check one two check check one two e check one two check check one two e e e check one two check check one two one two check check one two
e e e e e e e e check one two check check one two check one two check check one two
sessed up whatever think still hey Ed you got to hear this one e e e e e
e e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e e e e that spe all
e e e e e e e e okay we're going to start the meeting flag salute of the United States of America
the rep one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice roll call please yes Mr shei here Mr Vel Patel here M Pang Miss White
here Mr ran here miss Anan pel Mr Lugo here Mr ronac Patel here Mr Erica here we have a quum opening statement sure in
accordance with the open public meetings ACT public law 1975 c231 Sunshine Law the Edison Township Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be public by having the date time place thereof posted in the Board of Education Administrative Office copies of this notice were sent to the home News
Tribune and the Star Ledger okay so welcome everyone to this beautiful Auditorium Herbert Hoover so uh I see the principal standing right there so the floor is yours the
principal of Herbert Hoover Mr mcra so good evening everybody uh I would like to officially welcome everybody to Herbert Hoover Middle School and to this beautiful gymnasium that we are all here to recognize and celebrate uh I'd like to welcome the Board of Education board
president shei our superintendent Dr aldarelli uh all of those who are here in attendance and all of those watching at home uh there's a a familiar cliche that nobody know nobody cares how much you know and until they know how much
you care the space that we are gathered in tonight is a testament to how much our community cares about the students of Herbert Hoover Middle School each day our students gather learn eat and
dismiss from this gymnasium and I know that each one of them senses exactly what this space represents thank you to our superintendent Dr aldarelli to our board president pres Mr shei the entire board
those who are serving currently on our board and those who served prior to make this space a reality there's a few other people that I'd like to thank and if I miss anybody apologies um I'd like to thank Mr William kbus who poured uh
countless hours energy and frankly um was here almost every single day to make sure this space was built alongside uh Mr cbus was always Mr Scott Murphy uh the contractors the
laborers uh all of those who helped build oversee and construct this room Mr to uh Mrs Bessie um and everybody at the board office that that really made sure our students got what they needed and and
made sure this end result uh became a reality finally I'd like to thank a very special person who unfortunately couldn't be here with us tonight um and that is Mrs Betty Anne menet she's the facility manager who ensured that the construction of this space never
interfered with the daily operation of our school without her uh none of this would happen so to all of you uh thank you very much to my right uh we have those amazing students that I was just talking about um I'm going to ask uh Mrs
malusi to come up and say a few words words about her amazing group she has grown this program uh into over 150 students when she came on board there was maybe 15 and uh she's very excited because one of the projects that uh
we're working to to get uh approved is going to be a new space for them taking over our locker room and uh hopefully the other locker room will go to Artistic autistic students so uh anything you want to say about your program put you on the spot for a second and then you guys can perform
thank you so much um a little heads up might have been nice but um thank you so much for allowing us to perform for you today the students that you see in front of you are some of the most dedicated students that we have here at Herbert Hoover Middle School um one of the things I love about Herbert Hoover is that we are really able to allow our
students to be a part of everything so many of the students in front of you are a part of sports are a part of clubs are part of Academic Teams many other electives and they still show up before school rehearsals after school in fact all of these students here found out from me yesterday after school that we
had an opportunity to perform here and from just finding out yesterday 75 including all of their parents were able to get them here to be able to perform so we'd love to start off your meeting for you um going play a piece called um finale by Mozart thank
you e e the well done boys and girls you got a standing ovation from the board of education so uh thank you everybody for making this space possible uh and for all it brings into the lives of our
students um concert's now over you can uh start your board meeting thank you thank you thank you beautiful performance I used to play violin when I was little but not this good I played till all high school and I dropped it so uh um we're going to have a a very brief
five minute break uh for them to uh uh clear out of here and we're going to resume our regular meeting thank you very much five minutes e e e e
e e e e e e okay so we're going to go back to our normal agenda so um the first uh oh I you know
what I'm going to pass this to uh Dr Al Al yeah great thank you so much uh board president she um yeah as part of um the annual business of the Board of Education in the Edison Public Schools um we have our uh annual audit presentation that's going to be
conducted by HFA Auditors they're going to talk about um uh their process findings um and then uh commentary provided by uh Mr to when gentlemen awesome thank you very much everybody for having us here I'm Jerry
conned I'm a partner at uh HFA uh accounts and advisers uh alongside with me here is uh James neth who's a supervisor who was uh in charge of the DAT today on the engagement for this year's audit um so we're here to talk about the audit for the year ended June 30th
2024 uh I'm happy to report that we are uh filed timely with the state of New Jersey uh the state extended the deadline for school districts to January 15th uh 2025 for those audits uh so we were filed timely with the state of New Jersey um I usually refer people to if
you want one or two places to look at in the the audit report to get a really good synopsis of what's transpired throughout the year what's taken place over a number of years and kind of where the district's at as it moves forward there's two uh spots in the audit report uh the first is on page one the letter of transmitt and the other one is on
page 21 uh which is the management discussion and Analysis um they are un audited portions of the audit report but what we do is we go in and we look at those numbers to make sure that they're in agreement with the rest of the financial statements uh but it gives a little more color behind the numbers themselves that you see throughout the
rest of the audit report uh we have an unmodified opinion on the financial statements that's the best opinion that we can give it says that there are no modifications necessary to bring your financial statements into compliance with generally accepted accounting principles um I'm I'm going to turn it
over to James to talk about a couple the numbers and then I'll kind of wrap up with kind of where we were at findings and things like that so good evening everyone uh so I was just going to go over a few of your key fund balances for the year ended June 30th 2024 the district ended the year
with about $ 72.6 million in fund balance uh that's gets broken up into several different categories as far as your reserves what's restricted what's committed uh for your capital Reserve you had about $33.5 million sitting there June 30th 2024 that was a decrease
of about 5 million from uh 20123 you had a lot of capital projects go on through the year um you had a budget withdrawal go on and then we they had to transfer towards the year end your maintenance Reserve stayed the same from 2023 at about 1.3 million your emergency Reserve
also stayed the same at about 1 million uh no change from 2023 your unemployment Reserve went up about 50 Grand to 81,000 uh your now your committed section these are these are categories that are committed for next year's
purposes you had encumbrances of about 3.3 million for the year end it you had excess Surplus which is the state gives us a calculation for how much unassigned or unrestricted fund balance that you can have at the year end this year uh
you had a 16.9 million in EXs Surplus which is going to be required to be used for the 252 26 budget you had excess Surplus designated for subsequent year expenditures of about 8.6 million this was last year's excess Surplus that is
being used in the 2425 budget and you had your unassigned fund balance of about 7.1 million for the year ended uh June 30th 2024 this unassigned fund balance is the maximum that the district could be at based on a formula the state gives us it takes into consideration
your expenditures any adjustments uh that you're allowed to factor into it and then that 7.1 million is not committed towards any purposes so it can be used however the district sees fit I'm going to turn it back over to Jerry so it's important to talk about
those budget num uh those fund balance numbers really just because especially as the district starts to put together its fiscal year uh 25 26 budget uh this way you're uh aware of kind of the fund balances that you could have available to you um in addition to the rest of our testing on the financial statements
themselves we also have uh performed additional layer of testing on both your federal and your state grants uh it's referred to as a single audit um for your federal grants we selected the education stabilization fund and the special education cluster uh for your state grants we tested your state aid
public cluster uh I'm happy to report last year we had some findings in regards to the uh maintenance of the general ledger uh we did look and see and throughout all of our audit procedures uh that finding has been corrected and has been removed from the the findings and recommendations um we
do have one repeat finding which we're seeing in a lot of our districts ever since a lot of the covid funding and that's uh a net cash resources in the Food Service fund uh there's statutory calculations that the Department of Agriculture sets forth uh as far as how much net cash resources you can have on
hand at year end uh the district exceeded those amounts so really it's just coming up with a plan to make sure to spend those monies down um again it's not it's very common we're seeing it at a lot of our school districts with all the covid funding that was provided to the Food Service fund um I I just want
to give uh I want to turn it over to questions too in case the board has any but before I do I just want to give a huge thank you to Mr to Miss Becky uh and Dr aldarelli for for your guys' staff and uh all the courtesies extended to James and myself and our entire team uh my wife is an accountant so I get to
hear uh uh the names that were called uh at my own house uh and I know what A disruption we are uh asking for a lot of additional documents in addition to your day-to-day responsibility so I just want to thank you guys very much uh for all the courtesies extended to us but with that I'm happy to answer any questions
if you guys have any Dr right or Jerry uh last year and the year before uh there was discrepancies this year we're finding
out that there basically none uh that's a testament to John to and his at is people that are doing doing a better job than when we first started I was on the
board three years this will be my third year uh when we have an audit that comes back clean and I'm saying it's clean uh it makes me know that the superintendent and the ba and their
administrative team is doing the right thing so thank you for keeping your eyes on them I I know that they appreciate somebody looking over their shoulder so thank you very much absolutely thank you thank you
for letting the township know that we're doing the right thing we have a management team the Board of Ed not this not the body that's sitting on the de but we have a management team that are doing
the right thing I go into that office and they're always they're constantly moving constantly busy so I appreciate you keep an eye on them and I appreciate you keep an eye on John
toast ajt buddy okay now thank you very much for your time thank you Jerry thank you thank you any other comments um I just want to reiterate uh you know um it's glad I'm glad that all
the findings are gone um the one that's remaining is a good finding mhm okay absolutely so I just want to remind everyone that you know many years ago we don't have that much money and since we switched the food vendor we have the
participation rate has gone up and uh every year the participation rate G up it's a wing wing for both side and the end result is we have the surplus of course we need to find a way to to spend them but there are limited uh ways to
spend these it's only you know food or kitchen or those things related but I'm pretty sure with those expansions we have we'll find a good use of that um so uh it's a good finding it's a you know what the board has done in the past of switching the food vendors and we are
getting this extra extra fund and the good thing we see more and more students participate in the lunch program so uh thank you very much and uh see you next year thank you very much all right have a good night everybody thank you all right thank you down right great thank you Mr she thank
you gentlemen uh at this time um as with all of the board meetings our action meetings uh we have our presentation our update to the board on our strategic planning process last month we had um portrait of a graduate and this month we have programs Pathways and proficiencies
which is the road map on how to get to that final year here in Edison Township and a portrait of our graduate and it it gives me a great pleasure uh to introduce our chief academic officer for Elementary Miss Schomer as well thank you Board of Education Mr shei uh
Dr aldarelli I think we got the best pillar out of all of them this pillar has been one that has re-energized uh us our staff our administrators as we kind of consider the big question of how to get rid of that question that you get at home all
the time and I know you get it and everyone the audience gets it too why do I have to learn this so this is going to solve that question you will not hear it again hopefully in five years that is the goal um so I wanted to just say that
we were very lucky to have a very diverse group of people on our committee we all came with different backgrounds um even if we were in education now some of us had done other things before and what was kind of common amongst all of us is that some of us had winding roads
to get to where we were and some of us were a little regretful about the the roads we didn't take or we didn't know about and what happened was we came to consensus that one of the things that we want to make sure we provide to our students is this idea of knowledge of
careers of what they might want to get into so coupled with the idea of why do I need to learn this and this idea of what career could I do is where this went personally I found out in my 30s
that one of my father's colleagues her husband was someone who worked for Trident gum and came came up with new flavors of gum and I just thought I would have loved to have made a a gum that tasted like Bonnie booty or rust Malay or something like that because
there isn't any out there but who knew that that existed so we're hoping to expose our students to those kinds of things that are out there we focused on three main goals uh we split it up into three kind of areas uh very specifically
so that we could build upon experiences that kids had in elementary so your primary goal here is about about elementary school and exposing students to e uh careers and then the same again in in our goal for our second goal for middle school and again for for our goal
for third our third goal for high school the interesting about thing and very exciting thing about high school is that it's really going to turn into acmy and current technical education which you'll hear a little bit more about further on I want to say as well one of the
thing that I'm very excited about is in all my time here this might be the first time that we're really making a concerted effort to do something K through 12 which is super exciting there's a ribbon that's going to flow all the way through every grade level so in elementary school we're already excited that we're already well on our
way to kind of fulfilling this goal we are already looking at our curriculum and social studies to see where we can incorporate natural connections as we are doing in science as well one of the other things that we want to do is in our create a exploration program and
we're going to start incorporating careers into some of our coursework in the summer enrichment program this coming summer which is very exciting we've already started considering how we can extend science time in our schedule in elementaries we know that we need to do more Hands-On experimentation I've
been going around to buildings recently and talking to the students and they all say the same thing we want more Hands-On experiments because that's where we learn and we know that and that's what's going to be needed for the future anyway we've also added as you may have heard
before critical thinking units that uh are some of our teachers go in push in and do these already with our teachers and we're planning on expanding that even more so so the last piece of this of course is as I said this is a ribbon going
through K through 12 so as we consider what the students might need to know in order to head into Middle School we're hoping to at some point create a an elective fair for students to know what they want to take in Middle School as their path May begin as they get into CTE ories and with that I'm going to
turn it over to Miss Halpin good evening everyone for those of you that don't know me my name is Nicole I am the 612 CTE supervisor and CTE is career and thank you short girl problems uh Career and Technical education uh people asked me if I was
nervous to talk tonight and you can't be nervous to talk about something that you truly feel passionate and care about um so I'm really excited to to kind of show you you what that 612 piece is going to look like and then also highlight what we're actually already doing sometimes I talk to parents and and community
members and they're like what you already have a class like that and the answer is yes so that's sort of my piece of what tonight's going to look like um but focusing on our six to eight I always uh look at our middle schoolers and you they just are so excited so how can we bottle that excitement up and give them some sort of career
exploration uh so the first thing we did this year was I brought the Middle School counseling teams up to the high schools so they could actually see what programs we offer so when they're helping students pick classes and pick elective programs they can see the shops they can see the different electives and then help our students in the Middle
School kind of guide them into a a a path uh continuously in CTE we bring career awareness so in cooking yes the kids love to cook they love to make recipes but what are the different careers in that area that are besides a
chef uh so we we constantly add uh the different career areas new electives uh we expanded our Middle School elective program we offer stem forensic science public speaking uh theater and we're continuously having those conversations
to include more and more um areas and how do we find out what those areas are we ask the kids we ask the teachers um and our Middle School elective program is blaspheming and our next thing is just like binder said we're looking for Middle School opportunities to
incorporate for our middle school students So currently offer a summer stem program we off also offer a stem uh e Esports summer program and we're going to continue to elaborate on those programs as well and for our grades 9 through 12
this is really exciting work um as Dr Al delli told me we're going to have the best programs in the State uh so that's that's what we're doing uh so we are creating career Pathways and in those career Pathways students are going to be able to have a fouryear program where
they can take different courses and there's a why at the end why are they doing this they're going to be able to see that uh so right now we're in the planning phases when I tell you how excited my teachers were to get their feet wet in this um they're researching they're calling they're emailing they're
creating plans for us to meet in the spring so we can roll out these ideas uh to the community but to see teachers excited about what they're doing that's just going to roll right into the classroom so if teachers are excited our kids are going to benefit from that uh we are in the process of developing Partnerships looking outside at
different College uh credit opportunities and not just for college but also certifications and we're going to talk about that in a minute uh the end of pathway so the whole point of a career pathway is to have an end have something that you can walk away from uh besides just taking the class so looking
at those credentials that our students are going to need when they enter the workforce we're also working on the professional development that our staff is going to need to support those those uh Endeavors I make sure our staff have exactly what they need to be able to support our students and our first
planning session is very excited we picked April Fool's Day I don't know if that's good or bad um but my teachers will be coming together on April 1st for our first big meeting uh for our curriculum planning and our our pathway layout when I talk about end of pathway
the why these are some of the uh companies that we've reached out to or we'll have meetings with soon to bring into our high school so that our kids can leave with real world certifications uh we are lucky enough this year I know some of you have heard it we are piloting a new AP course at JP
Stevens uh cyber security any student that takes that course and gets a certain score on the AP exam is going to have an opportunity for a free opportunity to get the CompTIA computer science certification so we're going to take that and we're going to roll with that um so these are all the things and
I'm not just the one meeting with these again my staff is meeting with these vendors so that they're the ones bringing it into the classroom and being able to roll it out I wanted to share this because as I've learned as an administrator it's data right we we our decisions need to be based on a lot of things and one of
those things need to be data um so we used to call these soft skills now we call them durable skills that's the new terminology and when you ask employers what they want and who they're going to hire they always say they can teach anyone to do a job but you can't teach
kids or people that durable skill that X Factor that why so we're going to be taking these skill sets that these employers are looking for and making sure they're incorporated into our classes and into the experiences that we're giving our students so now I'm going to use this
time to kind of highlight what we already do um February happens to be Career and Technical education month so it's a really nice easy fit um these are the areas that fall under career in teched um and these are where we're going to be branching off our career Pathways from
so many people ask me what we do this is what we do all day these are all the courses that we currently offer in the two high schools um it's a lot I was in five different rooms in JP Stevens and I went from making a code to cooking soup and that's what I get to do every day
which is really exciting um but we're already offering so many opportunities and all we're going to do is take these already offers funnel them and then add what we need to do so the why uh as Bender said we never
want our kids to ask why they're doing this but these are the different skills that we're going to be looking at increase student engagement we all know when kids like what they're doing they're engaged and want to do it real world application career choice job Readiness College and Career Connection
equity and excess we're looking for programs that not just our highest highest highest Achievers can find success in we want all levels of Learners to be able to be successful and Community benefits uh when I was at the curriculum community meeting we were talking about how great of a place we we work in and how many opportunities and
resources we're going to have for our community so we're going to be tapping all of you all of you um and help us uh when we when we need it so get ready for that um so without facilities we don't have programs I'm really proud to say
that we are one of the only traditional high schools that have a full functioning auto shop um this is at Edison High School um some people don't even know it exists um so I wanted to make sure that we saw that um these are our kids every day they're working actually the the picture on the right is my car getting the oil change so I trust
them enough to change my oil um our teacher Mr aichi is is standout he has kids doing thinking learning and that's what the facilities that we need for I figured I would highlight our brand new Hoover kitchen since we're at
Hoover um this happened this summer so we're taking our traditional family consumer science courses and making them Hands-On right so this is the kitchen that the kids here cook in every day um they're doing they're doing high level highle stuff and our teacher here worked
in industry for 20 years Chef D so that's the kind of knowledge these kids are gaining and then this was our last project that we've done uh this is our new robotics room at JP Stevens um so this is something that we're really proud of um with all the different
elements that it brought in so I want to thank the facilities and I want to thank you all for making sure that you support all the pieces of the program um because without our facilities we don't have programs I just also want to highlight um the wooden uh cabinets on the top and
the left those were actually made from our construction technology class down the hall so our kids are making the the furniture for the classrooms as a project I mean you can't get any more real world than that and then here's our kids here's our
kids doing learning thinking um our robotics team our cooking our bridge building competition the top right is our preschool program with our Littles any of you that have ever been in the high school with our little kids they're the best um our wood shop program again auto
shop and then these are just some other other projects that we've worked on um the one on the the end at the bottom that was a food truck project that we did at Edison High School so our business teacher had the kids create food trucks and then our culinary arts teachers the kids made the food for the food truck so these are all the things
we're going to start doing connecting all the different elements in all the different areas again it's CTE month um so I wanted to thank you all for the opportunity to highlight our programs uh this was actually a a banner that's made by one of our JP Stevens teachers Miss
May um that highlights all of our programs I also just want to take this opportunity to thank my teachers um they work really hard in any time that I can say that in a public forum um I want to appreciate that um with these programs also comes the extracurriculars so you'll see on the agenda you're
approving some field trips today for our Deca students and our FCCLA students um I thank you for the support on that um and the best way to know about those programs is to hear it from our students so we're lucky enough today to have a few FCCLA students who just want to share their experience through a career in tech ed month binder and I thank you
for today um and we're looking forward to having your support and seeing where our Pathways leave thank you thank you Miss Halpin good evening everyone my name is malav sha and I'm currently a senior at John PE Stevens and I'm also serving as a state
president of the New Jersey family career and Community leaders of America in addition to the co-president of the JP Stevens FCCLA chapter I stand before you today with great enthusiasm and pride as a representative of FCCLA especially as we celebrate our
organization among others as part of career and technical Education Month the lifelong lessons meaningful friendships and durable skills are definitely worth celebrating this month and every month of the year especially for the purpose it has brought for students much like
myself our life-changing transformative organization helps those like me find a place to belong and gives them a purpose to serve their community be more active in their career search process and learn ways to improve their home life for me it has been the best learning experience
since FCCLA is co-curricular I have been able to take the knowledge I learned in my culinary class and apply it to my competitive events and initiatives that we do both locally and Statewide so I've experienced firsthand the character development that FCCLA provides this
could not have been possible without getting the extra step and taking a step out of my comfort zone and I can assure you if I had not done that I would not be the State president of a 4,000 student body today and which is why I want to recognize the amazing
opportunities that FCCLA has to offer thank you for your time and once again happy Career and Technical Education Month good evening my name is Sher Gard a junior at JP stens High School currently serving as a New Jersey FCCLA vice president programs I've been a
member of FCCLA for six years and they've been some of the most impactful years of my life FCCLA and FCS education has not only taught me the importance of soft skills but also the impact of service and the importance of 21st century skills in fields such as
personal finance and colonary arts FCCLA is one of the eight Korean technical student organizations nationally recognized by the Board of Education the ultimate goal for FCCLA is to help all students succeed whether in in any Endeavor they may choose hence
the name family career Community leaders of America however this will be impossible without the fundamental role of family and consumer Sciences a core aspect to all Career and Technical education from personal finance textile merchandising early childhood education
and holistic Wellness the framework of FCS education has shaped the FCCLA we know and love today all these skills not only benefit me but fellow FCCLA members in our College and Career lives CTE month is an important time for FCS
advocacy and FCS FC CLA truly appreciates the support of the Board of Education thank you good evening once again my name is stti sha and I'm currently a senior at Edison High School I currently serve as the New Jersey family career and
Community leaders of America first vice president today I'm excited to expand upon my fellow officers points but our amazing organization FCCLA in New Jersey we have three conference opportunities for our members our fall leadership connection virtual
leadership boot camp and our state leadership conference in the spring all these conferences in person and virtual have community service opportunities for our members community service is an integral part of FCCLA allowing members to build skills in ethical
decision-making servant leadership and expand upon their knowledge and the main parts of their communities along with enhancing my time management and College and Career ready skills FCCLA has allowed me to immerse myself within many communities across
our country through service initiatives from local initiatives like collecting pole tabs for the Ronald McDonald House and cans for replenished food pantry to collecting monetary donations for the California wildfires I've been able to learn about different issues in our country and ways that students like
myself can address them in addition our recent virtual Global free rice initiative has allowed over 300 members in our state to participate in global Service from the comfort of their homes FCCLA has truly shaped my leadership Journey equipping me with invaluable
skills and meaningful service experiences that extend beyond the classroom and into communities across the country if you are interested in learning more about our spring service initiatives please look at attending the 2025 State leadership conference in Cherry Hill New Jersey or looking at the
njfca website NJ fccla.org thank you for celebrating Career and Technical Education Month with us thank you a great presentation and um
um we wanted you know the program and Pathways this is something that we want to do uh I think we talked about the uh Stam is already one of the p Pathways there are more Pathways coming okay
they're we're planning for computer um AI cyber security SL computer science we're looking for business and the other one is allad house whoever wants to get into the medical Fields doctors or nurses that's
another pathway so um you know we hope that in September some of the pathways will be in place so uh uh we hope that we have these criteria be set up so we can uh get these things going in September so no pressure on
you uh but I will hope see that we'll have some good news to report uh in in the future meetings I'm I'm pretty sure the culum committee is working hard uh with the supervisors on this so uh let's see what uh we can have for the passway I hope we have all of them in September
thank you very much and great presentations for the students right so I got to give you a pressure otherwise you know okay all right so okay president's
report um today I saw a lot of uh my uh Sons my my daughters teachers here and some of the people that I I I saw uh for a lot of the performances uh today we have the honor of naming the new JP
Stevens Auditorium to to Andrew dinaa Arts Auditorium de has been I I had a firsthand experience with de because I have two kids both of them were in his program four years so it's
like seven years all together um I know him firsthand he's a great educator he um you know pushed the kids but he he gets the best of the students he he wants them to you know reach their the best
potentials um some some of the kids at very beginning saying oh he's too tough but at the end of the day when they graduate they all love him that is Educator we want 50 years for his their life in the education well deserved
we're very very happy that we can able we're able to do this uh in his honor so there will be a resolution coming up um for that so um stay tuned okay so superintendent's report thank
you so much Mr shei uh I Echo the sentiments of uh Mr shei uh what a fabulous presentation all around Mr McGrath thank you so much what a wonderful way to open a board meeting um with not only celebrating this wonderful space but also uh the student performance uh anytime uh you have the
opportunity to uh get in schools and watch students interact U with their teachers uh perform on perform um tasks that are interesting to them it it really just uh resonates uh with all the Educators in the room and that that actually coincides with um it is um
February 24th through the 28th I believe is uh National Public Schools week um and I had the opportunity to get into some unbelievable classrooms uh this week I was over at um Edison High School uh as well as Thomas Jefferson uh
watching some really really amazing things um go on um um you know evidence of personalized learning students on working on students working on problems that are interesting to them uh teachers using uh data to drive instructional practices um I actually reached out to
them today just to commend them for their work um and we're looking to expand these practices uh districtwide so I I applaud them um and I applaud the team that leads them in that capacity too um it really uh it's the best part of my job getting into schools uh we uh
we do have two resolutions on the agenda this evening um uh for two individuals that have made a huge impact here in Edison Township Mr DIN and Mr Russell um we will be uh honoring them uh separately at future board meetings with the opening of the JP Stevens Auditorium
um as well as teacher recognition Month in May and June so we're going to have some a special presentation at that time uh if you had the opportunity to get here a little bit early you saw some construction going on we've got a we've got some construction going on if if you haven't heard it is uh the JPC
Auditorium uh which is moving a little bit behind schedule but we're um we're uh we're W in the ship currently right now uh as well as that 30 classroom Edition which will be set to open uh September 1st and hopefully completion by the end of June this year uh so we
are really proud of the work um that this board has done in supporting those those expansion projects and um you know the the greatest part is when we're going to open it and see the kids' faces uh when they're uh looking at their their brand new space uh it is budget SE season uh the governor gave his budget
address today uh Mr to as well as all departments have been hard at work um making sure we are presenting a budget that is not only fin financially responsible but also reflective of the goals mission and vision of the Edison Township Public Schools um this is a
team effort our building level principles um our Administration our supervisors our department heads uh everybody in the business office have done a wonderful job in um constructing this budget um and I do thank them for their efforts uh another team effort
which is also on the agenda uh which is something I have like anxiety over once January comes and that's the school calendar um I I'm fortunate enough to have um a really good team around me um Mr rednick thank you so much for the multiple calendars that you and your
organization have provided uh they are great sounding boards as well Mr Ross uh always critical feedback and and um uh I do appreciate that and uh my central office team too that uh did a really nice job of kind of uh you know not only
vetting those pieces weighing the positives and negatives of of each calendar I think we put a a pretty good one uh forward uh we did prioritize getting out of school a little bit earlier I you know it those summer months get really really hot especially uh you know on the second floor of some
of our buildings right now um and uh you know hopefully uh we are uh looking looking at the same type of weather uh next year as we are this year uh if things hold up and I I do want to knock on wood um we do have a few um built-in
snow days that are at our availability that as long as all goes well within the next couple weeks um we'll be getting correspondents to the community um that we will have those days off uh and last but not least um I do want to thank uh
the Board of Education uh youth art month is something that um this board has always supported the Arts in our school are nationally recognized uh as evidenced by today's performance um and your continued support for um you know the extracurriculars and the
co-curriculars goes a long way and I know I speak on behalf of all members of our staff in that capacity um and that will sum up my report Mr she thank you now we have the two student council presidents Derek you go
first hey everyone uh to start off this past Friday we hosted our annual dodgeball for charity event the tournament the tournament was formatted like the four nations face off that hockey just had with different pools were teams were that put teams
were put into to start and then we had a a six Team final bracket where the team with a questionable name that I'm not going to say but that team they had Justin and Gavin poset Steven and Dylan Le brzy Raymond tarez and Emanuel akimbo uh they walk walk out to Black
Sabbath Iron Man in the championship ended up taking home the hardware in athletics our winter sports are somehow already nearing their ends the boys basketball team almost doubled their win total from last year led by First Team all blue division Ballers senior dedri
carvy and Junior DJ SAR boa the team finished second in the division with some notable wins including a 51-35 route over the Hawks as well as a close win against gold division winner middle sex they have their first they have their
first game in the state playoffs this Saturday this this Thursday sorry at sville so come out to watch the boys keep their comeback season going their girls basketball team has also been pretty successful as they have a record of 17 and 10 sitting third place in the
white division freshman Carmela Arana and Senior Olivia smart continue to lead the way with the latter of those two leading the team in points rebounds and blocks in her final year they have two wins over Woodbridge within those seven and have kept up a pattern with the boys basketball team with two wins over the
north side Squad the girls team has their first first round State Playoff game at the same time as the boys except they'll be home against hun and Central on the track team David Brown and Alma bang are state champions in the high jump and on the wrestling team Fernando
avlon has notched his second GMC wrestling title already putting him among the great wrestlers in EHS history the girls bowling team went 12 and seven and just an and ended their season against a top seed Monroe team while the boys bowling team season just came to an
end as well after being undefeated white division Champions the the boys bowling team took down East Brunswick in the first round of the playoffs and missed the championship by 31 pins losing only to one of the best teams in the state Woodbridge coming up soon we're having
unicef's annual bad Min for charity event a pingpong tournament the senior class council's March Madness basketball tournament and working on setting up a potential Battle of the classes event in the spring and that's all I have now for the report but before I finish I'd like
to uh i' like to read aloud my a thank you letter I wrote to my football coach at Edison High School uh Brian Canton and before I read this letter I'd like to thank the board for hiring people like like K
Cal here we go dear Coach Cal what are we doing receiving routes go from left to right we're reading our Playbook not the Torah said Coach Cal I laughed alone as a joke flew over my teammates heads he then
noticed my sound garden shirt and our shared music taste was understood I think we both knew from that moment we'd share a special relationship going forward joining the football team I was uncertain of my survival along 200 Pounders underweight and fresh out of marching band the threat of being deced
by a zephyr was real the locker room felt for and intimidating that is until your inviting nature made me feel at home I paid forward your benevolence to young players from then on having experienced your Energy's Irreplaceable effects firsthand you never failed to
reaffirm my drive and unlike most coaches you cared enough to recognize and applaud tenacity and hustle in practice in addition to everything you did for me on the field I'd be remiss if I didn't thank you for writing my letter of recommendation I felt both flattered and humbled as I read your letter as
your words were truly touching so far I'm 7even for seven in college admissions with Ruckers Ohio State uh Maryland Michigan State Penn State Bingington and Stonybrook and have no doubt that your incredible letter influenced some of the admissions officers decisions and despite my
terrible ability to check and respond to text messages which I'm working on I know our relationship will continue into the future regardless of whatever paths Our Lives continue down I will be I will be forever thankful to you for getting me onto the field despite a couple of my heads scratching place my top highlights
include lining up off sides on my first play on varsity and my other top pight is celebrating a first down seven yards before the marker my appreciation for your support as well as your wisdom about the value of my experiences on the team is imme is
immeasurable My Utmost gratitude DC good job seven or seven very impressive thank you wow so the other thing you know I want to say something about Derek because at the last meeting I challenged him to uh go out and get
some feedback about the new cell phone policy that Mr Ross Implement so he went out did a survey and gave me the the the data and I have another followup for him to you know get me more data on that so I hope before you graduate I get that data okay all
right so you know that's a great point that Derek brought up is the teachers and the coaches and and the advisers not only develop these students academically and we also develop them develop them to be good citizens so this
is a perfect example of that and thank coach C for for doing that we have a lot of um you know staff that does this and Andrew Dino is another example so thank you all right so now let's move on to JP
Stevens Sai good evening everyone my name is Soni buyum and I'm one of the two presidents of the student council at JP Stevens and I'm excited to share some announcements about our school the student council hosted our annual JPS
Family Feud recently where I dressed up as Steve Harvey yes bald cap and mustache and suit and everything and asked the players several questions in a Family Feud style event this Senior Team emerged as our family feud Champions and in a few days student council will also
be hosting our annual volleyball tournament where teams will wear silly costumes play cont competitively against one another eat lots of good food and fight for a huge Taco Bell gift card the end of February unfortunately means the end of the season for our winter sports
teams and we could not be more proud of every single athlete some shout outs for sports who did exceptionally well are boys bowling with a 12 to6 record girls bowling with a 14 to1 record and girls basketball who recently went on a six-game winning streak on the note of
sports JP Stevens also hosted their annual teacher volleyball tournament fundraiser where each School sent their fiercest teacher athletes to bomb set and spiked victory for their school I'm proud to share that the JP Stevens teacher team annihilated the competition
winning a heated final round against John Adams Middle School for the second year in a row and raised lots of money for charity besides Sports JP hosted a plethora of other events in the past month including a moving poetry performance contest featuring beautiful
and moving poems from our students shout out to the winner Cy ugal we are so proud of her and all our other poets furthermore the JPS tedex Club will also be hosting their annual tedex conference featuring inspirational shocking and
funny speeches from both JP students and guest speakers such as charve Berg who was former Miss NJ and first runner up for Miss America and Matthew fante a trailblazing cyber security and technology technology expert and this
will be this Tuesday so please use the form that was sent to your Edison email address to register for this amazing event and lastly the JPS music program hosted their annual Bamboozled night where students came students in orchestra band and Orchestra came
together to dance eat e food and make Everlasting memories that's all for now and I'm excited to share more updates with everyone in the future thank you very much so hope with the completion of the new Auditorium we're going to have a
grand performance of all the uh you know uh the the programs so I also going to give your assignment okay because I gave direct assignment last last uh meeting you have a new bathroom policy in JP Stevens
yeah all right can you give me some feedback next meeting you don't have to do public we can send me emails we can talk on a site I watch some direct feedback from students right thank you very much okay so uh you know uh we're going
to go into our regular uh resolutions so if you guys have more homework or whatever you can feel free to leave but you can you can stay here as well if you want okay thank you very much okay so we're going to open up for
public comments for Resolutions only public comments for Resolutions only M the public comments yes yes good evening can everyone hear me okay behind I think some of the comments
I want to make are for the crowd behind me as well as for the board members my name is Nick romanet I graduated in from Edison High School in 1991 I'm sorry let's try 1961 in the second graduating I know I
don't look that old but anyway I graduated from medicon high in 1961 the second graduating class uh I grew up in the clar Barton section I went to clar Barton School it's my Elementary School uh I spent the
last four years of high school going on halfday sessions simply because of the number of youngsters in the building and the lack of uh number of kids in the school system and the lack of uh buildings and that's why there was a a dramatic uh growth of uh middle schools
being built the high school building up uh soon after uh when uh JP came up and uh when I got out of the service I got hired in 1971 and in 1972 I got transferred up to
JP Stevens uh to run the drive red program uh some of you guys may have remembered about that when there's a lot of federal money floating around to get a simulator three cars Five Guys taking kids on the road and back then I remember taking kids on the road and we didn't know anything about special ed
but uh that was good but I want to tell you something things about Andy that we you may not know simply because we know what he has done you can go and Google Andy's name and there's a wonderful video that's about a half hour about what kind of guy he is and what he meant
to the kids so let me tell you a couple of different things that you probably don't even know I don't even think Andy's wife and and daughters and kids know about this but I got to know Andy in 1971 when he came over to uh woodro uh yeah woodro Wilson and uh I see him
every Friday at happy hour at the beef the beef lock I think it was called a place that's by matou and Country Club and uh that's a great place to meet new people be what will it be a male or female and uh Andy and I met each other
we hit it off because I knew some of his relatives who were about my age I'm about n years older than Andy was and eventually we ended up uh getting a softball team to play slow pitch softball and Andy was a pretty damn good athlete he was our slow pitch guy and he
could stand here and put the fall up where the yellow line meets the white and drop it in the zone and if you didn't hit the darn thing i' call umpire would call you out and then when the ball was hit by somebody he could feeli it but you know what Andy decided to
become a musician and that's because God had other plans for him and we're all a benefit for that okay years ago when ruers didn't have a good football team in the early mid 70s somehow they ended up playing
Alabama up at the uh Midlands and we had oh you went huh I was here I I I remember yes okay well I think that was a 7 o'clock game but we had a Bus full of guys from JP Stevens most of them coaches all went up there
did a little tailgating had a good time and uh we get back to the parking lot we're on the bus we're counting heads we're missing two people where are they well one was my cousin Scott the other was Andy and it turned out that they
jumped on the field they got escorted off the field by security they weren't arrested but Andy was doing stuff that kids do at that age my cousin now still even runs around jumping on trying to get on Yankee Stadium after the
game my second year at Stevens I got a job with the football team and back in that day for football and for spring fall Sports you could not start practice until got about the 28th of August and then you play your first game what three
weeks later it looks like you've been through that huh but anyway I came in one day about the 28th of uh August football staff came rolling into JP to get uh the gear set up for the kids to come the next day etc etc and there's
all these kids on the field with instruments so I go over to Andy what are you doing here oh this is our second week of band practice we're getting ready for the season so Andy did a lot of great things that he didn't have to do as a matter of fact when Rocky was a
popular movie Andy put a halftime show together with his staff and the kids and we had a kid from Potters that played uh Mi uh Mr T is it I guess but there would be people at halftime that would not go to the bathroom or they wouldn't
go to get anything to eat until after this halftime show is over and Andy just put some great programs together with his staff that people absolutely love a couple of days if we had played a Friday night or a Saturday afternoon game hey Andy you want to do something on no I
can't do that I'm going to a I'm going to a uh a band try out or we're going to a competition where we're in a parade and Andy did that stuff all the time you know most teachers come to school they do their thing they go home Andy would come to school they do their thing and
more and more and more and finally he would go home and the other good thing about Andy as a a softball player we went to some of the biggest Dives in Edison Township when games were
over for pizza and a little adult beverage and we had a great time doing that let me talk about all year functions that Andy did that we didn't have he didn't have to do oh am I off here okay I'll make one
finish up comment one final comment no this is running a little late I want to thank the Board of Education and everybody that voted to get Andy uh the auditorium named after him in Edison Township Edison High School has a football St Stadium named
the math Matthew draw Stadium well Matthew draw was a sophomore freshman football coach when I was in uh 10th grade and Matt ended up coming down with something and he died we didn't have a football Stadium at Edison High yet but
when they did they decided they being the board and I guess the ads and and the super uh they named The Stadium after match RW now we have our football stadium at Stevens is named after anybody think of
that okay Matthew draw Matt draw was a guidance counselor and he was the microphone guy for all of our home games so on an average season before we got the uh playoffs going as they did he might uh he might do about uh you know
four or five games and that was it well he also suddenly died and it was determined that the stadium would be named after him which it was so having said that one more comment about Andy in 1980 when I was a VP up at
JP we had a uh talent show that we started and we had it for five years and it was a big sellout kids would fill the auditorium you know 700 kids would come and all the money that we ear and would go towards a hall of Honor I had the last Hall of Honor program they're uh
from 19 from 2022 and there were 14 people inducted and five of them took careers up in music thank you to Andy professional musicians or
teachers as a matter of fact uh there was one teacher that uh I think he was at the uh retirement ceremony 450 people at the Pines the only people used to get 450 at the Pines were the politicians around election time but they filled it up with
a lot of Andy's kids and uh it was magical so here's the deal if the two football stadiums could be named after people that really didn't put that much time into the job no fault of theirs why can't we name the
auditorium after Andy with 50 years of dis extinguished servers in this school district so God bless him and thank all you guys and girls okay who's next thank you very much thank you very much I I would love
to hear more of Andy's story I I don't know but uh sorry we we're running out of time so uh you know if you don't mind we can uh you know talk through with a coffee or something all right let's I try to observe the minute six minutes and uh you know um I'm not going to stop
you as I said before but when you a six minute Mark and just try to wrap it up um you know okay all right hello good evening my name is Amy bugalo JP Stevens class of 1997 uh this is my 24th year serving as
a music teacher here in Edison um and I'm currently the proud band director at Woodbrook Elementary um I am here tonight to thank the Board of Education and and administration um for considering to rename the newly renovated JP Stevens
Auditorium in honor of Andy D sorry I wasn't going to do this um Andy was my teacher for over 30 years ago um he was my mentor he was my colleague he was my
friend he was the reason that I chose to go into this profession and he's the reason that I came back to Edison to be a teacher it's very hard to describe in words how much he's meant to
me and how much he means to the community thank you but I am so proud that his memory will be honored in the auditorium where he inspired so many students to become the best versions of themselves whatever career they
chose I know that the hundreds of family friends colleagues and students who came to celebrate his legacy at his retirement party share my appreciation in your decision to rename the auditorium in his honor thank you so
much Dr alelly and thank you the board thank you Mrs buckler you did a good job too you know what the you know the school that the uh the John Adams of leer program to the JP
students um you know lot of uh good students I know two students okay they both of our kids so uh you know my son still plays OBO thanks to you for picking the instrument for him when he was in the in
know joh Adams yeah so Matt good evening Matt revack ETA president but first of all I like to say hello to Nick Roman it's I ran into him in the hallway before uh Nick was at JP Stevens for a good part of my career as vice principal Etc um
you know I'm up here for actually there's two people being recognized tonight for that that's one of them is Harry Russell again nothing much has been said about Harry I have been you know again I'm one of the people few in the room that knew of Harry and knew about Harry and all um and obviously Andy which I've talked about in the past
I spent my whole career other than the last two years with Andy or so before he retired so about 33 34 years together it's funny because a lot of times we park next to each other in the morning we'd have a discussion at you know 6:30 in the morning on walking in etc etc you
know ETA many as you guys know that have attended our events uses the um District music program for many of our events and the way he's always introduced is the legendary Andy the Nia and that's exactly basically what he is he's he's a
legend so it's well-deserving for both of them I'm glad to see them both being honored in the way that they are I did want to thank Dr Al delli for our input to the calendar I also want to thank all of my members who gave me feedback on it it's never easy as you
said um as he mentioned I actually created four calendars submitted to I know Mr Ross had his group and I know Central Ross I think Dr hus was in charge of it or whatever um so it's never easy you're never going to make everyone happy with everything you do
but I do think it is good calendar I know some of the things that we had talked about you know getting out much earlier in June which we are obviously not coming in on January 2nd um which was a big one um I don't think anybody would be here if we were
um you know so overall I looked at the calendar I know you made a few adjustments or changes I just hope we don't get snow in April next year um but other than that you know I think it's a overall it's it's a good calendar I think most people should be fairly good with it there there is one conflict that
was brought to my attention I apologize because I missed it on March 12th you have a staff development day but it's also the day of Elementary Preschool and Elementary conferences which are single session days I caught it directly before
this Board of Education meeting and fixed it okay on the agenda okay great appreciate printed one printed one might not be correct but the one on the if fact I called Mrs Ty in this afternoon about something else so did I frantically at 5:00 that's one that I didn't catch so very
good appreciate it um so like I said overall I think the calendar is good there is one other um question I have really just for a point of clarification I was going through the board new board or changes into the policies there was one policy I'm curious about that was a policy unfortunately I don't have them
here but it was was about reporting for ex or filling out the financial aid form that it was necessary mandatory is that a mandatory thing because I know my daughter's a 20 6 and 30 and it was never a requirement is it something that became a
requirement um because I know a lot of people especially nowadays with what's going on in our country as well you know given out personal information financial information a lot of people are hesitant and knowing that you may not qualify anyway why would you want to fill out a
form that is not necessary so I'm just curious about it thank you Mr she Matt Matt we're looking we're looking for bus drivers
Matt yeah so um yeah so uh just uh to answer uh Mr rev neck's question yeah so that it's part of the new law but there's a waiver process also that's codified in that so in the event that a parent does not want to fill that out uh the P the school district has to offer a waiver process for that too and parents
affirm that and thank you perfect thank you yeah on the on the calendar actually uh you know uh the member received a a another version um before the published version we provided some some uh comments and thank you Dr ready for
making the changes um I like the calendar um you know um the the thing is we try to finish school early right June 25th is it's too late and with since all most of our buildings doesn't have the H
HVAC so uh you know doesn't have the air conditioning um so we try to finish finish it early uh to um you know avoid the summer heat so that's one of the reasons Things become a little bit packed so with that said Mrs
taly Beth taly 15 Midwood Avenue once again thank you so much for um recognizing Andrew De ni Cola and naming the auditorium after him part of me thinks as I sit back there and I watch the construction and seeing it delayed
knowing Andy who does not like the attention on himself he's up in heaven kind of messing with you guys a little bit because he doesn't really want the recognition as much as we want it for him knowing the kind of guy he was um just a couple questions on the
calendar you know everything looks good you said that that one date was changed Dr alderi do you know when it was changed y until yes what is it March March 12 right yep to March 13th to March 13th to
the Friday then it's going to be a PD hold I'm looking at this right now okay so we have March 19th I'm sorry it's March 19th March 19th that will be the PD day or the conference days uh conference days okay thank you for that um just one other question I know I
guess graduation is set in stone for the 17th at Ruckers there's no leeway on that I'm the only reason I'm bringing it up is just one of my questions in no November for election day with having all of our students in the building it's
going to be a big election with our governor race coming and just the climate of our town State and Country and World in politics is it best that we have all the kids in the school buildings with people coming in and out
all day um voting so that's just you know one thing that I wanted to bring up if there was anything we could do about that for you know the safety and so forth of all our students because I think it's going to be a big race with
the change of the governor and that's it thank you okay thank you yes I wasn't gonna say anything tonight but I think I owe this to Dean I'm Ivon Nelson and um I just represent the
parents of those of the students who worked with um Mr dinca my son is now a student at ruter Mason grow and because of the discipline and all the mus musicianship that Dean instilled in
those in those students that's his path currently JP Stevens jazz bands marching band concert bands are renowned around the state because of the quality of music and quality that Dean has presented there was no goofing off with
Dean he was very strict I can tell you that my son only when Dean demanded him to be at school at 7 o'clock in the morning he was running out the house was he because he could not be late one minute and those disciplines are what
have motivated students at uh JP Stevens to become music teachers and there are so many of them and it ranges from the 70s to the 80s to the '90s I remember May 15th
2024 for the Jazz Extravaganza Dean checked himself out of the hospital because he insisted on being at the Jazz Extravaganza that year and of course we know five days later he passed away so that's how much discipline and how much
dedication Dean had to his students and I want to thank the board and especially you Mr she for actually considering this great honor for this Legend Mr dinola and of course he was a product of Edison as well thank you thank you it's the
honor of the sport to pass this resolution and you're you're way too humble you're saying one of the best in the state we one of the best program in the whole nation National okay all right okay anybody
else public comments resolutions okay Harish 45 McKinley so it's always difficult to satisfy everyone with the calendar I understand that um there will always be some complaints but
anyway uh thinking out of the box today there was a discussion on social media uh regarding the spring break is it really necessary to have it uh at the time it is uh listed like the
end of March 1 April most of the schools have it around that time and normally people like to have a one week vacation with their kids to Florida or somewhere else and tickets are very expensive so can it be moved one week
out lat I mean to say so this is something to think about uh for next year maybe it's to late this year and U there was also some
discussion yes I fully understand we don't have hbac and what uh board president said it's better to close the schools early so Edison being a diverse Place obviously we need to respect the
demographics in terms of religious holidays so so those cannot be cut but can we have some uh standard as to one or maximum two for religion so that uh we
can have a longer spring break or winter break and maybe close the school early that is something again to think about for next year all right thank you okay thank you
Harish anyone else resolutions only okay oh Bri okay I learned my lesson gles need glasses I can't see you I was
telling these guys I can't see you guys from far away you don't need to see us you know you know I I apologize look different right so lower the microphone please thank you all right am my time starting all right I have a lot to say so I'm going to try
to finagle this because want to talk about the positive the glows and grows like we talk about education there's some glows here and there's definitely some grows so the first thing I want to do sorry name address the first thing I want to do sorry name and address uh
Brian Rivera 98 Stony Road asy New Jersey come over whenever you guys want uh I would like i' would like to congratulate the families of Harry J Russell and Andrew uh D ni Cola for the honor of having areas of JP Stevens High School named and renamed in recognition
for their hard work and outstanding accomplishments with the ENT Township Public Schools their contributions have made a lasting impact on our schools and community and we were proud to acknowledge their dedication and service so I do want to recognize those two individuals and thank you for their
service the other glow that I want to recognize is uh I looked at the audit report for the public uh distribution so I reviewed it the audit report for the public distribution I want to extend my appreciation to John to and and his team who was here uh for their diligence and
hard work the report reflects significant progress with only one recommendation uh made outstanding achievement U from your department and I want to give you kudos to you guys that's what we get when we staff the the finance department properly so good job guys I appreciate it
so those are two glows I have for you um for curriculum I had a question I noticed that we uh are developing new advanced placement courses can you please clarify if those courses will also be offered for General sections for students who are interested in taking
them or will this exclusively be for advanced level students if not why you know this is a conversation I had that I was when I was on the curriculum committee is that we're won Edison so if there's classes being offered in South Edison there should be the same classes being offered in North Edison again
we're one Edison and our kids no matter where they live should have the same opportunity I think I made that clear during the curriculum meetings uh when it goes to so there's Administration curriculum Finance audit report all right regarding
the bills list um I've asked for the bills list last board meeting we made uh a couple of recommendations I emailed and sent out Texas and I still did not receive the bills list but I did get it anyway um as stated last meeting sharing the bills list with the public before
Board of Education approval is essential for transparency accountability and Community Trust for providing the access to this information in advance taxpayers can review their dollars or being allocated and raise any questions or concerns before final decisions are
being made now I bring this up the bills list because it was brought to my attention that visal tell's legal fees have been included in this bills list um which is not accessible to the public so the public would not even know that the
public is paying these legal fees these are same legal fees that I've been discussing the last previous board meetings and in past previous board meetings I don't think it's respon it's not the responsibility of the taxpayer to pay someone's personal legal fees so it was brought to my attention that it
is on the bills list so in this case I believe it raises serious concerns about trans transparency and account accountability in these issues so my question is is there attorney payment is there an attorney payment for vial Patel's legal fees on the bills list um
if so I find it deeply concerning that this item is included on the agenda without being made publicly accessible again transparency and Financial Manager matters is critical and the public should have the opportunity to review these documents before they are approved the Public's not even aware about it and
we're going to take uh I'm I'm going to just take the the kindness of you that you're doing the right thing you're going to vote for us none of us are aware that you're doing this so additionally less than two months ago the vice president of the board who's Vish Bell who now serves as a chair of
the finance committee who actually approved this uh supported your election uh as board president so this raises legitimate concerns about potential backroom agreements influencing board decisions to ensure public trust is essential that financial and government
matters are handled with full transparency and integrity furthermore why wasn't a resolution not created for this to guarantee that the public had full visibility into this process transparency is not an option is a fundamental responsibility of the board to hold uphold the Public's right to
oversight of financial matters so again I sat on this board we had these conversations when I was on the board the board had made a decision there's still members on this board that still made those decisions and now suddenly it's being snuck in onto a bill list I don't know if you guys ain't know anything about Optics but that looks
horrible that looks horrible it's being snuck in in a bills list where the public has no access to it no one knows about it no one sees it we're just slipping money in and paying the bill to me I feel that's disgraceful so I want to let the board know my opinion and I
hope the board understands that a decision was made a year ago the majority of the board pretty much said you're absolutely right and now no one's had this discussion there's four members on the board that said last time and there's two new board members that don't
even know the details to it so if you vote on this line item shame on you thank you very much thank you so Eddie you want to respond about the AP process yeah so um and Mr Cohen
can correct me um on these pieces too so cyber security is offered at JP Stevens the AP Psychology is going to be offered at both high schools correct Edison High next year Human Geography why' you come both right yep and honors job
both good evening yeah excited to announce that we're offering AP uh cyber security based upon a pilot that we approved by college board and they we were only eligible at JP for that for that pilot so the ideas that we pil it
next year at JP and then we're able to run it at both high schools the year the next year with AP Psychology we wanted to launch it at both schools but you're required to have a master a staff member with a masters in Psychology in order for college board to approve you deliver
that so we are able to do so at JP and we're be supporting a staff member to get that master so that in a year from now we'll be able to also over it offer it at Edison High there's no we would love to be able to do both at immediately we just don't have the capacity uh and then AP Human Geography
will be offered at both schools next year great thank you thank you very much um Alan you want to say a couple things about the yeah resolution um regarding the uh in the bills list the bills list will be published when the board votes
on it not prior um reason for that is the bills may not be passed or a bill may not be passed number two um the the bill that you were talking about Mr Rivera de deals with a simple invoice
from an attorney and the board's going to vote it vote on it through the bills list because it's an invoice we can't hear anything it is a in a nutshell it's an invoice is that better I didn't think I need a microphone um it's it's a simple
invoice from a uh uh from an attorney they're paying the invoice board pays the invoice thank you all any other public comments yes s Susan Campion e Chi for courton Edison um just a couple of comments on the
calendar um I know that spring break is when it is because Friday is Good Friday and that Sunday is Easter but um we went to naming every holiday and um it does not say that Passover is the first and that's part of why we have spring break
then so if we could add that to it um the other thing is I know that we're trying to give the whole week for Spring Break um I am an end of March baby and there's still a risk of snow in April and there's not a lot of wi wiggle room
um so I don't you know teachers do get personal days and stuff if it if we should go back to putting those snow days in May with Memorial Day because we don't want to take Memorial Day if we have to close and there's no other days
so it's a it's a big gamble but something to think about so thank you thank you any other public comments on resolutions senan can I have a motion to end public comments motion second okay
Mr ero and Mr Romano all in favor I I okay so can I have let's go through the items can I have a motion to approve Personnel
agenda motion second second okay got it joh yes Mr ero yes Mr Ron Patel yes Mr luga yes Mr Romano uh yes Miss White yes Miss
Pang yes vice president Patel yes president CH yes motion carries so I have a little break here now we have the new JP Stevens football coach here and which this is with his
wife so I'd like to have him come over and say a couple words thank you I want to thank everybody who was involved in this the board Dr alderi Dr hus Dr Kim Doug covert Dave Marzano everybody else um most of you don't know me I was actually
at JP last year as an assistant coach uh prior to that I spent most of my career coaching college football most recently at mouth University and I I would say that the first game last year was arguably one of the top five moments in my career when we were able to end the streak and everybody was rushing the field and it was one like we just won
the state championship so that's a that's a moment I would like to bring back at the end of the season all right but my goal is to put a product on the field that you're proud of um our kids are going to work hard they're going to compete they're great kids I'm just excited for the opportunity fortunately we get to start a little bit earlier
than they used to in the past June 16th is the first day we can officially be on the field um so looking forward to that and uh just getting the guys in the wait room for the next couple months until we're ready to go so I appreciate it don't want to take out too much of everybody's time but looking forward to everything and thanks again thank you
welcome welcome welcome thanks coach so no pressure do better than last year right okay all right so we uh move on uh can I have a motion to approve Administration curriculum instruction and people Services sure excuse me
president uh before we move on to that I just want to just a couple clarifying questions about the uh the the calendar if you don't mind sure sure um uh uh Dr alderi you said the the calendar here that's attached to the agenda electronically includes the changes that
you had made and not the one I'm I I wasn't following that it's only it's what it's just for conferences actual conference dates right now oh okay yeah it's so but the but the professional days and the half days and the days off are all the same it's just the movement of the conference the
conferen okay I just no thank you I was trying to follow but yeah no problem thank you that's it okay all right so can I have a motion to approve Administration curriculum instruction and people uh Services special services
motion okay okay Mrs White and uh Mrs pen okay Mr ero yes Mr ronac Patel yes m go ahead sir only AB abstain on anything
related to C International that that would be the next portion of the oh yes but I have I got it okay uh Mr Lugo uh yes with an ASX if I could just explain with with the AP uh Human
Geography I was excited to see that it was entered um um I have a very I'm very fond of geography myself but uh yes with with asri mean that we actually follow up to make sure it's introduced as a as a general education for you know for the
broader students to take advantage of geography course work Mr Romano uh yes Miss White yes Miss ping yes vice president Patel yes president she yes motion carries all
right so let's move on motion to approve Finance can I have a motion for that so so actually one more just question with with uh uh with the finance so there's a there's a couple here in in executive content that were put up twice and um
one of them looking at the cash report I I it is it edited was it uploaded twice in error I don't see a difference between the two of these um is there a difference no there should not be the attachment that was submitted the only
thing that was added back was the bill list because there was an add to the bill list okay because from the original yeah but there but there's two cash reports I printed both of them out they're they're identical I don't see a difference there's no yeah there would be no difference two you're talking about the
treasures report yes yeah yeah yeah treasury probably just a duplicate upload it's the same report added twice okay and two um about the bills list so there's only one that's going so there's two there there's a bills list and a
revised Bill bills list the difference is about 1.7 $1.8 million between an add right it's an add to the overall list yes add to the overall list okay so it's it's basically so you don't have to re like when you're adding when you're developing the bills list and you're
still processing everything if you're going to add something right so you don't have to reprint you know 20 odd Pages 30 pages right okay okay only because I was stuck going through seeing what the differences are kind of like between the two they're both 116 you know pages long
um but um um but with the um uh with the revised with the revised Bill list um I think um um the audience got it got it right um with with Mr
Rivera's statement um the uh the line item here for Hatfield Schwarz l see that decision was made last year um I'm not quite sure why it's back here um but the decision was made last year by the
overwhelming majority of the board I don't know why it's back again this year but um is there since it did get voted on multiple times and was voted down is there a reason why it's added back because that was the decision by the prior
board to my knowledge as I recall it I don't believe I believe it was discussed at other points in times during committee meaning confidential session last the previous board not with this board I've it to my knowledge it's never been and I have the knowledge it's never
been on the bills list before this is the first time it's this is the first time correct it's been presented the other times it was discussed in committee or in confidential session rather yeah my my understanding it was never brought up for a public vote and this is the first time to put on a
public vote that's accurate and uh there is a the uh the bill also reduced uh by quite a lot and that's why sh yes uh what was originally discussed I'm not sure I can talk about
it no you can't it's close session see so I'm going to you know with Finance uh I'll just give you an advanced no okay thank you anybody else oh okay I on the Hatfield
Schwarz I'm fine with the whole Finance Report with the exception of that one on the definite no on that okay all right can I have a motion to approve of the finance resolution motion okay to have a second
okay Mr Aro Mrs pen cour Mr ero yes Mr ronac Patel yes and absent to anything Rel to C International thank you sir
noted Mr Lugo yes with the exception of the line item Hatfield Schwarz LLC noted Mr Rano no on the whole packet Miss White yes on everything with
the exception of Hatfield Schwarz Miss Pang yes Mr vop Patel abstain on the entire Bill list I'm sorry the enti yes accept the bill list abstain for the bill list
the okay noted president sh yes motion carries all right so now we're open for public comments uh anything uh can come over and make comments uh six minutes so
they yes the gentleman in the back behind Dr to yes no no no yeah my name is John Zoro s z Ur R KO o I live at seven dorine Court d o r e
en that's in Edison it backs up to the uh school property for the elementary school which is Meno Park yesterday I was awakened to the
sound of a 4T maybe close to 5T diameter tree that was at least 50 ft high that fell on my property or near my property and exploded like a
bomb I've lived at that address for at least 52 years and not once in that time frame has a major cleanup been done on those woods along
Jamaica debris in that area has been landscap apers dumping even the people that did the improvements on the uh expansion of the school in the
back dumped construction debris there a few times the maintenance crew was nice enough to come out and cut a couple of trees but they left the stumps and they left the cut off branches
there and as we know from the California fires the Department of Forestry has said that what exacerbated the fires was the fact that none of that debris was ever called it was just left there to rot and get to
be smoldering of Inferno type material so I'd like to implore this board to do something about cleaning up that area because we're asking for a potential disaster for instance this morning if
that tree would have fell on a bus or fell on some kids you'd have a very very bad situation secondly I think that there could be monstrous
litigation because of the fact that that area has been unattended to so I think it's in the board's interest as well as the interest of everyone in Edison to have these Woods once and for all
thoroughly cleaned up now you can say it's an expense and I know that but then again if you wait another 50 years and amortize it it's not that bad an expense so please look into this because
it's a hazard and it's waiting to happen and you don't have to be a forestry expert to go out and look at the trees they're dead the stumps are there there's debris all over the place and it's just the fire that's waiting to go and if it goes it could threaten the
school it could threaten the houses it could threaten a lot around there so please be responsive and look into this my number is 732 742 7121 if I can be of any assistance I've
been here a long time please call me again the name is John zerko SZ KO thank you very much thank you you got a number yeah no thank you we'll follow up with you absolutely we will follow up with you thank you very
much okay so actually um I I forgot this uh um we need to go through the committee reports first so let's go through the committee reports and going reopen up for the um uh the public comments sorry about that so uh committee reports
so Mr she yes I noticed with the committee reports the library report I just like to yeah let's uh let's uh go through the the the the one all the agenda then we can add the library please yes thank you okay so
Finance facil yep hello everyone so we had a two finance and facility meeting one on January 27 and another one on February 18th uh on January 7 meeting uh the committee
met for the first time on meeting started with with meeting the B Bond Council uh to discuss the financing option for future projects and the potential refinancing of existing leases to determine if it would be advantageous
for the district the next representative was from the USA architect uh met to discuss the final steps in preparing the James Madison Intermediate School uh project for the bead based on the architect's information the product uh
project should be ready for the bead by end of this uh this month the Addison high school project third phase which includes interior altercation expansion of Orchestra room and classroom Edis were discussed during the discuss with
the potential beat dates for the phases that requires it the committee also reviewed the project status list from the DMR Architects and the meeting ended with Mr to uh providing the brief overview of the budget process an impact of potential increases state aid and
other factors that are to be considered When developing The District budget the meeting ended about at 6:30 p.m. and in attendance were Vishal Patel Ral FICO Rona Patel Jeri and Jonathan toad um the
meeting happen again on February 18 uh from 400 P p.m. to 6 p.m. attendees were Vishal Patel Ral Faro ronic Patel Jerry C Jonathan Toad and Eddie aleri um the capital projects committee reviewed the
discuss the following projects VRA Buon DMR field renovation it was approved for fiscal year 25 budget John Marshall uh the DP njd rejected and um asked us to revise the
specification uh DMR will rebid in the March JP Stevens cost estimate for engineering and Paving parking lot are being prepared by the DMR it was approved I mean for the for the cost estimate work was approved for the DMR
um JP Stevens Access Road discussion um we are considering to have another access road for JP Stevens from newo road so DMR was approved to work on it uh for fiscal year 26 uh funded JP Steven science lab renovation it was
approved for f26 uh funding Edison High School switch switch gear project to be awarded on February 25th Edison High School phase one interior renovation to be awarded on
February 255th SSP jmi it's scheduled for bid March 12 and award on 29th JP and EHS phone and security system upgraded upgrade project has been funded for fi 26 JP and EHS softball
field renovation project has been approved for f26 jams Bus Loop and parking renovation has been approved for F5 26 JP Stevens uh for science lab renovation approved for f26 air conditioning GMP and Washington
approved for f26 EHS Orchestra room approved for FY 26 and Eagle Scout projects was approved as well um for financial discussion FY 2024 audit uh was reviewed that was
presented earlier in the meeting fi 2026 pre program or you know committee discussed the program and options for financing the program prek building leas was discussed fy0 know FY 2026 tax levy
uh discussion happened uh capital projects was discussed uh some bank and finance no fiscal special the Food Services uh items were discussed um thank you okay thank you so um I just want to highlight uh
some other the things that in this uh in this committee report um so one is the U John Marshall school we are going to go out the bid in
March and we received some feedback from d uh on that so we're going to go out and rebid and this is a $30 million project okay
and uh the other thing is the um uh jmi jmi was supposed to be going bid um last January and finally uh we're moving forward uh next month to uh uh to go out
to bid on this one there are two other things I was discussed before um one is the um the access road from the the to the back of JP Stevens from uh new do that was discussed in 20 U 23 because
was no movement um on that so it's it's it's on the plan right now and the other one is the traffic pattern at John Adams right now the uh the pattern is not good so it's blocking each other so we're
going to take the the front parking away and add the parking in the front make the front parking a a Dropout uh place so to uh help with the traffic um these are things that's planned before and it's it's not not done
um so the other key uh item I want to bring it up is we're going to fund uh upgrading four science lab in JP Stevens okay and uh this is to uh
anticipate what was a presentation was the the different Pathways uh the LR uh iight house the um you know the the stems and and and whatever and also I hope people remembered um three years ago
um the biology lab was cut from two periods to one period and uh our students lost the competitive advantage on that course so with these four Labs we're going to bring the two Labs biology
back right so it's important that the you know we can get it done before the um you the new school year so uh there are a lot of a list of a lot of other items on here too um Edison High is
going to interior uh renovation is going to get redone is is going to be done and also the orchestra room and uh also on here is a switch gear switch gear is uh we're putting a brand new switch
gear to take all the load if we down the road we're going to put air conditioning this switch gear is is uh has enough load to air condition the entire Edison High School so people will say h you know you will never get it done the Edison High
School never get it done because the the infrastructure is so old this is the first step to get the brand new HVAC into it into the Edison High School so that's my comment and with that said uh
CTC thank you um so before I start I just want to confirm the new um the upgraded classro in JP Stevens will be expected to be ready by September yes okay thank you thank you for the finance facility committee to you know work this
out because I remember uh yeah a couple years ago a lot of students and teachers came to this board meeting and express their concerns over the biology lab being cut and they are afraid that this might hinder this our students um
academically so and at that time I promised that I would work on this as soon as we have the classroom available and now that with these four science labs available in JP um I'm sure our um curriculum committee will work with the administration to see if we can restore
these bi biology Labs um that I'm going to start with the curriculum committee reports so we have uh our first meeting in January 30s from 4: to 5:30 p.m. in
caucus room we have two supervisors Mark uh social study supervisor Mark D vachino and uh supervisor Nicole helping presented the proposed eight new AP courses for our high schools AP human
geology geography AP psych and AP cyber security the committee reviewed the logistic of these courses including the placement criteria I also want to take this opportunity to thank these two supervisors for their work to introduce these new courses very interesting
courses uh not just the easy AP courses um AP cyber security is a brand new College Board course and I know a lot of students who are into computer science will be excited about it apsy is also F fascinating and quite useful and
geography um well it was actually a required course back in my middle school I still remember learning about Yellowstone and uh Cowboy culture on the other side of the the Earth so we we would really like to Foster the interest
in geography so the committee actually proposed to introduce geography as the elective in our middle school so we like to see that happen all the detailed information would be shared to our students before the elective course registration
begins we also talk about the STEM Academy and Pathways that won't be you know repeating that because I think Nicole has already give a very excellent uh presentation about the pathways uh we also talk about the colliding frequently colliding Tax test
schedules the committee come with the concerns about multiple tests being scheduled on the same day in our high schools causing a lot of stress and challenges in managing this uh preparation I've heard complaints from students parents and our staff members
where there are eight test in one week and students you know they have to study for later exams of the day in other classes like working on math in Spanish or gym class so to address this the committee recommended implementing a
structured assessment schedule which with each department selecting a designated day of the week so that we can prevent schedule conflicts for example just for example major math test could be on Mondays English test will be
on Tuesdays and so on so hopefully this would help alleviate some of the stresses for both our students and our teachers the last thing we discuss is the SAT tutoring the committee discuss the ways
that the district could offer more free resource to help our students prepare for sat this is also on the campaign you know uh discussed during the campaign last year and we have some good news we have confirmed with the district partner
Varsity Tutors that they offer free SAT prep through their own demand platform so to our students our high school students who's prep preparing for sat be sure to check it out and take advantage of these free resource it's
available to all our students in the district and we'd love to hear your feedback Additionally the committee is exploring more structured and subject focused satat T touring options possibly
during the summer so stay tuned for um updates that's my uh that's conclude my curriculum committee reports okay thank you m thank you Miss pen so um you know the SAT tutoring uh please make sure
that we advertise that uh so the students can take advantage of it yeah we all know uh sht tutoring is very expensive of we offering this free tutoring please uh take advantage of it and uh I just saw this the academic
Pathways I I mentioned a couple of them uh I mentioned four of them but I missed one more there's a pre-law program thank you so we have Stam business computer science SL AI cyber security alll house and now pre-law
these are the tracks that we want to pursue fantastic thank you very much few more a a few more plan okay all right so next is community relations and the parent advisory committee oh that's me so before we
begin I just want to quickly highlight the purpose of this committee we um we often talk about transparency and to me true transparency come through Communications the goal of this Comm commun community relationship committee is to create a clear and open Channel
between the Board of Education and the entire Community our parents students staff and administration our role is to keep stakeholders informed of what's happening in our schools and also Gathering feedback and concerns from our community so that they can be addressed
the board cannot be on island it must be connected to both the admin Administration and the community to be effective I firmly believe that communication transparency are the key to a successful board and this committee is here to serve this purpose so with
that said our first Community relationship committee was held on January 28th from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. in caucus room with attendees Dr Adali Dr Chris hus Mrs Heather Danielle Shannon
pen Ana Patel Mr Jerry she and Mrs gennie White we uh started with a few updates from Mrs Daniel sages uh it it's abbreviation for superintendent Advisory Group for
empowering students so we have this new initiative we have 50 plus students who volunteers as sages from both of our high school and they had their first meeting
earlier that day on January 28th at at Center I also heard some of the feedback from our students they're very very positive now that they can talk directly to our superintendent which has never happened before and they can freely
Express their concerns so overall they feel uh great to get involved in our school matters and we are planning for future meetings uh to be happened in our each of our high school in the following
months and I think this is a fantastic Nation and I applaud for our Administration team to make it happen the second update we got is the parent University which took place on January no on Wednesday February 12th TW
at Addison High and we have a job fair coming up scheduled on Thursday March 6 from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. at Meno Park Elementary School and I hope with you know Addison's excellent reputation we could attract a many
uh talented teachers the committee um also discussed as promised on our campaign flyer last year we are working to provide benefit for our Edison senior citizens the taxpayer who don't have children go to
our school anymore to Foster this community engagement we plan to offer free tickets to our school events like plays musicals and sports games the committee discussed Logistics including
how to create and distribute senior ID cards Provide frontex support at ad Center and coordinating with Addison senior centers so if you're a senior citizen interested in attending our school events for free please reach out
to our committee we will be very happy to assist you we also talk about Education Foundation the committee reviewed organization structure including X official members Foundation officers and the recruitment process
final detail will be confirmed soon and shared with all parties and in the meantime if you know if you're interested in participating please reach out to the committee or any board members we love to hear your ideas and suggestions um last thing we talk about
was student interns the committee discussed expanding districtwide student summary internship as a professional I I understand how valuable these first internship experience are for future careers and as
a parent I know how tough it is to watch kids sleeping and do nothing all summer so talking about experence from experience so this summer we're bringing our students intern to our Stu to our into our district and we're actively
seeking partnership with vendors and local business the board is committed to create as many internship opport Unity as possible so stay tuned for more good news on this top new news on this topic that is our first meeting let me
get my second meeting so we have been you know working hard the committee met again just a week later for our second meeting I'm proud to say that we're working hard and making progress and a big thank you to miss Daniel for hosting
another meeting so soon allowing us to to dive deeper into the discussion and get things rolling there so the second meeting was held on February 6 2025 from 4 p.m. to 5:00 P p.m. at caucus
room and uh in this meeting we focused on two new initiatives the first one is the monthly newsletter again this committee is focused on two enhanced communication and transparency so to achieve this we are
going to collaborate with the administration team to provide regular monthly newsletters with important District updates the committee discussed the logistic of the newsletter covering its format content and frequency the
first edition will be released on March 1st featuring updates from our schools as well as from our board parents will get a glimpse of of uh what's happening in our schools and where the board has been working on you will be the judge of whether this
board is doing its job or not the second initiative uh is the parent involvement Paul parents United in listening sharing and engaging this is a brand new initiative and once again Mrs Daniel
came up with a fantastic name fantastic name Paul similar to the stage Pro stages program that get students involved Paul is uh about engaging parents the idea is to
for is for the committee and the superintendent team to host a larger scale parent meeting every couple of months during after work hours to encourage participation but as it turned out participating is really not a concern at all just two days after our
registration opened we had more than 150 parents sign up and we actually had to close the registration earlier than expected so in summary Paul is a platform for parents to ask questions share concerns
and offer suggestions it's open to all parents on a first come first serve basis it is basically a bridge connecting our parents with the board and administration reinforcing open Communications our first meeting will
take place this Thursday in 2 days at 6:30 p.m. and I hope I hope it's going to be a productive event for all of us and given this uh high demand the committee is also considering holding the meetings more frequently to better
meets our parents' needs um oh and I forgot we mentioned uh we discussed one more things the JP JP Pride Partners initiative so we knew that uh our JP Auditorium will be ready
soon and of course this committee is uh brainstorming ways to secure your donations to support our high school art programs so we've come up with a couple of ideas buy a seat campaign so you can sponsor a seat with a personal
personalized name plates and the war of recognition so you can also purchase a commemorative plaque to be proudly displayed on our Auditorium War so once we finalize these plans we will share
the details so you can get your names on the wall while also helping out our to fund our art programs it's going to be a win-win situation thank you that's all for the uh Community report thank you thank
you so just a couple things I want to mention is the Education Foundation this is something that uh um I wanted to to get it done two years ago and I'm finally we have that in in place so we're going to uh start setting up uh
the um the foundation soon with the uh their executive board members and so on so we're going to send out the emails asking the the community members to um um sign up for it so we'll go through the process and and select the um um the
executive board and they can take the um um the foundation and and and run with it of course the school board will do everything uh we can to to help them and one of the other things that was mentioned in the uh uh committee report the internship it's very important that
uh uh not only our kids get out of the home instead of playing on the computer to do something that's useful and also make some money and also help the um you know sta Staffing uh uh a little bit for the district so um two years ago we had
the internship uh for the in a district we also have vendors are participating in providing internship so we'll continue to are um looking for opportunities uh from our vendors to give back to the community and so we can
see if we can get more internship this year than um you know two years ago um and that's it all right so we have policy committee um Chris thank you board President we had
our uh our policy committee meeting on February 10th and in attendance was my myself along with other committee members angena Patel Rona Patel and uh president shei other attended other attendees included uh Dr Alder relli uh
Dr Christopher hus Dr Tui uh Miss Heather Daniel and Mr Patrick assain so the policy committee met on February 10th and we reviewed Strauss SME policy alert number 234 the alert focused focused on mandatory policies that were associated with the uniform
State memorandum of agreement between education and law enforcement officials based on the 2023 revisions and updates in the law Mr cassin provided an overview of the mandatory changes to these policies next the committee
reviewed General policy updates including the outstanding mandatory policies from our 2024 audit the committee reviewed all the necessary revisions and options Dr alderi answered questions at the conclusion of the
meeting regarding the District's mandatory student attendance policy and we ended up concluding our meeting at 6: p.m. and that's pretty much all we have for the uh policy committee thank you thank you very much so uh you mentioned
the student attendance policy uh actually I got the uh some questions from parents um their students uh attend these clubs and and extracurricular activities they go out to do competitions rep
representing the state and these are the clubs that's some of them are the school club some of uh them more of them are not the clubs in the schools so um when they come back and they say that
that you know uh it's the absentee was that uh unexcused so we talked about this uh and now I'm going to have uh Dr Arelli uh talk something about about this policy you know moving forward yeah uh thank you Mr shei yeah uh during
the committee um these questions were brought up in relationship to the policy but um uh the uh regulation is probably what was uh uh discussed the most right so the state really uh only acknowledges uh two aspects of attendance you're
either here or not here and um excused absences are part of a process here um that almost all school districts in the state of New Jersey abide by um along with the minimum requirement for reporting to parents uh and the mechanisms for that um but in the
instance in which uh Mr she described uh we talked about the um the excuses that are outlined in policy um that would be provided for an excuse absence right it would be the use of a doctor's note um the observance of
religious holidays um and then there was two Provisions which were discussed in relationship to your question um in the regulation which were educational experiences right uh as well as um discretionary pieces um that are um you know uh administrative
in in nature in regards to that um so in the event that there was any confusion as to whether a absence was excused or not excused you know obviously your conci would be your building level leadership um and if they have ever any questions they you know they would
always um give myself Dr hus or the uh Chief academic officers or Dr to weic call okay thank you thank you all right so uh not on this uh uh agenda is the um uh Transportation committee we had a a a
a brief meeting yesterday um there was some a little bit mixed up with the schedule so just the me and uh Mrs White were in attendance and from the administration side uh Dr AR uh Mr to
and our head of Transportation um Dr so uh we reviewed the U um the the subscription bus last year and plus the uh um the mandated Transportation we're transporting about a little bit over
9,000 students um you know this current year um so we talked about the providing uh bus service to all uh and uh after the discussion
session so we have decided on March 15th we're going to open up the portal to have uh parents who are interested in the transportation service those are the people who has not received the service
before to register and uh so we're going to open up the registration for about 3 months and uh based on the demand of the registration uh uh we will see if we can uh secure uh transportation for these
students these are the students they that's not provided Service uh right now and they're probably within the one um one uh one a quarter and uh within the one mile um uh radius so um so we're
going to open it up and we'll see what the demand is again this is not a free service it's a subscription service uh when you live outside the two and two and a half mile radius the it we provide free services and this is within the uh
um within the the the radius so let's see how how it works out and um and let's hope we can uh provide more buses so every one bus we provide we can get 850 cars out of the the street so this
is um you know and alleviate some of the congestions uh during a school start and dismissal time so March 15th I watch the email and uh register we'll open it up for three months thank
you okay so now we are back to excuse me uh president may I just make a comment for the transportation committee um I would I would like to give my sinc serious apology for not being able to make the meeting yesterday yeah due to circumstances the um that that time
schedule on calendar it it escaped me and I just want to I I hope you accept my apologies AB to to the board and uh to the staff for not not being able to make it thank you so I was going to actually mention
this uh in the in the in the uh U board member comments um but since Chris brought it up um I'm very very grateful that Chris is here today so uh his uh father-in-law just passed
very very recently a couple days ago so um you know that shows the dedication of our war members coming here um you know to um serve the public so our condolence and prayers goes to you your family and
just let us know if there anything that we can do to help feel free thank you for those words thank you thank you for for coming to the meeting really appreciate it okay with that said so so we're going to resume the public
comments so okay Harish Beth you're next Harish 45 McKinley Street um thank you Jerry and Shannon for giving the update on jmi the jams traffic study and the biology Labs Jerry I know you can
read my mind you knew that I would be asking about that anyway um better late than never and hopefully along with the traffic study the lane will also be widened there's no
no study we're going to do it okay thanks I still remember the dimensions and the rainy day that uh me you Bal we took the dimensions 26.5 28.5 and 30 anyway uh so coming back to the
curriculum they say a picture is worth a thousand words and I think all of us pretty much agree on that and lot has been said about arts and today so I know two years back uh we had
that uh unfortunate changing schedule for arts and U World Language uh in Middle School um the change in AB schedule and all whatever it was uh I still don't
know exactly the root cause is is it I'm assuming it's not a scheduling thing uh because we have enough money to hire an additional teacher so most probably it is the space constraints uh so that brings me to the next question like uh where exactly are
we with the jams expansion I will stand by what I said in the past obviously High School is more important than middle school and since both the high schools have been addressed I think it's time we move on to uh addressing the overcrowding situation in terms of building more
rooms at a middle schools so especially jams I know there's no architect plan there's no ideas for funding Etc but that is something to consider and more importantly so if it is because of the
space issues so it would be helpful for us parents um um if we could get a confirmation like if this is going to be the situation for the next 3 years so that though I know music is for the entire year music has a separate
Music Room Band Room whatever they call it but if arts and uh Spanish or French World Language is going to be 6 months and then discontinued for the rest of the year then it would be helpful uh for us
to get a confirmation so that we can make arrangements for outside uh tutoring for the remaining six months I mean it's Common Sense we don't even need to debate that let it be art or Spanish language or any other
language or any other subject for that matter like I know I made similar points earlier in the for the elementary school about science and social uh being continued and not like every alternate marking period or trimester whatever it is so if something of that sort can be
done in the Middle School for Art and World Language I know one some set of students have it in the first six months then other set of students have it in the other six months instead of that can we do it alternate weeks is that something
that is doable if it is not at least be up front so that uh we can make outside arrangements so that would be very helpful another thing uh lot of uh so so a lot of high school students
especially from JPS their parents uh they have a complaint that teachers are not posting the assignment grades and the quizzes the short quizzes and the uh popup quizzes whatever they call in a timely
manner it it would be very helpful for the students and the parents to go through the grades and then see where exactly they are going wrong and why they are going wrong is it a silly mistake or is it a concept problem or
something like that I do that with my daughter who is in elementary school I log into Genesis every day actually and there are different uh theories as to why that is being done in high school I don't want to go into that but it
would be help ful if uh there is a time limit set for grading those quizzes and assignments and uh posting it in some extreme cases it appears that uh they are being posted at the end of the marking period that would be really ridiculous honestly because it's of no
use at that time and we always complain when there is a problem so we have to recognize when something good is being done one teacher I would like to highlight is uh Mrs from GMI she was my daughter's Home
Room teacher two years back and in terms of punctuality of grading and assignments or for that matter the standard of teaching everything I mean up till now in Edison schools uh she's the best that I have come across both my
nieces they were from Virginia they are GT students they went to Thomas Jefferson in Virginia they went to Ivy Le colleges they work for uh big companies when they came two years back to my home and they were talking to my daughter they were amazed at her
knowledge about the business uh projects and science and social knowledge uh Mrs Elliot were used to teach her at the time so I hope we have more teachers like Mrs Elliot both in terms of teaching and punctuality of posting the
grades and everything thank you thank you so um you mentioned about G Adam's expansion so gam is the in the first phase of the plan John Adam is the only
school left with uh um trailers so um I don't want to put the students in trailers at the end of the day it's money once we have enough funding we're going to build we'll expend JM school
right so we have four schools that has Trail JP Stevens five classrooms you have John Adams has two classrooms you have jmi has two classroom and you have uh Marshall right now two classroom are you know are in trailers all the all
these other schools are getting expansion we're going to get rid of all the trailers and the next is is chant right we need we need a fing for that so we're working on it so that's it uh yeah you want to say a couple
words yes uh I wish that uh schedule actually was changed back a couple of years ago with with the committee's effort actually we had a better schedule I think we added one more period to all the middle school called one period um
the eighth grade actually can have foreign language every day now uh e8th grade honor students can have foreign language every day and and uh seventh and six seventh can also have it the same every day except sixth graders are
having it every other day so it was back to for sixth grader it was Back to Before and for seventh and eighth grader it's actually improved better have a better schedule than before so it's no longer like half a year half year thing that that is
gone no no no no we you can come back later so let me just reiterate seventh and eighth grade we double the word language we double the uh the the arts program okay so it's not every other day and for the sixth grader it's goes back
to the old way because we're short of Staff right of of World Language staff so we're working on it and we'll try to make that the same as a seven eight grader thank you Mr she yes I don't know
well it's public comment right yes well I have a chance to talk yes we have board member comments too if you want to respond to any of this you can you can respond the only thing I you know I really understand about the expansion I I really do uh the fact of the matter is
like trailers no good I wean we don't need that than you uh woodo Wilson's got trailers actually they made them permanent uh fact is is that you know we're talking about funding formula that's fine I have no problem with that
but coming up with a funding formula I think the public has to know about it that's all you know that's all right now I'd rather talk about what the Public's listen to the public and then my comment that would be if I would mind sure thank
you yeah I wouldn't call the wood Wilson Schools trailers because they are modular classrooms so uh they're different than yeah yeah absolutely so all right so who's next yeah yeah Beth taly I have a couple of different
questions and stuff that's been brought to my attention from Neighbors colleagues and so forth one of their questions is in the middle school there seems to be a lot of different um electives that are offered at some
schools and not at others and those parents want to know why that isn't more consistent I'm sure it has to do with staff and um space and so forth of that and piloting but that's been an issue that's been brought up a lot this week
um secondly Shannon brought up about like possible like sat tutoring for our students my question is who would be doing that is that also the varsity tutoring that we've been using and my question with Varsity tutoring is are
those tutors New Jersey certified State teachers because teachers in our state have higher qualifications then teachers in some other states that we might be getting so are we getting the most bang for our
buck for our students with the expectations and the high standards which we expect from you know our teachers and our staff giving our students are we getting that from this Outsourcing company and what costs would that be
approximately you know for our taxpayers and stuff for these kids sat tutoring and how many kids it entail and thirdly the other question that was brought up to me by some parents is what's going on with the preschools
for next year when is the portal going to be open is it going to be the same number of kids is it going to be the lottery I'm also going to ask you I know we had issues with the grant last year what's coming up with that what's that cost going to be to taxpayers and so
forth and when's that due and if we're applying for it again when when and if we know how much money and when we would be receiving it cuz I'm still worried with also the State of Affairs in the state how much money we're going to get come from that budget time I don't know
if you guys got your numbers today or whatever yet so what's that cost going to you know cost us as well and those are my questions thank you I can tackle a few of those Mr she thank you so much M talk um Middle
School different electives yeah so a bunch of different criteria right we pilot a few um at uh some of the different schools based on certification too as well um also in consultation with building level principles and the supervisors right we try to provide um electives that are based off of student
interest as well too once we pilot those we look to expand them at all of the other middle schools but um you know in certain situations do we do run into um difficulty finding staff that are properly certified um sat tutoring I don't believe meets the require uh I
don't believe there's a requirement for sat tutoring for New jerse New Jersey um certified teachers in relationship to that I I I don't want to comment that all of them are I know that some of them are um Mr Cohen would probably have that answer a little bit uh better than me and he could follow up with you um in a
little bit or actually he can come to the microphone and talk about it right now y I could just touch on the The Varsity tutor uh that that Varsity Tutors offer for SATs is all free all the tutoring from Varsity Tutors is all free yep so
in terms of bang for the buck question I just wanted to clarify that part uh and then certification uh certification so you know it's it's a free service so it's not required that they have a certificate catch yeah the when we spoke to Varsity
uh tutor they actually talk to us about you know these based on conversation they're very highly qualified and and right now if you look at you know what's going on you can have a high school student tutoring uh another one so um
you know if there's if our students goes into this sat tutoring if they find the tutor is not providing the service um you know there's a there's a feedback mechanism uh with Varsity tutor and they can also talk to um the district and
we'll we'll address that so the preschool yeah uh preschool we we uh we addressed preschool um in recent discussions not only in our finance meeting but we also have a special education meeting that's coming up tomorrow um are we applying for the
grant the answer is yes um are we um aggressively pursuing uh getting this grant the answer is yes uh Lottery will be coming out shortly correspondence from uh Dr tu's office uh will be made available I want to say we're probably doing that in March Dr Tui um uh uh
scope is going to be determined uh based off of some numbers that we get on Thursday and discussions with the Board of Education thank you hope that I answered your question so who's next anyone our school assistant says I'm considering
changing genders do you advise them of the risk do you tell them you may regret it down the line you may not be have be able to have children down the road you've done harm to your reproductive system are they celed in that way
now I'm going to stop here there's a little bit a half minute on the clock and I'm reasoning I'm stopping with about half minute left is because everyone who's come to this Podium has gotten feedback from the board I don't think I've had one feedback in the year I've coming here I'd like to hear
something from you guys what do you think about this any thoughts no thoughts man okay well thank you for your
time thank you anybody else good evening and thank you for your service uh my name is Geral Mago from the Dolores Turco foundation and today I'd like to talk about meaning and
values and how the lack of it relates to the epidemic of loneliness and unhappiness among young people and what we can do about it now some of the reasons why young people are unhappier than any time before the DAT has been collected is because of increased drug
addiction less human interaction due to cell phones and fear of the future this nation became the freest and most affluent in the world because of its Jude judeo-christian and American values the first American value was to keep
government as small as possible with non-governmental organizations is churches and clubs Knights of Columbus Etc providing Americans with friendship and help for the neediest the second is middle class values such as marriage having children family job
self-discipline delayed gratification and the third value was patriotism until the 1960s Americans grew up loving our country admiring our forefathers valuing our Liberty what made America exceptional was not its flaws which are
Universal but its virtues which are not unfortunately these values have been attacked uh children are led to believe that God is nonsense our country is evil marriage is Obsolete and their Futures Bleak the results are devastating the majority of birth to Millennials are
unmarried women yet single mothers are the loneliest of all Americans people today have more money Better Health better housing live longer and yet they're lonely and unhappier than ever before Victor Frankle in his Masterpiece man search for meaning found that aside
from food the greatest human need for meaning is for meaning nothing has given people more meaning than religion the decline of religion is the biggest reason for loneliness in the US and around the world every human being is created in the image and likeness of God
their lives have great value dignity meaning and meaning unfortunately onethird of Americans born after 1980 do not affiliate with any religion I realized that we cannot promote religion in public schools but we can teach values such as
self-discipline delayed gratification and how to avoid risky behaviors and research shows that if students graduate from high school get a job get married and and then have children there's only 2% chance they'll become poor um and
that's called the success sequence and as part of a poverty prevention program our foundation brought these optimal standards coupled with tutoring to baringer high school which has one of the lowest graduation rates in the state with the highest rates of poverty and
teen pregnancies and STDs and as a result of the pilot 100 students were accepted to college and 58 maintain a 3.0 average or above since the changes in Comprehensive Health standards in 2021 sex education in New Jersey has
caused controversy especially with parents while academic standards plummeted if you want the best performance from your students you must give them the best standards in education and I can guarantee you that the optimal standards in sex education recognized by the top Professionals in
the nation is in the context of marriage and sex risk avoidance um the motivation behind this initiative is love love for kids not only to protect them from harm but to see them flourish because if they're given the opportunity to flourish
they're less likely to be involved in harmful risky behaviors parents are the most important factor in influencing their children and protecting them but education is also important if kids are engaged in meaningful activities if their minds are challenged to higher
standards if they feel good about their accomplishments and have hope they're more likely to succeed and I must say that this district has some of the highest scores in proficiencies but and I do commend you and I commend you for your wonderful programs but still
Americans want the best for their education their kids deserve the best yet Americans are at the bottom of the spectrum for educational proficiencies in the industrialized World our kids have beautiful hearts Beautiful Minds let's fill those hearts and Minds with
the optimal education standards that will help them flourish because these proficiency problems will go away when we replace curriculum that's not meeting basic literacy of uh math and literacy standards with optimal
current curriculum that does the new Administration began with the end of the transgender lunacy on the first day of his office the president signed executive orders to end child mutil mutilation and gender uh get gender
ideology out of the K to the 12 schools and make the official policy of US government that only two genders male and female already the US office of education office for civil rights has filed tit Title 9 complaints against
Virginia schools for failing to eliminate gender ideology in the kater 12 schools um that are receiving Federal funding they are investigating quote preferential treatment of students whose gender identity is not the same as their
biological sex over students whose gender identity is the same as their biological sex and Main schools there's investigations of those schools as well um the house of represent oh just a second okay all I want to say here is if we expect better performance from our
students we must give them the best standards if they're failing it's because we're failing them and I've come to believe that the only failure is the unwillingness to try something new because if it at first we don't succeed you can always try again because it's
not the one with the greatest Talent OR intelligence that succeeds but the one that never gives up so let's not give up on our students give them the best best thank you and God bless you good evening Mr President members of the board teachers administrators and
guests my name is Gail Lance I live in I've lived in Edison for 13 years and presently live in East Brunswick I have two granddaughters in the New Jersey Public School system I would like to speak tonight also on policy 5756 and the harm that this policy
inflicts on the minds and hearts of children by opening the door to confusion children's hearts are tender innocent malleable and therefore vulnerable if not protected and guided properly the job of protecting a child's heart from confusion uncertainty and
ideas that could potentially corrupt their thinking is the responsibility of each of the adults in a child's life parents teachers school counselors and administrators coaches doctors instructors Etc setting aside some of the extreme
ideas out there that that one can identify as anything he or she chooses to introducing ideas about gender identity to young children only confuses them by forcing them to consider Andor doubt their own G gender identity due to
their ages lack of exper exposure or life experience and their innocence they do not have the mental capacity to effectively evaluate this sort of information in addition for the 1% of children who may suffer sorry I just lost my
place in addition for the 1% of children who may suffer from gender dysphoria policy 5756 prohibits teachers and counselors from informing parent parents about their child's confusion and to keep separate files on them regarding this to be viewed only by School staff
and not shared with parents this is an egregious offense and infraction against both the child and the parents as well as the family unit it destroys the very Foundation of a child's existence his family essentially stealing families
away from these children by putting a wedge in those relationships and removing the trust they need to have in their mothers and fathers to mature and thrive in their lives it also now goes against policies of the new federal Administration and jeopardizes federal
funding I think back on myself as a child and how vulnerable I felt about navigating life thoughts about my sexual identity never entered my mind and what about each of you I ask you to think back about what your own childhood thoughts and experience were like were
like and how you might have felt hearing confusing information about sexual identity would the child you were have benefited from what is being lauded these days as Compassion Care diversity equity and inclusion or would you have
been harmed and further confused by the idea of multiple and varied gender identities and the notion that one could be anything he or she chooses to be and this is just the beginning of the whole thing disseminating this sort of information to Children stimulates an
ini iates the thought processes and subsequent confusion that begin to take hold in a child's mind from there the caring adults in their lives take over and further perpetuate the confusion and the lies they are believing about
themselves by taking steps to affirm them and guide them toward medical interventions would you want this for your own children and grandchildren it is common knowledge that most children with gender dis grow out of it at some point after puberty I feel like Common Sense has
completely left the conversation I don't believe any rational thinking adult would think that this idea is good or right in the very first book of the Bible God says he made them male and female no confusion there or room for
interpretation the Bible also warns those who would bring harm to children God takes the care and protection of children very seriously my prayer pray is this that Educators counselors and school boards across the state and the country keep
the welfare the mental soundness and stability of all children at the Forefront of their minds when making decisions on their behalf not separating out not separating out a particular group as special at the expense of all the others at the Forefront of the
decisionmaking process should be is it in the best interest of all children does what is being proposed keep keep the children's Hearts pure innocent and unaffected by things they are not equipped to understand as we are all now aware the introduction of Dei materials
into the mainstream has perpetuated the explosion of transgenderism all this phenomena is is young people crying out for attention Longing To Be noticed and doing things they know will get them the attention they crave I dare say that this
explosion has put a tremendous strain on the resources of our schools and many other areas of society I heard an important an important sentiment recently at another Schoolboard meeting what do you want your legacy to your
school board to be one of in one of taking innocence and stability away from children at the expense of giving them a strong core education or one of protecting young minds and hearts strengthening children academically and
steering them toward their best lives this is an this is the important decision you have to make thank you for your time this evening and your service to this community I urge you to vote finally to resend policy 5756 from this
District thank you thank you hi um my name is Cindy Ma and I'm from Edison I want to I also want to address um policy 5756 again this
anti-parent policy was resented by the Board of Ed by you guys okay and then the board reversed the decision and kept this policy in place I was there at the marathon meeting and when the board voted to keep
this policy of not allowing parents to know if their child is trans transgender in school this policy was never made known to parents in the first place it was put in place without any public disclosure even now if you as a typical
parent right now if they know what policy 5756 is about most parents are clueless this policy violates the rights of parents to parent their own children through very difficult times in their
lives of such a sexual um dis sexuality this policy was put in place by Educators without their consent and now parents have to fight to get back their rights as parents to know about their child's sexual identity in school
is outright crazy I was there at the board meeting when many testimonies were given that this policy 5756 will prevent transgender students from committing suicide and it will keep them safe from
their parents who would try to change them that is not true when we put children's feelings and rights of trans identity from their parents it gives children more power and control than
they are capable of it so seats of mistrust of their parents and conflicts and it destroys families and shows you know conflicts between schools and parents it causes division we prevent suicide ideation in
children by giving them the truth there's only many male and female which is God's design from the beginning of time children were not born in the wrong body they should not change the body to
match their feelings if they know that truth then they can change their mind they will learn that when they change their minds their feelings will follow they will know the truth and the truth will set them free I remember when being gay was being
normalized in school and the reason giving given was that homosexuals were born that way so they cannot change therefore you should not try to change who they are is wrong so now this transgender ideology claims that you
were born that way and you were born wrong and you should change your gender to whatever you want to narcissism is you making your own rules of reality and everyone has else everyone else has to accommodate your feelings and if others don't agree with
you they're wrong and they're intolerant bigots are we raising children to be narcissistic sexual identity is given by God it is not achieved God's truth does not change or evolve if you go against
God's truth there are consequences such as confusion depression anxiety suicide drug addiction pornography Etc these are there are destructive consequences of going against the innate
God ordained truth because we were made in God's image the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart the Bible says our hearts are deceitful Above All Things Jesus came to save us from ourselves he
can give us new Hearts he can set us free from destructive lies and we give him our hearts he can only he can feel the emptiness in our hearts that was made for him we all want the same things for children we want all children to be well adjusted
safe healthy to grow and learn and Thrive but children cannot thrive on lies teaching them that their gender is fluid transgender policies don't make students safe it makes victims when boys
are allowed to be in girls' bathroom there were bad things that happened there were cases that um will a lot of lawsuits follow suit because of that and statistics shows that you can look this
up transgenders are more most likely to be victims of from pedophiles and from being sexually abused can we please get back to academics in schools we need to be examples to our children that we make decisions not
based on feelings or fear but the trth truth now the board first abolished policy 5756 then when they came across pressure some members on the board flip their vote to keep it stand on the truth fear God and not man or mandates from
the by by Biden's liberal federal government the only countries that govern totally controls what children learn are from communist countries like China and Korea even in Russia Putin had the common sense not to all
homosexuality indoctrination in schools now Trump has called for um common sense to be back in schools by not pushing the uh 5757 policy or you lose Federal funding you can fight it out in the courts but I
pray the B the board would not would would comply to this PO to the presid uh president Trump's you know mandate not just for the sake of losing money I mean it's not just all about money there's principles involved right money should
be should not be the motivation but but truth but the truth for the Next Generation oh I'm up sorry about that stand on God's given truths if truths are not worth fighting for then there's nothing worth living for God bless you all for all that you do for our
community for our scho community thank you anybody else Ross oh Mr Ross I know here uh Mr Ross Edison High School just
uh lawyer and uh the president just want to ask for a point of order if um I didn't come last month can I get 12 minutes no I'm just kidding you know me I talk fast I'll get it try D try I take you know I got to take a shot I was going to seed my time to Mr romanit because you know there's nobody that's
done more service in Edison has done more service to the country and more service to the schools than him and um I know that he's in CL Edison High class of 61 you know me I always got to get some of this great news out I missed last month but you know I'm back and one of the great things that we have is the long lasting impact you heard
about Mr Andy Deca another Edison grad but we're having on April 5th the very first class the people that were the class before Mr romanit they're going to have a reunion the 65th reunion is going to be held at the high school and you know we got some local people coming in our students are going to help out to
serve them and give them tours so they're 65th and anniversary of Edison High the opening class where they started up um that they talked about and they went to that school so it's fantastic to see how much they're still connected and caring it was awesome to come here in this great news space hear
about all the different things and to listen to the Future Eagle Orchestra that's over here from Hoover that's going to be coming up and I'm glad to hear that in the phases of construction we'll start to get uh some work in Orchestra rooms and hopefully we'll get you will get those classrooms following in phase three so we can get those labs
in uh other things I wanted to do was it's the other thing about great is the orchestra and the commitment to the Arts is something that we always talk about and I know there's issues in things but there's you know very few districts that have that commitment and you know about it Mr she and everybody else that's on the board knows those different ways
that we have that commitment to our Orchestra how much they've grown here how much they're growing in our building how successful both bands are it's just wonderful to see also want to shout out our cheer teams that have won the state championships not one not two not three
not four not five but six years in a row that they've come out and won this year they won both game day and promotion so big shout out to coach Greg war coach Bellisario coach Yokum and coach and we've got coach Amberg um shout out certified kitchens great company Local
Company there now want to thank out we also Mr dudak talked about we have the two state champion for group four high jumpers David Brown jumps six foot 10 and I'm a boang jumped 5'4 it's absolutely fantastic but the one thing
that I really want to take the time on and I'll go a little bit quick today all of you saw up on the desk when you got in there a little QR code about the St baldricks um every year the Edison Public Schools puts together a team this was started way before me I'm just the
person who gets up and speaks about it Mr Spore another one of our favorite Marines and electricians Mr iichi in the Edison auto shop you saw miss halin talking about him my self students um and we represent we got this all started for someone who was a student in the
district but now works in the district as a secretary and this is probably the most important thing that we can do for our children is protect their health and St baldricks is something that goes against conquering Childhood Cancer by the next time you see me at the next meeting my head will be cleanly shaved
and um we do this every year we've got students last year we had a student Michael who came in he hadn't cut his hair since he left Hoover and he was a senior at Edison High and it was longer than Miss pang's longer than Miss White's hair and he got it all cut off at that just to raise a money so I gave
this to you I know that you know funds are always tight but feel free to click the QR code donate what you can um anybody that's outside the QR code is out there as well it's it's really a great thing and um welcome again the new board members um welcome back Mr ero
welcome back president she welcome Mr Patel if you guys want to demonstrate you know your full commitment we can go get the hair done and you know we'll start a team and and I'll match you know the donation I gave to mind if you start I I'll match it for you too so again St baldricks it's about Childhood Cancer
it's going to be March 22nd you can go on there's the Edison Public Schools page it's all the unions it's not just me but you know the best thing about Edison High and Edison public schools are the kids and the families and this is about protecting them because we all know some child that's been fighting with cancer we know how important it is
to keep that research going thanks as as always and we'll see you next time where we at next time where's our next meeting next time the next meeting in March in jams it's Johns John Adams all right good we'll see you over there at the new um driving
area so I'm surprised you didn't uh give a shout out to this board and and and this you know you're getting a interior done for Edis Sun High right it's on the agenda you got a switch gear which you're going to take care of the air the
the load for air conditioning for your entire school okay and the other thing is you have a Orchestra room being done I didn't hear any shout out for that
also also there's a softball field can can we run the back turfield for softball for Edison High I need another shout out for that and we're going to do one for JP Stevens too for Mr Marzano the new ad but if we can run the tape back I know said something
about the wonderful um future Eagle Orchestra and how we were getting new spaces for them but Mr Ross always wants to wait and I want to make sure stuff gets bided out and I know we've got to go through all the bid process and all that before I say thank you and my thanks will be extremely gracious when those things are are Broken Ground steps
steps all the steps and I know and I know you got to walk before you were on road and I know that you know one of the things that's been consistent you know under this under the board is the walking forward in this space is an example of it the space we'll see next month in jams is also a space so when we get the new spaces in Edison High I know
we can come back next summer next um September for those meetings you're very greedy Mr Toast would you agree with that I'm very greedy not at all okay so uh if we don't have any more public comments uh can I have a motion
to oh oh we do have one okay come Bri back you can leave hey guys okay so just want to start off with the bill list so I contacted some business administrators from other
districts the back the response I got from the business administators were some districts posted online with the agenda while other is only provided upon request or during the meeting so the bills list is provided by other districts so I don't understand why Edon Public Schools can't provide it um I do
think that that was ridiculous that this was hidden in a bills list where the public was unaware of this of this vote and I'm very disappointed for certain people not even to even think about it so the Bill's
list can be posted and I hope next meeting when I request it for a third time that I do get it on time uh let's talk about policy last year we discussed vendor and board member relations as well as potential reforms during policy meetings uh we address concerns
regarding relationships that may be inappropriate between board members and vendors um what is the current status with those discussions and are there any resulting policy changes regarding vendor and board member interactions I
do know in the past people have contacted vendors and there are allegations that people might have gotten a little let's just say a little some gifts uh the other thing I I want to talk about is I went back to the finance minutes uh I was reading the minutes
from the reorganization meeting that was added to the agenda and I rewatched the video as well um Mr she you expressed your gratitude to Congressman Josh gimer for swearing in the new board his support and commitment to our community's education future means a
great deal to all you know this was something that Mrs Conway brought up at the last meeting too of why we have politicians especially from Bergen County coming over here and and making those comments if you watch the video he goes well you brought me here so I got to speak so you know there's allegations
too that he might have made donations to certain people's campaigns but I just wanted to remind the board that in New Jersey the Board of Education must remain nonpartisan and focused on educational matters avoiding any perception of political endorsement or partnership acknowledging a a governor
candidate at a public meeting could be viewed as political favoritism or an endorsement which is not appropriate and finally uh this pulse thing uh that that I read and and saw um I saw the email I actually submitted my name and I did get
an email saying that I I cannot participate I guess I wasn't one of first 50 out 17,000 kids that go to this to this District but I do know know we offer The Parent Academy we have Board of Board of Education meetings uh we
have um other aspects in in in the buildings where we could actually engage with parents so when I look at Pulse I made a joke and I said basic these politicians undermining learning with selfish expectations so here's my questions regarding polls um how Equitable is this program it was limited
to the first 50 participants yet we have student population of 177,000 also are all schools being represented if it's the first 50 how do we know all 50 school all schools are being represented um are all demographic graffics included how are we ensuring an
Outreach to families of lower social economic backgrounds who may not have access to sign up for this because I know there's a lot of people out there having hard times that don't in have internet at home we have a lot of people that use WhatsApp and stuff like that which which deals with the the inter internet to get connections so how are
we dealing with these kids that want to participate but don't have the means to sign up for it I just think it was very unfair for the first 50 and there was no guidelines in how to actually get those 50s uh those 50 participants um and other than that I had some other funny
stuff to say but I'm going to try to keep this down and save it for the next meeting I did have a resolution that I wanted to read the visual I wrote myself but I'll save that for the next meeting thank you thank you any other public comments see none can I have a motion to
close public comments motion to close okay Mr Aro second second okay Mr Patel all right so CL no all in favor all in favor hi okay all right so now we save the best
to the last board member comments any comments from board members yes okay you're go ahead I just would like to uh thank you for the Edison High School to switch
gears we worked on that for a long time uh it's finally going to be done and when the switch gears become a reality which it's a big job the switch gears will make it possible for
us to add on to the air conditioning it's not the switch gears any air conditioning it's to switch gears first and then the air conditioning so I don't want to make uh I don't want people to be confused to switch
gears give us the electric and then we can move forward uh the other issue is when when you Bond something when you Bond something it's a
it's a project you put all all together but I want to make sure if we're going to bond it uh that what we're bonding is going to last us for the life of the bond so if we're
bonded for 10 classrooms uh it depends how long the Bond's going to be uh the other issue is if we if we have a referendum don't get scared but if we have a referendum
uh it's a 60/40 split I believe uh and that 6040 split is a lot better than bonding by yourself so I just want people
understand that yes it is your tax dollars but if you do a referendum the amount of money you get back from the state now what I'm saying is it
this if we need 20 classrooms at Edison High or 30 classrooms at John Marshall or at at least the minimum of 10 classrooms at at Linden all Martin Luther
King Franklin School at Franklin School we have a problem because the switch gears aren't aren't big enough and we can't get the electric from psng so when we put a project
together the public has to know they have to know the difference between a referendum a land lease a pilot payment L of taxes a tiff tax incent
financing so I I want to make sure that the public understands and the communications of that the community has to know why and the other end is it's really a
big thing but okay that's good uh what you really have to know is is that I only have two kids left in my school and why should I have to pay
taxes it's a pro it's a process it's a growing we're growing I just want you to understand when we put something together there's a lot of people that
are behind us that do things to make it right so I understand bonding but I also understand tax incurrent
financing I understand Pilots pack Pilots payment L of taxes but a referendum that's the bad word but a referendum you get 40%
back so if you're going to do it if you want to do it you want to talk about it we need $147 million to put air conditioning in all of our schools that's a fact
if you want to put all the additions on you're talking probably in under 120 130 million a referendum is the way to go because you get money back but it cost you
money if we put a referendum together for a high school the students that are in elementary school will benefit for it the student students in the high school will not benefit from it it won't
happen by the time they get to high school they'll be gone so when we talk about expansion I want everybody to understand what expansion is if we
expand we must plan for it we must plan for the future the future is your kids your your kids kids to be perfectly honest that's the
only way I can talk about it the only way I can even think about it my problem is simple how do I get you to vote on a plan that puts everything together and I can
give you a timeline of 10 years because that's what it's going to take it's going to take what right now JP Stevens probably uh a little less than a little less than 36
months so understand it takes time we have to expand our teachers You're right our teachers we have a problem they're the best look at look at
the way we're we are progressing that happens because of our teachers our curriculum people we have to shout out to them we have to shout out to the people that buff the floors empty the garbage
cans we have a big operation going here and to be perfectly honest we have to think big so you're probably not going to hear me much much longer but I will tell you
that I will will fight tooth and nail for expansion for our students and I just can't put air conditioning in every school because if everybody thinks that if everybody says
that that's not going to happen unless you take it out of your pocket thank you very much have a wonderful evening thank you for the time Melle yep so I have a few questions and uh conc concern I guess raised by some
students and parents for Dr R so earlier today Miss Nicole Al presented the Strategic plan and one of the topic was increasing student engagement so I have three issues I want to talk to you about and and see how we can solve it together
the first thing is some teachers do not teach in a class um when example two examples in fact where teacher gave a packet to the students and say go study and pretend I'm not in a class in another example teacher played a video
of something and did not engage the student for the entire class just you know self-learning um second issue I want to brought it to your attention is Teachers not giving back the test um one of the teacher even went to the extent of telling students and parents saying
there is a district policy that they're not supposed to return the major assessments back um how do students learn if they don't know where they are making mistakes um we as an adult learn from our mistakes they need to know where
they're making mistakes and need to know right away within certain period of time and third thing I want to talk to you about is communication um what can we do to improve communication between teachers and parents I think I shared
some example of one of the teacher um who sent series of email to the parents informing them you know very first day of the class to level set the expectation on how she runs the class what she does in a class what she expects from the parents to do it at home you know one example that she
stated was I don't check my homework um right or wrong you can debate all you want but then she level set that expectation up front with the parents right when you set the right expectation you build the trust and and that's how the relationship and student and parent
both engagement increasing another thing she does is on a weekly basis she sends out an email saying this is what I taught last week this is what I'm going to teach next week these are quizzes I took last week these are the quizzes I'm going to take next week and she
publishes class averages of the classes I think it it just builds the trust among the teachers and parent and and I like to work with you to see how we can you know solve this you know issues so let me pause and uh give you an
opportunity to respond great no thank you Mr Patel um yeah so let me just begin with um student engagement yes so so um you know the the issue that you represented just uh right now um in
isolation um you know the use of packets for instructional purposes I mean they all do have a uh a relevant purpose you know hopefully there was some form of feedback at that time or connection to a larger context um what I what I always encourage
parents to and and and their students also if um if you have questions about the learning experiences that are going on in the classroom first point of contact should always be the classroom teacher right if there's if there's um not satisfaction met with the answer that's being provided right we have a
our supervisors we have our building level principles um I'm I'm confident that our teachers are able to kind of justify some of those pieces at that time but there's always room for improvement right um uh communication I've been on that correspondence where you've commended um
uh teachers for their level of communication and setting clear expectations I can tell you that setting objectives um having students uh speak intelligently about those object objectives is the Hallmark of great teaching um that's a practice that we
implore um and it's also part of our evaluation model too so if it's not taking place on a regular basis um building level Administration will provide feedback in relationships to that and it will be noted in the evaluation model um it's funny that you
mentioned the um the the assessments uh and the uh I guess the practice of not giving um the test back I think that that's uh a practice that's been here in Edison for quite some time I I don't think it's uncommon to to
other districts as well too but I do understand what you're saying right um how can I improve my instructional practice if I don't know what I'm doing wrong right so we've got uh the edge of the sword here where we have uh routine benchmark assessments right that are
coveted and we want to make sure that um we provide the Integrity with those but also at the same time strike the fine balance um by ensuring that we're having great conversations with kids uh about the areas that they need Improvement on right and how to get that better and
provide reinforcement in relationship to that you bring up three really good points um I I've got a talented staff that work on curriculum here and and great teachers that are willing to try new things I'm confident we can get everything to the finish line so so so thank you for the response right and I
want to clarify that I'm not singling I mean I'm not seeing all the teachers do that right sure and and goal is some do and because of that some teachers it breaks the trust right and yes it's good idea to rely on a parents but I like Administration to do something about to
intervent it right to identify those people and take some actions to correct back the course right on on a second point on the on the test exam I mean I know maybe it's a common practice I get it but then now we are not competing with everyone you know everybody else in
New Jersey or States we are competing with internationally and and we all always want to try to find better ways to do it uh I know Mr R cooh has some ideas to leverage AI uh I know it's going to take time to educate teachers to leverage a to maybe generate more tests but I would
like you to make this a priority this year and see how we can Implement something like this maybe start with one subject and and and pilot it and see how we can adapt it going forward and and on communication I think again I I want you
and Mr ran to maybe use that is is an example and make it a practice across the district I know for sure that not all the teachers communicate like that uh I have two kids in a district and it's the first time some teacher communicated to me as a parent like that I have never met her I don't know what
she does but the way she communicates she ear my trust so thank you uh Mr sh one of the uh Library uh I didn't get to my give a report uh the Edison the North
Edison Library will be closing in a week and a half there will be remodeled uh construction we had a groundbreaking uh the other day uh the new the new temporary Library will be on Oak Tree Road across from from the Edison Family
Restaurant uh the Project's expected to be about 15 months uh walls are current taken down there's found foundations that have to be moved uh and they're expanding another 4,000 square feet of
space uh that is a big project and that should be uh like I said within a couple of weeks number two uh Mr uh Dr red uh how many
students bad problem here I know how many students are being taught in hallways in hallways yeah yeah how many classrooms that we don't have that we have students being
taught on carts zero go right ahead yes we don't currently right now the only time a student would be in the hallway is when their teacher has activities that take them outside there um but all instructions taken place in classro so everything that okay yes like there was
a big problem we had at a school there was a lot of okay but that's all done all taken care of okay referendum my friend thank you okay any other anybody else all right so
um you know I I actually got a a couple phone calls uh from residents about uh some of the uh discrepancies uh about the classrooms that will set at the library board so for jmi we have nine classrooms it's
coming up we have nine classrooms two flexible classroom which is a little bit bigger and three SGI and we have a cafetorium for the John Marshall school we have 22 classrooms we have one music room four SGI three teacher work room
and three teacher loues and one cafetorium with stage and uh we have a survery so those are the the the correct numbers for the classrooms um there's something else I want to talk about it is that um uh
today you saw on the agenda the board approved a a resolution to work with the township to condemn the 401 Division Street so um this is the first step that uh the the school board and Township working
together uh I like to see more continuation on that so um actually last year um after I won the election I contact the the mayor to say hey we need to work together and um I met him
oneon-one uh in December so uh then we had to um you know just to run some ideas by him whether he is you know open to some of the the stuff that we have talking about and he was very open to that that's why
we had a meeting last week on um on the 19th with his administration uh me Vish show drelli and uh um John to so we had
a very productive meeting uh the topics we discussed were Shear Services um we talked about the wo WLS and sports field which which uh you know we will go ahead and and and do the sports field and redo it because it's in a bad shape and and uh you know Jerry
you can you can attest to that and the the baseball is not in the right direction and the new gym is you know taking up some of the soccer field space so we're going to redo this thing and if people remember last uh last year uh the township was uh passed a a was put a
resolution on their agenda to contribute $65,000 to help with the uh Wilson at that time we were building the uh gym so we told them to um put it on the uh to table it uh so they're willing to put it back and it's a collaboration between
the township and and the school district the other item we talked is the the pilot program uh a lot of the towns especially Woodbridge they're doing pilot so uh you know um there's still some um we don't have a lot of bigger
projects so we'll continue continue to work on that and the third item we talked is at to Mage and cage uh there are different ideas that's thrown around and uh so we're going to have a follow-up meeting uh on that so if you
remember that the you know mayor has uh um mentioned a couple times in his sta of the the township address that he was going to give that property to us uh so we're going to have more follow-up discussions and hope we'll have something that solid about that property
it's it's a great location uh we have multiple use for that and we're looking for collaboration with the uh the township so uh again um you know I see Brian's here uh you mentioned about the
the bill that uh um for um V show uh I just want to very just be very transparent this $3,500 $3,500 Okay so assume that V show is wrong it's a
business decision just to pay that bill $3500 okay so V show is actually right when a board have a meeting to pass a resolution to have a
hearing about him he's entitled to legal representation so I'm going to ask actually asked public to oah the email on March 18th through to March 20th between Vis show and poor leadership
okay you read that email and you tell me what happened cuz he is entitled to Legal Service he was denied legal service so he needs to have representative to represent
him that's his right but the board the board leadership say no you can't have this so who is at wrong it's a board leadership if they allowed him go talk to the the district attorney it's a
nonissue so you did it wrong okay of not allowing him to have legal representation he's entitled to it so that's what the bill is his not his personal bill you want to talk about the bill let's talk about the
bills we have board member yelled at at the teacher for no reason Z Bill $648 Brian you want you want that bill go OA that bill okay we have other board members who racked up illegal just for
for different things $ 22,28 and 01 uh one cents no it's not a back back and force you no no no you don't have comments com public comments is over you can come you can come back next time okay you you are
criticizing about the bill list the bill list how we do it is exactly the same when you were sitting here last year it was just like this okay no no I I and there's no back and forth between you you and me okay
you had your chance you had your chance so you are the most biggest hypocrite okay you were sitting here everything everything was just like that I'm sorry okay thank
you okay all right thank you you I'm all over okay sir sir please the the Buist was treated exactly the same way that you were here so you said nothing when you were here but when you were there you start you started
accusing uh the the board of not being transparencies no Brian I have the floor I have the floor okay okay you was a board member you was a board member you said here you were board member you were the board member stop stop Brian can you
can you tell him to to to be quiet so with that said um make a motion to I have a motion to adjourn the meeting yes okay Joe Romo do we have a second there's
another huh the resolution is approved appr an hour ago oh you're talking about the uh de de resolution it was approved no it's already approved I'm sorry listen to people listen
compreh hi oh uh uh can I have a uh all in favor to Jun hi okay all okay thank you for the par lot hey good good