get settled apologize uh we just finished up a meeting so we're all getting settled here but can we have a roll call Mr Cita Mr kadia here Dr lilis here Mr Peters
here Dr Resnik here Mr slotman Dr Sano here M Williams gallano here Dr Wilson have a quum wonderful thank you please join me in the flag salute States
ofice the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provision of
the act the Hope Valley Regional Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof communicated to the hopeful Valley News the times and The Trentonian on January 7th
2025 this meeting notice was also sent to Comcast cable and Verizon FiOS the board reserves the right to enter an executive session during all meetings of the Board of Education the meeting is being videotaped for the purpose of Board
review future reference preparation of the minutes and viewing on Comcast channel 19 Verizon fos channel 32 and the school district website www .hv rsd.org
members of the public who wish to participate in public comment we ask that you sign in prior to speaking this will assist us with recordkeeping can I get a first and a second for approval of the February 24th um Regular meeting I'm sorry the
January 27th sorry second all in favor hi any opposed or abstaining minutes are passed like to offer this time to our favorite school student
representative throughout February there have been many achievements at the high school the hobo Valley Montgomery ice hockey team won the CBC Championship last week the hchs robotics team won third place in the digital animation award from the first robotics competition the newest indues of Rogue
Kappa the social studies National Honor Society were inducted last week there have been many there have been several achievements from teachers as well miss dur our art teacher was selected as a New Jersey State art educator of the Year by the National Art Education Association due to exemplary contribution service and achievements in
the field of art education several members of the hbcs staff continue their tradition of donating their Super Bowl pool funds to local organization this year they donated a $500 donation to house which provides mental health support for the
community the HS theater program is now preparing for its winter musical Alice by heart their first night of the show will be this Friday February 28th and finally the student council last Wednesday attended the CBC student council Symposium hosted by Allentown
High School as we met with different members of different student councils throughout the county we were able to learn and strategize about different ways to bring more school spirit into the high school thank you awesome thank you Miss green
do I have any questions from the board okay seeing none please feel free to St thanks I am going to keep my report brief because I am going to talk more in depth about the uh referendum with the um and the budget with um the help of
our our our board administrator Bob Cav um just quickly I know that you all have received the letter that I sent out about lice um I I'm hearing that there's cases out there that parents are not reporting to us directly um and and that's to I'm not sure that everyone
understands that they should report that to the schools so that we can keep track so the number I shared in the um letter to you or what we've identified and that parents have reported to our nurse's office or we've identified ourselves in the building and it's about 17 cases I'm hearing there's a handful more out there
that people have not called us directly um we hope that you do call us what we promise moving forward is we will send a letter like that every time from the school the principal will send it out if there's one single case what we don't do is what we all remember back when we were kids that's no longer the science
or the practice where they used to remember how they used to pull us all together they used to check every head they'd send somebody over here with the Scarlet L the other ones would go over here and you would be excluded from school until the lights were mitigated um those of you who have had lights in
your house ringworm all these things it takes weeks sometimes and so kids were Trent and out of school for weeks when they couldn't the parents couldn't kind of remediate it or they didn't have the money to buy the kits or or whatever those things were or it traveled through siblings which a lot of these cases are
several of these cases are siblings so it's going through the house um so the CDC the association of School nurses are School nurses who have about 148 years years of experience as School nurses and ER nurses and Trauma nurses all of our
School nurses have worked in Industry before they came here our school physician the executive superintendent of schools of the Mercer County all agree that Hotwell is following the policy as we should because in the past when we sent those School letters people were bullying each other they were
blaming your kid for giving my kid lies kids were staying home parents were ashamed and didn't tell when their kids had Li because they didn't want to be excluded from school because they had to go to work all of these things for something that the science deems is not a health risk is it a nuisance yes is it
frustrating yes is it horrible to have to fight that when you have that in your house I agree with all those things that's horrible but we do we don't do those things anymore nor should any other District in merer County so I can't account for what other districts are doing I did my D diligence because I
was surprised at at the change too and I did all the research and I've asked all the people and the school physici as well and this is what we are supposed to be doing so it's really something I can alert you to it but parents have to mitigate it um I've been talking to the
board about um you know ways that we can support you one is is educating parents um a very gracious parent who's a nurse has offered to sit on a board and I'm a panel I also would like to invite our school physician and maybe some other pediatricians in the community to kind of share ways that you can fight it when
it's in your household I would hope that you all communicate with us there is no shame it doesn't mean that you're dirty your house is unclean because you've contracted Li you know somewhere um and it's also hard to nail down exactly where it's coming from because we're
having it across schools not all in the same classroom and different grade levels um but I promise you moving forward I will send you a letter explaining that we had a case um things that you can do to mitigate it in your home and I'm hoping more people will communicate to us when there is a case
so when the nurse can help guide you and help getting rid of the light and the second is we can keep track of how many cases so we can know how you know how we can support you as a school district um so I just wanted to share that and I I'll continue to work on this and dig into this um but as of now um I still
only have we've only ticked up to maybe 18 one more parent um reached out and said that they had a case and just for this this month this these cases are for the year behind you since September and so how many for the month of February four so I know it seems like it's a lot
going on but until we have people report we really don't know how how many we really have um and so we can we can really Target it um so I wanted to share that um before we moved on is there anything I missed no I just I think your final point was that it is since
September these numbers they're not in the last month this is an extended period of time so but I'm going to concede there's probably cases out there that people haven't told us about so um that would be helpful if people can just share that with their school ner okay that being said um I'll reserve
the rest of my comments when we get to the budget that means it's up to you okay now is that okay no there we go
okay so we um we're going to give a kind of an abbreviation budget discussion tonight um just a little history of where we've been and where we're going um we are awaiting the governor's budget message which is tomorrow uh around
lunchtime following um that we will should receive our state aid allocation on the 27th uh which is Thursday sometime during the day they don't give you a time it just uh you get a note from the county that says it's been released um after that uh we'll
determine whether the board will meet in March to discuss um either state aid Cuts state aid gains um we'll see what happens on Thursday uh the next big date after this week next month's meeting on the 17th of March
will be the adoption of the tenative budget uh followed by its submission to the county office no later than the 20th of March um the period of time uh from that date through the middle of April the county office uh the county office
Department of Education will be evaluating the budget for completeness compliance issues um and ultimately their approval upon which time we're able to advertise and hold a public hearing on April 28th which is when we will strike a final budget so that's
kind of the timeline for now uh we're going to dwell on some of the slides that we've hit before just the priorities that we are looking at this year um again trying to stay clear to our mission statement um to maintain as many of our
existing programs and services as we can given the limited budget that we do have again continuing to Pride that academic program that we all value to make sure our curriculum is align with state requirements to meet our contractual obligations to our staff members um and
also to continue evaluate um the needs for the new housing that's has been going up in three separate areas around the community and possibly uh additional housing developments in other communities as the years move ahead um and again because of those things we're
trying to develop a budget that prepares us prepares us for an uncertain future so some of the things that we've done um during this fall and early winter season or late winter season um looking at our revenues as you all know
we do have a 2% tax levy cap that's the amount of money that we can legally raise um without waivers now we uh will qualify for an enrollment waiver this year of somewhere in the area of $1.8 million um that's just a that's a
trigger for what uh health benefit costs are really increasing Statewide that there's that the waiver is that big um believe it or not we did get an enrollment waiver this year of about $250,000 um so enrollment from last year
that's October of 2024 compared to the enroll no 23 to October of 2024 increased enough that the state is granting us uh an a waiver for uh increased enrollment so that that's a a positive sign for
us um we did get a state aid notice from the count uh the state this week last week actually that said we can be advised to expect no less no more than a 3% cut so no more than 3% less than what
we got last year there was no other clarification to that um we could get more but we we are um in a waiting game until Thursday the fact that we got an enrollment waiver um is a positive sign
that might trigger us getting additional state aid again we won't know until until Thursday afternoon we are monitoring um our locally generated Revenue when I mean that that's revenues that we make outside of of taxes so we do charge
tuition for certain programs that we run in our district we have a preschool program we take um outside students from other schools into some of our special ed and regular Ed programs um we have some of our staff members bring their students uh their children to our
district for fees we also rent out our buildings for our athletic programs Arts programs throughout poo Valley use our facilities and pay uh a nominal fee for that um going into next year part of the things that we've worked on are made
sure we considered in the budget we will um this budget includes a reimplementation of athletic and co-curricular fees um for anybody participating in in extracurricular activities next year um and we also are going to continue with transportation
fees and plan to uh fully charge for what it costs us to hold a seat which right now is in in the around the Thousand area first e we also have to decide on um how much Surplus we're going to put into the budget as I've
said from the beginning in the fall um to now last year we used close to $4 million of surplus money which is money uh expenditures and revenue that went unex went unspent um for whatever reason we generate excess Revenue it it goes
into what's called Surplus it's not money sitting in the bank it's that's been identified um as money that's been set aside through our audit that can be used to help balance next year's budget $4 million is an ex is too much for us
to uh for us to sustain we're trying to cut that number at least in half right now um so that's what we're using as a as a uh a basis of this year's budget uh Bob I have a quick question so who gave the notice on the state aid
fluctuation number Department bed it came straight treasury yes yeah cuz I I was just asking because the funding formula that they're currently looking at that was actually a huge point of contention at the Committee hearing it was about whether they allowed the fluctuation year-over-year a
to be based on previous year's allocation of Aid or a district operating budget so right well that's the question that we all had right when they came out because there's no clarification and we've asked the county to explain it and all he said was what we've been told is no District receive
less than 3% cut or more than a 3% cut got it got now I don't the every year they've been rerunning the formula and if F to Robinsville and he formula and then 3% right or based on what our our operating budget was from last year we don't know is that what you're asking
yeah yeah he seemed to insinuate that it was based upon what we got last year which means are they going to run the formula are they not going to run the formula is everybody getting I don't we don't know we I guess we won't find out till he speaks tomorrow and we and we get our
our number allocations on Thursday I mean the bill that's sitting in the legislature doesn't it's that's what the huge contention right now about whether it's operating budget or Y um so again the things we've been contending with um all fall and again
into the winter inflation as we've seen increasing I you know the health benefit waiver alone shows you know the state the state health benefits plan is increasing uh aggregate of 14% % that's you know that's just you know astronomical I think that it's a split number I think health benefits are going
up 14 and the prescriptions going up 25 um and it it Nets out to 14 um but it's just it's an astronomical number that that all school districts in the state of New Jersey are dealing with um you know curriculum and instruction we we've been struggling and I know Dr plitz is
is is trying to figure out how we're going to do with you know little to no curriculum writing in the in the coming year um transportation is a is a you know for most of the people who use it in this District it's it's a mandated service that we must provide minimum 3.6%
increase I'm going go back to what's our cap two 2% all these things are increasing it greater than that um Insurance both health benefits we talked about that but our Property and Casualty Insurance and also workers comp and Student Activity insurances all are
increasing um I did get some better news today that our workers comp modification Factor went down this year so that may show some dividends um towards our workers comp insurance which is is uh to give you just numbers vast numbers is
about $800,000 a year just for workers comp insurance um again we had a tour of of Bear Tavern last month we had tolgate uh about a half an hour ago we finished that up um the continued cost of maintaining um these
facilities in our district which the youngest at this point is 22 years old and the oldest are approaching or exceeded 100 years old uh including this building special education again a driving a driving cost um in this District um it's the it's the outside
tuitions that are charged by the private schools that are that are causing us the most consternation at this point and why he says that is because they can raise their tuition rates at any point during the course of the year and a half so we you know we start out at the beginning of the year Mr Naro knows we have these
number of of of students that are out of District in these placements and this is what she budgeted for for the year and then they'll send her something a couple months later saying no it's actually you know gone up substantially and we're not moving the child the child needs to be there um but there's no cap for them at
2% and so that's what we've been struggling with and even if they wait till the next year we can plan for that but you if you're already in the budget you have to take it from somewhere else now and Staffing you know we are we are um a staffing organization we don't make a product our product is your children
um and it costs the Staffing of what we have and and 70 80% of our budget is is Staffing and health benefits and Technology continues to to grow um we are are as you are dealing with you know how to deal with AI uh in our schools um
but everything that we do now almost everything we we install in in our buildings has some technology um component to it from fire alarms and and you know Wi-Fi devices there's always there's a there's a huge technology component and we are also dealing with
with um the growth in hopo Valley we didn't anticipate uh students in seats uh at the you know as much as many as we've seen but they are coming um as as you know accounted for in that waiver that we're getting from the state for for
enrollment so I just want to underscore the point where you know in the previous SL SL where you pointed to the things that you are doing the administration continues to do to manage the budget I think we often say we're really
fortunate for our the services we provide here under um U Miss dinardo's area but I want to underscore that bringing our kids back into the district costs us far less just and we want our
kids home close to home um and so while we often talk about just the term you know special education I think in the previous budget that's the line that matters is how many kids are
we bringing back home so we can serve them here and if we need to absolutely they should go out but it does leave some portion of our special education budget way out of our control um and where we can mitigate that we we
want to do that it's actually brought us some savings because we sell seats to our programs to other schools but some children need out District placements because they're medically fragile whatever the needs are and that we need to provide that as well right so um over the course again um of
our budget planning um we've looked at things that are are being uh taken into consideration um and and actually taken uh out of the budget um we are looking at at class sizes going up next year um
not not drastically but they will be going up that you know difference than what you've seen in the past the the teens the classes in the teens and the low 20s may may um give way to class sizes in the you know the low to mid
20s um again I mentioned we are going to um we talked about elimination of but I think we are going to move forward with charging the full cost for um courtesy busing we have looked we've reduced supplies Supply accounts um globally in
almost every area we've we've reduced um supplies with the single exception of of facilities of Maintenance those Supply that Supply account has been held flat for at least 10 to 12 years and we we just can't afford to to drop that with the amount of um repairs that we've been
having to make uh this year um we are examining a world language course of study um either eliminating it or phasing it out over time B again based everything we're doing is based upon enrollment um the uh auto shop right now
is not included in the budget we have not been able to find a teacher uh for that when the previous uh teacher retired um so we are not planning on on being able to to run that uh program next year we are looking into field
trips not uh eliminating them all together but eliminating the district funding them if if field trips are going to happen they would be funded by um either parent pay or PTO pay uh things like that um again mentioned the reinstatement of the athletic and extracurricular fees that should provide
somewhere in the area of $225,000 in additional Revenue to support that particular those programs those programs um we are looking at um all of our K to2 exploratory offerings meaning the special area classes not um
you know the the elective type classes and again reducing based upon enrollment and and um looking for different ways of of um providing that instruction now Dr tce wanted to talk about that what we're trying to do right now is maintain all the
programming that we have in the middle in the elementary schools we not may not be able to do it to the frequency that we used to do so we're really looking at all of the exploratories and see how we can still offer those at a more cost-effective way uh to to the district okay and as always you know we're
looking at um some possible restructuring in our administrative areas all of our administrative areas throughout the district and how we can do things um more efficiently we um so I'm not going to
get to that yet we are close to having a balanced budget prior to um getting state aid I'm still working on again it's a daily um it's a daily battle is is trying to to sever off um pieces of
the budget uh T tan and I are working close together we We are continuing to get retirements um the last week we probably saw three or four um retirements and we are making plans on um trying to replace those individuals these are positions that need to be
replaced um but trying to replace those individuals or make plans to replace those individuals out of savings you know you have a teacher going out you know after 30 years um of teaching experience at the top of our guide we are hoping that we can bring in teachers
um lower on the guide and taking some of that savings and putting it into the budget at this point but um you know we will know more I will know more on what I need to do uh come Thursday afternoon and then we'll um we'll be moving forward there but at this point I'll
open it up to questions from the board I just have a a quick comment and then a follow-up question related to that so I know the board's aware of this but I just wanted to share that in our policy even if we reinstate the athletic and extracurricular fees there is a waiver
for students whose families are are low income so I just wanted to let folks know that and then my follow-up question is is that true also of the field trips so if the field trips are parent funded do we have the same waiver for children who come from lower income fames anything that we do that that where we
charge parents there's a there's always that the waiver um if you qualify for free reduced lunch That's the basis that we use it for thank you and I can say with this District our principles really have a Hands-On relationship with the families they know
even though people that have it qualified or filled out the paperwork who need that help we provide that as well we do I know this this is up in the air um these are cuts that we have to make just based on the way they're funding schools
all of us are facing this uh Mr kapadia talked about the the very contingent conversations that are happening in Trenton um around the lack of funding that schools are facing and we're all facing these Cuts these increases and class sizes us not sure what the future holds I know folks have bought up the
question to me about what does the federal changes mean if that department goes away right now we are functioning assuming that that's not going to affect our funding we are also taking into account what does that mean if it if our our federal funding changes um but right
now working with d the of possibly a 3% cut based on however they calculate this formula where are we and we're already in a hole so when folks say you know why are the buildings in this condition that you can't save up for these things it's sort of like you
barely can make your bills in your house and then you have all these other things you need to do like you have to pay for food your electricity your transportation all of those things and you might put off the fact that your porch needs to be replaced or you might put off that roof and just get it P
patch and you can't patch it anymore that's what the district has been doing for years now and we're at a point that we're not going to get ahead on some of these repairs unless and until we have a referendum where we can plan ahead and Avail ourselves of some of the money that the state will batch us with because the way we're going we cannot
swirl swirl away enough money because we can't even make the obligations of our fixed uh cost now so um with that being said um if there's no other questions we can maybe we'll get to one second I just wanted to she mentioned um Dr mentioned Federal funding we did also get um some
kind of clarification from the county office of or County Board of Ed um Friday as well that Federal the federal funding that we receive the title monies and the idea Grant um are believed to be Untouched by any of the measures being
taken right now um by the federal government but those are expected to come this year we're supposed to expect to get that money it may be less so instead of we we were always forced to buy at least 85% of what we got the year before they're telling us to budget no
more than 75% of what you got in the year before so that's that and again Federal funding is less less than 1% of our budget so I mean it's nice to get it it's about a million dollars um uh in in educational program that we get um and
hopefully it won't be it won't be uh as low as we thought it might be yes so um yes I'm going to tap poette with that but right now we're we're um exploring Universal uh preschool there are some grants money outse for that but we're going to share yeah so we're in
the process of exploring um the idea um two of the big factors that we are uncertain is number one are they going to provide that Federal grant for the 25 6 school year um the second one is if they do and we apply for it we have to
be granted it and that's uncertain um but we've been meeting with Community um leaders um we've been meeting with uh several districts that have been incorporating Universal preschool and we are seriously considering it um but to
do it we want to do it the right way um so right now we're at fact binding and um thank all the families who are responded to the survey we had uh I think over 600 and I think it was like 96 or 97% um are in support of it so but
right now we're still in fact finding and we also have to see if they're even going to offer it we're looking for the funding from them right and so one we know we don't have the space so we're right now exploring Community Partnerships and that's what a lot of districts have done they're using outside vendors that are
already providing pre for a lot of our parents um but we have to make sure the facilities meets the um the uh expectations so once we you know there there are ways and I know certain districts in the state have implemented um pre very quickly once you get told
that you qualified now the applications not due till the summer right it's like it's over the summer so they'll they will let us know on or about July 1 um so we're looking at the applic it's a very extensive application it's a
five-year project so we have to plan five years out with projections and like I said it's very very involved and then once they granted if we are granted the funding we have 75 days to implement the phase one of the project so we could
conceivably get the grant over the summer and Implement January 1 or even sooner than that so that's what I would that that's what I was going to ask you mentioned 2526 school year which I I
interpret it as being September and in my head those timelines don't work out considering that we don't know if we're going to have funding we don't know where we're going to have right yeah so again as we collect um our
facts and work through this um as a team to decide if this is what's in the best interest of our kids in our district um phase one would be working with our existing Peach classes so transitioning them to a full day and then growing from
there but um it does happen very quickly the districts haven't done it they they if they award the grant within months they're they're starting to expand the program um so it does move quickly and and then one more just one more comment I think you said in the
best interest of the kids I don't think too many people would arue that it's the best interest of the kids to have it it's the of it with everything else going on problematic and that's why the federal funding is so important so the
funding for Universal preschool would be through the grant right but but that's why I said that's why the funding is so important without funding we wouldn't be entertaining it if it wasn't an opportunity right so we got to Avail ourselves of that money if
it's out there any other question questions on budget okay seeing none we'll go ahead and move into the referendum since this is the um second time we're going through this presentation we just
wanted to remind everyone of what we've discussed in the previous um meetings um so Mr Cavita is going to roll through this quickly and we're GNA I'm going to tag team with you also uh Mr Cavita to talk about what we're proposing the board has not accepted our proposal yet
to move to move forward with this so part of it what we'll be talking about tonight is seeking the board's permission to go out and actually get the final pricing on that is that correct Mr C right so tonight our the bo the the items that are on the agenda are giving the board permission to have the
architect submit drawings and get approvals from the Department of Education um in preparation of a possible referendum doesn't commit the board to doing anything it doesn't commit a one question two questions three questions doesn't commit us to do
anything all it's doing is is submitting projects in the form that they would need to be submitted to the state be then put on a question the question will be finalized sometime in late spring early summer um
if the board decides that that's the where they're going to go ahead there's been no amount discussed there's been no type one question two questions nothing is being decided tonight the only thing is being decided again is the submission of projects that need to be resubmitted from the last
referendum um and some of the new projects that we have added so what's led to what you going to see today is uh the finance and facility Committee of the board asking uh my team and I to go back out and look at those projects again uh to reexamine what we thought were would uh lead to a catastrophic
failure if we did not work on and getting a repair plan in place like post case um listening to you all on tour when I went on my listening tour we've removed a couple of items um some things have become more emergent and been added to the list um so what you'll see is the
the uh that work that we've done in addition to the board exploring what it would look like if we split the questions like some other uh neighboring districts have done um so there will be a proposal up here for three questions but we'll talk through um that a little bit once we get to
it one more comment I wanted to make in your direct the one thing that we are doing today with we're capping the possible projects that would be included if we were to go to to November ref yes
so if we're going to make November after today you know nothing if the board approve we can't add it we can take away but we can no longer that's correct right okay so again kind of just went
through all this um but we'll uh move ahead from there um so again we have gone we went out once uh in the fall board asked us to go back and and remove some of the things that were hot button items and we all know what they were
that was the the uh bathroom facility at the turf field and the uh auxiliary turf field have been removed uh from the the discussion okay um again the reason why we need this and and Dr Trice went
through a lot of it we simply just don't have the money in our general fund to attra to uh attack um detailed detailed um projects comprehens complicated projects um some folks might remember
that years past probably 12 13 years prior um boards could do mini referenda every year at budget time you could do 1 million2 million worth of projects every year because the budget was voted upon every every budget was voted on in April and you could put capital projects in
there um if the budget went down you typically remove the capital project and and the budget was approved um since that vote was removed the state took out that option to do small projects a you know you can you know pick off projects each year we don't have that um
guarantee anymore the other reason why you want to go to referendum is the state will pay up to 40% of the cost for us it's somewhere in the area of 30 30% of the cost um but it's better than nothing you know so you're getting some contribution from the state money that
we are already paying into taxpayers are already paying in to this fund it's this is just the way we access it we're just trying to get some of the money that you've spent in taxes back okay again we talked about that that some of the projects have been
removed they're up there again um we did have again cost some cost escalation inflation is running rampant throughout uh the construction industry right now um and some of the projects that we had um budgeted needed to be increased a little bit uh based upon not being able
to do them for another year and a half down the road should we get this approved um pilot money update there have been many meetings um back and forth between um the mayors of the three towns and the Board of Education um and
we seem to have um nearing an agreement with hopal Township to cover um a significant if not entire portion of the Bear Tavern Edition um we are being told that a proposal from them is is forthcoming
we have not received it yet um but should that come to pass um we'll be able to restructure some of the um plans that we have on our side yes so we're hoping if the if they do what they're saying that they're going to do and they take care of their
Tavern not all of it a good portion of it that number would come off the question altogether and that would just be tled by the township okay okay um so we did talk about um that's been out there in the public about separating the referendum into two
pieces one would be the first part of the referendum would be projects that um got funding that were funded by the state received State funding and the other two the other question would be the two additions the one to Bear Tavern and the one to tolgate because those projects are ineligible for funding um
at this point again the board has not made any decision decisions on that um but those are things that we are looking at we could consider making other things on uh different questions but that's all going to come over the next six
months can you clarify um we've brought up in the past that if splitting questions there's some priority that you have to have question one pass to have so there are there are several different ways to do it you can make um each question independ of one another um
Princeton did that they just put three or they put I think three questions out and they were independent so any of them could pass Any Which Way um some districts say um question one has to pass before question two has to pass so
we determine that yeah okay so a b of the projects are really about maintaining our building Integrity they're all uh HVAC improvements um these are very large projects multi-million dollar dollar projects as well as uh some of the roofing that
needs to be done um large portions of the roof are done all all at once um but not the whole roof so so the ones that are on the high school are not the ones that were done in the first referendum these are other roof uh surfaces that were not done in the first one um
enhancing and creating more space for our students uh to make sure that uh we're compliant for um any preschool expansion that might come that we can house um and also making sure that our kindergarten bathrooms or our kindergarten rooms have the uh appropriate regulation then side
improvements like Paving drainage entrance enhancements because we have some trimping hazards some Paving issues going on outside of the building uh but Mo all of these have to do with Integrity of our buildings and just maintenance that needs to happen that have not happened over the years and
it's gotten to the point where these are major major projects now so not no flop these are all real in oral projects again based upon the with the original plan from last month 99% of the the projects on that that uh question first question was all that
critical infrastructure 99% funded um I think there was a small portion of the paving that was not covered on that and I think it's important to underscore that when you say drainage and pavement that hasn't been done over time we've also had significant failures
in some of these areas so it's not simply that it's been a while since we've touched this surface it's we've had failures and we touching patching and fixing but um for example the drainage problem behind Stony Brook needs a major redesign and we had some
parents that were very gracious and did a survey and and talked to us about some of the engineering that would take place it's a major project but when that flooding happens we have to do repairs the floor we have to repair the building that it's very damaging and we know the problem exists we don't have the funds to really make that happen so some folks
say well well isn't it an emergency when this happens over here and like be Tavern for example had to evacuate because it a there was a unit that was smoking in the ceiling right well Stony Brook had the same thing hope will Elementary didn't have heat or or air functioning for months at a time um
there's little issues like this and bigger issues like this in almost every building okay again 33% of these projects would be covered by uh the state of New Jersey so question two we've split between those those major infrastructure
projects and then the separate ones are the additions the one to Tollgate um to get the kids out of those outside units which I I for security reasons I want everyone in the building um and also just the Integrity of keeping those heated and cooled is is very difficult
because they're they're outside units and some of them so I've had Parents saying I was in those those you know little houses so they need to they need to go um togate in particular um has a there's a problem accessing the building all the way around for the First
Responders so when we take those when we if we could build the addition on the uh Tollgate and make more room inside the building which they need um those would go away and that would allow First Responders to have access all the way around the building and also provide parking for people so that they can park
at togate instead of the SE uh down the street and along the sides there um so it would the the getting rid of those buildings would allow us to do some other things uh to make the building more accessible and then the uh the addition at Bear Tavern this came out of our wa our our talking uh tour with
folks they were saying maybe you should separate those out into separate questions the board entertain that and put these here I'm going to say this if the township says they're going to pay for be Tavern I'm going to feel very uncomfortable leaving tolgate as a separate question so I would really
recommend to the board and you make that decision later because we're still um hashing this over hashing this out um that we're not leave a school by itself and that it becomes a l part of a larger question one question yep
the cost right so it's 99% of the project it's not a third of the project that are covered it's we expect about a third of the total cost correct all of those projects again they don't pay it up front they pay it as a reimbursement to The Debt Service payment that you
said you said a third of the projects C right that's different M it's a third of the cost right again some folks have asked us you know why didn't you take care of these projects um before they that these kinds of things happened again the sheer cost of
a lot of these projects um we just didn't have that kind of money we we've picked off projects as we can we've picked off portions of roofs we've picked off Paving um we've picked off some HVAC work over the years um but sometimes projects just get to be too
large uh for us to handle uh in our in our regular budget roughly how much money did we spend in the last two or three years on the projects that we were kind of picking off off the top of your head come on
um Tom's thinking out there how much Tom haven't been not doing anything it's just is that inclusive of the rod grants where we had reimbursement um that's the um boilers at the High School which we got a rod grant for but we also did the boilers at
Bear Tavern the boilers at timberlan we did all the sewer projects at um Timberlane we took the um fire alarm system the fire alarm system at Stony Brook and did that um this past summer so there have been numerous things that we've continued to do and work on out of
out of just Capital money and in addition to the capital mone's that you're repairing things there's also constant maintenance to the buildings right we had we have tons of dead trees that we've had to remove there have been Paving jobs um there's been lots of Plumbing work that we've done um luckily
we have inside people that can do that and save us some money just even just changing out light bulbs and making sure you're changing out steiling I mean there's maintenance that happens beyond the capital projects yeah we've changed um about 4,000 um light bulbs out to LED
this year alone so that lowers our um cost on electric and we happen to get those light bulbs at are very good price because we were through a PSG Grant so we're only paying a dollar a piece for thank you here's just some examples of the
projects that we've done uh with either District uh District folks or with um um contractors outside this is what Alex was looking for before my computer died yes and I know that folks the one of the the bones of contention was this
Turf build at CHS that we replaced when when the the perill was purchased the ba understood and so did the the uh director of of uh of of our Sports Mr Becker they knew that they would have to replace this they save money to replace the turf bill so it's not like we pulled
money out of a budget that was already strained they saved because they knew this repair had to come as well as the tennis courts these things do need to be resurfaced every um so often and school districts need to plan for that and they did plan for those those changes it's a good point
yeah I'm GNA let the expert there are a lot of codes that you have to stay compliant with um the the structure of the building itself the Integrity of it uh follow specific code schools or classes um Class E which is
completely different than your home um everything you do has just become so much more costly uh for instance um on HVAC um equipment everything is now what they call addressable so if a fan goes and if
say the fan goes in your heater at Home the blower motor you just have the company come out they replace the blower motor it's done if the fan goes or the blower motor and what in this new equipment it has to be programmed so we can put the fan in but the unit won't
run until the manufacturer comes out and puts their computer on it and programs it and that's an extra couple thousand dollars just to have them do that so all these hidden cost um different um versions of equipment get sold we have Florida heat pumps at um Stony Brook
Florida heat pump sold to Bosch Bosch is not exactly as Cooperative as could be possible when it comes to selling the same components and the same thing with Panasonic units that we have at Bear Tavern they've been sold to San now Panasonic is still in the heat pump
business but not doing what that type is which is a vrf so you have to go through Sano and meeting these different matching the numbers and finding the same components and they've increased the prices a compressor that used to cost $1200 three years ago is over
$3,000 now one of the big things that is different from home versus public construction is we have to pay prevailing wage which also drives up the cost for anything over $2,000 worth of work that answer yeah there you
go okay so just some of the uh things that are going to be done at the high school approximately almost $10 million worth of projects again the remaining roof areas that were not addressed um during the previous referendum those
two areas in blue to the far right um those are the uh newer areas of Central High School those those buildings those additions were put on in the 2000 referendum that added the pack and that new gym which is not the new gym anymore it's really the older gym but those
roofs have expired those the lifetime of those roofs have expired they need to be replaced but the remainder of those other roofs were done um at the previous referendum the 4 100 Wing which is to the far left the kind of diagonal piece that was a 97 referendum that's the
original heating uh system that was installed when that addition was put on so again uh well beyond it its useful life again Paving restoration for the um solar parking lot the student lot with the solar panels over it needs to be
redone and we've kind of delayed that um for a considerable amount of time there okay moving on to timberlan um again a decent portion of um the roof back there the other roofs were
done uh prior um but that needs to be done there's also incredible amount of HVAC work uh that needs to be done there as well as uh as well as replacing the chiller in that place and and um air conditioning the last uh place in the
district that isn't the auxiliary gym uh at timberling will be addressed and on that HVAC work that has to be done at Timberlane over this past uh month and a half when we had the cold spells we lost three um coils in classrooms at
timberlan and when that happens it steams the class I remember because I was principal there and you lose a lot of stuff in the class as well yes and then you're at you can't use that room until we get that coil back ABS all right and then the last part of the timberlan um is just to revamp the front
entrance it's not this is not a beautification project um it is uh a pretty serious trip hazard out there with the with the concrete that has deteriorated over the past 20 25 years there um that's that's really what's being done out there and in addition to
the the facade wall is starting to crumble down we've had to do um some maintenance up there had to remove some of the block um that's up at the top of that facade it just it needs to it needs to be replaced yeah right over there yeah at
the top that's crumbling uh last summer I got up on a lift and pulled all the loose um blocks off and we'll have to do that again this year okay that's timberling Bear Tavern we did a walk through um through there
um we need again some this is where we have a well um you may recall we had an issue with the timberlan uh well last fall not this two Falls ago uh where we lost water for a DE day almost a day and a half um we were very
fortunate to be able that Tom found a spare pump sitting on a shelf down in South Jersey that they were able to ship up to us and we had to we had an emergency repair uh to that well um we could have been weeks without water to that well so the projects at be Tavern
and also timberlan are are auxiliary Wells so that in case one fails the other one will be operational um we have some work that we need to do to the sewer pumping station there we run a very what's called a very small water system at Bear Tavern and we are not on uh public water or sewer um
we run maintain our own basically sewage treatment plant that pumps into a a force main that we uh manage that goes into the the public water system further down Bear Tavern Road yeah about two miles down Bear Tavern Road we own the
line okay um some so just some things that needed to be done at these places a good portion of the roofing over the Pod areas um ALS needs to be taken care of as well as the uh HPA system that manages the front of the building the main office and I believe into the
cafeteria yes the cafeteria the uh Media Center the main office and then we're also looking at replacing the um heat pumps that currently run to assist with heating and actually provide the cooling in the pods uh that system is about 15
years old uh as I said they've Panasonic has sold out to Sano and it's just inefficient it we can't we can't make it work anymore right and then the last part of that um you could see in the upper right hand corner with the arrow um a lot of the storefront work um in
front of that building has the the steel has rotted away uh deteriorated away over the over the past 50 uh plus years of that building um you know a lot we've gotten some questions from public members about why we we let it get to that point um when Tom and I both got
here and I I got here a little bit before him but that was already already beyond the point of repair we've been you know making do with it um over time but the what causes that is is the rock salt that gets tossed onto the concrete out there and years before we don't do
it anymore in this District we've gone to Green cleaning chemicals but the the floor compounds that were used to polish and clean the floors were CTIC and it caused the the rusting of that of those uh those those metal panels not only that but the construction methods that
were used in the early 1960s where they Place steel directly on the concrete slab that's no longer done so that in itself started corrosion this may be a stupid question
may why do we own line two M down I I don't know why uh it was built that way but when when Bear Tavern was built in the 60s the population around here probably was you know a p fraction of what it is now and to get it built
they said you need to maintain your own water system I don't I don't know is that something that we can explore with rem or somehow it just seems for
years we have tried to get both Timberlane and Bear Tavern on public water and it's not met with much um enthusiasm and I don't believe um Elsa the Sewer Authority comes all the way up to Bear Tavern I think most of the
houses around there are still on um septics so we have looked at at timberlan to get that on public water but it's not it's you know there's very little to no interest in in doing that not on our part right some work at um hopo
Elementary again a lot of the also the other buildings there are there interior doors um folks were at at togate and be Tavern last week that there's some issues with interior doors we are looking to get the most um up-to-date fire rated doors the doors are secure we
have all of our doors in a lockdown situation are secure these are more fire ready doors that provide an increased level of security and safety in case of a fire um again more that so again um some the
uh kindergarten rooms we talked about U improving some of our spaces for our our youngest students some we have some uh two rooms at hopeall that need to have a proper uh restroom for those students again more Roofing uh there as well and
a complete uh rework of the primary uh HVAC Wing this is a project Tom what was the cost of that around the 5 million area yeah I believe so yeah again it's just it's it's a very comprehensive um hva project then the things just cost
more than they they ever have and again the system that's in place is no longer supported by the manufacturer again Stonybrook our newest uh school at 20 plus years old the original Roofing there is um past its
useful life and uh that's going to be done um in addition this is something that that I learned um I wasn't here when we uh first built stone Brook but Stony Brook was built with a geothermal well system that provided both Heating and Cooling um over the past 22 years
and this is common that the cold water the heat works fine it's the cold water can't get as cold anymore to maintain the the the cooling portion of it so we are um proposing an auxiliary Chiller to
help on the hottest of days uh and that building is pretty much used year round um so we feel that that's necessary to keep the cooling capability of that building up to up to par and as Dr tce mentioned there is a drainage issue um
off to the um with the with a smaller playground area is that that we're trying to address um to run the water properly away from the building I just want to clarify on the um for Sony Brook's geothermal it's not that the
equipment is a issue it's clim the the ground temperature has changed the ground has warmed yeah so it's um from 22 years of having the wells in in the ground it actually has warmed the ground temperature from what's normally around
55 to about 65 to 70° it's really helpful on the heating side but it's very detrimental on the cooling side so we're adding the chilling to yeah help and and you do have to understand too the equipment there is 22 years old and fails
constantly but we continue to fix it so and uh togate um you could see a vast the vast majority of the entire uh Tollgate building is having a roof replaced um again more HVAC work uh in
the third on the third floor um one and again a major Electrical uh upgrade to that building we need to replace the entire electrical switch gear in that uh facility and the other the final project there again is the additional um space that
will be provided on the onto the black top area um providing for an additional eight classrooms um that will be designed to handle both preschool and kindergarten classrooms the size-wise but it can be used uh for anything and
as we learned tonight um that that uh principal Lori is having some issues with um you know we don't have all of our special area classes some of them are on a cart and they have limited space over there for their students and and the thing that I've pushed for
always wanted since I got here was to close those trailers uh on the side of that building okay and this just gives you an overview of where that be Tavern addition uh would go um the trailers on at be Tavern
will remain um they'll they're functional for office BAS uh not so much and we can't use them actually we found out we can't use them for our preschool program any longer effective what 2027 they'll no longer be eligible to be used for our preschool
program kind of what it's going to look like and then Tollgate similar with a passageway from the back of the building to a addition off the back the dotted red area is where the current trailers are those will be removed and there'll
be uh additional head-on parking there to uh eliminate some of the congestion on uh South Main Street also gives the First Responders the ability to circle the building uh which they don't have right now for the preschool requirements
changing is that based on the like square footage per student guidelines or what's the reason why buildings won't be eligible for it anymore yeah this it has nothing to do with preschool expans but it has to do with just preschool in general has to be
in it's got to be inside the oh inside okay so if we were not to do this we'd have to find a way to run our our Peach program within the building okay kind of gives you an idea of of
um to Gates Edition there's also a piece of the the Tollgate ref um renovation that will add another bathroom um for staff I believe it's a staff bathroom uh put a bathroom in the nurse's suite and also provide uh some storage
space for the gym um that doesn't exist right now the most of the storage at the gym is on the stage uh which is not um it's not uh the best situation for the the instructor okay and a summary of the
costs that we're looking at now the question one remember those were the projects that had uh will receive funding from the state and question two was for the two additions the addition at Bear Tavern and the addition at togate again question one and two are
the way it was um where we the the finance committee and board had decided to look at nothing has been decided as of today um there will be a lot of discussion over the next you know 3 to four to five months um on where we wind
up and again it just shows the eligibility of the projects okay and then the uh the cost of the of theuh two questions themselves right that's pretty much kind of takes us through it any other questions from
board members hi I guess this is on um not not really these are really loud today aren't they or is this just this one okay they're upgraded okay sorry I'm going to step back here a little bites so just not
really a question it's more of a comment I think think the having been through it first of all great update on the pilot hopefully you know everything comes into uh what's the word I'm looking for here everything's decided and that's all you
know settled before we actually have to to really make you know the true decisions here I would still say the same thing I said at the last meeting that I think maybe we need to sort of look at the questions I I think two questions is a great idea I think the student safety issues that we're seeing
bringing those kids indoors to me I think that's probably a higher priority than some of the other things that I'm seeing in question one regardless of the the percentage of of State funding so I I would just urge you know as we're sort of looking at how we're breaking down the questions I was just at togate
tonight I know a few of us were you know th those kids if we could figure out a way to that that's probably the most pressing need to me is that we have those kids inside and and so I would hate for that to be the second question as as Dr trce mentioned I just wanted to first of all great update thanks Bob for
doing that thanks for your work on the pilot issue that's obviously huge and then you know I would just urge us you know to sort of if possible consider you know how we're how we're ordering the different projects so Denita brought something up
um kind of we forgot about it a little bit but at the last bar meeting there was question come from the public um about why there is an additional parking at be Tavern um we did look into it um we had uh walk the grounds Tom and
I walk the grounds with the um with the architect and engineer um we kind of determined that there's only one real feasible place to put additional parking and it would be towards the back side of the building um behind where the
trailers are now um we could probably get another 73 to 74 spaces in there um believe it or not the cost of doing that will be about $1.2 million um we are submitting that
project in case the board decides that they want to go ahead with it again doesn't mean we're going to do it it just means that we're getting the approvals necessary from the state should the board um wish to go ahead with that but um the other parts the other areas of the
um the site were either too far away if we were going to put it back beyond the addition um or near the playground where where students would have to cross that area to get to the playground and we didn't feel that that that we'd be able
to get enough cars into that area um than than just extending the parking lot that's already on the side but um it's possible it but as as we thought um the the code the construction code is putting and putting down
um not what is it not impervious Service uh is very difficult and it should be um but we would have to get through both hopal Township but also the Delaware and raron Canal uh commission would have to take a hard look at that which is what drives
Al the soft cost may drive some of the cost of that up as well the regulatory oversight to add that additional um space talked about a couple options for this a hard surface or something like what we have in the back which is the
mesh so that price is the hard surface I'm assuming so we looked in we also looked into the matting um if we put the matting down um as you can see back here in in the winter you're still going to wind up with a um a decent amount of mud
that you'd have to deal with um in addition to it would take a lot of that area where you put the um the mesh it would make that it you couldn't use it for sports anymore um competitive Sports anyway you could have recess on it things like that but to have and it's
used by of our soccer and cross programs it would no longer because because of the mesh your cleats would get TW twisted up into the grid um which would make it you know a safety hazard to use that um I just had a quick comment about that and then a question I think with
regards to the comment I think we just want to be really cautious adding additional projects at this time I think what we heard from the public although I am very sympathetic to the parking issue um is that they want less not more so I think just as a board we should really be thoughtful about any additional
projects that get added I think the the second thing that I'll just ask which is a question really is about the state contribution so the 33% State contribution for some of these projects given the federal and state funding
context right now is it possible that in the upcoming fiscal years that portion could be reduced or is that something that's going to stay static a good question um it's so debt it's called
Debt Service Aid okay and it comes out with the um Governor's Financial package could it be eliminated yes it could be it hasn't over the years it's always been funded um but the the governor needs to make
Appropriations for it annually he had a catastrophic issue with the budget he could reduce it he could eliminate it um but historically he has not done that they have not done that and if we were to lock it in Nosh with the referendum would we be
grandfathered in for that service a is subject to annual Appropriations okay thank you uh just for my clarification so the parking for Bear Tavern is in that
number no no no no it was a we were asked we were asked the question we we did a back of the napkin walk through an estimate that the architect gave us you know we went met with an engineer and he said you know given this this that square foot but it is on the list of
projects that you want us to but it's not in the numbers it's not in any of these numbers and just because you approve it doesn't mean you have to do it it was asked of us and we said you know it's in its infancy if the board decided that they wanted to go ahead with it we'd
have that ability to do it um or if we decided to take it on on our own if we were able to save for it down the road project will be approved and we could go ahead with it any other questions okay thank you Tom all right we're gonna go ahead and
move okay so it's part of the consent agenda so it's item uh Pam knows because she told me I messed it up twice today uh it's item eight G8 so once you once we do the unless you
want to pull it from the consent agenda but you know if we go ahead and pass it we we will work through the uh with the architect and Engineers submit to the state everybody clear about that okay you have any questions as to what you're doing what you're being
asked to do right okay thank you so we're going to go ahead and move into uh our first public comment section um and I am going to just shair members of the public are invited to address the board on any
matter for a maximum of 3 minutes during this portion of the meeting you're asked to state your name address and municipality and in response to your comments the Board of Education May respond or direct the superintendent to do so the board may also opt to take the
matter up at a future meeting so that the matter is researched by uh The District administration public comments now open and I have a timekeeper over here Yow okay public comments now open the
uh at the podium I know it's hot here hello um Cheryl sarin kowsky nine Hunters Ridge Drive In Hell Township um I just had two questions comments um first I just wanted to um give my
appreciation for looking at the parking at Bear Tavern um I did hear you mention about having um it has a priority for togate to get parking um and mentioning them parking on the street but I believe that we have um sidewalks here in
Pennington where there's no sidewalks at be Tavern so that could be probably a more expensive option but um even if there were sidewalks on the road I think that that would be really beneficial second off um I wanted to speak a little bit to the Bear Tavern addition um so
I'm excited to hear that pilot may help with that addition but I'm a little concerned with how the classrooms are being allocated if pilot is supposed to help for all of the new homes that are being added and we're allocating 60% of those classrooms to prek we're only
really adding in four additional classrooms um to help with that expanded house housing that we have here so I understand my son is now in prek I understand wanting to move them out of the trailers and I think that's a great idea um but I'm really concerned that we're not actually addressing the issue
we have here with the rising um enrollment we have in the elementary schools and to offer a suggestion um it might be a good idea if we can get that pilot um approved that we just changed that second question in um in the referendum to account for the preschool
rooms and maybe that's I know last time you talked about an addition um on the Second Story and maybe that's where we can keep that second question but have it to be specifically for those preschool rooms that is all I had to say thank you very much thank you hello I'll find it I'm done um ly uh
five State Park Drive um in Titusville here um so I have a few questions um just for clarification what does uh administrative restructuring mean um is the district redistricting um going to occur regardless of whether or not the
referendum passes again given that there is uh there are housing developments in each of the municipalities going in um do you cap the rate for hiring new teachers I know you mentioned when we have the the veteran teachers retiring
we can often hire newer teachers at a lower salary but do we restrict the district and kind of force their hand to hire inexperienced teachers rather than taking test possible candidate um the Universal prek Survey
asked if we um it really was asking if we're going to use it but not necessarily for Community Support I for one would love to propose by support for Universal prek my kids are aged out I won't make use of that but I would like to uh support that
endeav um glad to hear the update with the pilot um also want to make sure that the burrow councils are clear in what's happening with the litigations that that money can be released and depending on when that
money is available what happens with that referendum so can we reallocate more money to perhaps get rid of the trailers at Bear Tavern or add additional classrooms or parking um things like that so if we because we
don't know when that money is going to become available if it's not there and then the referendum goes forward the town says yes hopefully and then we get the funds then we get the pilot money do we get to do a happy dance and do lots
of things or are we doing something else kind of what the plan should that money you know kind of be held up a little bit longer and we don't know or what happens when it comes through so thank you good evening Lauren Kavanaugh to Tim
cacl hell Township I would like to share something that happened to my son a couple weeks ago my son walked into the bathroom at Timberlane only to find a vulgar offensive symbol of hate scrawled on the stall door displaying this symbol
is not only offensive but also considered a hate crime in the eyes of the law and for good reason I'm grateful that my son had a trusted adult at Timberlane with whom he could work through his initial reactions however we found out later that the proper protocol
for handling hate speech was not carried out until days later because the trusted adult reported it to a school administrator who was unfortunately not aware of the protocol Beyond this one incident I personally aware of numerous instances where students have been
confronted with hate speech based on the color of their skin their religion their disabilities and their gender identities this has to stop unfortunately incidents of bias are on the rise in our area according to a report from the New
Jersey Office of the Attorney General in 2022 Mercer County had the second highest rate among among all counties Statewide of reported bias incidents per 10,000 residents at a rate of about four incidents per 10,000 residents and by
comparison Essex County had only about one incident per 10,000 residents and incident rates are rising I looked at the database from which this report was from and saw that the rate of bias incidents increased in our County since
22 2022 from 172 incidents to 200 4 in 2024 and of course those are just the incidents that have been reported while we can't address all of what's happening in Mercer County I know we can do better in our community here I have several
requests of the administration I ask that all Vice principles and other administrators receive updated and expanded training so that they are prepared to handle these incidents in the future of the board I ask you to look into what other education we can be
giving the children children so that we can be better informed about the impact of hate speech and hate symbols on the school Community know how to react when encountering such incidents and learn to be more open to people that aren't like them and mindful of the big impact that
even small acts of kindness and courage can make and of the community I ask that we all explore ways of stopping hate crime increasing public awareness and compassion not just in our schools but in our community areas places places of
worship parks and so on I'd like to hear from the board and administrators about how they've addressed these issues in the past and I'd like to hear the plan to increase their focus on this so that incidents decrease and they are
appropriately handled in the future thank you uh hi I'm Will Carter for W Street here in Pennington uh last time we were here we spoke a little bit about smart pass and um this is still an issue in our schools but um there's a few I guess
rumors going around and concerns that something known as a Yonder pouch might be being implemented into our high school as well and uh this is the Yonder far more of a concern than smart smart passes but we also have to address smart
passes as well so okay uh yeah for those that are unaware uh the Yonder pouches have been implemented I believe just Middle School at this time and um what they have done is uh you you every child
has received a pouch uh and to my understanding uh you walk into the school building uh you put your phone in the pouch uh they are locked I believe only the administrators have keys to these I'm not sure of that off the top of my head uh but then uh you have your phone on you but you cannot use it
throughout the day um high school students for many reasons that I have written down but you know talk about this at an UPC meeting are uh very uh worried about the potential of this to
come over to the high school um and we'd like to hear what your plans are yeah I I think that um high school students just want to know because I feel like there hasn't been a lot of communication to students at the high school whether or not it is true if
these are coming and what it means for the students if they do come and we also would advise that um you do not Implement these at the high school because we we think that they are a security and privacy or not PR security concern for all the students um the
second thing that uh I'd like to bring up today uh it was talked earlier about uh World languages in the budget um and I'd just like a little bit of clarification that language to my understanding every high school student is required to take five credits of
world language education and when the language up on the board says elimination of the world language course of study that raises concerns for thanks thank Kate ham hopeall Township just a few remarks and questions this evening I am
encouraged by viewing the attendance of community members at the school tours and board meetings these last few months while looking through the current list I see five of the six schools will be addressed between January and may is there a plan to hold the same tour and board meeting meeting at the high school
on tonight's tour it was mentioned that the superintendent would be creating a communication committee I would like to ask a couple of questions has it yet been determined the purpose and mission of this committee what is the projected size of the committee and for parents who are interested in participating in
this committee how would they go about expressing their interest while I heard the brief discussion and update surrounding the potential of universal prek I would like to offer this I publicly affirm that I support Universal prek if it is done with appropriate fiscal
responsibility the grant as it stands does not fully fund the universal prek program the grant is to support and the district must utilize their budget to accommodate the grant also has very specific criteria and might potentially alter current programming here in hopo
Valley utilizing present Community preschool programs would require them to meet the state of New Jersey guidelines in terms of square footage staff requirements curriculum Etc and potentially negatively impact local businesses being titled as universal
would mean access to all eligible students which should include Transportation another large Financial commitment while you speak to other districts who have undertaken this grant it's important to note that you will get a very different perspective from an
administrator versus staff who boots on the ground Additionally the grant is not a guarantee and with new leadership coming to New Jersey in 2026 another decision could be made about the grant at this time you're asking the community to undertake other sizable Financial
commitments with a referendum it's imperative to make a fiscally responsible decision good evening um Kate Lions I live at 77 harberton Mount Ary um lamberville butal Township um and um last time last month
at the meeting it there was a significant discussion of classroom sign and I was left a little bit confused as to whether this is an inevitability it seems the messaging is class sizes will go up now that was a concern across the
board um from the members of the community and it was certainly I know it's listed as a consequence the referendum does not pass but the question I have is is class size going to go up no matter what what can we do
to limit the increase in the class size to stop the increase in the class size is that even possible or is it a Fool's error I know that in addition to the class sizes going up the uh par professionals are also being eliminated
what can we do about that is that Al also an inevitability regardless of whether the referendum passes or not are we just looking at class sizes going up and up and up without proper support thank you anyone else hello Aaron grer 26 Dublin Road
Pennington um I wasn't going to speak tonight but I'm sorry um so I just want to to report back um after the last board meeting I did attend the Hopewell Township committee meeting via Zoom um because I am want to
support and work together so I wanted to report back what was told to me at the meeting I was told in regards to the pilot that the money cannot be released because the court case is in the
Appellate Court I don't know if something different happened from when I went so my question is is there an update from what I was told has the court case been settled or is it still
in the appell at court and the money cannot be given to the district that's what I was told from the committee so I'm here to ask what is that communication um between the district and the township my second question um is one
that I asked in the second public comment but it didn't get answered last time and that is regarding the developments that have been built that are going to be Tavern my question was um I know right now there was a lot of
talk about um sending students rerouting students to Stonybrook and wherever else which very appreciative of if that's happening um but my question then is that seems like it would cost more for busing if we're just rerouting specific
students um from specific developments so my question is has there been discussion will there be discussion about specific developments being rerouted instead of just specific students for example the shop rate development is quite close to Stony
Brook it goes to be Tavern um and there is also the new development on Scotch Road that goes to be Tavern so have there been conversations is that a possibility and if it's not why is that not a possibility thank you hi um I'm luring cabro 10 Nathaniel
Green Drive and I'm in Titusville um I just have again it's a B on the pilot program some questions related to that um I think that if I understood correctly from what we were discussing that there was a possible implementation January 1 of next year so if Peach
students are already um in those classrooms what would Transportation look like to the potential new locations or outside vendors that we were talking about what that structuring would look like within the classrooms um especially those would be turning from halfe to
midyear Staffing um for those uh rooms as well and what that would look like for the students and the teacher population and the expectations of the teachers in that first phase so just looking for some clarification on what our expectations are and what the
implementation of that would look like thank you any other questions okay thank you we move on to um the list going down the list I'm going to go backwards so I don't miss one this time
but uh we want to start with the um preschool questions hi I appreciate all your preschool questions like I said right now we are in fact finding um and we want to do this the right way we're going to do it um so it's it's a
fiveyear process if we are if they are offering the Grant and if number one we are awarded the grant um but what we would probably do is if we decide to apply for the grant and they offer it um we would definitely communicate to our parents of our Peach students that it
would it would probably they will most likely transition into a full day all of the teachers through Universal preschool have to be certified through the New Jersey Department of aded um and we would have to follow those guidelines the curriculum um would be very similar
in that we're using one of the three curriculums that are that the department of Ed requires that we adhere to so we would either stay with the current curriculum or we would choose one of the other two that are New Jersey Department of Ed approved and accredited um as far
as the other logistics I don't have those answers yet but I will um you know if we decide if they offer the grant we decide we're going to apply for it we'll we'll have a parent meeting we will sit down we will talk through everything but we do have to provide busing busing has Transportation does have to happen yeah
okay so again if this is not something that the state can help us fund and well fund this is not something we can go down the road of so we'll be in communication with you um I I understand Mrs Ham's concern that's the reason why I didn't go after this two or three years ago when it started I wanted to
make sure um that I saw other districts go through the process and that it work it was working the way uh it was supposed to work before we even entertained this yeah and I think U Miss ham asked about or um requested that we speak not just with administrators just for the record I am actually meeting
with teachers and I am meeting with administrators as well cuz I you know having been a teacher for a really long time I value everything that they they say and do because they're they're in the classrooms every day with our kids so thank you the next one was um about the um the
township meeting and the they're talking about the the the uh lawsuit and they're waiting for a decision the Mayors have been in negotiation after meeting with us and trying to come to an agreement where they agree on one paying for the bare Tavern uh addition and then there's
some other things that they're negotiating um they've also the township has reached out to us within the last week kind of exploring some other ways that they can bond out the money um alongside the pilot not wait for the pilot money but to do like is there another opportunity to to bond the money
out to remove this as a question for us so they're looking at a couple of options um to see if they can find the funding that would take that question off and alleviate the the tax impact and the cost of the uh referendum to you so that's where we are right now with that
um and as soon as we know and we ask them to try to get us the answer sooner than later so we can answer that to you um hopefully by the end of the month but we'll see uh what their negotiation brings moving forward did you want to add anything there yeah I I think the the Clear Point or the clear question
was this is what they're saying in this setting and what they're telling us so the communication is ongoing they're is obviously communication that happened just this week but we won't feel confident until we've got that's it
illegal we've got it legally U clarified for us so continue um if they're apprehensive in telling you straight out that that's what they're planning to do then I would take them at their word and we'll
continue to press on our side but our information is every week um as we go and we're continuing to apply whatever pressure we can but obviously with um limited
um you know yeah we have little little leverage but we continue to have the conversation then we continue to bring them to the table together because it's for them to work out and and detailed information has been requested from me
to give to them M so they can for they can form at their their plan yes so um redistricting is happening right now we are already rerouting some kids to Stonybrook we have already had to add some routes yes additional kids will
mean more routes um next year there will be a redistricting we're going to try to affect new parents first um but there's some streets and some of the existing developments even Beyond shoppr right that we're having problems navigating with um our current routes so we're going to be probably rerouting certain
streets and and certain communities over to Stonybrook sending kids all way over to Hope well is not feasible and togate teeny tiny right so that's that's not going to happen so those are the two schools that we're going to have to um really look at for redistricting between those two and balancing out those
numbers um so yes we would probably have to add routes but we're going to try to minimize that as much as possible and we're working very closely with transportation to look at those routes um class size will be going up for everyone regardless of the the referendum passes because that still doesn't address the lack of funding that
we're receiving on the other side for our fixed costs so that what does that mean class sizes of 17 16 on average 18 are going to go up to the mid 20s and I'm going to try to hold there par professionals are linked to IEPs largely meaning students with special needs
these roles are hard to fill as it is so we've kind of um had shared uh kindergarten care of professionals um if a class size at a kindergarten level hits a larger size you need to add a kindergarten Pera so we understand that hopefully we can find folks to fill
these positions that's been a struggle um so the qu the Paras are probably the numbers are probably not going to go down vastly because many of those are linked to student IEPs and we're by law obligated to have those there um so again the mid 20s is what we're really
looking for and I I don't plan on going any larger than that and hopefully I won't need to go um much larger than that and the funding is is addressed I just want to clarify a point so as we go through the year there is
not going to be a redistrict that's just not feasible to disrupt someone who's already in the district but each each season we look a new at what the distribution of children look like and again as much as we know ahead we're
going to communicate to the community but we're not disrupting in the middle which I think makes sense to folks but I just want to clarify there are new folks going in that we've already started uh Mr Billy and Miss G and Freddy already talk and there's class sizes that were're hitting too large and we sent them over to Stony book now because
they're new students they're new the new students will be the ones that will move around during the year but not at I think the the question was given that there are some students from the shoppr neighborhood that are going to be Tavern now next year they will be going to
Stony Brook going to take that whole neighborhood and ship it that's right so okay so we had our high what one more thing while you're on question right there was a part of the question yes class sizes are going
to no matter what what would be the impact of the referendum not passing on the glass sies ask address that well it's not a direct correlation but if we have if we have major projects that we
can't fund and these are bad projects that are closing buildings or causing a catastrophic failure yes you're going to have to find the money somewhere so will the district be faced with a situation where they have to reduce class sizes I mean increased class sizes even more districts have had to do that um so you
know I don't know that that so the mid 20s is assuming the referendum pass right and if it doesn't pass stuff starts to happen I can't predict how bad that will get yes thank
you um um so I think I got all those so the next one was uh the high school students um asked about the Yonder pouches I don't know what we're going to be doing with the high school at Yonder pouches right now we're focusing on the uh Middle School the Middle School Yonder pouches were funded through title
for money ttle four money is money that's allocated to school districts um it's it comes from federal funds it's meant to be used on school climate improving School climate reducing the bullying um situations that are happening in schools we spend that money on our air dog training we have uh we're
we have possibly maybe the six cohort of that we're working with the hvf and some other organizations to see how we're going to continue to fund some of these things um but the money that paid for those pouches was that money it cannot be used for anything else so when so folks are saying well why are you
spending money on the Yonder patches which cost about $30 a kid to Tool out the middle school and get it ready for the removal sites and all of that and the training and the setup for the Yonder patches is cost us and I'm rounding up to about 30 grand but moving
forward it's $30 a pouch for each kid we purchased enough for kids to have lose them to for have all the issues that middle schoolers have um so we have a little kitty so that we don't have to hit a parent right away if a kid loses one or two because that's going to happen um but the high school we don't
know how we're going to be able to fund that so right now we're focusing on the Middle School um if if Miss Riley decides to go that explore that route she will have that discuss disc with high schoolers um just like Mr turble uh worked with his middle school kid uh students as well but right now the focus
is on the middle school so I don't have any plans for that right now um but certainly you all will be part of that conversation uh if we go down that road and and I think the conversation that I'm just going to kind of tie it to
um you pointed to the the bullying and just the environment in which our children function in there is a lot of data suggesting that the less time our kiddos spent on the phone especially in the school environment the less
um access to social pressure and it there's a tie to bullying there's a tie to the behavior during school so getting back to less screen time is a strong push towards helping our kids
regulate and not um act out if that's the impetus to why they're treating each other poorly but there are a lot of different things that are being done and this is just one of them that um has a strong influence in terms of how our kids are socialized
during the day at school and really um we're in the early stages of the implementation of the Yonder patches I know $30,000 sounds like a lot if I can get back the money we've spent on Mental Health Care and what we've and the time we spent chasing bullying that happens on on cell phones just the the trauma
that's being caused because of students in social media if I could I would pay three times this so we're really trying to rein in that because we really are seeing our kids struggling with the cell phones and they admit that the cell phones are a problem now the safety issue there's a Hardline in every every
class school I mean every classroom there's ways to get the pouches open if they need to get them open if there's an emergency um to look up their parents number or to to get in touch with somebody they can still do that um this is just a way to have it off in a way and really off in a way now the high
school you you guys are a little bit large older you know you have some ability to regulate better than some middle school kids we're going to work through that with you um but the plan right now is we're focusing on the Middle School um because it's such a formative time and the impulsivity is there right and the and the frontal lobe
is not formed so we're working on the middle school first and focusing just on them with that yeah the high school tour um we started by trying to schedule out the rest of the meetings we know we only have the one a month um we're pushing the schools that folks haven't been in
uh the high school we have meetings in all the time we will plan on doing a high school tour but we're putting that later and trying to get folks into the elementary schools um first uh so the high school will probably won't happen till June um if not July but we certainly will provide tours for that as
well we might have to put that on another day not the board meeting if folks want one sooner than later Bob okay the high school tour because that's yeah that's um the Miss Kavanagh um brought up a situation at the uh Middle School
the situation occurred was a kid's uh there was a a swat sticker that was drawn on one of the bathroom walls and a student saw it the uh it got to the vice principal this is a vice principal that hadn't dealt with this before he knew the one student saw it he tried to
investigate it he couldn't find who did it he got it down immediately and he did not communicate that um to me and that's the protocol and and we also need to call the police even when you don't know who's done something like this you need
to report it to the police because that's how they track and know how many numbers of cases we've had in Mercer County um now this new administrator knows that and we are committed to training making sure everyone knows because we have um a couple of new uh Vice principles and you don't have to
you don't deal with these things until they sort of come up is there a rise on the racist comments and things that are happening at the middle school yes middle schools overall are going to see these incidents first again they're young they're impulsive and they repeat what they see on social
media and what they hear from adults this is why it's important to do the work that we're doing around educating students around their language around what these symbols mean that they're not jokes and they're not funny and also the very serious consequences
if we did find that student who wrote that on the wall their parents would be having to pay a visit to the police department and there would be questions and all kinds of things because they have to see if this is a hate crime this this is they don't know if it's a hate crime or not they have to investigate it anytime there's harassment intimidation
and bullying report and it has to do with race or religion or some or somebody's disability we have to report that to the police in addition to the whatever consequences we issue are the police working with us to help keep this
in the education realm and not starting a file on your child they they do work very closely with us here in in Hotwell and Pennington other school districts is not necessarily like that but we have a great working relationship with our local police department we try to keep
it educational but if it keeps happening they're keeping a record of the kid that it happens over and over with the same kid um we work closely with the prosecutor's office who runs um um restorative circles uh they have a a detective that works with our students
he trains the students and they run cir uh restorative circles at the middle school they also keep track of the cases that go through their restorative Circle and if a child has done something a second time or a third time they actually go to the prosecutor's office where they get some remediation there um
so that's the work that we continue to do but as uh this talk about Dei and the work that districts are doing and the money we're spending on this is what we're trying trying to avoid is more cases like this this is why this is important for all students to to uh
participate in this education because I don't want them to end up in our in our you know our system right so that's why that we spend that money that we do we use a lot of title money for that as well title four again is for climate title
two for professional development for how our teachers are are working with our students we do have professional development on teachers recognizing these things and how they intervene we do a lot of work with our students and bring folks in to talk to our students around these topics so we will continue
this work and and Miss Kavanagh and the rest of the community we thank you for your for your continued support we will continue training our our um our our administrative team as a matter of fact I've done a lot of free training myself um with David Nash who who lawyers that
provide training like this and as a result of me and and Miss Smith and some of my other administrators doing Free Labor we've earned some professional development and they're going to be coming in training our staff on some of these very issues and running scenarios like what happened at the middle school and then giving us what do you do next
um so we are committed to continue doing this work um and thank you for for raising this because I I do want to you to I want parents to keep bringing this to the Forefront why this is important that we do this work the restructuring of administration is we're going through all of our uh our
positions and seeing if we consolidate if we can reduce some of the the uh the administrative um roles here and that doesn't necessarily mean a supervisor it could mean any administrative you know there's a lot of folks that support what happens in this building and other buildings that aren't necessarily face
Toof face with kids so we're looking at all of those positions to see where we can cond consolidate and make and making sure we still meet the needs of um the district uh without doing being too Draconian in the cuts we talked about the students brought up elimination of a
world language we are aware that there students that are on a track in one of these languages maybe as as their requirement for the three years for high school we are going to phase out any language that's going to affect students or provide them free of cost to them an ability to finish that course of study
so that they don't lose the three years that they've or the two years they've invested and they can continue on their track so it may not be a clean break to say we're eliminating this language completely but perhaps phas it out over time so that those students don't have to pay the price for that we want to make sure everyone um is kept whole as
much as possible as we make this um this transition um I think you you already covered the um the preschool question that was asked about the specifics on that but there was a question about do we cap uh the amount of money that we're hiring teachers at um at as we bring
them in we try there's a big shortage in the teacher pipeline folks are not going into education like they used to we would like to have that enjoy that nice breakage when somebody leaves at the top of the scale and we bring somebody in at the bottom when I started teaching you were happy to get a job and you were
happy to get whatever they gave you now they're like free agents they come in and if I'm the only one that applied that that or one of three that are qualified and you offer me the job I'm negotiating up the pay scale I can do that the first time when I come into the district and I can we can try to hold
our ground and say no we're not going to pay you more than first step and then they quickly say no thank you and they go somewhere else where they're offered more money so it's either we fill the position at the higher cost or not what we're going to do is try our best to again try to
hold hard on this uh not try to higher up the scale if there's somebody that's new that we can train that we can bring in and we can grow with that teacher um but that just depends on if that that person's available I keep looking at Tana because she's the one that keeps yelling at us but she also knows you
know how hard it is um so we're going to continue to try to recruit um as much as we can and enjoy that breakage and also to bring in some um more novice teachers that can grow with the district and learn um the hope well way um so we we'll continue to work on that as much as we can and then finally the parking
and the sidewalks at Bear Tavern um again we're um the I think the board heard uh your request uh for improving the parking the sidewalks is something that we've explored with the township uh multiple times and we also are working with um a safe routes to school uh group
that did a grant at Hopewell Elementary um I don't know that there's going to be a grant opportunity there but we the I'm sure the township would be willing to work with us on writing that Grant as a mayor of the burrow did um but the the sidewalks would be helpful as well because that there is a problem over
there um so something needs to be done the idea of the second floor um the whole point of uh trying to get the township to finally um give us a number is so that we can lower the amount on the uh referendum adding that second floor would raise the amount um but if
the board is comfortable with us exploring it I see shaking heads we can get the number and see what the second floor will cost uh the kindergarten and um setting the classrooms up for kindergarten doesn't mean they have to be kindergarten classes you can put a fifth grade in a class that has a
bathroom in it you can't put a Kindergarten class in a class that's designed for fifth grade so any class can go in there um but we do want to make them all accessible for that grade level because there by code we have to yeah the the um
classrooms the amount of classrooms we put in the referendum was based upon the demographers report um that will deal with complete buildout and that's we don't feel that we'll need at this time the any additional classrooms other than the ones that are being built they are
designed to be used if we need them or want them to be preschool classrooms but um what we wanted to do is relocate our preschool and uh kindergarten classes to that are area um and move other kids
into the the pods in the front um so we we should have plenty of room right now based upon the current buildout to handle um the the crowding that's there now so the the question
that or the example used that there's 10 rooms and if we bring the kids inside then that's only a uh a surplus of for um is is does not account for moving uh classrooms within
so just to clarify what Bob is saying is that yes we're going to bring those kids in from the trailers but we have the flexibility within rooms now to move them around so we'll have more than just four classrooms
available and the other question was about whether we can do different things with the money yes so yes if we yes no so once you write the questions a certain way you have to spend the money that way the reason why that question was so complex when you
all went to vote the last time we uh we went to referendum is because they're being very specific about how you have to spend the money exactly as the projects are are listed there yeah the question will never read do you want to add an addition to be Tavern just doesn't work that way it's it's it's
it's it's written General but specific so um if we were to say if the township drags their feet and they say they're not giving us the money and not giving it and then after we strike the question over the summer they say oh we're going to give it to you now that money would
just the money that the township would give us would offset the debt The Debt Service if the sooner they come to us which means we can Bond less debt so you know let's say we're going to go for 80 million if the township says we're going to give you 20 million now then we only
go for 60 million okay um anything else okay William even awesome with that celebration public comment is now closed and we will move on with the agenda um any old
business items go the room that's a no okay I need a first and second to move the consent it the consent ENT agenda items which again includes the list of of objects projects I'm
sorry a projects going to um be given for the referendum all in favor hi any opposed or abstaining seeing none all consent agenda items pass Tongue Tied okay uh moving on we're
going to do committee updates and I'm going to start with Dr Resnik on F oh sorry Mr Peters I'm actually going to defer to Dr Resnik tonight right I just wanted to be able to introduce him so we can give a stellar report from the
committee for this past week well uh we spent time discussing the parking also so um I think what committee's recommendation was is let's go ahead study
feed um and I think kind of got ahead of that where the parking lot would we discussed the impact of the
potential was Federal funding completely um that is the administ a plan what happen completely um and again about noted um if it's a good thing or a bad thing but we only
get about 1% it's not good thing that's right that's right and last but certainly not least to highlight of almost every financing fa which is where Adam and Tom going get to
present the the various issues that come up meeting so so um there is a potential problem with an a is relationship investigating and there was a
water sum I notic I noted it as um we just to eventually do something about the playground I mean there playground
issues at all four elementary schools that we need to we started address for that Som um some way and last but not least Adra make progress Clos various
gaps any questions okay thank you Dr Resnik slm Mark um and we're going to go ahead and move on to personnel no that's all in consent no no
no okay um can you hear me can yes you can all right we're going to go with it so uh Personnel committee meets before all of our board meetings um so we had our meeting prior to this meeting tonight um and a couple things to announce it's always Bittersweet to talk about resignations these are people who
commit a long part of their life to the community and to the things that for all of our uh children that have gone through the district so we have a bunch of uh resignations for retirement purposes that I'm going to talk about um today um so Donna Weidman uh teacher of bar Tavern elementary school has been at
the district since 1989 um she is going to be retiring Amy Parker school counselor at timberlay Middle School who's been the district since 1993 Claudia Scotty a teacher at hopel elementary school has been with the district since 1993 Anna Lopez a kindergarten teacher at tal in elementary has been with the district
since 1998 Michelle Hamilton a teacher at Hope Elementary School has been with the district since 1999 uh Christine deiro thank you uh school counselor at timberlay middle school has been with the district since 2003 Joanne
Marik the secretary at beer Tavern elementary school has been with the district since 2006 and last but not least nce Elliott the school nurse at hopal elementary school has been with the district since 2007 so on behalf of the whole board we're just very much appreciative of all of the work they've
done and the commitment they made to the community and thank you very much and uh it's not easy to fill those big shoes but we're going to try our darnest to do it uh we also spend some time talking about the extracurricular appointments that we typically do which is available on the agenda um and other than that I am going to reserve some time back and
we'll keep moving on Madame President awesome so we're going to need a first and second to um first and second to move um and approve all the items on Personnel all right seeing that we will
need a roll call vote Mr kadia yes Dr Liston yes Mr Peters yes Dr Resnik yes Mr slotman Dr stano Dr Wilson M Williams gallano yes motion
carries wonderful um go ahead and move on to updates for education so uh I'll hold it all right so we discussed uh two items that we spent
quite a bit of time on um uh the first one was Second Chance learning at the high school um and for those of you who don't know this is a um a program it's a thing that we do in
the district where at middle school and at the high school um if kids do really bad on an exam they have an opportunity to retake I believe it's one for yes um
um we've had a couple of High School Math teachers who became concerned that oh and I should say the intended purpose of second chance learning was to provide an opportunity for those kids that had just had a
really terrible day something happened they weren't feeling well or they just had a completely off day they got a you know a very low a failing grade on an exam that they would done well um so we've
had some uh High School meth teachers who became concerned that it was being used for unended purposes and was actually resulting in great inflation and was not hitting the population that we were
trying to Target primarily they ran a pilot in their classes where they limited Second Chance learning to only being available to those kids who scored less than 80% in an exam with the grade after they Rook it be being kept at 80%
and they saw um results that pointed them in a direction of you know this maybe being a corrective action for Second Chance learning um so we discussed that quite a
bit um there was some feedback from the committee um as far as uh kind of where we would want them to go um I believe what's going to happen
is principal Riley is going to have a meeting of the grading committee where they're going to discuss potential changes to the second chance learning whatever changes will be made will of course be a for next school year and they will be Universal for the for the
high school um so it will not be just math or just particular levels it'll be Universal for the high school and so they're going to discuss that and I guess come back to the to the committee with uh what their propos recommendation so that was Second Chance
learning the second thing we discussed were the smart passes uh we had both Miss Riley and Mr Turnbull and I have to apologize to him because in my notes I come down as M uh but uh he is a he is
Mr Turnell they reviewed the smart pass deployment at both timberlan and at the high school um again we had a lot of discussion um there a lot of feedback from um the committee to the
administration um administration had pointed out that they've already taken a lot of feedback from featurers from high school students and implemented changes so what smart Fest looks today is different from what it looked like on day one of its roll out
uh what we agreed to do is to kind of let it go on for a while at least to the end of the school year and continue reviewing what's going on and seeing what adaptations we can make um additionally uh we've heard from uh a
couple of high school students about the petition that was being circulated uh so the committee had requested that that petition if it has been handed in or whatever or whenever it is handed in that that petition be provided to the
committee so those were the two big items and then Dr bit has provided us the uh new middle school program of studies with really no significant substantial changes from the F so um
that and that's about yes um just wanted to add one additional item since I think we got so much student feedback on the smart pass we had also discussed um M green our student representative attending a future uh committee meeting to just share more about the student
feedback and if there's been any changes since some of the changes have been implemented yes and so um gentlemen that are out there my high schoolers if we can get that petition that would be great and you can get it to miss green or you know maybe even if you all want to attend with her that could probably um and share the petition um but some of
the things that we discussed were the you know folks who need unlimited and there are students that have unlimited passes um the high school currently has five passes a day um we talked about that that limit um they're currently six periods in the class day though at the
high school and one of those is going to the gym in the locker room so I'm pointing out every period you have access to the bathroom if you need it but if there needs to be more of that we just talked about do we really need to limit it at all and that's part of the conversation that definitely want to include students and on um but again
just celebrating the students uh speaking up and and really advocating for themselves we really appreciated that and want more student voice as we move forward and changing um things and the high school and the middle school seem to be doing something a little different with that so maybe aligning
those two would be would be um would be good all right thank you I'm moving on to uh community relations great we the community relations committee met on I think February 13th it's all a blur
now Dro I believe Dru and Dr Jen and Dr there obviously had a couple really good discussions and probably could have kept going if we didn't have to all get back to our day jobs I think so obviously talked about the referendum at length and a number of different strategies
therein including had some thoughts about different ways we can reach different constituencies in addition to some of the you know terrific tours we've been doing you know how do we engage the seniors as an example in town here whether that might be you know going going to a town hall or however that might be specific to seniors also
did quite a bit of talk about you know sort of community engagement and how you know we can uh make sure that we are engaged in the community had a a number of different discussions there Dr T is going to be working with a group obviously related to the referendum and
also you know we talked a little bit about could we do some sort of office hours or you know meet the board member obviously we'd all you know obviously there's rules surrounding that but we had that discussion and is there ways that we can get out there separate and apart from this and you know make ourselves available to the community we
even you know talked about you know how do we have representation at you know certain District events as an example the back to school nights you know if uh you're the if you're the representative to Timberlane like I am I wasn't at her back to school night last year but full
disclos was traveling for work but for for you know next year if you're assigned you know that school that you know you should probably attend that back to school night and you know sit in the front and say hello to everybody I guess within within reason of course we even talked about you know maybe figured
out a way to put our photos on our website which currently don't exist which I I think that would be a nice touch so if uh obviously that's something you know that I think everybody might appreciate so kind of have an idea of who we Who We Are we look like and I think that was the last
bit of information that I was going to mention but I don't know Drew do you have anything you want to flag or Dr T I I was just going to add um in our last meeting we we heard a lot of feedback from parents about the importance of board members meeting the community where they're at uh especially when it comes to the upcoming referendum um so I
I just want to State publicly myself uh Mr slotman Dr J VC we're all asking the questions on what we're allowed to do and we we are unfortunately Bound by some very strict uh ethics and laws in terms of where we can speak publicly
what we can say publicly um and as we move into the next referendum it's I think it's always important to reflect on on how last year's went um when the opposition is politically experienced uh incredibly coordinated and and highly
funded um and we have a limitation on our individual abilities as board members to do the same thing um it it really makes makes it an uneven uh pattle in in this situation so uh I just want to be clear that myself and the
other board members on this committee are actively pushing and and trying to come up with some innovative ways on how we can do a better job of meeting the voters directly where they are uh in terms of educating folks on the referendum you know potentially dispelling some of those uh pieces of of
misinformation and disinformation um but but we're we're working through it there's still some we have some good ideas we have some parents who are phenomenal leaders and activists and we're we're working with them but um we as individuals unfortunately have have some constraints so so what yeah I
wanted to add because I didn't get to one of the questions I just realized as this conversation came up Miss ham asked how do you get involved in and communic on the communications committee we had 31 people sign up through either emailing me and you can always email me to to say you want to participate and they signed up those days that they when
I went to all the PTO meetings we have 31 people one of the people that have has agreed and she's one that a person that usually keeps quite a low profile she happens to be the assistant superintendent in Princeton where they just pass a referendum they use the exact same communication people we did
what the difference was is the parents were in support of the referendum and pushed it over the top parents were communicating heavily the first time around um folks were feeling pinched at the time and I and I get it um I only had about I don't it was a handful of
people that were willing to support my communication that has changed this time um we have a large group of parents I'm willing to take anyone who's who's interested in helping um tonight having the board tell me I can move ahead with the question I've already reached out to those people and I'm going to actually
try to set up a meeting time with that group Mr slotman I think wants to attend and and any of the other long as we don't get a quorum can attend as well um but uh definitely we need your help we cannot trade on social media with folks um but it would be helpful if we had
Parents are we're willing to drop the website link or specific information that we provide you to put into those to those places um and I would also ask the community because I already see it happening again I'm seeing through social media the answers to what is
happening with the referendum is not on Pennington Hopewell update it is on the school website or please come to our meetings and hold us to account I'll sit here all night at public comment we'll have Town Halls we'll come wherever you like to come but the information is in
the district we are the ones that have the bills we you could opra anything we have and you have um the information has to it's it's your information um people online may not necessarily have the information that you're looking for um so we're going to try to get parents out
there as much as possible um but we also recommend please come to us and ask those questions because that's where you're going to find the the most upto-date accurate information about about what we're asking yeah and I I also just wanted to add really quickly um I think from last year's um election
cycle we all remember the lawn signs uh implying that we as board members are stealing from the community uh with with our referendum ask um we a big question that that I had and I asked I Rec clarified it with with Bob as well today is if I want to go and
set up um a fund to buy those same lawn signs I cannot because I'm a board member so I will just make an objective neutral statement if if there's a parent here who wants to fund raise and uh potentially uh coordinate some of that I I would be more than happy to uh see
that as a community member but I can't help with it as a board that was very elegant so so two things I want to add one up day during the Colgate tour we've had uh
two parents U make a wonderful suggestion of supporting those tours for the people that can't make it either because of time constraints or in the case of some of the older members of the
community because of um U because of uh Mobility constraints being able to access some of the places that were highlighting to people are difficult to access right um i' like to strongly
support that uh to the extent so I'm going to put but going back to be T and togate and kind of redoing that walk for the purpose of re-recording it but I hadil like that but there was no reason why we can't do like whole tour
yeah the tours that Tom gives and the voice over that provides um would be a really good idea so thank you for the wonderful thank
you all right moving on to umal I'm speaking since Jackie's not here tonight um so we met on February 12th uh we discussed um the first the roll out of the Hope Squad which is suicide prevention um National program
um that we are implementing across the district the Middle School has begun the roll out and I was able to sit in with the first meeting of the identified hope squad team members they were 10 uh per grade level so a total of 30 and um it
was really pretty wonderful to watch that that happen so of those 30 I think I believe we have to get parent permission and and also the student has to agree and want to do that I believe we have 28 out of those 30 who have agreed to do that um we talked about uh
our snow day we had scheduled to have a national guest speaker Jordan Toma speak to our n9th tth and 11th grade at the high school um we are in the midst of rescheduling that speaker for a later date this year um we talked briefly
about our um principles and all four elementary schools are working very closely with the school counselors with Miss rut our supervisor of counseling to coordinate the roll out of our tier 2 character strong Intervention which we received a grant to fund for the 25 26
school year um and our seal committee along with our strive special education PTO are collaborating to um celebrate uh inclusive education and special education during National diversity month which is
April can I ask a quick question sorry if this is old business um this is related to the safety climate survey so we had discussed a few months ago revamping that survey to just make it more relevant to the measures that matter now get a higher response rate and really using that as a tool to
understand safety climate and how it changes over time just wondering um where we are with that offering my assistance if you need it it'll be a lot any other questions regarding SEO
thank you for that you're up Mr guia um all right the uh government Relations Committee held its inaugural meeting on February 18th um as a brief refresher for my board members and also for for the audience tonight uh the
committee's three-pronged mission is to one enhance hsd's engagement with local County and state government leaders uh two two advocate for funding and policy solutions from our elected representatives and three explore a long-term structure for government
relations efforts on behalf of the board um so we began our meeting with an overview of the committee's mission uh emphasizing the importance of maintaining strong relationships with Municipal officials in hopeall Township hell burough Pennington burough as well as uh Mercer County and the 15th
legislative district delegation um so in line with this uh invitations have been extended Ed to all local officials in Hell Valley's three municipalities for all of the upcoming building tours um for those who also are curious the next
three is Stony Brook on March 17th at 5:30 uh Hopewell Elementary on April 28th at 5:30 and timberlan middle school on May 19th at 5:30 um the committee also specifically discuss the recent Bear Tavern Elementary School tour which
was attended by hopel burough mayor Ryan Kennedy um and specifically the need to reschedule another visit with the ld15 legislators and Mayors uh who were not able to attend uh these tours have been a great opportunity not only to demonstrate the pressing infrastructure
challenges that our district faces but also to build Grassroots momentum for the upcoming referendum and I thank anyone here today who took the time out of their busy schedule to to attend the tours with us um on the state level advocacy front uh the committee
identified key budget priorities for the FY 26 state budget uh with discussion centered on an ADA accessible playground at Bear Tavern uh I want to thank my friends on the budget uh the finance and Facilities committee for for giving us that specific uh item as something that
we should be looking to potentially submit a request a request for um and as I've discussed with you with many of you previously this is the first time that hopwell will ever be requesting a line item in the annual state budget uh and this committee provides us a structured
path an entity to do so um and given the need for legislative sponsorship the committee underscored the importance of engaging with assemblyman verelli assemblywoman Reynolds Jackson and Senator Turner uh we also noted that assemblywoman Reynolds Jackson uh was
recently appointed as chair of the assembly education committee which is a position incredibly significant uh in shaping State education policy if there's ever a bill that has to get signed into law it has to go through her committee uh relating to education so so we're lucky to have her as our elected
official in the 15th um with that we plan to request a meeting with her office to advocate for hbc's Unique policy concerns um including the increased strain on many of our teachers and administrators as we welcome new students from surrounding development um
and continue supporting our ESL and special education students uh other policy concerns on the agenda uh not only being felt in Hopewell but being felt across the state as Bob has mentioned very often often uh include the unpredictable fluctuations in year-over-year state aid um Rising
operational costs particularly in transportation and steal and staff health insurance as well as just general property tax limitations and how much money we can we can raise for our district annually um the committee also explored potential long-term structures for government relations efforts three
models were discussed a formal standing government Relations Committee that maintains ongoing communication with legislators and local officials um secondly a legislative liaison model as seen in a district like Robinsville where a single board member serves as the primary contact for all government
relations and three an informal advocacy committee model such as uh seen in Jackson Township Schools which is kind of just a group of board members who happen to reach out on their own accord to legislative offices which we decided was not the path we were going to go down um the committee discussed the
importance of defining clear roles between boardled advocacy and administrative actions um and our our plan is to seek legal guidance on structuring out the first option which would be a standing committee um additionally we reviewed broader political developments including recent Senate hearings on the state school
funding formula I've been talking about this a lot today and and in the last meeting as well but the revised funding formula which uh passed out of the Senate education Committee in January has sparked a significant debate over how fluctuations in state aid should be addressed whether it's year-over-year
change whether year-over-year changes should be capped at 2% um of a District's operating budget or based on the previous year's allocation uh so the committee will continue to monitor these developments and assess their implications for our funding and
uh policy concerns um so our next steps include rescheduling the Bear Tavern tour with the 15th legislative district delegation engaging our legislators on the FY 26 budget requests and policy concerns and seeking further legal Insight on establishing a standing government Relations Committee um that's
all I got any questions question question awesome well-led first meeting it's exciting um and we look forward to seeing what we can move and make a difference uh using that new
committee all right moving on Dr lilon policy okay so the policy committee met on February 13th we've been busy we have four policies and one regulation which are up for first reading today and we
also have one policy up for second reading during today's meeting uh so can I get a motion in a second to bring for first reading policy and regulation uh 56 student discipline code of conduct policy 9163 spectator code of conduct
policy 5701 academic integrity and policy 2365 acceptable use of generative artificial intelligence okay great so we're going to start with policy and regulation 5600
which is the student discipline code of conduct um so this code of conduct establishes the standards policies and procedures for positive student development and student behavioral expectations on school grounds and as relevant for conduct away from school
grounds so revisions to this policy and regulation were made to really reflect updates to state law movement towards less use of exclusionary discipline practices like out of school suspension and more use of restorative justice practices and use of generative
artificial intelligence in school policy 5600 was last revised in May 2024 and the regulation was last revised in September 2023 um so if you want to pull this policy up on your agenda just wanted to call your attention to a few specific
revisions here uh so policy 5600 now clarifies that a student can be denied participation in extracurricular activities Sports and other school functions as a consequence for disciplinary infractions uh We've also updated the policy to reference the
student safety data system which is how the district reports incidents of violence up to the State Department of Education and last we've added language to indicate that one of the goals of remedial measur is to provide opportunities to correct the harm done
so this is really to reflect the district's movement towards restorative justice practices now moving over to the regulation the committee is recommending that we incorporate violation of the AI policy explicitly into the code of
conduct um more on that to come momentarily um we're also recommending that we eliminate AO automatic out of school suspension for non-violent first offenses and in school suspension options we've added where only out of school suspension was previously
indicated so I'll just stop there and see if my committee members have anything to add to that is it working this way okay sorry um I just wanted to emphasize um I know you touched on this but I just want to highlight it because many schools in the state do not do this policy right a lot
of schools are using exclusionary practices right which means you let's say you have a high schooler who comes and they have marijuana on them and they're automatically right suspended out of school um and what Hopewell is doing is really focusing on right we we
don't want those kids home alone when parents are working right those are the kids more than anyone that we want in our schools and we want to be watching them and supporting them and providing services to them um acknowledging that this takes more work on our staff to provide that service um but but really
shifting here at Hopewell to to have those consequences in our school where we can support our kids and watch our kids and just thank you to all the staff for that support and and really highlighting um hope well as an exemplary town in that and I think following the evidence
on this one because we do know what works any comments from the board on 5600 uh you commit comments about either well I'm I'm I'm it talk here about the U regulations student reg self-regulation that sort of thing um
maybe I should get to the small which one are you looking at Dr Wilson I'm looking at right now I've got two microphones uh and it won't work oh anyway um I'm just wondering is it is
it do we do we include in these uh um uh policies any kind of uh requirement for data and that sort of thing in other words I I would really be interested in knowing how self-awareness self-management social awareness and relationship skills are working uh as a
board member how they're working to to resolve a lot of the issues that you know the the behavioral issues that may be coming up is there is there any any way of incorporating some kind of data kind of
of data collection that we could we could uh use here so that's a good question so we do view as you know the out of school suspension numbers and we also view the violent incident reports right so that's something that we look at ongoingly as the board that's not
specifically written into this policy do are you aware of another policy that touches on that Dr Trace Poli reporting out of our discipline but it's not in this yes we did see that yeah so I'll tell you what
we can we can go back and look because we do have in our policy reviews of the numbers related to Violent incidents out of school suspensions in school suspensions and we look at those at least annually so we could get a sense of how well I mean essentially this is
allal stuff um and I mean it's it's re it's a much more positive way of of if you get punished you know with behaviorally speaking if you get punished if Behavior goes somewhere else if if uh if you get rewarded for something that's positive or some if you
cognitively uh develop some skills that are are are self regulating self managing and that sort of thing that moves you in a direction that that's much more positive than than the negative stuff that we do with kids so I would like to see the results
of of something like this thank you any other comments from the board okay okay so we'll move on to the the next um policy then so the next policy up is policy 9163 which is our
spectator code of conduct so in June 2024 so this past June the New Jersey state inter Scholastic Athletic Association passed a proposal that requires member school districts of which we are one to adopt a spectator code of conduct policy during this
school year um so this stemmed from concerns around inappropriate conduct among spectators at sporting events and also just a general desire to promote a healthy playing environment for our student athletes so among other things the code of conduct is required to
include disciplinary measures for violations of the policy as well as an educational component for repeat offenders um so you may recall that in November the committee did review NJ Sia's model language for the code of
conduct and recommended the school district adop it to meet the new requirements this policy that we're looking at right now is really meant to accompany that spectator code of conduct um so this was developed to align with the guidance and it gives
examples of unsportsmanlike conduct then lays out a disciplinary framework that includes disciplinary actions that really increase with the frequency of the violations um the policy guide also does lay out three optional components that a
district can choose to include in the policy the committee is recommending that the board include all three options so one of them is indicating that the a policy applies to away games as well as home games one is that the the violation
happens in the last game of the year the disciplinary action which usually includes exclusion from athletic events would apply to the following school year and then the last one requires an educational component for spectators who are suspended more than two times from
attending athletic events before they can attend again anything that I missed policy committee colleagues okay any comments from the board questions I'm curious how do you
um include Spectators which I'm assuming are not students how do you how do you manage the that in other words we don't have much control over people that uh would we have to have police presence or something like it works
we we do we have ban uh Spectators from other districts from our schools and usually I you the uh person would get that delivery if it's appearent through the other school district and sometimes we've had the police deliver person nrata letters to houses yes um but if they're out of District we can ban them
from our coming to our site now a parent going off site may be hard to manage right if we say don't come to our game but they may sneak over to other games and we can't control that but yes I can ban someone who's coming somewhere else as a visitor in half so there's also a
um sort of comaraderie between athletic directors Mr Becker does a great job of crowd control and um speaks to parents all the time about their behavior if we have a parent who causes a Ruckus here he tells the athletic director at Ying
or wherever they're going that this person's not allowed on site yeah so we try to manage it there's there's pretty good communication between those folks I'm just gonna relay my wi screen it's
sad I know people get hated at court it is that any other comments or questions on this one okay so moving on so policy 5701 academic Integrity um this would replace polic
5701 plagiarism which was last reviewed by the board in 2009 so it's an older policy um this really lays out the expectations around academic integrity and provides a comprehensive description of what constitutes academic dishonesty including examples of specific Ser
prohibited acts uh policy 5701 provides two options to determine consequences for a student found to have violated a provision in the policy so one option indicates that that consequences for a policy violation should be determined by each individual teaching staff member
and include a report to the principal the second option indicates that consequences for any violation be addressed in accordance with the district's code of conduct um the committee is recommending the second option and we've updated the student code of conduct accordingly which you'll see in those
revisions we have one addition to this policy the committee's further recommending language to address the specific dynamics of group work so in particular the committee felt that the entire group should not have to face a consequence if one person is identified
as having behaved in a way that violates this policy so we did clarify that in the policy as well any questions or comments on this one okay so last up we have a new policy which is 2365 acceptable use of
generative artificial intelligence um so this is meant to provide guidelines and expectations for acceptable use of generative AI by students this policy guide was developed by a committee of teachers and staff within our district and lays out the expectation that the
district will develop a comprehensive AI plan and also the components that must be included in this plan uh for example parameters around how and when staff members can permit students to use AI in assignments um we also want to note here
because of Dr jev's comments at the last meeting that we have included language in here uh to indicate that the plan should address how AI may be included in students 504s or IEPs any comments or questions about
this policy yep okay so so a couple of things as I foret it um I let's start from the little
stuff um I get why we use the term generative AI there um just in terms of future proofing it something more generic the field is
already moving on from being Gaga about generative AI to being Gaga a gentic AI uh there will be a new type of AI six month yeah we just want to be a little careful about it um I noticed in the
prle that kind of discusses the justification we talk about um the fact that um AI generated content may be we do not talk about the
um the improper use of a as a Reason by polic being place and that's kind of OD think should um then a big one is I was looking
through the plan for what the plan I did not see um and I may have missed it but I didn't see anything specific there but educa everybody on how to properly use
Ai and in the case of a y it's a very very particularly topic there are important things that people don't understand for example if I go onto my computer and
I provide a document that I've written and I ask Ai and I ask Chad GP or or Microsoft co-pilot I've just taken that text and I put it out into the public domain
because it is now it's now being used to continue to train that model as well right so I provided something which I did not intend to provide out as training data for this AI
model that creates all kinds of issues that neither the students nor the staff right that's new we've never dealt with anything like that right even if you were using it properly when you were using it on your local data you dated
ially L that happen so I think that's a very important thing happen in there are you talking about the policy now or the plan well well the plan but so that was my last question now as I was reading this right this is not the plan these
are the things that um working very closely with Dennis Smith and our and our Tech folks said these are these are the things that the district he would recommend that the district check off of stes May provided this with this checklist of these are the things you say but there's a separate plan did we
share that with you the actual plan that the teachers have been working with the media Specialists on you may not have so that's a whole different that's getting into those things but so that gets me to the last comment this as I was reading what I was reading is we will
have a policy to create a plan which is kind of weird to me right so yes I made a comment on what that plan that we're having the since we are going to have a policy to create a plan the plan should the this educational component right but I wanted
to just ask you guys to clarify how does that work does the policy get resend it once we have a plan in place no the plan would would be the communication to the parents how the kids can use it and and and um and when how are you going to educate the kids about using it and the
staff using it properly that's the plan so right now um um Jeff Lo who's who's um one of our it people that's in charge of of working through this has worked through several committees at the high school they've developed um a plan already of ahead of this policy coming
out with stuff Esme when will students be able to use it and how right I I curriculum missing my question though right where I'm being pedantic here right but we're putting in a policy that says we shall create a plan yes we're
not putting in a policy that says you shall follow the plan we're just putting in a policy that says you shall create a plan so once the plan is in place the polic is not doing anybody any good plan is like the only thing it saids well the but the plan true but
the so but language where though I'm trying to get where you need to with the langage I didn't see language in there that says we shall create a plan and then we shall follow it right it says and again I may have missed it but what
I read is we shall create a plan okay that's we probably need to say we're also going to require everybody in the district to follow it I see what you're saying so you want another well I don't know if it's another policy but that was no not
another policy like like number 14 or something or putting in there a statement yeah because a plan is is fluid that's why you don't want to right right I'm not advocating for the plan and a policy in fact I think all of
those things in there MH to me were actually too detailed for a policy I know it's right what was missing is right the actual int head of the policy I see you're yeah I may have missed it when I read no no I think it doesn't hurt to
put it again isting we can do that I great if Dr resnic finished I I have a question I are you finished I think yes yeah sort of sort of following on what he said I mean AI is not going to be a stable Target it's it's going to be a
you know like a mission impossible possibly but I I think that the the real concern here at least with me is is what is that what is an academic integrity and I think as AI evolves we have to have to evolve the
notion of academic Integrity you know right now it's it's based upon how we do do uh how we create or how we deal with students uh uh propert you Properties or their their what they the things that
they're able to accomplish good um but I think that what's really important here is that and I don't see a see a any any definition of academic Integrity but I mean I think there there's an ex extrinsic component and an
intrinsic component and it has to be it has to flow with this this stuff that's going to happen and this is going to be a great big this is going to be a train it's just going to be rolling along for many years right thank you I was just going
to say I appreciate that comment I think we've even had some comments right from community members about about Ai and and you know how do we train students to use it because of the helpfulness um I think the intent when we looked at it and and other committee members can speak to this was um was to highlight both sides
right and so some of this involves having a plan at each of the schools of like how should students be using it so not just how shouldn't they but how should they um but I think given your comments and also comments from the community previously we can look at that and see if that's something too that we
can really kind of emphasize it's going to be a dynamic it's not going to be static thank you no okay uh any other comments on that one okay so that's all of the policies and regulations for first read so all in
favor say I I any opposed or abstaining okay um so can I have a motion in a second to bring policy 5710 student grievance for second reading okay great um so this policy
lays out the process by which a student or parent can can file a grievance with the school district I'm not going to go into it in detail because we did at the last meeting um but the committee received no additional edits to this policy during first reading at January's board meeting does anybody have any
comments or questions about this policy now okay so I think we do a roll call Mr Peters yes Dr esnik yes Mr slotman Dr Dr Sano yes Dr Wilson yes Mr
kapadia yes Dr Lon yes Miss Williams gallano yeah motion carries you're good thank yeah all right uh it's our favorite time GNA pass uh need a first and a second to review the calendars for February and
March that a question I think he was all right well we have obviously Personnel we'll set for six o'clock on the 17th sorry for all you Irish people I set your meeting Finance uh the
10th March 10th work what time what time are you think you guys have been doing morning ones I'm okay with that if you guys want to continue in the morning the 10th but if we want to do the morning you could do different dates
I know some of us some of the committee does not like to work Monday morning at 10 8 o' what what's good on the 10 is it you want to do a nine o'clock listen I'll do up early just
Monday oh thats all right Vicki Ed program I'll let the other uh 10 is better if that's possible so we'll do uh what what time are you
thinking could we do 530 do we think all that s e l Community relation 11 then policy folks do the 11th at 3 no what what
days I I can do 11 13th or I think 14th is going to be tough because if we need to go to the attorneys for anything we don't have any time what about I mean I hate to say but it's next week could do it next week
potentially yeah would we would the seventh work next week the whole is the beginning of the week too soon could we do Monday the 3D are you all available Monday the thir yes I can do
thatand okay 500 p.m. on the 3 all right yeah didn't government relations government uh it we do yeah we do 12 no no 13th March 13th at
12 work okay I think we now have everyone all in favor any opposer of wonderful calendars are handled all right um I have one small um
new business item I heard it's someone's birthday today tomorrow sorry misreading the the communication happy birthday happy birthday all right happy
birthday it's How We Roll you might just pop up in the agenda I know you birthday I I got the information late all right um all right we're going to go ahead and move into our second um
public comment if there is no new business legitimately want to step over that okay so moving into the second comment U public comment I'll remind everyone members of the public are invited to address the board on any
matter for a maximum of three minutes during this portion of the meeting you're has to state your name address and municipality in response to your comments the Board of Education May respond or direct the superintendent to do so the board may also opt to take the matter up at a future meeting so that
the matter is researched by The District administration public comments are now open the time time uh Keepers rules still apply um all yours hello again Alison ly five State Park
Drive Titusville New Jersey um I've had more written before I forgot um but it was really my most important Point um we do need parent Advocates to support the referendum so one of the things that's really important uh to me personally and
to a lot of us that have kids in the district is that we are one Unified District we are three mun IP alties and we can see the tension that that causes we have different values different priorities and different Focus areas
each time some some needs come up but we need to put forward one question because one District needs the support and we need to see that across the board and we need to see that really unified
support um part of I absolutely love the tour idea posting it and seeing that one way to help promote that as a unified front would be here are the plumbing issues that need to be addressed and will be addressed during the referendum
so that we can see all of the schools not segregating it into this is bare Tavern and only bare Tavern kids will benefit my kids are growing up and none of them will be in be Tavern whenever these Renovations happen
but I understand that a strong district is necessary for a strong community and we know politically a lot of the funds are going to look very different in the coming years and we don't know what it's going to look like so we have to take
advantage of the fact that we have a supportive Administration um in our state at this time so we need to make sure that we are capitalizing on that so just really making sure that we have that unified front and we are presenting
this as a a district need not individual schools thank you uh meil back is um one of the things that you guys mentioned earlier uh was with the second chance learning that was one of the things I was going to potentially bring
up at a meeting down the road but uh it was on top today so uh bring up today um a lot of members of the student body that I've been in communication with are very against some of the new changes that have been made um for some students uh I like to think of myself as one uh
there are there are levels of success there are multiple levels of success Beyond 80% uh as as that as that mil and for a student like me or most of the or I should say many other students at well
uh getting an 80% is extremely detrimental uh not so it's not just that like there there are kids who they come in they have a bad day they fail that there are other students where they come in they have a bad day they still end up
with C or low B and to kind of limit them uh in terms of what they can do uh to kind of Remedy that grade uh in my opinion and the opinion of a lot of student body that I've talked to it's just not the way that we should about
Second Chance Second Chance learning the entire time I've been in the district has been a tool that anybody can use not just somebody benchmarks that thank Asen rahan 10 for Central Drive in
the township and just a quick plug as a board member for the Education Foundation I did not come here to say this but since Tre Dr G sorry brought this up um in relation to the air dogs I just wanted to put a plug for parents and board members to attend the above
and beyond Gaya on March 21st at the hopo Valley Vineyards to celebrate and support the Govern and thank you for all of your time tonight Aon groger 26 Dublin Road
Pennington I just want to confirm one thing that was said earlier um so are we saying that the shop R District or this shop R development is going to be redistricted to Stone ebra meaning that
that whole development there won't be blesses going to multiple places and or does that just mean new students coming into the shoppr development will be going to Stone bro I just want to make sure I understand what was said because I feel like I must have been confused so
I just want to make sure I understand thank you any other comments okay seeing none let's going Bob you want to hit the shop right button first I the the way the way I have it is
everybody from the shop rate development will be going to Stony Brook next year so another plug for above and beyond March 21st thank you for that I should have gave that a shout out if you go to our web page now for the um hopwell Valley uh hvrsd.org the um hell
Valley Ed Foundation now has a button right on the main page so you don't have to go looking for the website to buy tickets um we hope you come and enjoy uh celebrating our our support people and teachers of the year who will be honored there um but also it is a big fundraiser for the hbf and they donate lots of
money to a school districts tens of thousands of dollars probably the millions at this point they've donated to our teachers for classroom projects for initiatives um they're the reason why we have stem and and hope well they were the first stem lab that they um they contributed money too so I'm going to making a big plug for that and I will
be there with my boots and blink there any opportunity for me to put my cowboy on I'm all about that as a Nevada girl um Second Chance learning um thank you for the student feedback and I think student feedback needs to be on that committee um we are pulling that
committee back together um I also and we also struggle with that 80% cap um and you know the intent of Second Chance learning is so that students have every opportunity to demonstrate that they learn the learning goals objectives and in its Pur purest sense um students
should have that opportunity no matter what the grade is right if they want to take that test again um and the theory is that when you take other tests over again whether it's your drivers's test whether it's the practice for teachers you get the new grade not not a supplemented grade uh so that's how I
feel about it but I definitely want the feedback of students on that committee moving forward and then finally um the three municipalities one question I know the board is is is hearing you on that um and again we we do need to be a unified
fr in this because all of our kids and all of the community members whether you have students in the district or not whether you have children or not benefit from the high uh value of your homes as a result of a premium School District that draws people uh to the school
district um so it is a community contract to make sure that the school district lives up U to that promise that caused a lot of people to move here quite frankly after the pandemic and the development that we're seeing now and growth finally um so I I also advocate for us all stand together in this work
um and I appreciate your your um comments today they were very helpful um and I appreciate your help on our communication committee because you've been invited to do that I think you're on my list but if you're not you're going to be before you leave um I I just want to say to that to
the point about one question or two this is an area that I think we have on have had ongoing conversations about because you know we believed in the one one um
District to use your phrase which I think is great like this is a united front this for all our kids kind of thing which is why there was one question and so we've been actively having this conversation about what are the reasons it did not pass last time is
there is there anything um that helps people wrap their minds around these issues and that's why you know we've tried to structure the distinction between groups of projects so it would
be very challenging to I I I think I'll let Bob speak for himself but I I think it would be very challenging to kind of look at all Plumbing together and that be a separate question I I mean that was not your point but I was I'm just saying trying
to strategically attack the question while giving people a clear yay and a nay without failing the whole thing is kind of what we're trying to balance so one of the things I would say is in the in the communications um process getting
feedback from your friends and your peers and the rest of the community on what is what really is their concern and do we need to build a fail safe in the questions I mean that's what it really comes down to we've we've already the Administration has already told us what
they need now we're trying to figure out how to pitch it to the community and really um provide us with the best chance of getting the most done so we'll be continuing to be interested in hearing that
feedback coming back to us is whether it is worthwhile to split it because it didn't work last time okay all right we will close thank you all for um two very productive public
comment sections and we'll close number two out um I need a first and a second we're going to move into executive session um where we will
no with no no actions will be taken um okay all in favor hi any opposed or abstaining seeing none we are closed for executive session thank you thank you thank you for the community for participating this evening