what you see in the movies, but actual real life stories. So I'm I'm
truly honored. I'm humbled. Um, I sincerely appreciate everybody that has um gotten me to where I am today, especially um Stacy Musei, who's my immediate supervisor. Um, when I first became a teacher, I was uh I retired in
May of 2018. I was separated from my wife in October of 2018. I started teaching in September of 18. I went back to college. Um, I had a massive amount of things that were going on in life. And then COVID hit uh for my first full year of
of uh teaching. So it was extremely stressful and she was amazing and helped me get through uh the first full year. It's just uh without her I wouldn't be here today. So I sincerely appreciate it wherever you are. You're somewhere. Oh, there you are. Hey, there you are. Um and uh again, congratulations to Kamaya.
She's an outstanding uh recipient of the award. So thank you very much everybody. I really appreciate it. Thanks everybody for Oh, that's way too close. Uh, thank you. Thank you everybody for for coming out. Um, should be right on time with the the buses as I
was told. So, we should be good. Um, yeah, we have Oh, yeah. And just a few presentations here. Look at me wrapping up. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Matt Mazone, superintendent right here in Milville Public Schools. So, Mrs. Sutton, how much time
do we have? 15 minutes. Oh, stop. 15 minutes. All right. I haven't done anything in 15 minutes. So, um, once again, thank you for being here. I want to recognize some of our board members, uh, that play a pivotal role in everything that we're doing. I'll talk about our strategic
plan and they are the driving force behind it. So, we have our vice president, board of education, Debbie Malone, board members, Michael Batty, Michael Wen in the back, last but not least, Christina McCarron. So, thank you to our board
members. And also, everybody likes coming to the high school. It's a lot of work as you can see. Uh and the catalyst behind that is our principal who likes to take the back seat to this but she drives all this keeps us all on p on
target what we need to be doing. If I'm not there she reminds me of that. So I just want to thank you Jamie Sutton. Let's recognize Jamie for all that she does. Also, I what a great meal by our students, right? And
yeah, and that's from Chef Brennan and Chef Brand uh B Brandino do a phenomenal job with our students. So, uh thank you once again. And you know, like everybody's saying, they want to keep continuing coming back to the high school for that. Um when I'm going to
talk about strategic plan, but a big piece of that is what we call presence. that grand idea of presence. And when we talk about presence, it means about that students feel like they belong here, right? And we I I thought it was very
fitting for us to have a quick presentation on, you know, you hear about the CTE programs, but we do have a special ed uh program here, the PACE program, and you're going to hear about that, how they're integrating into the communities, into businesses, right?
because they are a part of our community and I want you to hear because maybe you're sitting there and say, "Hey, I would like them to be a part of our uh business." Okay. So, I'm going to bring up Steve Matus who is the director of exceptional uh exceptional students and
he'll talk a little bit and then bring up the teachers and talk about that. So, let's put our hands together for Mr. Matus. Yeah, we'll come down. They want to come down with it. Here you go, Steve. Thanks, Dr. Mazone. I'm Steen Tous. I'm the director of uh the office of
exceptional children and student services. I know most of you in the room uh over the years. So, uh I'm going to hand over to Mike, but just real quick. So, uh 2018, we started a program called the PACE program. Most high schools had a program like that, and Milville never
had one. And it's a program for students with significant cognitive disabilities that when they graduate high school, often the military college isn't on the table for them. and we have to look at other options, but they're not prepared. They don't have the job skills, the job readiness, uh the the self-efficiency
skills to be successful in the workplace. So, we started this program with the health help of Jess Kaufman, Jamie Sutton. It's a team effort. Most importantly, the teaching staff, every program, every classroom is successful based on the staff, the paras, the
teachers in the classroom. And today we're very fortunate to have you uh uh Christy Lopolo, Devin Big and Chad Lo are the backbone of this program and they're going to tell you about the program, what it does for kids and families, how it changes lives for kids
and families forever and how you could be part of it if you're interested. So here you go, Christie. We'll start with All right, Devin. There you go. Thank you. Hello. Um I'm Devon Bigland. I teach the freshman and sophomore class for the PACE program. And so PACE stands for
personal achievement and community engagement. And just like um he told us uh our goal is to just really prepare these students to be successful outside of high school. Um you can go to the next slide.
So in our program we teach the general um academic curriculum um but we also have a life skills curriculum that um my job is to prepare the students to go to Miss Lragola's class and do more the CBI
approach. Yeah. So just some of the things the classroom experiences in pay student um time you can just read through these real life math teaching of soft skills social emotional learning um kitchen safety we're lucky we have a kitchen right attached to our classroom
where we can go in and food prep and just teach about safety we have a laundry program um we do career exploration so what does it all mean you're going to hear a couple different um terms you're going to hear CBI which is community- based instruction and
you're also Alo going to hear WBL CBI is getting the kids in the community, getting them involved in their community, and that's where we're going to need your help in a little bit. Um, it's getting the kids right now, they go to shop, right? They learn how to prepare a budget, how to shop for items,
um, so that we can cook in the kitchen. Um, we do kind of a hybrid program that Mr. Lo is going to talk about um, in a minute. The next slide is WBL. It's workbased learning. And this is where we're going to try to transition to for
next year where it's actually kids going into the community for longer periods of time, working alongside of business owners, apprenticeships, internships, giving them those real life skills um to prepare them for, you know, life after
high school. Um the next couple slides, Mr. Loel, will go over some of the partnerships um that we've had over the past couple of years and tell you a couple success stories that we're very proud of. Thank you. My name is Mr. Los. I'm the job coach. It's my privilege to uh work
with our students and my role um amongst other things is uh going to the job sites with the students, working with them handinand or stepping away and letting them uh just flourish in their role and to learn how to operate in uh a
working environment to be an employee and uh or work right alongside them and show them exactly how to do it. Um, so a few places that we worked in the past that have partner partnered with us is Violent Hyundai, Goodwill, BJ Roers, uh,
Levoy Theater. Next, this year, uh, we've had the privilege of working at Fairfield Inn, uh, Heritages, Four Seas Church, Milville Nutrition, Holly City Family Center, which we are currently at still, uh,
Shopright. Next. So, some of our pictures here are the students working at these uh various sites and um when we first started it, the buildings or excuse me, the business were are a little apprehensive.
So, we just went in and just okay, we'll clean for you, we'll help you here, we'll help you there. Um, but they really started to step out and let our students just open up and try to do new things. And as you can see to the far right is Middle Nutrition and two of our seniors there, Timmy and Josiah, are
actually building um, and creating shakes for for customers as they came in. Next, um, as you can see, there's Shopright, uh, Fairfield in and, um, up at the top,
they're resetting, uh, the rooms for new, uh, new guests to come in. Shop, right? They're bagging for customers. And at the bottom right there, they're actually in the bakery at Shopright helping prep. Next,
please. and uh urbal life which is mobile nutrition and uh the bottom right there is Holly city family center and we do various jobs there as well but I would like to just highlight over on the left that's uh one of our transition students that we miss Lepregola
mentioned about that we want to uh expand into um is our student Janasia and she just really just flew off as soon as she went into the bakery started working with the baker
and instantly just was a natural and her success story is that she was given a on the site uh interview and hired. So thank you. Next
please. Heritages over to the left there. Uh CC is doing phenomenal. She's actually running register and really has stepped out and flourished and and has grown a lot. Um in the middle there is
uh Josiah, but he also obtained a job at um Milville Racetrack and is gaining more and more hours and they are putting more and more respons responsibility on him and he's he's doing wonderful. Um, as you can see on the right, they're
building sandwiches and helping weigh different uh food. Um, they're just they're really doing awesome and they're flourishing and it's exciting to see them grow and get the opportunity to uh
to work in our community. Thank you. [Applause] So I wanted to find a quote that was kind of like summing up our program and what our hope was for the future. So I think this like just resonates. We cannot always build the future for our
youth but we can build our youth for the future and that is what we are trying to do. Okay. You know sometimes our kids don't know what's outside these walls here at the high school. There is so much to offer in the Millville community and honestly our kids we want to put them out there. We want to partner with
you. We just want to make sure that we give them the skills and well the skills that they need to be great employees for our community. So I think this quote just sums everything up what we're trying to do. Um next slide. So looking ahead for the 2526 school year, we are
hoping to um have a transition program. It's for students that are 18 to 21 years old to kind of prepare them. It's like kind of a bridge between high school and adult life. You know, a lot of times they get out of high school and they're like, "Now what?" Right? We could all use that really a transition
program before adulthood. So that's what we're trying to do. We are trying to prepare them for life. And the next slide is really whatever life holds for them, whether it's college. College isn't off the table for our students. There are so many that want to um that expressed an
interest in college. It's not off the table because they are classified as special ed, right? So we are telling them that they can do whatever it is that they want to do. Um, the transition I'm sorry, I I went too far. Okay. Yeah, you can go to the next one. So, the transition students, they will do some
in-house jobs. That's right here at the high school. Um, whether it's the coffee deliveries, we're starting a new school store, janitorial, um, duties around the building deliveries, community- based. Um, so blocks two and three, they would go out into the community and work
alongside of businesses right here in um, Milville. they would come back. The last um period of the day would be for their electives. They would have to take fizzed and hopefully get them in some CTE courses that we have right here um at the high
school. So, like I said, the ultimate goal is to prepare them for life, no matter what life holds for them, whether they want to go to college, a technical school, a job, that's what we are preparing them for. We give them um you know, we assist them with applications.
We have sat numerous times going on Indeed, looking up um who's hiring, making them follow up with phone calls, teaching them how to interview, pro uh writing their resumes with them. We just try to prepare them for
life. So, this is where we kind of need your help and why I approached Dr. Mazone with coming to um the Chamber um of commerce. We need more um community involvement, CBI experiences. It's kind of like a field trip. So, bringing our
students to your place of business, showing them what you do, you know, um we go to Shopright right now, planning a budget, shopping, how to cook, recipes, all that stuff. We would love more experiences for these kids. Again, they live in Millville. A lot of them don't
leave their neighborhoods. They don't know what is out here in Millville. They really don't. And there are a lot of great businesses in Cumberland County that our students um could benefit from. the WBL experiences, providing work experiences
like ShopRite, like Milville Nutrition for our students, opening up the doors, allowing our students to come in, shadow your employees, giving them opportunities, and hopefully hire them in the future. Um, guest speakers, this one, low commitment, just come and talk
to our students, inspire our students. There are some great stories in our community. People that started right here in Milville, right? Sitting in in the auditorium here or walking these halls at Milville High School. Share your stories with our students. How you built your business and, you know,
education experience, all that good stuff. They love to hear your stories. Um, on the next slide, there is a QR code. It will bring you to a Google form. If you are interested in helping and partnering with our PACE program,
please fill it out. I do have paper copies for everyone. I will leave them here for you. Okay? It's very low commitment. Come in, talk to our students, offer them experiences. Whatever you can offer, we are taking. Okay? Thank you very much.
Yeah, a little bit more. I mean, if that doesn't get you excited about what's happening here in Millville. So, we we will talk about Let me get our presentation up and I talk about for us to be great,
we need advocates such as this team here pushing the envelope. I mean, it came from an idea where's Mr. from a two set that we wanted to have a transitional program and now in one month it has grown to this right and Mrs. Looper Gola has pushed me more times since I want to
be in front of business people in the community. All right. And that's what she's doing. So, thank you Miss Looper Goa and your team for setting this up. So, with that, that's our that's our vision of what we want to do here. So,
we are building upon the legacy of Millville. There's so much pride here, right? But we also have to look at how we're embracing for the future. and you can see what we're doing. You're in a building that has $160 million expansion
of all the CTE programs. So, there's a lot going on here that we want to partner up with our community to do that. Now, today we're going to talk about uh the budget that we're moving forward for the 2526 school year. We're
excited about the budget that we're presenting uh to uh our community, to our students and staff. And you know, I'm going to have Rich Davidson up here, but he's the catalyst behind that, our business administrator. So, let's put our hands together for Rich. Thank you,
Rich. When we build a budget, we need to keep these four tenants at at the forefront of what we're doing. So, presence, I talked about that catalyst, right? So, catalyst are those programs out there just like you saw the culinary
transformation, talking about how we're constantly building. I just left the conversation. I get myself in trouble by talking, Mr. Davidson. But I said to uh the two chefs, I said, "What's next for our program because we cannot be stagnant?" And they were looking at me.
I said, "A food truck." Right? But then I said that, I'm like, "How do I walk that back?" Right? But I I challenged myself in that because we have to be better every single day. And when we have that mentality, who doesn't want to work here, right? who doesn't want to be
a part of what we're doing here? So, I get myself in trouble with that, but I do it on purpose. I like that attitude, how we're moving forward. So, these are the areas of focus. And this is just a brief overview of what we're presenting from a budget
standpoint. One is we have a coaching mentality. You could probably hear that in the way I talk, a coaching style. Uh last year we put in a reading coach at the elementary. We have a new uh reading program. I've presented many times at
the chamber on it, the American Reading Company. But it's important that we support teachers through that process. In turn, if we support teachers, who who benefits from that? Students. So we are adding a second reading coach and in
turn we're going to add a math coach. So we want boots on the ground. That mentality. Yes, I'm the superintendent. I have to be up here, but we want people supporting teachers. That's our bu uh our piece to it. That's building on presence. Another piece is we're we're
constantly uh bringing programs in and you know, it's 2025 and everything is supplemental programs and how we use programs to supplement direct instruction. All the we value the teacher. We know that the teacher is the
number one indicator to student success. So when you have a great teacher in front of kids, that's the number one thing you can have in a school. But we need also supplemental programs. And this is a great example of what we just purchased for the upcoming year. And it's I Ready learning pathways for
grades three to five. And that's just one of many different programs that we use in the district. The other piece uh you know we're we're not um we're not blind to the fact that we face a lot of challenges here in
Millville. Okay. And it is sometimes a challenge with you know of students being able to self-regulate in a classroom. So we have to make sure that we're supporting students and along with teachers and giving them the skills to
make sure that kids are learning at the best possible way. So we brought in a company called Brett Denovian Associates and they are clinical associates. They're behavior therapists, per se, and they come and they support students in classrooms and they're constantly
equipping our teachers on best practices of how to manage different behaviors and so forth because we will not be successful if students are home suspended, teachers are frustrated, don't want to be here, right? So, we constantly are building those supports
and we're doing that for this year's budget. Uh, and we will have approximately six behavior technicians supporting our district. So, that's a wonderful thing to have. And again, here's some of the long-term goals. Their long-term goal is that we're not
going to be in contracts with them, right? Because hopefully we're equipping everybody and then they can move on and we'll have all those skills in place. And again, I had talked about the power of a teacher. So, I could talk about all these great programs, but at
the end of the day, you want to see a successful budget, that's when you're looking at the teacher to student ratio. And right now here in Millville, we are averaging one teacher to 16 students at the elementary level. Can we get our hand can we clap for that? That's a
beautiful thing. You know, my children right now, uh, my second grader, she's in a class. She's 26 students in a class. My wife and I, we visit the room and you can't move through it like they are traditional rows because you can't get too fancy in that room. Well, when we
have classes even at the some classes of 13, 14, 15, that's a really healthy classroom setting for our staff and for our students to learn. A big thing here, as much as you've seen the arts, right, we are topof the line in what we're doing from
the arts perspective with our music program. arts, but we also know about our sports. And now with we in field that's integrated into another location where we're offering sports. You can see in parentheses uh for multiple
locations. We hosted this year 60 events at Wheaten Field. 60. And that doesn't include practices. So the track team practices there every Thursday before a football game. We're doing walkthroughs there. So that field will be used more
and more. But when we do that having one, we have one and a half trainers at the time they're spread very thin across, you know, so Lakeside the High School and now Weaten. So we were able now to have a second full-time trainer start the school
year. We talked about the transi transitional program. Again, a great thing for 18 to 21 year olds. Here's some facility uh upgrades that we're doing. So, I always work backwards. The high
school, you pulled in here. So, we're getting a repavement of the high school parking lot. So, that's a that's a big deal here. Um other thing, playground. So, if you're at the elementary school, where's Mr. Edwards at? Yeah, Holly Heights. We're going to get get a new
playground over there. So, we're working on that as well. But many of our elementary schools are getting new playgrounds. And I was in a conversation yes yesterday and I I told somebody how much a playground costs. They said no possible way they could be that much, you know, but they can go upwards, you
know, an average one's around $125,000. Some of them are going, you know, half a mill or so forth for a playground. Um, but you know, here in Millville, we do a great job. We have a grant writer and we are relentless in
everything that we do, but writing grants and we were just awarded a 100,000 grant through the state. So, that's going to go towards a brand new pray uh playground at Rick Avenue School. So excited about that. But that's one of our big pushes here. All right. Now, I'm going to turn
it over to Rich Davidson. he could talk a little bit about what our numbers look like from a budget perspective to the right there. Thank you, Dr. Mazone. Uh I appreciate the accolades for the budget, but really it's a team effort. Uh had your input, the input
from the assistant superintendent and from the building principles. Uh and with that then had to run through our finance committee chaired by Mr. Batty. So Mr. Batty, I appreciate your support on that. Uh, as you can see, you know, our total budget, $113 million. That's
just our general fund. So, we're a pretty big business here. That's volume. Already tripping me up. So, I'm going to stand back here a little bit so I can see this. Uh, you can look through that's our changes. So,
our salaries and payroll, we've gone up $2.5 million from the previous year. our health benefits. That's up $2 million. And we, you know, we have some great programs. We're bringing kids in-house. We're adding that 18 to 21 year old program, but we're still sending
students out of district to a tune of, you know, a $1.8 million increase. And you can see a couple of the other things. Utility cost. Everybody's aware of where they're heading. So, we're not immune to that as well. And then you can just see what makes up
a school district budget. So you look at that top line. I believe we are probably the largest employer in the city of Milville. The $54 million payroll. We uh our W2s we send out about 1,200 W2s every
year. So that and benefits makes up 70% of our budget. Uh we're very fortunate. We got a large increase in state aid to offset our increases. We had $4.8 million increase in state aid. We actually lost some tuition
revenue. We're going through a little changeover with our tuition students. Uh we're a a receiving district for Mars River Commercial and Lawrence. So we have a little decrease with some students going to CCT. And then we do have that $1 million
tax levy increase and we'll talk about that. But first, here's a breakdown of our revenue so you can see how are we funding the school district. And you can look 75% is coming from the
state local tax levy 17 million. So, the way I look at it, we're really getting a deal here in Millville. For $17 million to the taxpayers, we're getting $113 million budget. And I feel like I'm kind of set up on this one, Dr. Mazone, because we
had a great lunch, we had great entertainment, we heard about a great student, a great teacher, our great programs, and now I'm going to finish on this tax levy impact slide. So, you can just take a look. That's the uh close to the average home in
Millville, $125,000 home. You can see what the increase is. It's a $66 increase annually on a home valued at that. So, that is Jerry, what's that? Three lunches at the
chamber. So, not not not terrible for a year for an increase. And with that, for those of you who are still in attendance, if anybody has any questions for myself or Dr. Mazone, we'd be happy to answer those. All right. Thank you everyone. We
appreciate everybody coming out here. I'm going to turn it over to Rob and close it up. Thank you again. Thanks for everybody coming out. Congratulates uh teacher of the year, student student of the year. Great job. and uh lunch in next month. Prideville will tomorrow and they're not going to do a business card
drawing. We'll do it next month. It'll still be good and we'll have like a summer be a summer like giveaway for June. So, just to tease that to get everybody out. Holly City Development Corp is next uh is for June and have a great Memorial Day weekend everybody. See you at Pride Mobile hopefully tomorrow night. Thanks.
[Applause] [Music] Familyowned, serviceoriented. Since 1960, Allen Associates has been a leader in insurance and financial services. We provide insurance services to roughly 300 groups ranging from two to several
thousand lives in the private and public sectors. With more than 60 years of experience and a staff of highly trained and dedicated professionals, Allen Associates is noted for its ability to build strong, long-term relationships with our clients and the communities we
serve. [Music] Associates will make life so practical.
Call Allen Associates today at 856-6922250. Allen Associates, your complete health and financial services in Vineland, New Jersey, familyowned, serviceoriented. Since 1960, Allen Associates has been a leader in insurance and financial services. We provide insurance services
to roughly 300 groups ranging from two to several thousand lives in the private and public sectors. With more than 60 years of experience and a staff of highly trained and dedicated professionals, Allen Associates is noted for its ability to build strong, long-term relationships with our clients
and the communities we serve. Alan Assoc is the place to see onetop service the best that can be where the finance insurance or medical associates will make life so
practical. Call Allen Associates today at 856-6922250. Allen Associates, your complete health and financial services in Vineland, New Jersey. This has been a QVC television production in association with our
partners and sponsors. QBC broadcasts on Comcast cable channel 22 and live streams its programming on Facebook and YouTube. All rights reserved by Quinn Media and QBC programming that serves the South Jersey market.