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good evening everybody we advanced notice of this meeting was provided at least 48 hours ago such notice provided the time date and location of this meeting and included the agenda to the extent it was known at the time notice of this meeting has been given in accordance with law minutes of this meeting are being kept
by the board secretary and will be made available promptly to any member of the public requesting them from the board secretary at 25A Len Lane heightstown New Jersey minutes will be provided at cost and in accordance with board policy are there any board members present who believe this meeting to be in violation of the public meeting act there being none we may proceed in compliance with the fire code of the state of New Jersey I call your attention to the emergency exits for this room which are located
over there and one up there [Music] uh please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance
[Music] be it resolved that the East Winds Regional School District May hold two Clos sessions at this meeting these close sessions concern Personnel HIV report of February 10th 2025 settlement discussion minutes of these closed sessions will be made available to the public when the need for confidentiality no longer exists second did
you skip should we skip oh we are ony okay my bad second should be rookie mistake I'm sorry [Music] okay I'll be demoted
please raise your right hand I state your [Music] name do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey that I will support theti of the United States theti of the state of New Jersey and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and that I bear true faith and allegiance to the same and to the governments established
in the United States and this state under authority of the people and to the governments established in the United States and this state under the authority of the people I state your name I do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I possess the qualifications prescribed by law to the office of member of a board of education that I possess the qualifications described by law to the office of member of the Board of Education that I am not
disqualified as a voter to rs9 4-1 that I'm not disqualified as a and I am not disqualified due to any conviction of a crime or offense listed in njsa 18a 12-1 and I'm not disqualified due to any crime or off
and that I will faithfully and partially and justly perform all the duties of that office according to the best of my ab and that I faithfully impartially and justly perform all the duties of that office according to the of take your seat
and then when you're done [Music] talk having read the materials received
received I move the agenda to be approved to submitted second P Board Miss concepion yes Miss laruso yes Mr lvery yes Miss madur yes Miss
Patel yes Mr weeks yes so are we reading e again one please yes we're going to read it again be it resolved that the East Windsor Regional School District May hold two closed sessions at this meeting these close sessions concern Personnel HIV report of February 10th 2025 and settlement discussions minute minutes of these closed sessions will be made available to the public when the
need for confidentiality no longer exists second P the board missc conception yes Miss laruso yes Mr lavy yes Miss maduri yes Miss Patel yes Mr weeks yes at this time uh uh it's time for the student representative report
good evening everyone it is a pleasure to see all of you and we are thrilled to share some of the school happenings as of late to start today we had the privilege of hosting the incoming freshman class for R Ambassador 8th grade orientation tours organized by our student council and with help from the PGC or peer group connection leaders and our student ambassadors we were able to conduct schoolwide tours ice breaker activities and even a mini town hall for the students to help them understand the Ram
culture that we are so very proud of as current seniors who have been a part of the school for the last four years it was definitely gratifying to interact and meet with these upcoming students and show them how they can find their place at heightstown tomorrow we will be meeting the other half of the e8th grade community and we are thrilled to get to know them currently we have a parent night uh for the incoming eighth graders scheduled for tomorrow but this is subject to change given the increment weather so please be on the lookout for any emails or
notifications from the district uh throughout the course of this week our class leaders and class administrators are holding Town Hall meetings with our students from each grade level this provides a valuable opportunity for our students to understand expectations for the year learn about new updates and set themselves up for success for the remainder of the Year specifically at these meetings our class leaders have outlined the scheduling process for next year as students aim to select courses soon for next school year the program of studies will be out this
week to guide their choices additionally at these meetings or underclassmen have been directed to a survey to present their inputs on extracurricular activities and their personal feedback on cell phone use policies next we'd like to transition to praise our heightstown Athletics teams just this past week our tier team competed at the UCA National High School cheerleading championship and placed in two extremely competitive divisions The heightstown Varsity Cheer placed in the top 10 in the nation for their game
day routine and took home seventh in the nation for their traditional routine we are so very proud of them and wish them the best of luck as they Conquer New Jersey States additionally we would like to highlight our boys wrestling team for their incredible season especially given that they have made it to the state semi-finals at Colts Neck we wish them all the best and know that they're going to do Inc an incredible job finally we would like to emphasize what is become to become known as the biggest game day of the year for the basketball team
which is happening currently as we speak the heightstown versus Petty Battle of the Town basketball game is currently happening in our main gym and it is much anticipated for ultimate bragging rights here at the town we wish our athletes the best of luck so go Rams um on that note we would like to emphasize that spring Sports registration is open until February 21st anyone who wishes to participate in any spring athletic programs offered by the district must register on the Genesis Parent Portal extensions will not
be offered students registering for athletics U must have a current physical examination on file in the nurse's office to participate next we would like to highlight the ice skating night hosted by the class of 2025 they are inviting both you and your families to a fun night of ice skating at the Mercer County skating rink on Friday February 28th students have received an RSVP Google form in their email in the morning announcements where they can RSVP as this is a closed event for
our community only we we hope to see you there um tomorrow we will be having our staff Wellness day presenting a valuable opportunity for our staff to engage in mindfulness activities to distress and relax within the school environment we encourage all staff to take full advantage of these days to recharge um connect with colleagues and prioritize their well-being we'll all be we will also be having a student one come later this month so please stay tuned this concludes the end of our report thank you everyone for listening and we look forward to seeing
you again at the next meeting thank you thank you so much for that awesome report and go Rams tonight so and now for Mark report so good evening everyone uh I'll begin by thanking our student representatives for such an informative report as usual uh much appreciated uh couple of updates for tonight uh
as a reminder talked about this at the last meeting at our upcoming meeting on February 24th uh we'll recognize our Governor's Ed educators of the Year recipients uh for the current school year we'll be meeting here in this current location we will begin at 6 p.m. instead of 7 p.m. so just please mark your calendars uh that'll be a a great opportunity for us to celebrate um some of our our our our staff members obviously we could celebrate them all but this is a
great opportunity to to celebrate the two from each building that were recognized for the current school year I'd like to um kind of share uh my appreciation for um some of the creative talent that I had the chance to uh witness on Saturday afternoon um the mhk musical James and the Giant Peach had a chance to see that uh outstanding performance just just want to commend um our amazing
uh Educators at mhk music and dance Educators for um really putting on a really impressive show our students as always um really uh really um Rose to the occasion and uh packed house too I was really really good to see um the seats were filled in that Auditorium so uh kudos to to uh the creps middle school as it relates to creps just to provide a quick update regarding the mhk principal update um as of
this week I've screened approximately 12 candidates thus far I'm looking to bring about seven or eight uh candidates into District uh for further discussion starting this week uh so making study progress regarding that particular search the goal would be uh to try to identify a final candidate um if not by the end of this month um definitely by mid-march on um want to just kind
of highlight something that was shared in the the weekly update that was related to our the parents of our three and four year olds in the community you know our integrated preschool program uh has available seats for students who are uh not considered to be uh under the special education umbrella so we have an integrated program obviously we don't have uh enough seats to to uh house all of our three and four year old so we do have a lottery in the name of fairness uh so those applications will be
available on March 30th actually no March 3rd thank you thank you r a zero March 3rd and 9 a.m. and uh we're asking that those Lottery applications be returned no later than March 31st at noon um in terms of our high school we're in the process of um building I'll say building and retrofitting but crafting a a security vestibule for
the main entrance we've been discussing this project for several months uh I was slightly frustrated regarding the lack of progress but I believe that we've uh hit a a decent amount of momentum in recent weeks so pleased to announce that the exterior um component of the the vesu was installed I want to say either today um or late last week and the interior that we kind of um reconfigured the office space that once upon a time
was the principal's office we've kind of created a security office and there'll still be a separate office for a secretary uh an assistant principal secretary as well as an assistant principal's office so uh we're making uh I think at this point steady progress like to think that the the the project would be near completion uh towards the end of February I'm going to be realistic and say that we're looking at a mid-march completion uh for that but definitely looking forward to uh
seeing that process a project to fruition um as mentioned by our student representatives there appears to be some inclement weather on the horizon I know for some of our students that's disappointing um so obviously we're going to monitor the weather uh throughout this evening into tomorrow it appears that there should be some expected weather um arriving tomorrow into Wednesday so once we have a better sense of what that looks like
will obviously communicate the status of schools uh for Wednesday of this week and with that said that concludes my report thank you thank you Mark uh Paul I think the agenda fli it um at this
time uh first opportunity for uh any board member comments hi uh I just want to report for the we had our finance committee meeting right now and I just want to give some update regarding our uh 2526 budget uh we have basically balanced the budget of 132 million pending state aid uh we are
on tentatively process of hiring 7. five uh full-time teachers for the next uh cycle uh we also were working on our facility projects to complete G GNR hallways light Auditorium uh also renovate the watery black uh renovation Phase 2 as well as finishing up out heightstown high school practice field renovation as well as updating the crep school parking lot and continue
installing the egb back unit at heightstown high school and other factors that we'll be using is we will also be uh cost related to special a tuition uh we also have substitute cost um teachers has also increased uh we had also allocated some money for Tech budget which of 900,000 will be allocated to our in-house system
for the schools which will be installed uh within uh next year which is app driven so this with in emergency we have an Insight real time uh alertness as well as self- Insurance Fund we have no premiums increased for this year year um timeline moving forward we have a Governor's budget address on Tuesday February 25th at 300 p.m. and they will uh State
a numbers will be released within 48 hours then the preliminary budget adoption board will approve on the March 10th meeting due to the county by Wednesday March 19th and a public budget adoption will happen on April 28th on L of that we also have facility updates for summer 2025 uh we are installing Transformer replacement and we are installing four EV
bus Swit each gears and it will be awarded to the bider tonight as well as the heightstown auditorium phase two the beating will happen on March 4th and it will be awarded on March 10th as well as the update on the heightstown scoreboard Replacements the beating is March 18th and it will be awarded on the March 24th and uh we are we have the update on the high school security vesu which
Mark has mentioned we're hoping to finish that up by midm March and we're still continually finalizing the Evac updates as well as painting in new carpets around the schools thank you any other comments yes I have one um looking at
policies I thought I had it I guess I went back to the agenda um and lost it there is a board policy allowing participation of board members who expect to be absent from a meeting and given how uh thin some of our attendance has been I figured what I'll do I think I'm required to give the president in writing and explanation of my absence for the March 10th meeting and then the board will vote on that at our
next February meeting to allow me to participate remotely in that March 10th meeting I just want to provide coverage in case there is a an issue with people U not being there I know it's an important night with the approval of our budget so I'll get that to you uh to Tina or and you okay um and I just wanted to also uh I was able to attend the the the first showing of The James and the Giant Peach
musical at the uh middle school and it was absolutely fantastic I'm continually really impressed by the uh the Arts programming we have here in the district and uh I highly encourage anyone who doesn't make it a habit if you don't have a kid doesn't matter go support go go see what these kids are up to it's really impressive so now uh first
opportunity for public comment they're being none we move to Executive session uh be gone for about 20 [Music]
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we're back we back to back to business as usual with Tina next meeting so um old business um we nobody had
any feedback or any we don't have any changes on the committee dates do we no but I'm going to I know I'm going to send a communication to the policy Committee just regarding some date options all right I'll definitely be doing that okay I will say that I know today uh in preparation for the curriculum committee meeting on February 24th I believe
Sandy sent a communication today regarding a time adjustment just due to the earliest start time of the board meeting yep is that board meeting is that going be here in the [Music] cafeteria then we had um a strategic Plan update did anybody have any follow-up questions from the presentation I have a question uh that was like an open position one of the me right from last time we were discussing oh yeah there to be feeling remember you
said bring it back and I forgot which which one was it I forgot um I think do we have any open seats on the Committees ask for yourself I thought we were going to ask her if she wanted because there was one opening somewhere to fill it [Music]
up right now I think we had included kava in our policy committee if we just kind of did that we wanted to double check with her to make sure that she was okay with that okay on the policy committee right
now is uh Bob Jenna Michael and [Music] Kava and I think that is it because all the other committees were full already
I think uh Miss Paul wants to take the call um moving on to uh second opportunity for comments um second opportunity for board member comments did anybody have anything uh second
opportunity for public comments do we have an update on the ram game by how much that's why you guess why you came back uh moving to item eight recommended policies for second reading recommended policies for second reading
a policy 0132 executive Authority B policy 0141 board member number and term C policy 0146 board member Authority D policy 0152 board officers e policy 0167 public participation in board meetings F policy 0168 recording board meetings G polic
C 0171 duties of President and Vice President Paul uh pull the board I don't think I got a second on that yet sorry second okay I just had a question for the um the recording board meetings we're current that's currently what we're doing now right is that and that's required is that a required are these required policies these are
recommended policies are all is it a regular thing that all other or most districts are recording their meetings hold the board Miss concepion yes Miss laruso yes Mr ly yes Miss
maderi yes Miss Patel yes Mr weeks yes item nine motion to approve routine items by exception having read the materials received I move the board approve routine agenda items as submitted a staffing for February 10th 2025 B ewea sidebar mhk chess club C
Hib report from January 27th 2025 D approve travel and related expenses virtual and in person e approve HHS overnight Deca trip Atlantic City New Jersey march 2025 F approve first book Marketplace gift credit to WCB valued at $500 G approve new field trip sites for upcoming trips H approve HHS FCCLA overnight trip Cherry Hill New Jersey march 2025 I approve
HHS fbl overnight trip Atlantic City March 2025 J non-resident students K Transportation L bid approval Transformer Replacements and bus EV charging station M meeting minutes for January 27th 2025 n executive session board minutes January 27th 2025 a report of the board secretary and financial report December 2024 P expense and transfer reports of school monies report
for December 2024 and Q Bill list of February 10th 2025 second is that PO board M concepion yes Miss laruso yes Mr ly yes Miss
maderi yes Miss Patel yes Mr weeks yes uh at this time there is no need for a second executive session and we can adjourn