We're going to call this meeting to order. The time is now 7:01. If you can let everybody into the meeting. Thank you. >> We can let people in. Bill, I don't know if you heard that. Very good. Thank you. If everyone can please stand for the flag.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. I'm going to ask everybody to remain standing for one moment for a moment of silence for a uh board member
former board president who recently passed uh Mr. Tony Lona. I know him him his wife and his children all uh members of the community who have served the community in various different aspects. Um if we could just give him a moment of silence.
>> Thank you. If any board member who serve wishes to say anything >> Yes. I'd like to um say a word about Mr. Leona um as our president said Mr. was a former president of the board of
education here. He was very dedicated to the students, staff, and everyone here in Halen. He was a former scout leader, PL leader, and board member. And Tony put 110% into this school to make it the
great place that it is today. And uh he will be missed. And to his wife and his children who both went through this school system, our condolences are to them. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Fischer. >> Um, Mr. President, thank you. Um, Tony
Lona was a was a dear friend. Uh, he was one of my mentors when I first started on the board over 10 years ago. Uh, he rose to be a master school board member as, uh, Mrs. Fish alluded to. He was heavily involved in our PLA program.
coaching our community and our condolences with him and his family especially his wife and children uh his daughter being one of our detectives and our thoughts with thank you Tony for
your ser for your service to >> thank you the route of egress in the event of an emergency all people may exit to the right or left from this room and proceed to an exit door. All doors will open from the inside. The open public meetings announcement. The New Jersey
open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interests is discussed or acted upon. In accordance with this provision with the provision of this act, the Helden board of education has caused notice of this
meeting to be published in the New Jersey Herald Record. The board's official newspaper on January 9th, 2026 and April 22nd, 2026. Notices of this meeting indicating date, time, and place were posted publicly on the door to the main entrance to the school
and filed with the clerk in the municipality available. Roll call, please. >> Miss Sona >> here. >> Miss Cadrad, Mrs. Fischer >> here. >> Miss Garcia here. >> Miss Gatlin here. >> Mr. Guzman here.
>> Mrs. Johnson, >> Mr. Williams, >> present, >> and Mr. Kada >> present. >> Thank you. >> So, I'm just going to cut in real quick. Um, I love seeing this this library packed with people. It's a really good
thing. Um, and what we're going to look to do tonight because the kids always come first. Uh, we're going to be blessed uh to have a presentation about the SEAL initiatives uh that our district is undertaking. So, they're going to talk about our kids are going
to come up present to this board, which is lovely. And then what we're going to do is uh we're going to have uh the the board of education had asked to get information about shared services and how they're being funded. So, uh each of
the shared services employees except for Lama who's next to me uh is going to come up and kind of just brief the board about how the shared services are are divided. And then what we're going to do is we're going to take a break and we're going to do a residency uh hearing and that'll be an executive session and then
when that's finished we're going to reopen the board meeting for everyone that still wants to be here. So that's I just want to give everybody an idea what we're doing tonight. Right? >> Um for the parents for the presentation on the book if you guys want to come here so you can stand
over like where Mr. Williams is and from the side you're more than welcome to. that just please only for the presentation of the seal. Uh and Miss Cosro, >> floor is yours, Miss Cosro. >> So this year all the classes in uh grades preK through 2 grade came
together to create a book that highlights the cohesiveness and connectedness among each other. Um each grade level we assigned a focus um a different social emotional area focus. PreK focused on self-awareness.
Kindergarten focused on social awareness. First grade relationship skills and second grade self-management skills. Um I think the book was being passed around that I have. Um board members if you'd like to take a look. It was titled um by one of our SOS
students. It was titled a work of art which I loved and the SOS students um completed the cover art together. Tonight we are lucky to have prek first and second grade students sharing their
class pages for us. But before I do that, I wanted to take a moment to share who this book was dedicated to. Um, I think by now she probably heard >> I just heard like a little while ago.
So, >> well, while we were putting this project together, the teachers and I all agreed it felt right to dedicate this book to one person. This was Miss Pzano, our prek to second grade vice principal. Miss Palano,
not only are you an incredible hardworking role model for our students, you go above and beyond for your staff, you are a strong presence in our school and are willing to help anyone at any time. We know you are always there for us when we need you. The school
appreciates you more than you know, so thank you for all you do and being your students biggest cheerleaders. I'm going to invite uh prek students and their teachers up to share their class page and then we'll do first and second
graders. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Cosgrove. Hi, I'm Miss Ponero and here with me tonight is Ora Delty and our class page was all about bravery. class. We play when
we swim in the ocean to the doctor's office. >> That's great idea. Thank you. >> Hello, I'm Miss Gorgan and this is Melody Slaya and we learn about confidence in the classroom.
You feel confident in the classroom. >> And we have a friend. >> Hi, I'm Mrs. Panera and this is Ariana and we wrote about gratefulness, right? Do you want to share what we're grateful for? >> Go ahead. We're thankful for our We're
thankful for our teachers and >> that's lovely. Hi, I'm Mrs. Quimby and I have Callie Noah with me. And our class worked on ways to be kind. And on our illustration page, we have bumblebees that Callie and
her friend Rachel and some of the children created. So, she's one of our illustrators. And um a way we talk about being kind was We're going to um she and Rachel said so they could be kind by coloring together.
>> Good evening everyone. My name is Mrs. Wait and I'm here with King Arkansas and our class theme was how we show we care in Mrs. Lee's class. And so King has bought his book and he would actually like to read it for for you all himself. Ready?
Start here. Start. >> I share. I listen. I clean. I did a great job. I'm Mrs. Bonakoli and um I have two friends here, Yuri and Sophia. And our
class wrote about the feeling of excitement. And when do you feel excited? Feel excited when >> I lay on the trampoline. >> And I'm excited to see my friends at school.
>> Me, too. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Cosg group. >> We got more. Good job. >> Just we have We have Stephen and Michaela from Mrs.
Saul's class. >> I love it. >> Hey, Stephen. Hey, Michaela. >> Right here. Right here. >> Come right here. >> Hi. I'm Mrs. Saul. And our class wrote about how to be a good friend at recess, at lunch, and in the
>> You got this. >> Okay. So, you ready? >> Okay. Go ahead. recess. >> Let a friend go in front of you on the line for the slide. >> Give a friend a push on the swings.
>> Let a friend join you. >> Great. speak terms. If Saturday you fly up Open a a potato on a milk. >> Talk nicely with the foot sitting near
you. >> Y likes to sit in your boo. >> Yeah. Yeah. Great job. >> Friends if they have trouble with their work. >> Yes.
Pick up a pencil and drop it. Wait nicely and don't push past your friends. >> It's very smart. >> Do not your friends when they are working.
>> Try to cheer your friends up if they are sad. >> Treat people with respect. >> Absolutely. Excellent job. And we have last but not least Arya from Mrs. Miller.
>> Ara. Yay. Hi, I'm Mrs. Miller. Um Arya was part of um Can I show the picture? >> So, ours was all about good habits that second graders have. So, what they did
was they uh decided on flowers and then they each wrote uh their name inside the flower to show that they all worked together. And then Ari is going to share with you what our whole class came up with.
We work hard every day. Here are some examples of things second graders do. First, we follow school rules like raising our hands. Another way we work hard is by doing our homework. We try to be kind to each
other too. Last, we never give up and we ask for help. We work hard every day. Thank you. And I just want to say thank you to all the parents and teachers who came here tonight. It means a lot.
>> So, we're going to transition that. Thank one, thank you. You guys did as good of a job with you killed it. Thank you. The kids were amazing. and thank you for dedicating a book to me. I'm not usually speechless, but I have nothing to say happening and I love the people that I
work with big and small and I appreciate every single one of you. So, >> well, Miss Bzano, I know that now we're gonna call up I guess uh is there administrator that wants to go first? Have you guys decided or should
we just do it alphabetical? So we have in our thing uh you >> trick come on show us how you uh if you could explain to the board how you divide your uh five days a week between Hen and Manchester
>> in your folder there's a summary tech coordinator from Manchester region high school I did submit my report to not sure >> everyone has Um, so yeah, my j uh I hate to say it's never typical, you know, the world of
technology. It could go either way, up or down, something breaks. Um, I, you know, I'm usually on call 247. Typically though, on average, I'm about one to two days per district, whether it's remote or on site,
plugged in anywhere. system fails, I can remote in. We solve the problem, do a lot of budget work. I do a lot of architecture, all the networks here, the data centers, security, physical and cyber.
So, I'm always my hands are always in something with the project, but I'd love to if you have any specific questions for me to answer. >> I have one question, Pat. Um, just because I I think it's important to import this. In an average year, how many cyber attacks does our firewall
have to defend itself against? >> Um, last month I can say we're about 30,000 y that were blocked. So, it's quite frequent. Um, there's fishing scams, spear spear fishing scams, which are actually targeted. So, an email may
come in that says like looks like Mr. Pagani, but it's not. So, always defending against that. uh our anti virus software is always on alert when teachers like to click on free resources and download things we're protected
against that so it is a 247 job I just want to say I want to thank you and that's another work that you folks have done since it is so important it's the backbone of what we do here and I'll never forget how you rose to the
occasion pandmic you I'm not I'm not phased anymore by anything after I started uh March I'm sorry I started November like before CO so new district came in and they said oh we're shutting everything down and can you get everyone remote so that was my
first uh six months or year there so it was a whirlwind >> I' I'd like to say that the former president of the Manchester board and during co you are a lifesaver >> uh you anything that we ever needed um you were there. You were number one
tops. Um helped us out when we needed it up there and I appreciate it. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> If anyone uh in the district, they always know I'm always available when they call um there to help with any kind. >> When I when I asked that question, I thought you were going to say 10,000
attacks a year. So when you said 30,000 a month >> now I realize it's it's extrapolating at at a level that I hadn't anticipated and it is troublesome. >> It is and you know you can kind of see your patterns over time where where the attacks come from joints it but it's a
constant battle. >> Absolutely. >> We door closes a window open. So >> how are we stating software sharing? >> Um we we share multiple softwares among our districts. Some softwares have like minimum license counts where if I needed
10 licenses but they only sell 100 as their minimum um I split the the cost between the district 5050 or you know 6040 um so I don't have to pay those for those unused licenses that sit there. Um we have several software that we split
that >> any ongoing training for the staff for cyber security >> for general staff or IT staff. >> Uh general staff >> uh we do our fishing training uh quarterly. I like to send u emails to our staff at Sim Lake Fishing.
>> Um a couple other things I can discuss executive just because of the security nature. Any other questions? >> Thank you, Pat. Oh, sorry. >> How many staff members? Sorry. >> Well, I'll
be the first one. >> I texted I texted Pat one day like, I think I might have been the guy. And it's a true story, Sam. >> I'll give you that answer offline. I also want to say thank you to HBS for hosting our internship program over
here. Recently they set up a tech internship with our BCSS program. So thank you for hosting our interns over here to teach them some of our tech. >> Thank you Pat. >> Thank you. >> We have this Germaine if you can come up please. Germaine Germaine man. Thank you
Germaine. Hello, good evening. Jermaine then uh director of facilities and um I shared uh this document with everyone. So we're here to answer questions that you guys have.
C >> can you give I I understand every week is uh different, but like a typical like over the course of a month like how much time do you spend at one district as opposed to the other? Like obviously we all understand one week it might or even a couple weeks in a row might there
might be issues that require you be in Manchester or here and not over there. So we understand that, but like could you just give like a a reasonable like breakdown of what t what a typical week if everything is going good? >> Well, uh most of the time um I start my
day here in the morning and being here uh requires more time because I'm dealing with uh some personnel issues that uh I'm taking care of as we speak. And um being that the uh the building we've been having issues with the
plumbing and the boiler. So uh roughly I'm here let's say out of the week I'm back and forth every day. >> I don't specifically say oh two and a half days I'mma be here. I like I said I
start my day here and midm morning I stop over at Manchester. uh touch base with the the custodian with uh the mica the um superintendent and
if there's emergency I handle it um directly whether it be here or in Manchester I like to handle it directly and I don't leave until the uh emergency is corrected or is fixed. So, uh, most of the time, um, throughout the day, I'm
here, I want to say about five and a half hours daily, sometimes a little more. And if there's emergencies going on, like I said, uh, we have um, repairs that's going on on the weekend, I'm here personally.
>> Does anybody else have any questions? >> I just want to say um, you know, times I walk through the school, it looks looks very clean. Um, and that's very important. I feel like you and your team have cut that and finding personal issues. I'm sure you have and we really appreciate the work
that you do and thank you. >> I'll say that, you know, uh, I've never sought to find your mate. If I make a phone call, uh, even if your mates in Manchester, if I say I need you, it's
never been it's never been an issue. And I I will also say that even though I'm the superintendent, I'm supposed to know the security password to get into the public on a Sunday, a lot of times I'd come on a Sunday and get my paperwork done. And um I always forget the password and I get afraid that I'm going
to put the wrong one in. So I called Germaine every Sunday and ask him to send me once again what the password is uh because I delete because I want to keep it on my phone. But uh I appreciate you being as responsive if you ask him. And I also appreciate the fact that every project we've done together has
been on time and on budget. That's the most important thing. >> Appreciate it. >> Anybody? >> Thank you. >> Thank you, sir. >> No problem. Thank you. >> Appreciate it. Thank you. >> And certainly not. Uh >> oh. Uh certainly not last but not least,
we have our director of uh special services, uh Roberto Mendes. I submitted also, you know, uh responsibilities uh during my shared services at Evelyn and also at Manchester. So, I'm open to any questions that you may have. Um I try to
break down, you know, my hours, the days, 2.5, 2.5. Um when it's observation season, um I spend a little more time here because I I manage more staff. Um so, the volume is there, but I always try to balance it out. That's always a priority. Um, and I try to keep the
superintendent, you know, aware of that. But again, if you have any specific questions, I'm more than here to answer it. >> I appreciate uh all the paperwork you guys gave us. It's really responsive. Um, does anybody have any questions for
men? >> Doing a good job. >> Thank you. And it should know that Roberto Roberto gave a similar right might you give a similar presentation with before we had the the new report come in. So we appreciate your willing to do this.
>> Thank you both. >> So now we're going to ask our attorney to kind of walk us through the executive for the We call to go to executive. >> Um so at this time we ask for a motion to go to executive session for a
executive matter. Presidency matter. >> Mrs. Johnson second. Mr. Cerna roll please. >> Mrs. Cerna. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Fischer. >> Yes. >> Miss Garcia. >> Yes. >> Miss Gatlin. Yes,
>> Mr. Mr. Go, >> I just want to say happy birthday to Mrs. Johnson. >> That's dedication. >> That is dedication. You're on your birthday. You can't talk, >> right? >> Mr. Johnson. Yes. Mr. Williams. >> Yes.
>> And Mr. >> Yes. Thank you everybody for waiting agenda. I have a motion for uh disenrollment of the student in question. Do we do two separate for the student in question for the first
case which was presented from the board uh with the disenrollment date of >> motion Mr. Johnson second in Mrs. Sern roll call please >> Mrs. Serna >> yes >> miss Mrs. Fischer
>> yes >> Miss Garcia >> yes >> Miss Gatlin >> yes >> Mr. Guzman >> yes >> Mrs. Johnson >> yes >> Mr. Williams. >> Yes. >> Mr. Kleta. >> Yes. >> Can I have a second motion for the second case which was presented for uh
disenrollment? Would it be for immediate? Correct. >> Immediate disenrollment for the second case which was presented for the student in question. >> Motion. Miss Cerna. Second. Mrs. Johnson. Roll call, please. >> Mrs. Cerna. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Fisher.
>> Yes. >> Miss Garcia. Yes, >> Miss Gatlin. >> Yes, >> Mr. Guzman. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Johnson. >> Yes, >> Mr. Williams. >> Yes, >> and Mr. Kleta. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> I have a motion for opening of the
Florida citizens on agenda items only. >> Motion, Mr. Dman. Second, Mrs. Cerna. Roll call, please. All in favor? >> All in favor? >> All right. The floor is open on agenda items only. Seeing no one in anybody online.
>> Motion to close. >> Motion to close. Mr. Dman. >> Second, Mr. Cerna. All in favor? >> Thank you. >> We have a motion to accept correspondence. 4.1. >> Motion. Mrs. Cerna.
>> Second. Mrs. Johnson. Roll call, please. >> Mrs. Cerna. >> Yes. Mrs. Fischer, >> yes. >> Miss Garcia, >> yes. >> Miss Gatlin, >> yes. >> Mr. Guzman, >> yes. >> Mrs. Johnson, >> yes. >> Mr. Williams, >> yes. >> And Mr. >> Yes. All right. We're going to go back
to 2.3, the final budget presentation 2.3. Mrs. August. >> Okay. So, we're going to actually do the curriculum overview presentation. >> Got the curriculum overview presentation. Two points.
All right. My name is John. I'm responsible for instruction and the prek supervisor. Um I have been an educator at SPS for 23 years. Uh this is my second year in the
role as vice principal. Um, a little background, I have taught everything from K to I written curriculum for many things. I have seen lot of things happen here over the years. Um, so I think I have a a good background on what's working, what's not, and where we want to take our
future together. Um, so I'm going to read off some of my notes because I've been sitting. We've seen lots of things. We've tried lots of things. Some things that worked, some things that didn't. The biggest thing that we saw is our curriculum was always kind of a one-sizefits-all. What we were doing in language arts in
kindergarten, we put the same curriculum in third grade. It was not working for us, right? Uh we needed to find something that is starting from the ground up. We're finding discrepancies. Once we hit grade three, we were missing a foundation in my opinion from watching it grow. Um we were buying curriculums
that were fitted for testing grades, but when we were trying to bring them into lower grades, they were way too advanced for the things that we were doing. So, we were scaling things back and we were finding our own way, which we needed to find something that was more cognitive. I want to thank some of the teachers in
the building that helped me with this. Miss Muchowski, Miss Marella, Miss Troy, and Miss Ramos. We all came together and went through um you know, the things that were working, the things that weren't. When I took over this role, we all sat together and we've been working on this over the last almost two years
now together. So, with that being said, this is a quick overview and like I said, I'm going to kind of jump through it so I don't take up too much time. Um, Amplify CKLA is what we are going to be using in grades K to we currently use it right now in
kindergarten. The beauty of this is that we got to pilot it, which I've really never seen happen in 20 years. We tried it this year. We went to other schools and we watched it. Uh so now those K teachers as well as our coaches will become the masters of this and the people in grades one and two will have
people to go to when they have questions instead of us just wondering is it going to work? Does it work? We know it works. We love it. Um and we are happy that we are going to now put something in grades one and two that takes on the shape that we need to see from the ground up and build a foundation. HMH is what we use
in grades three to five and six to eight currently. We've used those the last few years. So, we are going to keep building on that because the teachers didn't like it. But last summer, we went back and we rewrote the curriculum so it was more structured. We broke it down piece by piece. We pulled out the pieces that teachers weren't using because they were
overwhelmed. We gave them the training that they needed. This summer, uh, we will do more curriculum writing, pulling out more pieces. Last year, I cut out all of these excess websites and different things that we bought with COVID because we had money and we were just kind of doing whatever we needed to
do. We scaled it back. Our literacy department, our reading specialists, they deal with grades one to five. They target our lowest level readers, which is uh the work that they do, they use more of an ill gillingham approach, which is what we were using kindergarten. It was an intervention. It
is not a curriculum. So this year with the curriculum that we chose, we are seeing some really beautiful things happen. Uh math and you is our new math series that we just brought in this year. Last year, our teachers were surveyed. They saw a bunch of different ones. This one actually was unanimous
across the grades K to eight. The kindergarten approach is very user friendly. The kids love it. It takes on um a more hands-on approach for them where the old curriculum in the younger grades was hard. You know, we weren't even using the workbook. We were kind of
doing our own thing. With this, we are using what we are paying for and we were are building on it every single time we do it. Some of the extra supports we use are that is what we take when we're looking for data pieces. You'll see some of that throughout it. We can use it for math.
We can use it for ELA. We can use it for science. We can use it for social studies. Reflex is an extra program that builds their facts. Nuzella is where we pull our non-fiction and fiction articles from when we want them to do some other topics. All of our lower grades are supplemented by mystery
science and scholastic news as well to bring in another piece of social studies and science. That's just a quick overview of that. This is kindergarten grades K to two. Uh it is an early literacy program down in the science of reading. The entire staff in the whole
building, everyone, Spanish teachers, phys teachers, you name it, we train them. They are now trained in why we teach reading, how kids brains work, you know, and why it's not a one-sizefits-all and the different pieces that we need to use to be successful. It's broken down into two
parts. Skill lessons consist of research based foundational skills, phic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, knowledge lessons. Uh, we're building deep content, their readaloud, vocabulary, writing. We're integrating science and social studies and the arts in a way that we never did
before. They're learning about the Olympics. They're learning about royalty this this time around. Um, they've grown their own plants. So everything is tied into one cohesive piece which I can tell you from actually being in the classroom in kindergarten the last few years. We
never had it. Our kids are reading. They were not reading at this level when I was in the classroom. I'll take the hit on that. They were not reading how they are now with this program. So we're really really excited it's working and uh what it looks like. So if you take a
look at the pictures, you'll see the kids broken down. There are decodable readers, uh, hands-on phonics materials. We are now working back in centers with the kids, which kind of stopped with COVID. We're bringing that back in every grade from K to 5. The kids are running the room. This is their school. This is
their building. If the teacher wasn't standing there, they should know what to do and how to do it. Lots of things are hands-on. We're getting away from putting a worksheet in front of them all the time. We are teaching them how to learn the best way that works for them and letting them make the choice on how we want to do that. Our whole groups
focus on the lesson. We break them down into the small groups. Now the teacher has the ability to work with the kids on their level. We are not only going to start targeting our struggling learners. Our goal is to think higher. What are we doing for our kids that are above the mark, right? Like what are we doing for
our enrichment kids, the kids that need something more because they always kind of slip through the cracks because we're so worried about getting our lower kids up to speed. That is our next push on how we're going to move this further when we go through it. So how are we improving it? Pilot is the program in kindergarten. We utilize MCL
and DEP digital assessment. This is a lit literacy assessment and universal screener to measure foundational literacy skills. We had to do this as per the state for grades K to three. So we measured this goal for everyone. So now even in one and two when we start with this new program next year, we have their scores from this year on this
assessment. So we can make the comparison on what we saw happen for them. Um it is used to identify students at risk for reading difficulties, monitor student progress and inform instructional decisions. We actually identified 17 at risk kids with this
where for different screenings, dyslexia, other learning disabilities. Um the amazing thing I want to say is the 17 kids that were identified through this program are 17 kids that were on our radar. They're already rais receiving some kind of support. They get VSI, uh they get lit department, some of
them are special ed, 504. Everyone was getting a support intervention already, which says a lot about our teachers and what we're doing here that they were able to identify that that quickly. Next steps, grade one and two will be transitioning to amplify. They have already started getting training this
year on this program. And like I said, now our FK teachers and our readings coaches and specialists are already trained. So if they have questions, we are inhouse. So a lot of our training now went from bringing in people outside of here to using our resources in this building and the best way that we can do
that is learning from each other and that will take over our PLC's moving forward next year. Boost read in grades K to 2 is a studentled digital literacy program. Uh it's kind of I don't want to say game oriented but it is game oriented. you know, it's a easier way
for them to get manipulating on their Chromebooks and playing the games and we can see the skills that they are going to learn. The one other thing I want to mention about this program is after these kids take these assessments, you will see skills and things that they are
struggling with. So, I can target it right to whatever Johnny needs, pull him, work with him. So, I'm going to know right away and they are going to give me the materials that I need to do that. And that is written in our curriculum. Back on the first page, I didn't click through this. There's a curriculum link at the top that you can
click. That will take you to Hailen's curriculum page where you can see it broken down word for word, piece by piece, everything that we do on a daily and how we do it here. So if that's something you want to look at and there's a question, you can definitely let me know. Um, this slide shows
evidence. How do we know it's working? So it should be noted dibbles is given in minute interventions. So, if a kid's not reading quickly in that minute, it's going to take a little bit more time and their data might not come out as accurate. If they're kind of still blending, still sounding out the words,
those things are going to happen. If we look here, you know, we see 32% of kindergarters grew one or more benchmark levels. So, they're growing. They're moving. You see it when you walk into the classroom. They come in not knowing their letters or their sounds. Now,
they're reading their devotables. They're proud of what they're doing. and it's a whole community of things happening. So, the growth is there. It's what we wanted to see and we're super super excited about that. Okay. So, this goes into our third to
fifth grade. HMH is our overview. I'm not going to read through everything, but this focuses on everything that we're doing. Foundational skills, comprehension, vocabulary, writing. Like I said, 3 to 8 was written last summer, and we pulled out all of the supplemental materials we weren't using.
We did not purchase them anymore. Everything that you're seeing, we're using. We are now digging in further with 3 to eight and building on that this summer. We'll start pulling apart even more parts that are going to work and using what we're paying for because that's what I saw when I took over this tool. We were not using what we were
paying for effectively. We were kind of just going rogue and doing what we needed to how it looks in the classroom. Pull instruction use of anchor charts. Teachers are modeling and note takingaking on a daily basis. uh small group instruction. Same thing. We're
going back to centers. These kids are now doing centers. They're diving in. They're they're learning how to run a classroom. Uh we're reteing different skills, backgrounds, knowledge gaps. So, we're staying on top of that piece of it. Uh
enhancements and additions. So, curriculum will be revised to work more specifically for the development of students background knowledge across content areas. Where are we going? We are going to align the writing piece now to match up with everything that we're doing because that's where we see that there is a deficit how our kids are
writing. Uh grades three to five are going to become more cohesive and we are going to implement supple supplemental text to deepen understanding of topics. How do we know it's working? The reading curriculum has supported a steady increase in student proficiency
from grade three to five. They are using more open-ended responses when they're doing things. If you see, these are called Wiki Six. There's sticky sticks that they're writing their words with instead of just using the paper and pencil. There is lots of things going on. There's Play-Doh. You know, kids still love Play-Doh and they're fourth and fifth grade, believe it or not.
So, these are our numbers if you look. Um, so fifth grade is not listed on these you're going to see. And eighth grade is also not listed. That is because they are actually state testing this week and these are due on Friday. So any data that is listed for fifth or
eth is going to be a little bit skewed because it's not complete. So we didn't throw it in because you're not getting a full picture of what's happening. For HMH growth, 53% of uh grades three to five kids hit their target or higher
from the beginning of the year. So they're either on grade level or they're above grade level. So that's more than half of our population in third grade uh right now. So we're seeing what we're doing with this program is working. But for me, there's still kids that were struggling because they're not there yet because the foundational piece was
missing. And that is the push of what we need to do in the lower grades to get this. This is the diagnostic. So you'll see here when you see these charts in green or blue, it's going to show you that where the grade level started. If it says 200, that's a second grade level.
Okay? Typical growth is one year, it's 100 points. So at 200 should kind of jump to a 300, right? That shows that they learned a year's worth of curriculum and a year's worth of growth. But you see 200 should start with 300, right? Because that's our grade level, but foundation, foundation, foundation.
Um, our grade four went from 308 to 406, and our grade 5 went from 423 to 52. So the year worth of growth is there. we are just not on the grade level that we want them to be. So this goes into six to eight. They do
uh a little more of a complex test evidence-based writing and independent critical thinking. Uh text set approach with thematic units, disciplinary literacy, closed reading focus writing workshops, student centered routines. We're trying to increase their independence in the middle school too,
right? because they have to go to high school and we need to know what they're doing. Uh differentiation via choice and rigor. We are trying to give them options on what they're doing because every kid learns different. Uh our assessments are still based test performing test writing portfolios and standard aligned rubrics. So everyone is
starting to use the same stuff and we're seeing it across the board how it looks. Uh thematic units are structured to balance core shared text with flexible pathways for differentiation and shorts and ways that they uh
how we are improving it. This summer we will work on refreshing all of the supplemental text with current highinterest resources. Curricular revisions will replace older articles with recent ones. Real world real world texts are appropriate with grade level units. We are going to also work on enhancing our writer and writing and
grammar instruction as well. We are we also are purchasing the curriculum in 328 for our ESL population because we know it's growing. So they are going to get that whole piece of it. They will be trained on it and most students will start to work in uh that way too which
is good for when they are not in their ESL classroom and they are in the gened classroom. They will fall in line with each other. How do we know it's working? Here's the same chart you saw before for our HME assessment.
This group grew by 40%. So, it's there. It's happening and we're kind of putting it in place to make it keep happening to 5.99. 7th grade is 596 to 6.99. Eighth grade is on here, but that is not complete because they are still testing.
So that's not an accurate number. Now, moving on. This is our math program. Our math program is new this year. Uh it is a three-year purchase, so we do have it for the next three years, and there's no cost to it anymore. Um this is the first year that we've used it. It focuses on all of the standards
that the state wants us to follow. It also has some really great um components to it where the kids are learning about real life things like real life careers. Like one lesson might focus on a chef and how a chef uses his tools in the kitchen to figure out ratios and
different things like that. So it connects them to a real life process all of the different chapters how it looks. The key to five curriculum focuses on modeling real life and building foundational number sense through exploration and visual models. When I go into the classroom and I'm watching this work in the lower grades,
they're actually using pages from the book, which I haven't seen in years because it was way too hard. It was way too high and they couldn't read what they were doing. Right? So, this is much more teacherled. They have their things out in front of them. They have manipulatives that go with it and the teachers are using their document cam
and they are creating their work together. It also shows lots of different ways to solve a problem on one page. So, the the learners have the ability to pick whatever really works best for them. So these are grades one, two, five. You'll see coming into third grade,
they're adding 83. They grew to about 150. This is the same thing. They should draw about 100 points overall. So, if you look from here, one to five, uh, grade one went up 67 points, grade two went up 59 points, grade three went up 76 points, grade four went up 71
points, and grade five went up 126 points, >> Miss Bzano. >> Yeah, >> I have a quick question on that last slide. Um so just >> so the you said earlier so say 100 for
first grade 200 for so that's what they're expected to be at by the to be on grade level they that score should be 200 at the beginning of second grade is that is that just so I understand okay that was question >> so yes so this was our first year using
it so the terminology that the kids are using the vocabulary different things like that um this is giving us our baseline kind of kind of where we want to go. This whole curriculum was also written last summer by our team and if you want to look at it separately, you can click through and see every single lesson um and what they're doing and
different supplemental activities as well. Six to eight kind of covers the key topics. This is what I said. It's more career focus. Every chapter begins with a specific career focus to design and engage and inspire all students. It kind of gets them outside of their box of things that they would have never seen
before, different jobs that they could do. So, this goes through six to eight. Uh, sixth grade had a 102 point growth. Seventh grade had an 80 point growth and eighth grade had 111 point growth. Still, these are not typically on grade
level where we want to see them, but we're building to that point with this new piece. How are we improving it? Math and you provide yearly professional development uh included in our contract. So, we have met with them about three times as a staff. Uh sometimes they break them down to lower grades and upper grades
depending on what we are doing. As we move from year one of implementation, professional development will now shift from how do you use it uh to deepening the instructional practices. This is the other really cool thing about this program that we didn't see with any other math programs is it gives you all the centers that go with it to all the
different activities for the learners to work around. Uh each year we use this program, we collect data to identify specific gaps. The data collection will help us change formative assessments and this is how we modify what we're doing in the classroom. Again, this does the same thing as language arts. we need to break it down to show kids in a
different way. It gives us that ability and we can pull the kids based on that. So there's lots of different lessons happening is the last one to write. >> Oh, I did it fast. Okay. Um so lastly, like I said, what's happening this
summer? We're going to be writing curriculum for uh CKLA 1 and two. We are going to be revamping the HMH 3 to8. We are also going to be we also purchased a new science program for this year. It was a six-year purchase that now all of our
middle school teachers have to utilize. They were all trained on that, the three of them, and now they will write the curriculum this summer for that piece, too. We are revamping our social studies middle school curriculum to be more aligned as well. Um, >> yes, sir. That's it.
>> Just how long has uh this new curriculum, Mr. Walker? >> How long has it been in the making? >> Hm is what? Three years. >> Hm is about three years. It kind of got lost like maybe a little longer with the COVID piece because like I said, we started kind of just trying to survive
and now we're kind of really reeling it in. >> So, we're seeing some >> Yes. And and the the best thing we're going to see is once now we put this like foundational piece in K1 and two the growth from there because we want to now see that they are readers and they're doing the things that they need
to do going into third grade. So we're seeing great growth with HM already. It was just the foundational piece that we felt like really needed a so I really appreciate the work in curriculum. Now I have a question social emotional
learning like how how much of help that has been to >> So that's another piece I have if any of you are interested in knowing about some of the other programs that we do purchase and use. I do have explanations on those things that we we can talk
about. Um we do have a program that we call Mugu or Schoolbee uh that Miss Cosgrove runs. She the kids check in on the computer. It's as simple as walking in and if you're having a bad day, you check a sad face and it comes up and us as educators know that something's going
on with that kid and we'll kind of pull them and we'll talk through it and it allows us to gauge how they're feeling. There's a lot of different really cool components to it too as well. Um, and now you're talking about kids not just sitting at their desk working anymore. They're working with their peers. They're working together. Are there
conflicts sometimes? Sure. But this is how we conflict. >> So yeah, my question because I know we've been big on social emotional learning especially since 2020. I just wanted to see and we've maintained that that that social emotional learning initiative >> and I just want to see if there's a direct correlation between the
infrequences and social emotional learning obviously >> I think definitely kids are talking more you know they're they're working together more they are getting along or not getting along and working through it and it's it's an active productive room so essentially I
used to say like when I was in my kindergarten room if I wasn't in the room. Any person should be able to walk in and all of you that own this room should be able to say, "This is what we do. This is how we do centers. This is what I go." Yes. Even though they're five, the ownership they take in the
process is amazing. It cuts down on behaviors. It cuts down on so many different things that, you know, we were struggling with during COVID because we did. And then we started our expansion and we had 40 kindergarters in one room and that changed the dynamic of
what we did. and we're getting back to a lot of what we were missing and it's just great to see. >> Any other questions for Mos before we move on? >> Thank you, Jim. >> Thank you. >> I have one question. We got a note here
for um the XL diagnostic for grade eight. >> Uh when will we get those uh results back for >> So, they're taking their NJSLA testing right now, grade five and grade eight. So, they had the extension to complete the test, but we after Friday, we can
kind of repopulate that and see, you know, what happens and share that. Um, >> yeah. >> Yeah. Like anything I show you right now is going to be skewed because there are some classes that took it and some classes that didn't. So, I don't I, you know, I could give you a number that's
way off or way on. You don't know. >> So, maybe by the >> next week. Next week. >> Yeah. All right. Thank you. >> No problem. >> You want me to come up there or you going to move this screen for us?
>> Totally up to you. >> Whoever makes you happy. probably click. >> Oh, just left click and go forward. >> I'm like, oh, okay. working with you.
>> Okay, so here we go again. We are here to give our um budget presentation to the board and the public for our 2627 school year. This is um one of those
years where again we've faced some challenges and we wanted to um do the best we can for our students, our staff and our stakeholders to make sure that we present a budget that um works for everyone. Okay. So, I'm going to figure
out how to you say click left. Um >> yeah, let's click forward. >> All right. All right. So, um, our budget process always begins with, um, everyone in a collaborative, uh, way as
a team. Um, Mr. Walker and I talk, we kind of figure out what our, um, goals are as far as next year, what we anticipate, what we've heard through, um, our different um, groups, his superintendent round table, my VA table
round table. we listen to like what's going on with the state and we kind of start there. So we and then we sit down with our administrators um and we started pretty early this year. We started around like um October just asking everyone to give us a more
realistic view of the expenses this year. Um like Jen said, she was able to kind of fish through the um budget and cut down on a light lot of items that are not supported by our co funds anymore. and what the district is actually using and kind of hone down on
a process or softwares, curriculums, all the type of expenses that are um necessary for us to move forward. So the administrative team and everyone worked together to start the process. Then once we kind of um got into the phase of
entering the budget, the team um all hands on deck, they entered the budget and then we kind Mr. Walker and I reviewed it and then we sat down with the finance committee team pretty early. I think I I think we kind of got everyone to take a look at the budget
and we um um then we waited we waited for the state aid numbers a little bit longer this year than usual. So um once we received those numbers then we were able to go back into the system revise the numbers submit the budget. Um I
think it was March 17, we had our tentative budget approved and then we wait for again for the county to approve it, review it. Very little questions the county asked um and we were able to kind of get an approval April 14th and here we are tonight presented it to the
public and hopefully that um we'll get a final approval tonight. Okay. So I'm going to talk more about the financial part. Mr. Walker right now is going to take the next few slides to talk about the district goals and where we are with everything
>> once I learn how to click this. >> So this is for that and I'll move this. Okay, here we go. >> Look at that. Great job. Um so we um this board chose a 2% local tax levy increase. It could have went higher, it could have been lower, but this board
chose 2%. Um another thing this board didn't have a choice over is the state aid decrease. Uh that was going to happen no matter what. and we lost about 1.35% as it's up there. Um we we see in the slides the withdrawal from the capital reserves as well as the
withdrawal from the maintenance reserves and uh the use of uh surplus funding. Uh some of the key initiatives we're going to look for uh or the district's going to look for for the 26 27th term. Uh the boilers is going to need upgrading. I
would say the biggest like the number one pronto issue in this school is going to be the piping and the plumbing. Um like it's it's both the town and it's the school like a lot of these structures are built the same kind of time cohort and it's just we see the
town we see the school like when you get underneath the earth um these are old old pipes and they're they're they're running on on fumes right now. Uh, so that's going to be an issue this year and I I think it's going to be an issue that the district has in the foreseeable
future because this is just the way it is. Um, and then the curriculum, you know, Miss Paul did a great job talking about um, you know, the the little kids ele the lower elementary curriculum as well as our middle entry middle elementary and our middle school curriculum with the HM. Great job, Miss
Pull on your whole time. You guys you guys been killing it the whole time. Um the nothing but nothing but respect and gratitude for from our my end to yours. How do I click again? >> I got this. >> I could have done that. >> No, this is for that one. >> All right.
>> See, it's hard. So, we talked about our district goals. These aren't anything new. Um these are district goals. Uh this board in 2003 made five-year uh strategic goals. Um we surveyed the community and the staff and then the board um you know met with me.
We had a long list. We took a long list and we made it a short list. And our our goals, of course, every district's goal should be increasing student achievement. Uh this district has done a fantastic job with its uh school safety initiatives. I think that I can't picture anyone's done better than we
have with that. Um, SEAL is something that, you know, after COVID, this is something this board is very committed to and I'm proud and we're seeing the not only are the the needs of the students different than they were pre-COVID, uh, but now our response is
is different postcoid and, uh, I'm really impressed with Miss Cosgrove and the rest of the guide staff and the CST staff um, and our parent coordinator. Everyone's kind of coming together to really help with this emerging need. And then as always is facilities. So you know in 2003 the big goal was like hey
we gota need we need more classrooms. What do we do without raising taxes even one little penny? Uh we were able to use a lot of our esser to create a whole new wing of our school that was built on time and on budget of course. Um but you know that's not the only part of uh
facilities part of it sustainability. And that's when we talked about that right now the plumbing is going to be this district's marquee issue for the near and the in the foreseeable future. >> It's hard. >> Um so our goals and these aren't these
aren't anything you know we're not breaking ground here with our goals. These these are part of uh the New Jersey administrative code as per the uh what's it called? the uh >> New Jersey >> the New Jersey I'm trying forget the word maybe our but it's the uh but
basically there's certain things that in a teachers or administrators or school employees professional growth plan professional growth plan you have to have a part of a chief NJ that's the act I'm thinking of uh one of it's every staff member has to have one school goal uh in their in their three goals related
to um something that happened on their some comment on their last summit evaluation one should we be related to the what the um this is not part of statute this is part what we ask uh related to our school goals or our district goals and one goal is something that they just
personally want to work on so that's one of the things we put it for our staff a very similar thing with our administration and then uh as Mike and Lisel and George have done as board presidents you make sure that your board members have goals that you you want to see align to what the goals of the
district are already messed No, that's okay. I think you wanted to make sure that >> Oh, I want I did want to put this one disclaimer is that we have these goals that I'm putting on here. I'm going to be gone in in 60 days. So, it's it's one
of those things where you know it should be known that all this might be subject to change based on the uh opinions or uh recommendation of whoever the next superintendent is. >> Uh this is our next slide, right? >> Yes. >> So, everything you see here again this is nothing new. This is something we
have to put on. Uh we have to show the county when we give the county our our budget how we're going to address certain areas. Uh you know, we address we we have to give verbiage to show how we address academic achievement, staffing, full staffing, safety, professional development, uh facilities,
infrastructure, and instructional materials. and uh how we can incorporate college and career readiness, computer science and design, vision, performing arts, uh health and physical education and planning for the future. So, uh when we
send um the initial budget to the county, we have to show documentation that shows that we're addressing that and then that's when they give their initial approval so that we can bring this document to this board. Same thing. How are we going to address math standards, English standards,
science steam, um social studies, world history? >> That's it for you. >> That's it for me. >> All right. >> All right. So, how do we get to um support all of those goals and um standards that the
district and um and initiatives that the district has? So part of the way we do that is by um putting forth a budget like we're doing tonight. And part of that budget includes a tax levy that our town um um contributes to. We also get
state aid. And so our total budget for this year we're asking for a total of 28 uh 28,154 which 6,9882 is the tax levy increase of 2% that we
are asking our taxpayer to taxpayers to contribute to. The difference of that as far as dollar-wise is an increase of $137. That is a 2% of the tax levy from the previous year. We have consistently um
increased the tax every 2% each year and as you everyone knows we do have we did have a decrease in state aid. So the consistent um request to increase the tax every 2% is at a minimum that the district and the taxpayers would should
be able to kind of support our budget with. So that is where we are as far as its overall ask. As you can see on this um slide, it shows a historical history. For at least
at least five years, we did 0%. The last three years, we've done 2%. And if you look at that as far as um dollar-wise, it's about $400,000. Over the last three years, $130,000 roughly that the tax levy has um
increased in order to support our budget. Now, keep in mind two 2% is what we've asked, but our expenses have shot up way beyond the 2% each year. Um, even if you just look at our benefits and salaries alone, that's way over what the
um the initial ask from our taxpayers to support our school budget. Okay? And at the same time, our state aid has been decreasing um in double digits. This is just another view showing how um the and I wanted to point out too
in 2017 prior to that the board was um had to do a double increase of like 4.2 um 27%. So, I just want to kind of talk about that idea of us not doing the 0% for
quite some time and and I know we're we were on the receiving end of state aid so we didn't have to do that. But when that does happen and we're trying to pay catch-up, those are the times where we have to double the um increase in the
tax levy in order to make the district whole into support of our district goals and our staff and teachers and health care costs. So, um, we've been consistent with the 2% that is helpful, but right now we're able to balance the
budget, but as we continue throughout the presentation, you're going to see that we had to do a lot of cuts in order to or reductions, I should say, in order to balance this budget and make sure that we are able to at least present a
sound budget to the county. Okay. All right. So um next slide shows us what the taxpayers's contribution is and what the annual course and assessment value according to um the request of the 2% increase. And that shows that the
overall cost for the taxpayers on the assessment value of $231,000 would be an annual increase of $6610 and that is $5.51 a month. Okay,
this is just another repeat of that. So, if we look at our revenue source as a whole, how do we support our budget? I've said a couple of times, we had a decrease in state aid um overall through
all categories. Um we um but our state aid is a big big portion of our budget. Um more than 50% of our budget comes from state aid. We also receive tuition from anything from prior year refunds to
any unusual rate adjustments that we receive during throughout the year once our um tuition costs are um reconciled through the state um rates every year. Um last year we um or this prior year the interest rate that we received on
our bank account was significantly increased. So I increased that revenue cost as a revenue source because that I wanted to make it more realistic. Um this year we're doing an e-ray project and you'll see in our expenditures that
we um the project is around $100,000 but we will be receiving um 80% of that income back. We have other miscellaneous income and that can come from anything from any type of refunds for um anything
as far as like Cobra, any um refunds from vendors and we estimate that cost and plug that into our budget. We we use also use our 2% annual tax levy. We use our reserves which is money that is put
into our budget um or our our account every year after we do our audit and we also use our fund balance our excess surplus and that's also in additional monies after the audit that um is recognized as a revenue source that we
can also use. Other options if we needed to is to is to use our bank cap. Right now we have $1.2 2 million in bank cap. The bank cap can be used if there's ever a situation where for just for instance
that we don't have the surplus we need to balance our budget. We can use bank cap and that does not have to go out to a tax vote for the taxpayers. The board can make that decision if we needed to um balance our budget and it was after doing all the cuts that we needed or
reductions in the budget. Uh at this moment the district is not using the bank cap but I just wanted everyone to understand that that is available to use in the future if needed. Okay. Other revenue sources we have is our preschool aid. Um part of that revenue
source is carryover and also the aid that we received this year. We did receive an increase of almost 20% in preschool aid and that money is specifically designated for our preschool program. In the budget this
year, um we estimated a 70% um estimate of our budget from the prior year just in case we do not receive the funds that are anticipated from the federal government and those funds won't be known until July or August.
All right. So, this is a recap of our revenue for this year. This is a breakdown of all the revenue sources that we are um budgeted for. And as you can see um just looking at this from a glance that our state aid is our highest
revenue source um for the income that the district receives. And as you can see, it's 48% state aid. But if you also calculate the pre preschool aid and also um the other aid, which is extraordinary aid, that's over
50% aid that the district runs on. Okay, this is our state aid um numbers broken by category. Our biggest contributor is our equalization aid. And as you can see, there's a decrease of over $200,000,
a decrease in transportation aid. We have a slight increase in the special education aid. Security aid went down, and our total aid overall for the top categories went down almost $200,000, while our preschool aid did increase um
over $200,000. So, our expenses, our expenses, like I mentioned before, we did a big big deep dive into everything that we um appropriated this year. As you can see, in every category,
almost every category, we did a reduction and and we needed to we had to we didn't have a um a choice. We kind of looked at to everything. Every category almost has a reduction in um the
expenses from regular program items to all the way to even the grants for um next year. continue um reductions in almost every category and child study team we had in
maintenance the capital projects are the capital projects these are funds that are set aside so um an increase in that because that is reserve money and continually increase in um technology there was a big increase I
mean sorry decrease there transportation big decrease there. What did not decrease was the employee benefits. So that is a little bit of a concern because we are at a point where we do not know where we're going to land in
January. We estimated at about 30% increase on our health benefits and we're hoping that it the state goes a little bit lower than that. Um some pe some other my colleagues estimated 32% or 35%. So in order for this to work for
our budget um you know we had to make a choice on how to kind of balance this budget and the reasonable amount was to do was 30%. Okay. So there is a opport you know deal with that in January
unfortunately. All right. So, this is a glance um a summary of all those expenses we just went over and like and as I said before, there were significant significant decreases
in different categories. And I know that you there's a decrease in this line for salaries, but a lot of those salaries were moved to the preschool aid budget to cover some of those salaries. So, there's a decrease there because that is just fund um 10. But under the um um
preschool um budget, some of those salaries were moved over there. Okay. All right. And that's just a graph. And then here's the salary. So the total salaries for the district is $12 million. And we
it's broken down by program. And as you can see, right around fund 20, you see the 305 that pretty much almost close to the um the decrease that you saw on the other screen. And that's just showing the movement there. We also moved some
of um some of the other um salaries that um were relocated and we also made some changes. So, we did the district did all its can as far as reducing our expenses. You know, we in and other areas and transportation
and and tuition and we move stuff from fund 20 from fund 11 to fund to fund 20. But overall, we still will need to do more. So, I want to make sure that this is um understood that we did what we
needed to do for the expenses and then with the in the next two weeks or so, the Mr. Walker, the board and I will be making um having conversations about other um areas that we will have to reduce, but and we're looking to um
actually reduce about $500,000 more. So, we got a b we have a balanced budget, but this is a budget that does not have um certain items that we may need for the next year. So, we're going to be looking to have some difficult
conversations within the next two weeks that we will need to address and that will be more information will be forthcoming before the next board meeting. Okay. our capital projects. As mentioned before, we're doing the boiler and pipe
replacement. These are um long um long range facility items that need to be done. We looked at the life cycle of our boiler as we you guys know that we have a lot of pipe um issues and those things go hand in hand as far as the boiler to
pipe and the HVAC. This is our equipment that we're going to be doing. And the $95,000 here for the e-way project, we're going to be getting 80% of that money back through a grant. Yes.
>> Um with the pipe um project, uh I know there was talks years ago about the cafeteria and things like that and maybe making things bigger. So before we go ahead on and and replace pipes and all that, are we sure that
we don't want to change anything in terms of the cafeteria, make it bigger or anything like that? I don't want to rip, you know what I mean? >> There's nowhere you can build other than where we just built. there's nowhere that'll support the infrastructure building on top of.
>> Um I think that um I think this this school is as big as it structurally can be unless you know five or 10 or 20 years down the road you want to go into the playground and make a facility there. >> Understood. >> Uh but you're you're pretty much where
you're going to be at no matter what. >> Right now we're at our max. >> I understand that. I just thought I remember we discussed something about the cafeteria and I just want to make sure that >> you know we're good to go on that end because there was a time where the cafeteria wasn't big enough to hold all
our children. I know down and we have the expansion. I just want to make sure that we don't foresee any other >> Well, I think the interesting thing is the the water comes right in from Barber into our c under the ground to our cafeteria. So that's the first point
water hits our campus. Um and we we we're seeing the pipes are in trouble all over the campus. But um I think because that's the the first point, I think the wear and tear over there is probably the most prominent >> and I think we also incorporate we did
incorporate in the budget the demographic study. So maybe that'll give us a indication of whether that's like expanding the cafeteria is even may not be necessary >> necessary. Yeah. >> All right. So the the equipment is the
last um slide and then um that's it. This is that is your budget as a whole. Um you know right now we would take any questions if needed. Um and um that's what we have. >> Is there any board member question?
It looks like we're in a still good stable financial state as long as they keep coming in >> comparatively. >> It depends who you compare it to. Um I think you you look at ng.com and you're not going to go a day without seeing a district having much worse fiscal lows.
I think um >> be a lot worse. >> Whenever you add a 25% health increase is basically statewide, it's going to throw things for a loop because you know 2% tax increase and the employees are getting a certain amount of pay rate
increase but now this big part of the equation changes quite quite drastically. So I think that um I don't think state why this is a stable system. Uh, but it's a system that I think we're
we're we're bleeding a lot less than than other districts. >> Thank you for your work on that. >> Obviously, it looks like the previous board's decision to spend the money on building the school and not hiring employees like a lot of other districts did really helped to be honest. So, if
you look, Edison's 5 million short. Um, West Orange, East Orange, Monontlair's 20 million short. >> 20 million. Yeah. So, um we'll jump back to where we left off before we got back to things would be I believe it is
approved prior minutes. Correct. >> So, should I have a motion to approve the prior minutes? 5.1 >> motion. Miss Cerna. >> Second, Mrs. Johnson. Roll call, please. >> Mrs. Cerna, >> yes. >> Mrs. Fisher, >> yes. >> Miss Garcia, >> yes. Miss Gatlin,
>> yes. >> Mr. Guzman, >> yes. >> Mrs. Johnson, >> yes. >> Mr. Williams, >> yes. >> And Mr. >> Yes. All right, we'll move to committee reports. Since it's already 9:30, I will give a much abbreviated version of the report that I wrote out. Um, all right.
Our finance and personnel committees met and had discussions on the budget. Uh, brief update on the CSA uh search was that we received 40 applicants. Um, that's great. The application period has closed. Um,
as we stated previously, the board uh is intent to explore every option and find the best answer for the children of the district and for the district as a whole. To that end, we did have a preliminary discussion with the North Halen Board of Education where they asked if we would
be interested in speaking with them about it. They held a special meeting um where they decided ultimately it wasn't in their best interest or align with their vision. Um as far as shared services the discussion with Manchester on March uh March 17th we requested a
meeting in writing. Um that meeting was that letter was posted on their correspondence and then subsequently removed. Uh they had their meeting on 31926. Um that letter was read out loud in the public session on 32626.
I sent another email following up to see if there would be any uh interest in having the discussions since we already share 11 shared services employees. Uh was later responded to that they would be having a meeting to discuss on April 16th. At that meeting they stated that they would later form
an ad hoc committee um and their next meeting is May 6. So with that said we are we still willing to meet with them if they want to meet with us. However, we are going to continue with our search to hire a independent um chief school administrator. Again, that was the decision of the board to explore every
possible option. I do think it's important that we uh have a good working relationship with our partners. Um again, this is the abbreviated version. And lastly, I think I'm here is there is a state county board of education meeting on May 11th for the board members. Uh that is my report. Mr.
Walker, do you have anything? Yes, mine will be mostly truncated as well. Um, just agenda items only. Congrats on getting 40 people for the app for the job. That's good news. Um, and if there's any individual questions about agenda items, obviously love to hear
them. Uh, but otherwise, it seems like a very other than the budget, which is a big ticket item, it's a very pedestrian uh agenda. That's my report. >> Thank you, Mrs. Augustine. >> Yes, same here. My report is basically the agenda items and my biggest report
was the um the budget presentation. Most of the agenda items on here, we met with the finance committee and we went over each one of them. Majority of the items are renewal contracts for 2627. We talked about a few other um in um
purchase order items and we also talked about the um accountability um statute when it comes to purchasing and and we went through and reviewed the bills list. That's it. >> Thank you. >> Any questions for Miss Austin or Mr. Waka?
>> No. Seeing none. Uh personnel management, Mrs. Cerna. Uh the personnel committee met and discussed staffing revi revising the first through eighth grade curriculum over the summer as well as the personnel for the preschool
summer program. We have several upcoming maternity leaves and a leave of absence of extension. We are also hiring a new art teacher to replace the one that departed and the teacher will be fulfilling 15 and a teacher will be fulfilling 15 makeup hours for the art club. We are also accepting a
resignation on our >> any questions for M curriculum and technology. Mrs. Garcia, do you have anything? >> Um, we were not able to meet unfortunately, but most of the items on the agenda have to do with professional
development especially for the >> Thank you, Mr. Garcia. Policy and public relations. Mr. Williams, >> nothing on policy, Mr. president as of right now. Um, one thing for public relations, uh, May 11th, um, we are, uh,
a few members are going to the S County board meeting and one of our own. So, sir, and also Manchester teacher is being honored as well.
>> Thank you. All right. Uh, security and safety, Mrs. Johnson. >> Thank you. Um, MJado is not here. Uh so we'll skip community engager and >> that would be >> agenda items only for community
engagement. >> Uh fiscal plan and finance. Mrs. concern. >> Um, we have the renewal of stress testing who deals with our policies real time which deals with our student information and frontline for teachers
absences and applications. We are also renewing contracts for Northern Regional or out of district transportation, interstate waste, dental service provide provider waste uh pest control and elevator maintenance. The PTA in
Manchester are requesting to use the facility. We have a bedside instructor that we need to approve. The central package back project in select classrooms is almost completed. Um with the budget we utilize $1 million in
surplus and a 2% tax levy increase to remain balanced. We had to reduce in every c category salaries and healthcare take up the vast majority of our funds. Healthcare being benefits increased by nearly $1 million.
And um we have reduced the budget by 500,000. For the average household, the 2% increase breaks down to $551 um a month, which amounts to $66 a year.
>> Do we have any questions for Mrs. Sarna under physical? >> All right, seeing no questions, uh state and county, Miss Gordado is not here. Um, attorney, do you have anything? >> Thank you. No,
I have a motion for the approval of the final budget for 2026 2027. Motion, Mr. Cerna, second. Second, Mr. Williams. Do we have any questions before we proceed to the vote? Seeing no questions, can I have a roll call, please?
>> Mrs. Cerna, >> yes. >> Mrs. Fischer, >> yes. Miss Garcia, >> yes. >> Miss Gallin, >> yes. >> Mr. Dusman, >> uh, this is the budget that we're voting on for this upcoming year. I just hope, you know, we continue to support administration with this budget. So,
we're voting on it. Yes. Let's just remember we're voting on this today for the next year. Mrs. Johnson, >> yes. >> Mr. Williams, >> yes. >> And Mr. Kleta, >> yes. >> Thank you.
>> Personal management. Do we have any questions under personnel management? >> Seeing none, do we have a motion to move the items on personnel management 8.1 through 813? Motion by Mrs. Cerna. Do second. Second.
>> Second, Mrs. Johnson. Roll call, please. Mrs. Cerna. >> Yes. >> You have paper here. >> I do have a lot of paper, but there was some recusals. >> Did I be the next one?
>> Okay. All right. Thank you. Mrs. Fisher, >> yes. >> Miss Garcia, >> yes. Miss Gatlin, >> yes. Mr. Gen, >> yes. >> Miss Johnson, >> yes. >> Mr. Williams, >> yes. >> And Mr. Kleta, >> yes.
>> Okay. >> All right. Curriculum and technology. Do we have any questions? Seeing none, can I have a motion to move 9.1 through 914? >> Motion, Mrs. Garcia. Second, Miss Serna. Roll call, please. Mr. Start up
>> from 9.6 9.2 PO 600992 and 601003. Yes. Everything is okay. >> Mrs. Fisher. >> Yes. On all except for 9.9 I. Let's see.
>> Miss Garcia. >> Yes. >> Miss Gatlin. Yes. Um but recuse from where am I? >> Yes. 910
>> Mr. Stain from 9.11. >> Okay. Mrs. Johnson from 9.12. Yes. And Mr. Williams. >> I'm staying from 9.2 and 9.13. Yes. To to the rest.
>> Okay. And Mr. that >> of accused from 9.7 and yes everything else. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Community engagement and outreach and extracurricular have a motion to move 12.1 through 12.3.
>> Motion Merna. >> Second. Mrs. Johnson. Roll call, please. >> Mrs. Turner, >> yes. >> Mrs. Fischer, >> yes. >> Miss Garcia, >> yes. >> Mrs. Gatlin, >> yes. >> Mr. Lman, >> yes. >> Mrs. Johnson. >> Yes. >> Mr. Williams. >> Yes.
>> And Mr. Plet? >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> All right. Do we have any questions on finance and physical plant for you? >> Seeing no questions, I have a motion to move 13.1 through 13.25.
Motion. Mrs. Cerna. >> Second. Mrs. Johnson. Roll call, please. >> Mrs. Cerna. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Fisher. >> Yes. Miss Garcia, >> yes. >> Miss Gatlin, >> yes. >> Mr. Gusman, >> yes. >> Mrs. Stalton, >> yes. >> Mr. Williams, >> yes.
>> And Mr. Ketta, >> I would like to point out on 1317, uh, Manchester requested to use our facilities. Um, and being great partners that we are, was put on in the same week that it was given to us and we're voting on it tonight to approve it for them.
Um, you know, because we care about students and we want to make sure that we help them. So, uh, happy to say yes to all of these items and help the students up there. >> Thank you. >> You have anything under new or old business? >> Want to maybe come up with a think tank
for or post a think tank for social studies? Uh maybe like a student governance uh committee like for sixth and eight student governance committee >> just like an exploratory for um I'm on a
board where we have the student council president that sits as a non- voting member. That might be something but um I think as far as any suggestions you have for you know expanding what programming in the school is I I philosophically I'm with you. I think that would be a great thing to ask the next superintendent
through interview process. >> Okay, that's what I just bring it up now. Just start. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Do we have anything else? >> Uh the motion to open a hearing of citizens on operations of school. Motion
Mrs. Cerna seconded Mrs. Johnson. All in favor? I will start with anyone in the room who wishes to speak and then we'll go to Nobody online. Correct. >> All right. See no one in the audience. No one online. Do I have a motion to close?
>> Motion. Miss Fisher. >> Yeah. Miss Fischer and Mr. Johnson. Second. All in favor? >> Thank you for your help. Thank you. >> And we do not need the executive. >> No, unless anyone has a question about it. >> Do we have any questions on the uh HIV
map? I see no questions. Can I have a motion to approve 16.1? >> Motion, Mr. Garcia. Second, Miss Cerna. Roll call, please. >> Mrs. Cerna, >> yes. >> Mrs. Fischer, >> yes. >> Miss Garcia, >> yes.
>> Miss Gatlin, >> yes. >> Mr. Buzzman, >> yes. >> Mrs. Johnson, >> yes. >> Mr. Williams, >> yes. >> And Mr. Kleta, >> yes. Got a motion to adjurnn? >> Yes. >> Yes. second gall and we get to do it all. All in favor, please.
>> We get to do this all again tomorrow. And that