good evening everyone i would like to call to order the April 9th 2025 Hamilton Township Board of Education meeting this meeting is being held in compliance with the sunshine wall having been advertised in the press of Atlantic City and noticees posted at the township clerk's office Maze Landing Post Office
MSPA post office Atlanta County Library as well as the schools of the district this meeting is being recorded roll call please mrs ankra here mrs bachelor here dr serena here mrs jackson here dr la Hawk
here dr nelson Mrs pa here Mr rogers here and Mrs bar here can I please have a motion to convene into executive session
second motion by Miss Perto second by Miss Jackson all in favor i oppose resolve that pursuant to section 7 and 8 of the open public meetings act the public shall be excluded from the portion of the meeting involving discussion of legal matters attorney
client privilege personnel matters and HIV be it further resolved that the discussion of such subject matter in executive session can be disclosed to the public when formal action is taken on such subject matter or any other appropriate time be it further resolved the board may take action on items
discussed in executive session now therefore be it resolved the board will be in executive session for approximately 30 minutes thank you good evening everyone welcome to the April 9th 2025 Township Board of
Education meeting can I please have a motion to executive session and reconvene to public session second motion by Dr serino second by Dr nelson all in favor i
opposed thank you will you please stand for the pledgece to the flag of America to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible
with liberty and justice for all please take a moment of silence for private reflections thank you can I please have a motion to approve the minutes of regular and executive session meeting March 12th 2025
motion by Dr nelson second by Miss Jackson comments or questions roll call mrs anker yes mrs bachelor yes dr serino yes mrs jackson yes dr la yes dr nelson
yes mrs petta yes mr rogers yes and Mrs bar yes at this time I will turn it over to Dr zto for presentation thank you Mrs bar uh so our first presentation is our reading challenge winner for the month of April and we
have Mrs decker who is going to present our reading challenge winner mr decker do you mind coming on up hello today I would like to present Marielle Gention and her teacher reports Mrs
bowman Black that Marielle is confident positive and a great role model for her classmates she is kind-hearted and frequently is among the first to help and mentor other classmates in all subjects she has the ability to share
and discuss what she has learned in a mature and engaging way she especially loves to discuss what we are reading and is a valuable part of our classroom i am lucky to have Marielle as my student this year and love watching her grow and
interact with her classmates mr ste can you take a picture with Marielle real quick please and before you take off is the is Marielle's family here can you come down for a quick picture please come on down sure Marielle stay here
congratulations thank you and while you're up here Mrs stacker would you mind staying up here um I'm really proud to present uh our next award and it is uh for our very special program here at uh Hamilton Township and
it's our read 180 program that you kind of leave with our teachers here and we have some great news i was hoping you could share that well thank you so Dr zto asked me to share because we had great news um so I did write a little bit read 180 is a specialized reading
program designed to support some of our students with special needs and here at the middle school some of our multilingual learners recently we had the opportunity to meet with representatives from HMH to review our students mid-year progress and the
results were outstanding so about onethird of the students in the program made three times the expected growth and as you can see from this slide all grade levels so that students um in fourth through 8th grade have already exceeded
the mid-year growth target at two grade levels sixth and eighth grade have already exceeded the expected growth for the entire year this program is making a real difference to in helping students develop the reading skills they need to succeed so a
heartfelt thank you to the school board for your ongoing support and to our incredible teachers some of whom are here with us tonight uh for their dedication in making this program so effective their hard work is truly changing lives so we have about 11 teachers in
the district that teach this program but we have five of them here tonight so I'd like to call up um Kelly Falloon Jess Ward Jessica Tovin Lee Pickering and Amy Carter who is also our read 180
coordinator she does an amazing job yes thank you stare dr m would you come up and take a picture please want to thank you for all you do thank you so much
congratulations all right i Davies team can you please come down to introduce um something special that happened this year with our sports team so can I have Dr hm she come down and then coaches from volleyball can you come down as well please
so I I just want to say that I am excited to keep having to come up here to talk about undefeated teams because we have a bunch so uh congratulations to our volleyball team they went 11 and0 and I'm going to like the coaches kind of tell you a little bit about their season and the fact that we have an
amazing team hello I am uh Mr latanio uh this is my first year coaching at Davies um we had a great start to the season um after our first game I had all the the students look up at the banner uh we noticed that there was no 2025 or any number up there
so uh after that I told them all that our goal was to put a number on that banner and uh they played their hearts out and they had an amazing season so all the props to them cuz they did great she didn't want to be first so I'm going to skip her
uh our first award is for Taylor Campbell and our second one is for Johanna Abraham our third one is Jaden Forest our next one is Paula Hank our next one is Peter Oolage
our next one is Shiloh Nelson uh next is Caleb Nash uh next is Nathan Ericson next we have blue L blue and last but certainly not least the only sixth grader to make the team Colton Cedo uh we also have a manager here um
Maya Carter i think that's that is everybody that is here we have a lot more to hand out at school tomorrow so good job guys i'm not sure All right ready Mr dempsey we're doing
this again huh all right Mr rogers you ready we're going to see if this works this time here we go and now would like to present to you the staff of the month for the March uh month here we go don't worry sheen starts a little late
sometimes the door can you hold the door yes no I'm going to sing of the month staff of the month all right we have a new shader staff of
the month guess who it is thank you guys oh my goodness thank you guys i have three of my friends the best thank you hello that's so exciting this is Jameson thank you so
much we're set about that okay mrs j is a goto person hi guys bye
so all of the kind things I said about Mary are you ready thank you so much for being smart church miss Jameson is always willing to give a helping hand and she follows through on all of your promises she's so
kind and loving and serial for her students and staff she's a great role model we love working with Mrs jameson she always is positive and has been by even when she has a freaking love her for being her and we
want to thank her very much a thank you guys thank you morning i know we are here because your teacher Mrs ellie is my future and
she time her students no matter how small their she has been a great leader in her classroom and she has a true connection to each of her students she has utilized social emotional tools in her classroom in order to help students need in that way mrs elliot has also
done an excellent job of handling and being the chair of the INR committee and ensuring that each member of the team is heard great job so every month so every month we have a staff of the month so I'm going to read what this
person said i would like to nominate Miss Pep for staff of the month for her incredible dedication and hard work hard work she played a key role in organizing the basketball team putting in countless hours to ensure success in addition she is spearheading the plan for each end of
the year events making sure students have a memorable sendoff beyond these major contributions she has stepped in across multiple grade levels and subject areas she's always willing to support both students and colleagues when they need it her commitment flexibility and positive attitude make her an invaluable
member of the D team and she is truly deserving of this recognition so congratulations for staff of the month thank you thank you so two things I want to say about that first I need you guys to know that Miss Jameson from Shainer was in kindergarten
when I was a teacher so that's making me feel really old right now she remembers me from my teaching days and secondly we do have Mrs back here and I do want to congratulate her can we all give her a nice round of applause there she is thank you for all you
do all right at this time I have u my student council here and they're going to give us our update from the William Davies Middle School take it away start off it is National Assistant Principal Week so I would like to thank
Miss Jones and Mr k from S as well as Mr brown Mr dioro and Mr lavine from Davies for all that they do in our schools please from the front we will be meeting on April 28th for our last session mr thomas will be coming in
person to facilitate and support our club we will be recognizing those students who have attended the progress they have made throughout the year kindness club at the last meeting students made signs to promote the dance through the decades that was held last
week they also decorated the bulletin board by the school store to celebrate and raise awareness for neurodyiversity we will be taking our trip on April 10th to the Ocean City Beaches to help with beach cleanup the dancing through the decades
dance was a huge success fifth grade welcome dance coming up May 9th sponsored by PBIS resilience Action Group the Brazilians Action Group has submitted their MJ climate challenge videos highlighting their year-long projects including the Dragon's Nest thrift store power gardens
growing micro greens and vegetables the food recovery program and the building of bug homes to be used in the outdoor classrooms and around campus saturday April 12th the group will venture back to Esto Manor Park to finish the installation of the green gardens with
the Atlantic County Parks Commission and Pineland Adventures the Davies music department is gearing up for the Davy spring concert on Tuesday May 6 at 7:00 p.m this will take place at the Hes school it will feature the Davies Concert Band percussion
ensemble and choir nine Davies sixth grade band students will perform at the elementary honors band festival on May 3rd at Asagami High School these students were nominated and selected for this ensemble in February the Davies Jazz Band and Select
Choir will be performing at this year's Atlanta County Teen Arts Festival on Wednesday May 7th during the school day these are only some of the students that will be attending the festival from Davies art drama literature and media students will also be attending the
event in downtown Hmon on May 7th resilient Action East SEM students went to Esto Manor Park on Thursday April 3rd to prepare a site for a rain garden students were working with Atlantic County Park staff and the Pineelands Preservation Alliance to engineer the rain garden site which will
collect storm water runoff from the nature center and adjacent parking lot plot this Saturday April 12th students will return to Esto Manor to plant native species in and around the rain garden that will provide valuable pollinator and wildlife habitat this
community booth resilience project is a part of the NJ DOE climate ch climate change expansion great grant and an effort to reduce flooding and pollution in local waterways this is what Mr k wanted me to say mr k
would like to take a moment to humbly congratulate me yes me the one the only Brexit Miko for achieving photographic greatness my nature photo was entered into a national contest and caught the eye of National Geographic which is a huge deal out of more than 500
portfolios and submissions my masterpiece landed in the top 30 that's right top 30 not 31 not 300 30 the Dragon Network will be live streaming the in school volleyball tournament on April 17th for the entire district to watch the event will be hosted by eighth
grader Roman Rivera and seventh grader Andy Cologne on Tuesday the entire animation world changed overnight with Open AI's new animation and chat engine it didn't take long for Mr k's media classes to master the new node editing
platforms seventh and eighth graders made themselves as cartoons you can see this and so much more on the Dragon Network's Instagram page WDMS Media the volleyball madness prelims were Monday the 7th and now coming up on
Thursday the 17th which is also bring your child a birthday we will have the volleyball madness finals the following teams that made it to the finals are Mr perrifka Mr beck Mr kleco Mr latanzio and Mr louisiana that's everything
thank you so much i do want to say to the board members um what I received from the students at William De is uh for both Valerie and Braxton that Valerie is not just a great student but she's a great friend to all students and so I do want you to know that those are
the compliments you don't always get to hear and I know firsthand Brexton's kindness uh not only with just uh the kids in the school but my own child as well so I want to thank you for not only being amazing students great speakers but good humans as well thank you so much for my superintendent report
and good bakers we found that out too um I want to extend my deepest gratitude to each and everyone of uh my staff um for your incredible professionalism and composure during today's incident involving an identified threat your calm
presence and quick steady actions help keep our students safe reassured and focused no ma no small feat in a stressful situation it's in moments like these that the strength of our team shines brightest thank you for being the
amazing group of individuals that you are i'm proud to work alongside you and grateful for your unwavering dedication to our schools and students for your review please see the registration and the transfer statistics for last month the enrollment the discipline reports
and the HIV reports the following are dates to remember april 14th is our PTA meeting at 7:00 p.m right here at Davies Cafeteria the 18th to the 25th of April will be our spring break on April 26th the PTA will be hosting the Playland
Castaway Cove uh where you can go on rides from 1 to 4:00 p.m wristbands will be handed out between 12 and 2:30 on May 3rd the Hamilton Township School District amazing resource fair it'll be at the H School from 10 to 1:00 p.m and
that's just a phenomenal feat uh put on by our staff and Mr romano on May 6th the Davy spring concert and we'll be at the head school auditorium at 7:00 p.m may 7th will be our next board of education meeting 5:15 will be executive
session 5:45 will be our regular session right at the DB school cafeteria on May 8th is the Hes 45 choir in the Hes auditorium at 7:00 on the 15th of May is the Hes concert band auditorium uh in the auditorium at H at 7:00 on the 19th
is our next PTA meeting for Hme at 700 p.m in the Davies Cafeteria on the 26th the schools will be closed for Memorial Day on the 30th will be the eighth grade dinner dance at the Davies cafeteria at 5:00 this concludes my superintendent report
thank you at this time we will receive public comments on tonight's agenda items only there are two opportunities to address the members of the board the board values and welcomes comments and opinions from residents as long as remarks are not personal or discourageous the public comment portion
of the meeting allows the board to listen to community members and to hear their opinions on school policy and operations the first public portion is reserved for persons wishing to speak about agenda items only the second opportunity following action items is when residents may address the board on any school rellated issue each speaker
is asked to limit their comments to three minutes and you are not permitted to yield your time to another the public comments portion of the meeting during both sessions will not exceed 30 minutes upon being recognized persons wishing to speak should stand and identify themselves by name and address any
public comment on tonight's agenda okay seeing none we'll close public comment and go to board member comments there any board members i'd like to make a comment if I could i wanted to congratulate Braxton on behalf of the board for the great
achievement in uh getting into the top 30 of the National Geographic um not 31 not 300 that's an amazing achievement and if it hasn't already been shared on social media if you would give the school and the board the um rights to
show your photography I think that would be awesome to see so congratulations Dr hawk yeah hi um so on March 28th I had the opportunity to attend the ladies tea here at um and um I just want to say thank you to Mrs tobin Mrs carter and the entire
team that puts that together um it's my 12th year attending and I absolutely love spending time with the ladies and talking about my profession and listening to all the professional women talk about how they got to their career and their career path and um the girls
looked absolutely gorgeous and it was just a very nice morning so thank you to Mrs tobin and her team and everyone at DBs that participated thanks um I wanted to say I had the uh fun of going bowling with the Red Wings
um believe I beat somebody i'm looking at you yeah we we had a challenge but I I went ahead and paid him out of his gift card but it there it wasn't very pretty but uh we also were able to play with Ian Lavine
and uh we played for a hug anybody that doesn't know Ian I think that's kind of weird but for people that do know him understand the prize in that so anybody that wants to cash in on it please feel free and you can go ahead and just give him a hug he loves it um if any of the
board members ever have a chance to do the Red Wings things I would recommend it it's a lot of fun um we fill the entire alley up and these are the kids that have uh exceptional attendance exceptional grades and uh don't have any disciplinary problems and
what I would say is it's a great group of kids and um they have a lot of fun and they take care of each other and the good problem to have is that we filled up the entire bowling alley it was uh what five kids per lane and we filled up 35 lanes right for the math so that's
the amount of kids that are meeting or exceeding our expectations when it comes down to the Red Wings program so I know Mr lavine and a few others started that up a few years back and it's it's doing great and I would say keep up the great work it's paying off and uh I say thank you for all the extra time you put into
that um I want to say congratulations to Mr k and the TDN um I continue to hear outside of our group um about the TDN on uh YouTube and all the different um social social media outputs and um they
continue to put out great content and um there's even some showing up there they put all that together themselves and it looks very professional and certainly something I can't do so um I want to say congratulations and it also ease right into you know the amount of talent that
our our students have with National Geographics everything you're seeing up on that screen um and uh it goes back to our our participation of our teachers our pair of professionals and our administration you guys are putting in a ton of hours and it's paying off and uh
for anybody that looks at the HIP reports you can see the results um we we I don't know if actually share the numbers but from last year the two years previous in this exact month the numbers are down um by sixfold right sevenfold
eightfold I can't even do the math so it's it's unbelievable what 3 years difference has made and I want to say thank you and continue the great work and the last one I want to put up is um transportation office there you are i wanted to say thank you
for all the hard work um you put together a hell of a program and um it's paying off and I think the flexibility of our own buses has paid off tremendously especially things for like Red Wings i don't know if we were able to use it for that but I want to say thank you and that's by itself piece for
the program uh for the Red Wings because uh those last minute buses are very expensive and um for us to be able to run our own buses it's uh I mean night day difference and the flexibility so thank you very much for continuing to do that i know it was a lot of uphill battle for you but you're doing a great
job and thank you very much thank you and that's all I have thank you um first thing I want to say is I can't believe that Mr lavine played for a hug i'm in shock over that and um if I had
known that I'd have been there so watch out so um I Oh I can have it oh okay i got my hug already this year i only get one a year just in case anyone knows um I want to say congratulations to the volleyball
team amazing undefeated with this school is like you better watch out you don't know it's like one team after the other so well done i'm I'm so proud to be a part of Hamilton Township and Davies um
I want to also talk about what happened today and the amazing job that this staff did i I Jeff was Dr dr uh Zita was keeping us updated and I am just so proud of the amazing job the amazing
cohesiveness that happened keeping our students safe it's it's a welloiled machine and I'm so proud to say that um I'm a part of this this township and um
I just I I I don't know what else to say i'm so proud and the last thing I want to say is go to the resource fair i go every year there's so much information that you don't even know that's out
there so just make some time go for it plus you get free stuff and free food so it's worth it go for it can I say one i want to say Mr hickey in the back of the room thank you for putting the He's you know our guy for it
comes down to security he's been seen on Fox was it Fox that came here fox News yes and you know showed his program and uh everything that we're doing is becoming the model for schools around us and it's and it's led off by people like
Mr hickey that come together with a program are able to train um all of our teachers administration and bring in uh the ability to connect to our local police department and um you know there's no delays on phone calls he has a radio in one hand talking to dispatch
and then a radio on the other hand talking to our school and because of the technology and the technology team and just like uh Dr trino said it's a welloiled machine and u hopefully we won't ever have ever have her have to use it but um when we practice and um
you guys are certainly playing the way you practice so thank you again and and great job i just want to piggy back on that because I have two kids in the district one in kindergarten one in third grade and from their perspective they have no
idea that it's happening they know shelter in place everything is calm they're cool collected they come home i ask "What happened today?" Nothing you know business as usual just a normal day to them so really just to second what everybody said thank you so much for the
training that you do the way that you and you know put it into play and all of that because from a kids perspective they don't realize that there is a danger and or maybe there isn't a danger but in their minds they're just business as usual they know what to do they know
not to panic and it's amazing so thank you um I want to say something for Miss Peek because she's just been there for me ever since sixth grade so I just want to like thank her for everything um she's
been like such an inspiration for me and she puts in so much hard work so I'm so glad that she's getting recognized for everything she does and I just love her so much and I'm so proud that she's a teacher that she can be my teacher so thank
you all right it's like a group hug at the end of this this is the kind of meeting we like to have all right so at this time we will go on to committee reports can I please have the personnel policy committee report Miss Jackson yes
ma'am um so personnel and policy met on Tuesday April 1st um in attendance was myself Mrs bar Mrs bachelor Dr zitto and Mrs lzitzki um and
Mr say your name Beni benziani thank you um we discussed policy additions um an equity plan separation of employment some retirements and some resignations as well as a few new hires um and then
there was other topics that came up during the meeting um so if I may have a motion to approve 91 through 914 second by Dr nelson comments or questions roll call mrs anker yes mrs bachelor yes
dr sino yes mrs jackson yes dr l yes dr nelson yes mrs brener yes mr rogers yes morning yes thank you M jackson okay dr dr nelson Finance and Operations
thank you uh we met on April 1st at 4:00 p.m and uh in attendance was myself Dr trino uh Mr rogers Dr zto and Mr b also um Mr nelson uh we talked about uh the
Shephard Transportation Renewal Contract so thank you again uh we also talked about the transportation analysis now with a financial analysis determining uh the uh whether or not we are on track for our uh profitability or um that
program is actually um operating as we expected and it is so again good luck a good job we talked about Duberson and uh the uh the transaction there ran into a couple things with the state we're working through those uh issues because it's a historical there's a few
additional forms we have to fill out and a couple more items we have to do there before we can enact that transaction and then talking about chainer and some of the work we're trying to do over there and uh having to deal with the pine lens commission there on a few outstanding
items there so at this time I would like uh to make a motion to approve um approve items in section 10 10 1 through 109 second second by Mr rogers comments or
questions okay roll call mrs anker yes mrs bachelor yes dr mr reno yes mrs jackson yes dr lob yes dr nelson yes mrs proto
yes mr rogers yes and Mrs barn yes that concludes my report thank you Dr nelson and Dr lero PSI so um we met on April 1st um we discussed um items such as our
infrastructure trial our reading uh challenge winner the read 180 update um the growth with the reflex and the fracks and we also talked about the second annual autism virtual ex art expo which I think was highlighted on Facebook we had some students have
artwork in that expo um and then that concludes that concludes my report and I have nothing to motion thank you Dr any old business for any board members that any board members would
like to comment on from a previous discussion all right this Can I please have a motion to approve 131 through three as listed so move second motion by Dr nelson second by Miss Jackson comments or
questions call mrs anret yes mrs bachelor yes dr mr yes mrs jackson yes dr la yes dr nelson yes mrs perto yes mr rogers yes
mrs park yes thank you is there any other new business at this time we will receive comments from the public in accordance with the board policy on participation at a board meeting seeing none we'll close public comment
and can I please have Can I please have a motion to adjourn motion second all in favor i oppose thank you everyone