call calling this evening's meeting to order thank you for joining us can we have a roll call Mr Gita Dr jovy Mr Capia here Dr Liston here Mr
Peters here Dr Resnik here Mr slotman here Dr Sano here Miss Williams gallano here Dr Wilson awesome please join me in the flag salute i al to the flag of the United
States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation under God indivisible andice for all 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 disussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of the act the hopal Valley Regional Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the
date time and place thereof communicate to the hopeall Valley News and the times on January 7th 2025 this meeting notice was also sent to Comcast cable and Verizon FiOS the board does reserve the right to
enter into executive session during all meetings of the Board of Education the meeting is being recorded for the purposes of Board review future reference preparation of the minutes and viewing on YouTube Bulldog TV and the
school district website www.hrsd.com [Music] the minutes from the February 24th regular meeting all in favor any opposed or abstaining seeing none meeting's minutes
are passed I'm going to go ahead and move to the superintendent's message oh student rep I'm so sorry flipped my page too soon Aaron thank you for joining us this
evening as spring approaches many students have begun spring Sports which officially started last week many students are engaged in a variety of sports including baseball softball boys and girls lacrosse Boys Tennis unified Spring Track boys and girls track boys
volleyball and golf additionally on March 7th our senior student athletes participated in the signing day ceremony celebrating their commitments to continue their athletic careers at the college level academically NJ GPA testing was administered for all students in the class of 26 on March
10th and 11th furthermore students enrolled in AP and honors US History classes had the opportunity to attend the annual Washington DC trip last week student council has been actively planning various school spirit events to Foster engagement and enthusiasm
throughout the student body we've created an exciting new event called pack the pound which aims to increase school spirit in our student section at Spring sports sporting events student council has selected key games from each Spring sport and encouraged students to
attend showing support for our athletes looking ahead the student council is also preparing for the annual spring pep rally and spirit week which will take place next week we're excited about these upcoming activities and look forward to seeing continued enthusiasm
and involvement from our student body thank you Miss green any questions from the board okay seeing none thank you for your report and of course you're welcome to stay with us with with that we'll move on to the
superintendent's report good evening and I'm glad to see folks here on a St Patrick's Day I have my green on so I guess I was the only one that was pinched when I was a kid when I forgot to wear green on St Patrick's Day anybody remember that okay see it's not that wasn't cool but anyway and we weren't even in the same state so I
think it was a thing or we're just old um but I wanted to thank everyone for coming to this meeting tonight uh we'll be talking about and and hopefully uh adopting a proposal for our budget for the upcoming school year um we have our supervisor of counseling and our
assistant principal of HR that's going to share our school safety report for this for tonight um but before we start I wanted to uh thank you all for committing to uh coming tonight for continuing to commit to supporting our schools especially on a night like
tonight where I know there's a lot going on in the community but I wanted to also take a moment to address an issue uh that is becoming increasingly concerning in our district the rise of civility in our district uh that is playing out in our schools at our board meetings in
emails at parent meetings and in posts on social media our school district has always prided itself or at least I believe so in fostering a culture of respect inclusion and collaboration unfortunately we have seen an increase in behaviors that run
counter to these values verbal attacks disrespectful interactions and decisiveness that has hindered our ability to work together for the success of our students this trend is not unique to our community but is one that is playing out on the larger National and
Global stage while instabilities creep into our schools when they do I should say um when they creep into our schools and our board meetings into our digital spaces it creates an environment that is not only unproductive but unsafe for the folks that are in that environment
students cannot thrive in an atmosphere of hostility and Educators cannot do their best work when distracted by conflict intention those who follow the news know that this is this is a a a big thing that's going on all over the world in
our community though it is the disrespectful and harassing comments that our faculty are hearing amongst the students and maybe engaging in lead the leadership and and the uh teachers experiencing that from the community and US feeling that here at the board
meetings it is the hate symbols and racial slurs that are running on the wall in our schools and on the desk in our schools and not just in the Middle School it's happening at the elementary level as well as happening at the high school level the slanderous and hateful posts that occur on social media and that we
engage in it is singling out each other's children and families and scapegoating each other we will never agree on everything that happens in this community and we should challenge each other so we make sure that we improve and do our best
always but this kind of destructive discourse is a Cancer and it's already to begin beginning to erode the very fabric of our community that is why I'm calling on the entire Community everyone here whether you have children in our
district or not our teachers everyone all the adults in this community to help share and recommit to our mission that we're making our school safe welcoming and respectful places for all we must set an example for our children we must show it that dis show them that
disagreements can be handled respectfully and that differing opinions do not have to be led by hostility or lead to hostility respect is a foundation for any strong community and frankly for any democracy my teachers and school leaders
cannot do this alone as a collective we must create an atmosphere where every student staff member and stakeholder feels safe heard and valued I urge everyone to consider how they can contribute to this effort of positivity how we can reinforce this in our homes with our young people and most important
importantly how do we model and create the community that we want to be proud of and where everyone can Thrive together as a district I commit and my team commits to continuing to do this work and to continue to teach our children the expectations of civil
discourse and respectful Behavior this includes how we behave in our schools any school endorsed functions and online what I ask of each of you parents staff and community members is to actively Foster an environment of respect as well
and then on a a priv on a personal note um because I'm here in support of of everyone that's in this District I've been here for 13 years in this District I started serving as a vice principal and I eventually became your superintendent and I was grateful that
you selected me to lead in that time I've had my transcripts Oprah open public record act so people can make sure that I'm qualified to be here I assure you that I am because this District doesn't hire anyone that's not qualified to be here
recently I had my contract opra you're welcome to get my contract it's available online you really didn't even need to opr that it's online for everyone to see and recently I had someone follow me through this community in a Jeep and stalk me and try to intimidate me here's the thing those of
you who know me and have known me for some time should know that I don't intimidate easily I'm not I don't bully easily and I don't turn away when I think I'm doing the right thing and I believe that I'm here doing the right thing for your children right and even that person who
followed me if that person has a baby in this school district I'm here for that person too so those kind of tactics don't work for me they're not I'm going to keep showing up until you tell me okay I'm not you know Rosetta move on right I just want to let you know that
this idea of sending people or surrogates to kind of attack School leadership and it's not just happening to me other superintendant are getting death threats they're getting emails they're getting signs posted they're getting websites started um against them
I hope that you understand that I'm here because I I would only do for your children what I would want somebody to do for me I don't care if you're conservative or democrat if you if you're if a child of special needs if you're yourself for special needs what color or Walk of Life you come from I'm
here from every child every child and I'm going to continue to do that as long as I'm here so I thank you for your time and I and I hope that we can move forward and become and go back to being the district that I know we are so I thank you thank you Dr
Trace so as um I I oftentimes speak after Dr Tes because I it's important for me to communicate to all of you that this board is fully 100% behind this
administrative body and absolutely behind Dr Tre with full um confidence and support the only thing I will
say to underscore Dr tresa's point is that sometimes passion shows up to other people as incitement and I I I'm not saying any of
this to school you as parents or as an adult but to say that we are at a Tipping Point in which we get to choose what kind of community we raise our children in and we also get to model for
our children who we want them to show up as when they become adults or advocate for themselves in school so I would certainly ask you or invite you to listen to your conversations with your middle schoolers
and your Elementary your older elementary school kids about their experience at school because that will help you understand how you can help them adapt during the day and the final point I will say is that
the experience that Dr Tes had is may seem unique to some of you but there are often times when individuals in our community might not feel
safe so our environment of safety it is part of our mission we are a public school we make every child feel safe and we need your help to do do that so this is the one of those waving White Flag moments where
you say oh gosh something is really off here what can I do what's going on am I contributing not for the sake of blame but for S the sake of who do we want to be for our children this entire board is
volunteer and we will continue to be volunteer because we are here for the quality of every single child and every child's education and safety and wellbeing so I just invite you I implore you my children are long out of the
community but I love hopeall Valley and I will continue to be committed along with you to being a better place and space for our babies and our children so hopefully that helps us
reframe how we talk to one another how we stand up at the podium to share public comments and certainly how we listen to our kids when they come home and tell their story and experience of school that is uncomfortable and unsafe
for them because they depend on us we are their safe space with that I'm going to go ahead and move us on to the agenda but thank you for the report Dr teres moving on we're going to go ahead
and do our public hearing and presentation on our uh SSD DS this was not planned this way by the way segue all right good evening everyone um
so this is the annual presentation on the findings from the first half of the school year September through December for the student safety data systems you may remember Corey um and I presented in the fall on last year which was the uh
both periods um September through June so this is just the first half of this current school year so this is an example of the student safety data systems form that's reported to the state uh this also
includes any uh HIV reports that take place the second page includes any student restraints or seclusion that is needed I know Paulette has shared information on that before with you Paulette hi yes all staff that um supports our
students that need deescalation techniques are trained in safety care training our district behaviorist Works across the district to train our staff along with Mr George NM who is our secondary supervisor special education and um Miss Mickey kley who is a school
psychologist they train staff in this we record it on an official document we contact parents if we do need to um put our hands on a child to keep them safe um and others safe and um we also document it with the
state thank you so this next slide is the um category so it's how the state categorizes each of the incident types so you can see what is included for violence vandalism substance and weapons
offense so this chart is a breakdown of a fence by school with the incident across the top and the school along the side just a few things to note for substance these are numbers that refer to students who were found in possession of or under the influence while at
school while vaping falls under the tobacco policy if other substances are included such as THC then that would be considered a substance incident uh violence I know I say this frequently but when we consider consider
violence in Hopewell is not often reported in other districts so if there's an altercation of any physical nature our administrators consider that under violence and list that on this report we know that that is not often the case in other
districts one other thing to Note One incident may include more than one student so for example if there is a fight or an u a physical altercation between two students that would be considered one incident report in
addition one incident can include more than one violation so you might have say fighting and vandalism could be two violations on one report please note that restraint seclusion and Hib alleged those last two
columns are not included in the incident totals however they are still reported to the state we were very happy that in this first period there were zero weapons um that were noted here is a uh three-year midyear
comparison of incidents all right so these are the numbers for the entire district for the actions taken and they represent the total number of days served for in school suspension and out of school suspension these include all
consequences resulting from Hib investigations these SSD s incidents and other conduct violations that would be things like inappropriate conduct vaping open Defiance things like that so please note on this um multiple students as I
said before may be involved in one incident um so two students may be found stealing from the cafeteria together this would be considered one incident but they each would receive specific consequences for their actions based on the student code of conduct these consequences may have been
split between an in school or out of school suspension per B past board recommendations leading to an increase in the number of type of suspensions when compared to the incident numbers which you saw on the previous slides so for um this year in fact we have had
three incidents that had two students involved in each in addition it's important to remember the timing of suspensions our administrators often if there are multiple students involved in an incident they don't want those students to together in an ISS room um
so they will split up when ISS occurs or when OSS occurs um we've had some parents request that their child not serve in an ISS and would prefer an OSS situation even though that's not what our handbook says um and just a reminder
too if it's a student's second offense they do receive more uh days for that infraction here you can see the midyear report numbers for the last three years so hopo Valley has had a threat assessment team for many years um but a
few uh last year I think it was I actually shared that the state now requires it of all school districts in New Jersey so we were ahead of the curve on this um however they have not asked us to report these numbers but we think that that is coming down the pike as
well um just as we are with um incident reporting so too are we with these threat assessments so when something occurs our administrators are overly cautious they make sure they go through the process fully if there's any indication of an issue so this year
there were two identified threats and these situations board members you will remember were shared earlier with you um in executive session just the subject of those issues there were four other situations in which uh a screening was needed however they were deemed not a
threat and they did need to continue all the way to the end of that process um in each of those situations though um part of the practice is making sure the police are involved uh there's ongoing collaboration with the parents and the school um there's a system of
supports that put that are put in place for students counseling restorative practices um and it could take on a bunch of other things depending on this the needs of that student but those are some frequent uh parts of the plans to support those children
all right so now Corey is going to discuss some of our programming thank you so to paraphrase a couple of things that were said earlier um we strive to create self safe welcoming and respectful environments for all and in fact that is part of our
mission according to a joint statement by a group of national associations representing School psychologists school resource officers and school principls among others there are several best practices related to creating that
environment they include strong School Community Connection proactive teaching of social emotional skills access to mental health support and preventative as well as responsive efforts to address things that impact student St safety
like drug or alcohol use violence or bullying behaviors we have a lot to say about each of these areas and a lot to be proud of in terms of community connections I won't read everything here I know that you can all do that I'll just highlight a couple of
things um we do have a great partnership with Detective Marlon Webb who trains our staff and students in restorative Circle practices um we offer twice a year a parent University that's led by a ruers
university Behavioral Health clinician who we have have on site that um sees children K through 12 um under proactively teaching social emotional skills we um have tier one that means access for every student to
character strong and grades K through 8 counselors push into classes to teach lessons in problem solving conflict resolution and more and we also offer Teen Mental Health Training related to Health supports in
schools I already mentioned the Ruckers University Behavioral Health clinician we also have 12 school counselors um several of those counselors are further credentialed than what is required to um serve as a school
counselor in a public school um we have a number of school psychologists and social workers air dogs uh the bat team and and more related finally in engaging in prevention and intervention efforts each
building has an anti-bullying specialist and a school safety team that looks at Trends and data to help us identify areas for improvement we have an active District seal committee that meets regularly um many of them on their on their own time
to address our students um social emotional learning and make it a regular experience at at school for instance that Committee just pushed out um suggest questions for social emotional learning that could occur tomorrow during the abbreviated schedule we also
regularly practice things like the week of respect and school resource off officer recognition so our students know what to do in the event that they ever feel insecure about the environment around them and lastly um as Miss dinardo mentioned
earlier we have faculty who are trained in safety carees and the nurtured heart approach um the training f focuses on providing knowledge and skill in deescalation on the rare occasions when a student becomes so overwhelmed that they need help in this area um this is
just one of the many additional things that we do every student receives lessons on resilience and wellness including mental health um making healthy choices and stress management techniques in their Wellness classes with that I say thank you
thanks Corey are there any questions for members of the [Music] board do we have to hold these down to talk or is that what the trick with this mic is okay so I'll hold it down thank you this was a great presentation I really
appreciated it and appreciated you sending the slide deck in advance as well um the first thing I'll share and I shared this comment by email but I just wanted to highlight it for my board colleagues as well is I really appreciated how you broke each of the interventions out under the best practices for promoting student safety I
think it really highlights first of all how much evidence-based uh practices are going on in this school to promote student safety but also particularly as we think about the budget really putting our resources behind those practices that we know work so thank you I really
appreciated it um I had one question so I know I had I had reached back out to you and asked if you could share the side the slide related to student suspensions over time and one of the things I noticed when I looked at that is that out of school suspensions have gone up and so I was wondering if you
can share whether those are new suspensions if those are repeat suspensions and just sort of what we're seeing there I think one of the reasons I'm wondering about it is because when we had some
discussions around the code of conduct this year some of the feedback that we got was that um during last year's sort of midpoint when we looked at the the suspensions the number of suspensions I think had actually gone down and part of
that was attributed to the use of restorative justice practices and so to see them shoot up again a little bit um I was just wondering if you had some thoughts about what might be going on I think it's a slide after yep there you go so in in speaking with the um
administrators you know if you look look at what the students are getting these for um that's they're following the um the new code of conduct and board policies and things like that and kind of going back to what I said um some
parents have been asking for OSS rather than ISS um and based on what the incidents are so if there are in issues where students are physical in nature they are splitting the ISS and the OSS up
um the when I look through the reports you know that the drug and alcohol policy still has occasions where OSS needs to happen um so I don't know that there's any specific reason why that would be going on I think it's just the way it's broken down and there were some
students who had repeat so this was not their first time having an offense so that as I said before they did get um a little bit of a steeper consequence than firsttime students in in a drug and alcohol situation or substance so is a point of clarification
if they're splitting their um between in school and out of school are we counting it in both bars is what I'm understanding yes they're both being counted another point of clarification so because I'm not sure
whether I understand this or not so if there were so like say there's a physical altercation and you don't want them to have OS to get the same time or in school at the same time and they got two days each that
would count as four days correct but if we didn't have that and they did it at the same time it would count as two days is that correct or no each student it's each student okay so each student's um consequence is counted
singular um just a quick question what's the end of this reporting period when does it go up so this is um just September through the end of December and then we have January through so the recent issues in
Timberlane would not be in here yet correct any other questions okay thank you all and we will um have a public comment on this particular report members of the public are invited
to address the board on the report just presented for a maximum of three minutes during this portion of the meeting you're asked 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 and just for anyone coming up now or later I am your friendly
timekeeper when you have 30 seconds left I will hold up yellow and when your time is up I will hold up red and if you don't see the red eye we'll gavel you okay seeing no public comment on this
section we do um need to do it I'm sorry oh okay we need a first and second to accept the report motion second all in favor I any opposed or
abstaining seeing none the report is accepted we're going to go ahead and move on to our budget Mr C okay as Mr uh Cavita cues up the presentation uh quickly we are if you
want to go to the next slide our budget reflects our values as a community my administrative team and my uh and my cabinet office that are here have been working very hard with the finance and facility committee to bring you this budget today um it's it's been a hard
it's been a hard job a heavy lift but we believe that we're bringing a budget to you that maintains all the programming that we value um while also being fiscally responsible and making sure that we are able to um cover the cost for next year if you want to go to the next slide Mr Cav um we are in the
budget process of uh May 17th where we're adopting a tenative budget today hopefully um so what we're going to go through today is the budget we're presenting for the 25 26 school year a tenative budget for that next slide so
just want to after the board submits uh after the board does hopefully approve a budget tonight the board uh must submit the budget to the county superintendent of schools who uh may or may not make changes to it um minor changes minor changes don't require a full board
approval um and then ultimately we on April 28th we'll have a final adoption uh at a public Hearing in April um these were the budget priorities this year um I'm not going to read all the things off of the slide but the big pieces are that we wanted to
maintain the programs that you value and hold dear our mission statement always guides everything that we do um making sure that we're in compliance to the New Jersey you know meeting the the New Jersey learning standards that are put forth before us meeting all contractual and salary needs um you know our our
main you know um reoccurring bills that we need to pay for the district um so all of that prepares us for that in uncertain times now this is where we stand right now I know we've had questions about what does this mean if the department of Ed at the federal level goes away and and what does that
mean in terms of budget um right now we are functioning as as if we we have the money that the state has given us and that we're moving forward with that I don't see any any changes coming um but we may have to adjust if there are changes uh that happen to the money that
we get from the federal level things that we considered uh uh actually Bob I'm gonna let you jump in here so um what the things these are the things that we considered as we were preparing this budget um as you may or may not know the the district is capped
uh at a 2% uh tax on on the 2% on the tax levy there are certain waivers that you are eligible or ineligible for this year we qualified for a health benefit waiver which helps to offset the um increasing cost of providing health benefits for all of our staff members
that was around $1.7 million um we also got an enrollment uh increase this year based upon state reports that um project our enrollment out we sub submit data and there is a Formula that tracks what they expect our enrollment to grow to next year that was
approximately a $200,000 waiver so those two waivers enable us to increase um our available cap by about $2 million this year we did receive uh an additional $400,000 in state aid um this year as well federal
aid we are anticipating less now when I say less um we typically get somewhere in the area of a million dollar split um not equally between the idea individuals with disability and Education Act that's probably in this area of
800,000 and the title grants title one two three and four which goes towards um very specific categories uh that affect our most needy students as well as and Vicki correct me if I'm wrong um training for staff members and then title four is for cult
cultural yeah okay and those are specific dollar and dollar out they don't go to fund um our regular General Ed um and special ed programs these are specialized programs that are dollar in dollar out um so they have told us to
expect approximately uh 10% less than we got this current year but we don't know yet we're still waiting on those numbers they should actually be coming out in the next month or so poor lucky um other things that help balance our budget um we do take in tuition students uh
there's two categor ories we do have some staff members who bring their their children um to our facility and they pay tuition for it we also um are very proud of our in-house uh special education programs and we are able to sell some
seats to other area schools uh who wish to have their children placed in our school district rather than um um another private school so we do make up some revenue revenue from that we rent our facilities out to the community we have limited that to to mostly um if not
100% IND District um organizations the pop Warners the uh hopeall tally Rec Department uh local soccer baseball associations we um due to damage that we in incurred years ago we don't typically allow um non-affiliated groups to use
our facilities anymore but it is it is a decent amount of money maybe in the area of $125,000 a year in that kind of Revenue um we are planning to implement it was a big discussion this fall uh regarding the reimplementation of athletic and co-curricular fees uh to
our budget that that could um be estimated somewhere in the area of $200,000 towards balancing uh that particular portion of our budget and transportation fees uh for our non um remote students students less than two miles from the school um it's called
courtesy busing and we have been charging for that for the past many years um but we'll need to increase those fees this year to the actual cost uh due to due to additional routes that we've had to take on for regular students we just it's it's um a cost
that we can't support or can't uh subsidize anymore and then another area of the budget um using savings using some of our savings to put into our uh general fund budget to help offset the uh the shortfall that we did
have on the other side um we are right now in a period of inflation um everything seems to be going up from our delivery of health benefits to all of the supplies that we buy to this energy that we're consuming um we just got a
notice today that our our um our uh Wi-Fi services are are being increased our bid that we we did approve a new bid for that but it doesn't go into effect until July um but again everything that we seem to do from from from supplies to textbooks that everything is is
increasing um we deliver instruction to students so curriculum instruction is a is a Big Driver um you know we need to provide all of those materials to to instruct your children um I mentioned Transportation um we have added um four
this year four new routes uh to Acom accommodate the new enrollment that we're seeing in the Stony Brook and Bear Tavern area um we did not expect to have to add these so soon but we are adding them now and they'll continue to grow next year the uh rate of increase for
those routes is 3.6% for next year remember going back to our 2% Cap all these things are increasing greater than that uh Insurance both Property and Casualty and health benefit insurance we're looking at 10% increases in both of those um driven again and I this kind
of struck me as odd but a lot of the increases we're seeing in our Property and Casualty Insurance are linked to the disasters that are being experienced globally okay the the wildfires that we saw in California the floods and the Hurricanes that we're seeing down south
all have an effect on our rating for the insurances that we're picking up here um and again health insurance as you probably are seeing in your own lives the cost to provide health insurance is is increasing uh greatly and that is in
large part uh driven by the state the state dictates the minimum level of policy that we're allowed to provide and we must offer that to every employee um regardless so the cost savings we were able to inure years achieve years ago is not there anymore um we did take a tour
of this building this is our newest building it's 22 years old at this point almost 23 years old um and it's starting to start to need some tender loving care um the air conditioning systems are starting to need to be replaced the roofing needs to be replaced um and it's
going on districtwide as you may know we had a referendum that that we put out in September um it didn't pass and those things still need to be repaired so again facility the cost of maintaining these facilities can be quite costly and we we've tried
to hold that budget flat year to year is only is there's less than a 1% increase in that budget uh this year so most of that most of our dollars are going to the classroom special ed is just a function of of what we do um we provide a
wonderful program here miss dardo runs that program for um the that population of students but it is a is a big driver to our our education Staffing we are um and we'll see this in a slide later on 80% of our budget is Staffing and
benefits for all staff okay it's just it's what we do we provide education um we're not making widgets here we're we're having folks in classrooms educating and taking care of your children on a daily basis technology is starting to creep deeper and deeper into
our budget everything you see is almost tied to technology these days we've got projectors in the ceiling we've got all of our you go to fire um alarms all are tied into the technology infrastructure and we need to continue to upgrade that and and keep it strong I think there was
tan and correct me if I'm wrong on this but we did get a notice from the state that we had to increase our bandwidth for testing purposes and that was discussed in our um our technology committee that we need to increase the bandwidth that we're providing uh for testing purposes so again more cost
going to that and again as we all know the anticipated growth um that is affecting our community due to three uh major subdivisions that are being uh currently some are at the end of implementation some are just starting so we should see uh over the next 10 years
four to 500 students um coming into the valley schools so we have done um a number of things to control costs I know I was just harping on the the fact that health benefits are costing uh a significant amount of money in our in our district
um but we are self-insured so what that means to you is that we don't pay a premium we pay for the cost of providing the service so if we run well in a given budget year we get to keep the money um if we run poorly on the other hand we do
have to to come up with the difference um we have a lot of measures in place to keep that plan um solvent and and very effective right now it's just the costs uh keep going up and we need to budget for that we've talked about special ed and bringing students back um and we
feel that we have the among the strongest programs in the state giving our children the the least restrictive environment as required by law and if I can just say something there you know as we we do have a high classification rate as far as other districts here in Mercer County because people come here because
we do a great job our team Mr dardo and her team does such a great job um so when we have students with I p s they're going to increase our staff you're going to need two teachers in a classroom you're going to need PA professionals and therapists and all of these folks but we can service more children in one
classroom although the class size is limited then how much is the tuition to send each one of these kids out this year I would say the range is between 75,000 and up right per student per student so we you know while it's an expense for us to hire the staff um we
feel like we do a better job and it is a cost savings to the district that's a that's great points um we do participate in the school choice program at our high school we have a Performing Arts Academy where I believe we bring in um I think there's 17 17 students now 19
19 students um that participate in that program and it brings in um a little bit more than $300,000 uh to our budget uh each year from the state again we talked about technology and and how we've um we're increasing the use of our technology but
we have a a system where we can maintain um a a better platform we are able to do things cheaper than other districts other districts are playing paying millions of dollars for Wi-Fi services and we pay uh less than uh $440,000 for
that so the way we've gotten creative with our technology to save U the district money moving to that um when I my department my um when we do our purchasing most if not all the things that we purchase are through Cooperative
purchasing um we are in groups that go out and bid all of the different items um that we need um and then we we try to keep our people limited to those particular areas unless we bid it ourselves uh in doing this we are in compliance with with state law but we're
also when you bid with hundreds of other school districts you tend to get better prices and we can do that for things everything from energy to technology equipment to um you know buildings and grounds equipment anything that you can think of we can typically purchase through a Cooperative saving us money um
again we talked facilities we have a a great in-house staff of custodians and maintenance folks that can do a lot of the things that a lot of other districts pay on a time and materials basis to a private contractor we have in-house staff that can do that um and saves us I
we' gather say hundreds of thousands of dollars in labor costs that we can do ourselves so again we have tried to do what we can over the past several years to limit costs in other areas to put the money back into the classroom however we are needing to make
uh budget reductions this year to get to our limit I'll pass it off trees the list that's here is or the the cuts that we're going to make to balance our budget or we have we are going to make moving forward that we've decided to make so one of the things is the balancing of class sizes class size will
increase across the board for all the schools so the conversations that we had at be Tavern about them having these pockets of classroom rooms with more students we're going to be looking at District redistricting this uh this summer we've already started that work we're going to do that in a way that
doesn't cause us to add a lot more bus routes which because it it'll just change one uh go into one pocket out of the other um but the class size will go up we will no longer enjoy this small class size of 15 16 17 in a classroom um that's not a classroom that is required
to have a small classroom uh that that small eliminating and changing um to full charge for the courtesy busing so if we're going to run it we're going to put out a survey to the parents that currently receive it and if they're willing to pay the full price for that seat then we will continue to run that
offer that seat otherwise we will have to eliminate it um we have uh our administrators looking at reinstating an athletic and extracurricular fee they're looking at doing that in a way where parents can um can contribute if their children are going to participate in extracurricular Sports and activities
but also receive some savings after your child is in multiples or if you have multiple children in your family participating so that you know you're not paying these separate subscriptions for that restructuring the K12 elect elect exploratory elective offerings at
the high school or actually Middle School through high school grades 6 through 12 if the course is under subscribed and it's an elective we're not going to run it and they're going to be eliminated through that or reduced through that at the elementary level we're going to consolidate our exploratories students will still
receive all of the things they're receiving now steam music Wellness Media Center all those things but we're going to be looking at the Staffing consolidating that and maybe reducing the frequency that some of these electives happen but they're definitely going to be experiencing all of them
moving forward we're eliminating autoshop because we can't find anyone to to do take the job anyway so that's going to be a natural one where we're going to have to just eliminate so the maintenance of that shop as well as the salary and the benefits that go with that will go away reduction of District
funded fill trips so fill trips will still happen but the ones that are do not fit within our budget that we just kind of took the cost on for in the past we will no longer be able to do that um and then we also will be uh eliminating and consolidating non-instructional staff positions this is not your pair of
professionals um this is really the folks that you know run our offices our assistants and things like that and then people that are not direct direct Contra contact with students okay so the purpose of this graph it shows it just want to show where our our
money is going the part at the top 12 o'clock where we show Athletics and co-curricular and Swinging down to your right all the way up to our staff benefits area those are direct costs that go into the education of our students includes all of our teachers
our administrators our power professionals all of those things that go into educating our students um the other areas indirectly affect our students um the transportation obviously is getting those students to school operations is keeping the building safe and and ready for their occupation um
Debt Service is is our debt that we pay on all of our facilities there is only one outstanding debt service and that was for the 2016 uh referendum all our their debt has been paid um we do still have I think that debt rolls off in
2032 and um you know gets us back towards our Athletics but the vast majority of our bud is going towards that direct instruction as I mentioned 76.4% of our total budget um is is in salaries and benefits of our staff
members and this just kind of gives an an overall shot of the general categories um of our budget our budget is increasing in expenditure Wise by 3.1% and course Corr responding ref uh revenues in the state of New Jersey you
must have a balanced budget um again we talked a little bit about the arrow going towards the local tax levy of that $92 million um that 1.7 $1.8 million health benefit waiver in the $200,000 enrollment waiver have gone to enable
our local tax levy to go from the four from the two to the 4.1 um that you see listed there okay the key to the budget that I wanted to mention to the board as we've been talking the the entirety of the winter and early fall is that we were
able this year through um our budgeting process to reduce the amount of surplus used to balance this budget was a goal of mine um the $4 million we placed in the budget last year was becoming unsustainable um what that meant was we would start uh and and Mr Peter's
singled this out last year basically what it meant was we were starting off the school year $4 million in the whole we needed to make up that $4 million before we did anything else um getting this down to the $2.7 million range uh is great will provide a great relief and
hopefully um enhance the way we budget next year again just taking um what you just saw and kind of breaking that down we are a school district that is um heavily dependent on local funding for the management of our schools uh to which 87% of that comes from your local Pro
property taxes another 2% comes from those miscellaneous revenues such as tuitions and transportation fees um that we spoke of earlier and 3% of our budget comes from the savings that we generate from year to year and again where do those savings come from as I mentioned
earlier if we don't spend if we have a good year in health benefits and we don't spend all of that money that money rolls to savings and it's got to be used for a specific purpose it can't be used uh for just anything it's got to be appropriated by the board um for specific purpose purposes typically we
don't um appropriate during the year it's done at budget time um Again State funding State funding um over the past 10 years has increased um we have not been one of the districts that we're losing funds we've gained uh which is is a a helpful sign
and we are increasing in enrollment right now where uh which is what drove our enrollment uh our uh state aid increase this year other districts who are seeing stagnant um enrollment right now now Robinsville for one they've gotten flat funding um other districts
like Hillsboro and Jackson they're seeing huge decreases in funding because of enrollment uh so we're happy there again Federal funding for the past many years has has hovered around 1% of our budget and again it's used for very specific
purposes and is not um a huge driver in in in our budget okay um again we mentioned that the tax levy is going up 4.1% 4.3% is our general fund tax levy increase we are seeing a reduction in
our debt service for next year um just in the way the calculation works so combined the the increase in the general and the decrease in the debt uh the the net increase is 4.1% you might say I thought we had a 2% increase but again
as I mentioned the two waivers and allow us to exceed that lastly what does it mean to the average homeowner um the average home prices in this area hover right around the $500,000 Mark in each of the three
municipalities so if you have a house that is uh valued at that you would see a $281 increase to your taxes hopal Township would see a $295 increase and Pennington burough would see a
$343 increase for next year okay and that's um that takes us to the end we'll take questions now from any questions from the board board first I know there has been a lot of um discussion throughout the week um asking
questions of the finance committee so I acknowledge that some of it has already been answered hardly um sorry I I figured someone would show we have a question before me can you uh Bob just have you and I guess
maybe you know this is the first part and then down the line you you know sort of look at and Dr Tre sorry both you obviously are you know as you look to implementation of some of these different fees do you have I guess I'd ask first you know what do other districts around us do are there other
pay forplay districts when it comes uh to sports and sort of H have we sort of already done that investigation in terms of you know what that looks like for them in the past I mean we've we've been here a certain period of time I I I understand in the past that we've had some sort of system like this here can
you talk a little bit about you know what that looked like you know how uh you know in terms of not just the amount of fee but is it you know uniform is there aering is it different for Middle School than High School have or is that sort of down the line right now or no I
mean we have a pretty good idea of what we we're going to recommend to the finance committee and ultimately the full board um next you know as soon as we start to meet again um there are many districts in the state that do um these kinds of
fees I mean chadam rank cookus Valley Berkeley I broke my glasses earlier so it's there we go that works haddenfield Hillsboro Robinsville Bernards Township Morristown Jackson East Brunswick South Hunton haddenfield
Allentown um Cherry Hill to name a few I mean there's there are others but these are the ones that were close to us so miss Riley and um Mr uh turull and Mr Becker our athletic director have been researching looking at what other districts do and also deliberating on on
different configurations of what could be done and what was done in the past right here um we were at a point in in the district where we could offer you know Sports and clubs without that at one point we're just not at that place again so we're revisting visiting what was done in the past and what maybe
didn't work in the past versus now but I've asked them to come around to the finance and Facilities committee also education program committee to record that for you all so you can take a look at you know if you can't attend maybe so you can see the options um that are available uh what they're what they're
saying and also you know give your feedback before we put anything out to the community but essentially what they're looking at is is any club or athletic uh activity at the middle school and the high school that require a paid staff position right um so Sports
would be um you know at one fee and the clubs would be at a price that was be half of that so you know everything from robotics to jazz bands to you know track and field to um the play all of those
things would have um different levels of of um but not I guess that wouldn't extend to the elementary level no because they have yeah those are already paid okay yeah no well yeah I guess so yeah because I know Robinsville as an example I know they do an elementary
level fee for some of their clubs I was just curious if that have been contemplated and and and so would this extend to clubs that meet during the school day as well anyone that has a paid advisor or equipment
okay and just clarification on any um supporting students that may not always if there's there's children that that financially can't afford um to enroll in these things because of you know free and reduce lunch or that all the districts already have something like that in place and we already have
something in place for those things as well and again it's all confidential it's not it's it's between the parent and the principal um and and there's nobody that needs to know other than the folks that are involved and again this would um also take into consideration folks with multiple children um kids
that participate in multiple Sports into clubs things like that there would be almost like a you know like when you enroll in camps in the summer and if you roll in you know four weeks you get a discount like so if you did three Sports you pay there'll be there's going to be an individual child discount and a family disc family
Max this really a discount it's more of a cap and sorry to ask all the questions here I apologize but on the courtesy busing just out of curiosity so if you you're going to do a survey right is what I heard and if you get enough folks that say we just we're not going to do it we're going to drive our kids or or
whatever would you just eliminate that you just eliminate that bus ride all together is that how that would work or I mean the courtesy students are they're not their own buses so they they run they ride with I mean they're just they're placed on routes wherever they from wherever they live um we're going
to do this early in this in the in the process so that we know um if folks decide that they don't want to participate in the service that we can utilize the buses um for those who qualify for the service any other questions okay seeing none we're going to go ahead and move on to public comment
specifically regarding the budget members of the public are invited to address the board on the 2025 2026 tenative budget for a maximum of 3 minutes during this portion of the meeting you're asked 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 members of the public are reminded to um who who intend to
participate are reminded to um sign in at at the podium prior to speaking thank you good evening uh Katherine Fulmer Hogan hopal Township I know you mentioned um courtesy busing historically there
was a distinction between hazard and courtesy busing and I'm just wondering if that still stands or if hazardous busing students are going to be expected to cover the cost of their seat as well that's it thank you write my name should build time in for the name
writing thing you know signing in does not count towards your time I know it's all awkward it's going to be on YouTube so be like why does that guy take so long to write uh Joseph beas I live in Hopewell Township takes me a minute to remember
it's called Titusville where I am um I just had um some questions and then a thought uh specifically uh the question was how are we Computing two miles that
is as it takes me to drive two miles or as a compass point circling also it sounds like you guys have an idea what the fee is going to be but you're like there's going to be a fee might be helpful to know what the fee is going to be for the rest of us so we can plan
um it was noted that there are in-house staff or or I would call them Specialists say like an HVAC person I'd be interested to know how the township how the school board and the district is monitoring those people and what they're
doing it's based on very specific information that I have I'm not saying anything I'm just saying you might want to keep an eye sorry that sounds kind of conspiratorial I'm not a conspiracy person I apologize um and then the other
thing is there was talk about consolidating or eliminating um non-teaching positions and also uh working to um communally I can't remember the word that's on the slide because I didn't
write it down uh for the uh certain costs I'm interested to know if there has been thought about consolidating or immedate or eliminating administrative positions or working as well with other districts not just in Mercer County to
try and use find cost Savings in that there's a role that could be done by one person for two or three districts thanks that's it never thought I'd be here Heather Irish mot um I just
want I have a picture of that of the screen and I can't get it up I wanted to know um increase class size and Paulette I'd like you to answer [Music]
um this is not something that can be done for special ed students so it can't it absolutely can't so I just just would like someone to speak further if possible
pa um Mr Carnation he has to be replaced there's somebody out there who will replace him there's not just this little bubble my son flourished from that class I'm sorry Mr
Carnation is the Mr Carnation is the auto shop this Hobo's not the only bubble there's people who I mean you said it people want to come here there are other people
out there yeah Aiden's in Florida and he was so excited to tell me that he changed something I can't tell you what but Mr Carnation helped me so you know we need to work a little
harder on that because that is a life skill and I I just really believe I mean it's my own son but I really believe that's something that is a LIF skill and that's it you just want me to write budget
after the um reason yep that's fine okay so the the courtesy versus Hazard anybody who's H I don't need this anymore um hazardous Remains the Same it's not paid for now anyway so that's anybody who doesn't have a uh safe
meaning a sidewalk road to school is transported for free and how is how is the courtesy calculated oh it's portal to portal it's not miles from the door it's walking to from your front door to the front door of the School Road what on the road on the road
on the road you not as not as the crow flies the fees go ahead it it's going to be recalculated but it's somewhere in the area of $1,000 per seat so that now the fees for the activities uh for for the sports and the
clubs has not been determined yet at the uh we're going to have them come present to the board some of their ideas um but there's some options that they're going to give so I don't want to throw out a number yet because the board is going to help us decide on what that number is um the director of facilities is the one
who monitors our Maintenance and Facilities crew and there are two supervisors that serve under him one that supervises the facilities folks and one that supervises the maintenance folks our supervisors and our our directors are uh monitor what they're doing they also give op you know
evaluations of those folks and um hold them accountable for their jobs so I'm you know that's those are the folks that are in charge of that in charge of administration and and uh consolidation of Administrators um that might be where I have to go next to cut right now this district is really underst staff we
don't have the number of Administrators other districts have and our administrators aren't paid as well as other districts are paid can there be a consolidation across districts yes there could be but that's not not going to happen with us reaching out to another District because we're all governed by
different municipalities we're all governed by different School boards the reason why the we have an executive superintendent over Mercer County over Bergen County over all these counties they were charged with years ago I think it was under Christie I'm not even sure
I think it was under Christie to kind of consolidate all like some of these districts and make them larger and so we wouldn't have this duplications of superintendent and cni people that has never kind of come to fruition because folks don't want to give up their specific areas in their you know it's
it's Mayors it's it's municipalities it's School boards that are all part of that conversation so that's not something this board by themselves can decide to do um but yes that would be a savings in the state of New Jersey however the the state of New Jersey has not successfully pulled that off but
that's not something that we can just kind of initiate on our own um municipalities can do it but I don't know that that's something that's going to happen in this in this area either just to clarify administrative role in our district means that it's building administrators as well as supervisors
supervis and directors so there there are there are some districts um in Mammoth County Ocean County hunon County I believe some of the areas where they have really small school districts that share uh principes they share business administrators um but those are largely
where they have two or 300 kids in the whole District um I know belmare and Lake KO share um a business administrator it's where they and they're contiguous so um years ago when we used to be three separate school districts it might have been worth
worthwhile to merge hopeall Pennington and hopeall into U that's why they merged into one District we're actually a regional district um those kinds of districts are the ones sharing services and they all agree to use the same Financial software the you know policy
manuals all have to match up so this becomes um very difficult process when you have to maintain all different um you know sources of information throughout each one um the other thing I wanted to to also comment on um we do
have a work order system where all of our maintenance work is tracked and and and monitored by both the um two two supervisors that Dr Trice recommended and also their um their boss so we do have a pretty sophisticated work order
system that's monitored almost on a daily basis definitely on a daily basis for um the special ed question and I know Mr Nardo you wanted her to answer that for you I could probably answer it as well though that's okay so um we are mandated by the New Jersey code for
special education and I think most of you know I'm a role follower so our class sizes in special education are limited by the New Jersey Code so for example if you're in an Elementary classroom and a child is receiving support in a resource room the max number of students that we can have in
that room per the New Jersey code is nine um and that applies to all special education classrooms so we do follow that thanks and inclusion classes are capped as well so we're talking about General Ed when I'm talking about uh
increasing class sizes um autoshop um believe it or not it is not the the colleges don't offer the program anymore so folks can't get certified in it that's this is what happened with home economics as well if you don't have a place to get certified there aren't
teachers in the in the field and they're aging out now um I even tapped my my son's teacher who's retired in in Pennsylvania to try to get him to come out of retirement and he was like nope not doing it I'm good he's over subbing in over in Council Rock um these this
it's just not even offered off anymore in colleges to get certified to become a teacher of autoshop so our students still do have the Avail the ability to go study um autoshop at our Tech schools they are actually tooled and have Partnerships with the with the um car
dealerships now you know most of our cars the newer cars you couldn't flip the hood and work on it anyway without the proper tools um and have the computer system and the and the tools that are specific to a dealership um so although we tried our best it's just that there they aren't out there anymore
and that's unfortunate because it is a skill I knew how to change oil and tires and all those things too because my dad had all girls and he was a mechanic and we just had to learn right so because he wasn't doing it for all of us so it was a good skill to know I think I got them
all yes you did thank you all um with that public comment is now closed on the budget however we do have a public comment opportunity oh sorry we already did that we are voting yes I need I need
a first and second to move the budget so move roll call vote please Dr jovy yes Mr kadia yes Dr Liston yes Mr Peters yes Dr
Resnik yes Mr slotman I just if I could just briefly just point of privilege just to briefly explain myself here uh I've talked to Bob I'm just not 100% to the comfort point I need to be
at this juncture and uh obviously reserve the right to change my mind but at this moment in time I think I just have to vote no so I just wanted to briefly you know for the reasons I've mentioned before as well as some others but obviously you know looking forward to the discussion between now and
April he Dr Sano yes Dr Wilson yes Miss Williams gallano yes motion carries okay can I make a comment too you may I I I gasped a little bit when I saw
that budget um and the percentage increase so my vote of yes was very considered um it's some very difficult trade-offs that we had to make and
ultimately uh to me maintaining as much of what we have in the district today um seemed to be the right choice to make now obviously we could have gone for a lower tax rate increase but the cuts
would have had to be quite a bit deeper um so that's why I took a deep breath before I said yes on the vote but um and I and and I want to recognize that in this current situation this is a painful
increase to um the taxpayers of of the district but I do think it's important both for the schools and for what we have in the district and ultimately for the property values of everybody not just the people that send the kids to
District to maintain the quality of Education that we have in this District yeah thanks thank you Alex and thanks John I I do um that's why I think it was so important to acknowledge that there's been a lot of dialogue and
asking questions and and um kind of I think Bob's phone number is on speed tile for a lot of people but it has been a very active discussion and rightfully so we don't take it LLY um um so thank
you all for actively participating along this week and trying to better understand and and just ultimately make your uh decision okay again um I do appreciate the comments from board members they you
know we had U many discussions with probably half of the board um in the past week all welcome and if we can help you understand why we're doing certain things and why certain things um function differently in a in a school budget versus a regular you know out out
in the in the private sector World um there's there's a lot of differences into how we have to budget so um again if you have comments and questions ongoing please don't hesitate to reach out and if I could just take a moment to thank my um my principles and my supervisors for really really this was
not easy this year this was every year is tough um but I think this has been one of the toughest budget Seasons we've had had and so I want to thank Vicki your folks and and um and our principles for for the heavy lifting for this so there's two more comments that I
have would that be okay there's a couple of comments that I WR down Finance or do you um it was in response to some things that people said so so um oops classes so I will preface it by
saying that as a board we have a supervisory role so we don't necessarily get into all the N gr or should we uh but we do get to see a lot of the process of how the sausage has made so I don't know about any particular member
of the facilities team but um we do regularly in the facilities and finance committee meeting review um all the things that the facilities team does and the cost savings that we
have because we're able to do a tremendous amount of work in housee as opposed to having to get contractors to do everything so again I can't I wouldn't even know about any specific
particular member of the facilities team but that team as a whole is great and is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain in a school district environment because uh we don't pay what HVAC people
uh what electricians can get out of District um and that brings me to my second point on the shop teacher um unfortunately from what I see this is going to be an increasing problem for not just the auto shop but other Specialties and it pains me because I
would I think we're one of the last District to have practical Arts to still offer for them I see us struggling to find people who are either able or willing and they have to be both able and willing to teach those and
unfortunately that is going to be an ongoing problem across a number of specialty subjects and that's not a district problem it is a side effect of the way public education is is set up I
have my own opinions about how the blame is to be abortion but there is a lot of mechanisms in place and the unfortunate unintended consequence of those mechanisms is that districts public districts at least are going to have an
increasingly hard time finding people to teach anything that's not a core commonly taken subject even that I mean Wellness has gone away at a lot of schools you know TC andj away with their Wellness Spanish has gone away in a lot of schools around us luckily we just had
a student teach we have a student teach you right now for of wood shop so hopefully and our wood shop teacher is rather young so that was exciting but for the most part the colleges and universities are Duman so yeah so I personally would love to see us continue
that but realistically I don't know what's going to happen once the t-shirts that we have in in the subject stop start the reti right just so folks know it's not that there isn't a retired mechanic out there that can come in and teach they have to
be a certified teacher what's that right yeah yeah yeah right they would have to have a lot more education than a normal auto mechanic would and get paid L and they would get paid less and they have to
deal with being a teacher in the public school and that's the yeah but typically years past we got retired mechanics who came in to do it it's usually not the kids so so I I think that it those are
great points regarding um trade and just uh I love practical Arts a um great way of sing it but regarding our professional um Maintenance and Facilities folks I think it's more it's
also important to note that it is unusual to have such a F staff um and it is hard to not just keep them but to uh backfill them when they do retire or
leave because um a lot of people would make more money in in a union if you're a a plumber or electrician and literally they're needed everywhere out out in uh you know doing
the work in our homes but also here so we are particularly Ely blessed to have the crew that we have and be able to save it's part of why we've been able to keep our facilities budget uh a little less uh um or more lean I should say over the years
but you know now now we have to um as we canot staff the skill we have to pay more um in addition to all of our um equipment and and materials that are
also increasing so challenges all around but we continue to take our blessings where they come and we have um a great crew okay with that we're wrapping budget and moving on to a open public
comment section for um any matter outside of um sorry need to manage the glasses um outside of the budget so 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
asked to state your name address and municipality and in response to your comment 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 with that public comments is now open good evening good evening hey my name is April oh wow okay my name is April Johnson address is 2465 Pennington Road in Pennington
um this is just a kind of question and concern about the Hib policy is there any action taken when a child has become a
victim of a Hib violation three separate times um I've this is a little personal because it's actually happening to my son
currently um but each perpetrator that has stated U what they say as a slur to my son um
um is different it hasn't been the same person every time it's been somebody different and I've received the letter from you guys stating that my son has been the victim um I'll probably be
receiving the third letter from you guys um but he's done restorative circle with the child that had said the slur um he's went to go see the
counselor he's active like within the school um so is there any support additional for a child who has been a
victim three times of hip that's that's it thank you uh cat Fulmer Hogan hopeall Township um as the parent of a middle schooler um it is very evident to me that bias
incidents are on the rise at our Middle School um and now our community at large is very much aware of of that fact um and whether it's centered in your
your culture your religion your racial identity gender identity orientation you name it students are going for it um I raised a young person who was incredibly confident you could ask the current
principal there because they are now seeing a very different child at Timberland than they saw at Bear Tavern I now have a child who's asking multiple times a week to for me to take them out of this school
um I don't know how we fix this I do realize that it's a community issue and that there needs to be a greater level of empathy people need to understand that just because it doesn't impact you directly doesn't mean that it shouldn't matter to you and I am deeply concerned
that it does appear that much of this dialogue is coming either from home or from social media um I just here as a parent expressing concern I have a lot of confidence in this District I mean I wouldn't be here
this long if I didn't um but I am deeply concerned about what is happening um and so just seeing the lack of confidence at present in a middle school student is utterly heartbreaking because as a parent we do so much work in pouring
into these kids so that they can walk into space and be comfortable and I am just as upset about the incidences that directly impacted my child as the swas to be clear because it's all cut from the same cloth and it matters to me as a parent in this community and it should matter
to all of us so thank you go to the mic so we can hear you it's being record it's being recorded So before I speak can I ask a question about the budget yes I didn't live here any
longer um had it not been for the band for my daughter um Bob were you saying that also I I forgot to include that the band would be included
really because we would have moved due to can can in just for again we're recording so there was a lot of eye contact can you finish your question so it can be on record we would have moved due to the is
your question regarding B that happened and what I'm asking is I and I didn't do it because my dad moved me in eighth grade and I still remember that so question so what I'm asking
is does my do we have to pay for my daughter to be in the band that she thinks this is the only band in the damn world so and and I get it she's a kid but after coming
here you all know I was out the door and now you're telling me I got to pay for this is that I just I just just please answer me that because I don't even want to be in this
building and I want to know if that's the projected you know say or whatever I'm sure he'll ask a question um I'm Kelly Bean um hopeful Township and I have two
children in the school district one who is a 10th grader at the high school and my daughter who's an eighth grader at timberling and I just wanted to speak to the social issue ues um and the email of course that we received from Principal Turnbull about the
unfortunate writing on the wall um I'm proud to say that my daughter is one of the students who participates in the restorative Circle it has made um a big difference for her in feeling um like
she's doing something and like she is a good citizen you know in the school and she certainly was worried about fitting in you you know when we moved here from New York not too long ago so I just want to speak to the that side of it and just
reinforce um what Katherine said earlier which is that um it it is frustrating even for a student who like my daughter is I think involved at like you know a very high level where she's interacting
with the assistant principles she's interacting with principal turull she's interacting with other teachers and with Detective Marlon Webb who leads a restorative Circle and still these incidences persist and although she's bringing all of her tools
to Bear sometimes she still comes home with stories of things that um groups of kids have said and I mean just to be transparent it's often there are often situations where it's uh gender bias and it's Boys in
particular maybe they're imitating something else um but it's you know it's it's difficult to keep the morale up um and a confidence level I think in in the faculty that they're going to
do something I think there have been attempts and there is a sounds like a plan to have some experts speak to the kids but I would love to hear that some people but men in particular
I speak to some of the boys because I feel there's a high concentration of boys who um think this sort of thing is funny um it's reinforced on social media to make fun of girls to maybe talk down
about people who are different uh or who have a different orientation anyway I just wanted to share that from a different perspective just to clarify yellow's 30 seconds
hi my name is rata Barnes Su Road Pennington I guess that's hopeall Township I don't have a child in the district anymore I did but I am standing here and standing with my friends who all have children in the district and
specifically I want to address what's been happening with the swastika and all things like that um I'm sure you remember years ago we had hopal Valley Race and diversity that was created around the George Floyd stuff and
whatnot what is happening now politically but maybe more specifically right here this type of thing happens when we're not Vigilant we used to have tons of people come to those meetings and then all of a sudden people started
coming coming it wasn't in the news it wasn't my Pro problem it didn't matter it matters for those of you who think you're exempt from this it matters because the people who are being affected don't look like you it matters
because if it's not you today trust me it will be you tomorrow I spent last week on Capitol Hill advocating for the environment advocating for Dei advocating for people who don't have voices and I will tell you that if I was
not there take a good look at me you all see me if I was not there me there would have been no one to advocate for those people so I am saying that in this District we need to make sure we
stand up for everybody all the time I know you have a million things to do make it a million in one thank you Dr Tres thank you Anita thank you School Board uh lee
Rosenfield um 88 harberton Mount AR Road hopal Township um so I'm kind of guilty um because it was only as a Jewish American it was only until I read the article about the
swastikas that it caught my attention and I didn't realize that there have been other incidents of bias and hate in the district and I've learned this over the last few days um the last time I stood before the Board of Education I
was advocating for um gender inclusive uh spaces and restrooms and the board I believe at the time did the did the right thing and I don't remember the exact issue but that was the the first time I was here for that and now I'm
here I came tonight specifically out of concern as a Jewish person but I really do understand that this is a much deeper problem in our society and in this community and um I do hope that we will
all take a very active role in in dealing with this the vitriol that ensued online um in the last couple of days um has really demonstrated that our
children are being taught hate in the home and um in the community at large and we all have a responsibility to Tamp it down and you know I'll I'll certainly try to do my part but I have two children in the district my son Ethan my
daughter Eliana a senior and a freshman in high school you know that come from a two dad three dad family um and you know we're very diverse we represent the diversity so I just wanted to acknowledge that and I particularly want to give a shout out to Dr Trice because
um you're amazing and you're a great leader for this community and we're very fortunate to have you and uh thank you for standing up for our students to meia McQueen Pennington harberton Road Pennington um first I just wanted to
Second a few of the uh previous voices that came before certainly standing together uh with our two previous residents and reiterating my concern that we stand together as a community uh for the type of people that we want our
children to be and that we want a model for them um I did have a question um I wanted to know if student Le activities would be a part of those activities that would incur fees um and also
um was one other thing lost ma tring that thought I'm going to write while I try to remember what I was saying I'll jump back up if I remember thank you hello can youall hear we can hear you all right um my
name is Bina long and I'm in from Pennington I'm reading so I too um am a member of this
community I've lived here for 24 years um I did pull my son from The District after middle school but it was really he needed a different type of learning environment I moved here knowing that this school district was amazing
that my son really received tremendous education for the time that he was within the school district and yet as a community member I am here as a Jew um and I apologize for the rest of the community as well for my
own not recognizing what may be going on or have been going on and not being involved um I think as all of us know when we get involved in raising our children we get really hyperfocused on the needs of of our children um my son
is soon uh I think he's considered an adult now um so I am back as a member of this community and really was delighted by the fact as odd as this sounds uh to see the digital Mercer me listing um as
I perused Facebook and realizing oh my goodness this is uh something quite serious going on uh for me swasa is not a neutral thing it is very much Jewish oriented as far as hate goes yet I know
hate is uh can be universally used in many forms but I really do want to address that um as we look at in the district and in ways of making our world one that really appreciates every single
person for who they are as best we can I do want to speak out because of the increases in anti-Semitism have SC rocketed that um the Jewish aspect of this is directly addressed um because um
I come from family that have uplifted so many different people through our generations and uh I never thought I would see this in my lifetime and it's here um the hate and once it's you know within our community we say if it
starts with the Jews it's not ending with the Jews as another beautiful member of our community said it might not be affecting you but it does in different ways and I was really dismayed to hear um Dr tce as well your personal experience and the um
blatant types of behaviors that are really uh above and beyond so I present myself here today as a member of the community in support of you all and thank you for the work that you are doing and look forward to us uplifting
and bringing the light and joy that is within all of us and our students more and more into our district and our homes thank you I re what I was goingon to say um I wanted to also second the request we'll have to have you sorry we we'll have to
have you come back on the second public comment yeah so we you no so once you finished communicating the first that counts as your your time we'll have another public well you'll have another T opportunity
later please write it down don't forget okay oh you're good come on up come on up good evening Kate ham hobal Township um some of you may or may not know um we've lived here about seven
years and it is extremely deserving for me to hear what has been going on uh Amplified lately but I'm going to tell you it's nothing new because my family experienced this moving here where my
daughter was in elementary school with students and parents and staff making comments of racially driven um that's not your mother she doesn't look like you she's the babysitter a
number of underlying comments I say that was seven years ago but just last year my daughter was again a victim of a student who screamed disrespectful rude and racial
comment ments in her face and nothing was done by a staff member I have been profiled by a staff member in this school district who continues to be employed here it is not just a student thing it is not just a home thing this
is a community and to have a community that works together there has to be an open relationship two-way street between home and school I can remember being very involved in deep eii committees that existed here in this District they
were District level then they were moved to school-based and now I've heard nothing for the last few years about Dei committees attending any meetings I'm not sure what has happened but what I will leave with is until the unaffected
are affected nothing is going to change we need everyone to stand shoulder-to-shoulder to fight this any others okay we're getting better at keeping all these notes yes we are but I think you
know a lot of these are overlapping I'm going to start with the with the um the activity fees um the student Le that that don't have an advisor clubs and there's some of those will not be part of the activity fee because we're really just trying to cover defay the cost we're not even going to cover with any
activity fee we Institute those things that cost us money with equipment with coaches with referees with um you know our athletic um trainers all these folks that have to support these and the stiens for clubs and uh uh and coaches
so that those are the things that we're going to be looking to Institute a fee for and band is part of that because the equipment and the and all of that is is quite costly um uh in terms of the bias in incidents that have been happening at the middle school um Middle School is a
time where there's going to be lots of misbehavior right most schools across the state of New Jersey have a very high HIV harassment intimidation and bullying issue there are students that are going to experience more than one of these the fact that we have 11 approved in a
single month is a lot we may have 30 in a month but maybe two of those are really founded as as fitting that that law and that description per code whether or not it checks the box or you receive a letter as a parent has nothing to do with the consequence that we issue as a result of a student breaking our
code of conduct and misbehaving I'm going to say this though as that letter that we sent that Mr turbull sent out saying that we've had a problem and that invites parents to a for and it's supposed to be on April uh 23rd but we're moving it because that's um the Holocaust Remembrance Day and folks are
are celebrating on that day so he's going to be moving that date to another day in that week to accommodate making sure that he doesn't do something about this topic that excludes a major portion of the people that will want to come to that right but one of the things that we need to ask is that what I've seen as as
a former vice principal and Middle School principal is kids mirror whatever's happening in the community somebody made a comment about needing male role models for our our our students there's our male white Christian students are struggling and need role models to teach them how to do
that without TX toxicity the role models that they see online are not helpful so yes that's a place where we can use people to help out we need men of all walks of life to to help these boys to grow into men um I watched a a a series
a very limited series on Netflix the other day it was very disturbing um it was it was called adolescence and it was about it was a four-part series about children especially male students getting into some very big trouble around them not knowing what to do with this energy and the things that they're
seeing on online is not helpful I need parents to monitor what kids are looking at online not just our male students we see spikes of this when they're playing video games Call of Duty is was one of the big ones where they're hearing seeing a lot of swas stickers in there and it's it's historically based in war
we are in the midst of teaching about the Holocaust and genocide studies in the Middle School in the very grade levels where we're seeing this happen it's not because of that because we do that every year it's because of these video games because we also saw it at the elementary schools and that's not content that's being taught there so
really as a parent when you encounter that or when we reach out to you and say this happened not saying oh well he didn't know what that meant or she didn't know what that meant they do know what they it means and they know it's not and inappropriate and they're and we are going to be having uh the leadership at the middle school is going to be
having conversation with the kids and the consequence is going to get worse if you break the rule after we have that conversation with you not for the first time this will be the third time this year that the administration is having having it so we are going to up the antee on the consequences to that mother
that asked when it happens over three times yes it's a different child but we've told you that we have a zero tolerance level with this anymore because it's not just the swas stickers we found the n-word written on desks and in places that's serious and it's not
because they heard it in rap music they understand that it's inappropriate and that what that means calling somebody a racial slur like a monkey we know that that's inappropriate we know what that means and so we need you to be out as outrageous we are when we say we give you that call and reinforce it at home
because no matter what consequence I give if it's not supported at home then it just continues it's like oh it's not it's funny it's a joke it's it's provocative let's see how many people we can get to to be outraged or like or or whatever on on on social media um one of
the reasons why we we have really try to shut down the phones was because a lot of this would happen during the school day and we would see things like going into the bathroom and ing now that we shut that down we've seen a decrease in those things happening at school but they're still happening at home at night when they should be sleeping or they
should be doing other things that are that are more wholesome and and um responsible so really monitoring what your kids are doing with these video games monitoring the conversations that they're having and then calling them out when you hear something that's that's not right it's it's it's really not kids
stuff that they're playing with it's very adult very serious very damaging content they're playing with and they're at an age where they're they're impressionable they don't know they they don't know the consequence of what they're doing and how bad it could get and we've had issues in this community
where somebody somebody very immature just a kid made a very dumb mistake that became very very public and that was something that the district couldn't help them unwind and it affected not just them but their families in a way that we couldn't fix it so we really want to just impress upon you that that
we need your help um somebody asked why don't we have Dei commit ities people didn't come they got smaller and smaller until the point where we couldn't run them anymore because oh it's not a problem anymore until it is right um so that's why we need to it doesn't need to be a committee necessarily it just needs
to be us as a community saying no we're not going to accept this no more that's that would be helpful than another night out yeah and I also want to add you know I know what it looked like at my house when the neighbor kids came to play but let me just say get called Mom
by more than my kids because of the environment that I created so I'm I'm sure you know you have opportunities that you may not be aware of either in tandem conversations with your child's
friends parents my child's older so I'm I'm asserting play dates still happen at ages but definitely as they get older they're going to you know the B basement and playing games together but being
ever present um goes without saying but most importantly I'm speaking about when your kids bring other kids home and just being present for them you don't know what life is like for them at home you're creating an environment for every child that walks in your door with your
kid in toes so and again I'm not um parenting you I'm I'm just recognizing that we have so many kids that we can touch right around us in our neighborhood um by nature of who our kids hang out with and bring home and to
Mrs Johnson um you asked the question what resources that we have for your child any resources that you need in support of social emotional help and all of that I am so sorry that your child has gone through that um I am so sorry and having been a child that went
through that a lot as a kid um you know it breaks my heart anytime I hear a kid has to to feel that unfortunately in this societ we know that there's always going to be ugliness in people being mean no matter what we do um but know that we are here for you and we're going
to continue to fight to make sure there's less and less of that on our watch um but I'm really sorry that you had to go through that know we're here in any way that you need for support for you and your children I I have to chime in um I I
think I I have a unique perspective on this board um outside of our board president I'm the only non-white elected member um I also went through this district from kindergarten till my senior year um I walk this the hallways
of this very building I ate lunch in this cafeteria um I understand uh and can very deeply relate to to many of the experiences that some of you have have felt courageous enough to talk about
today um and I do also recognize that as a fair SK South Asian student I don't go through the same experiences that black and Latino students in our district do what I can say is that I have been talking about this issue as a student
and as a board member for close to eight years now and I've worked with uh board president Williams gallano Dr Tres um for years pressing this issue because it unfortunately has always been a reactive
measure for our district to respond to some of these issues that we're talking about I would say in the last five years especially since I've graduated we've become very proactive we've had a new Administration come in both on the board and also within the district that is
really cognizant of these issues um so it's frustrating for me to also see that it takes a swasa getting drawn in the bathroom it takes slurs being yelled at at at our students of color for us to talk about it again as a board but know
that you have an advocate and me you have an advocate and our superintendent and our board president um and and it's it is deeply troubling and frustrating to hear these stories because I I know the devastating effects it has on our students confidence their
self-perception their own identity because I had those same issues and you know it it does take us as a community together to to stand up for this and and one issue that I'm just going to put on everyone's radar is social media
especially platforms like Tik Tok and YouTube that have algorithms that feed into this rhetoric what gets clicks what gets attention from kids who are developing who are in middle school it's the it's the edgy the extremist the most
flashy talking points that are often filled with the most misguided and hateful rhetoric so as much as we can control what our students can can have access to in our building a lot of it is also what they have access to after the
bus drops them off at 3:30 so it's it's it's a difficult conversation it's a difficult topic that I know many of our parents care deeply about but just know that our board takes it very seriously you'll always have all of us I'm not
just um just because I'm the only non-white member doesn't mean my my fellow board members don't also take this issue very seriously we're all pushing you know for for to make hopel as inclusive and accessible uh and Equitable as possible so I thank you all for for taking the time to give you give
us your public testimony um and I I just want to give some semblance of of reassurance there um I also wanted to chime in and I know my fellow board member does too um in that echoing this is a community
problem um my children have also all grad graduated from the district but um as a parent I heard many of these things through all of their lives going through the district um but I want to challenge um not only
the district and we've had these conversations that when we are recognizing our students as a district we tend to recognize the straight A student we tend to recognize the Great athlet
and I have been challenging um myself the district um and the community to start recognizing the empathetic children in our district the kind children in our district and
our communities when we start lifting them up as the Stars you start to change The Narrative of what is important you know let's make the captain of the
football team not the one with the most touchdowns but the one who cheers his team on the most the one who cheers for the underdog and then we can start changing this community to be more about love and
less about hate and that starts at home that starts with every single one of us and so I'm very proud to be serving on this board with our president and our superintendent who are you know Blood
Sweat and Tears for this community um it's a fight and we are in a climate right now where being that person isn't rewarded and so our children are getting these horrible
messages and so we've got to counter it with everything that we have as a district and as a community I think yeah I know so I think uh one of the things that I've been very supportive of with Dr tce is this
discussion of social media and I think uh as I think about what I want to comment on here there's a very famous survey that's been going on since the mid 80s and the survey talks about the types of things that teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17 have been doing doing with their free time um this has
been a survey that's been done across all genders all Races all cultures all economic statuses and I wish I could tell you the exact uh citation of this but I've known this because I talk about it often in the 80s the top three things
that teenagers did with their free time family friends and community and faith-based institutions as of 2025 the top three things they do social media gaming and being alone that in of itself is the issue and if we
don't address that and it doesn't start with a community and being at home we're going to continue to have the problems that we have today no matter what's going on in the political environment unfortunately so I've been thinking about what how to organize what's in my
head into our cohesive statement let me give it a shot anti-Semitism is been a fact of my life pretty much all my life um I'm in a I live in a place today I have been for the last three decades is
way better than where I started but I've been aware of its existence and I've always taken an attitude that the the great thing about
my family being here coming here and being here and what I've heard today supports that is that there's a lot of people that don't accept it and so when it raises its head it's kind of like a
wack-a-mole you have to take action you have to address it but I've always accepted and I think it's a realistic expectation is not something that will be completely
eradicated and to me that goes to for any kind of hate there's always going to be people like that there so um this District I think does a tremendous
amount like d said a lot of proactive things to try and address that um the one concern that I have and it's going to sound interesting perhaps but it's something that I've tried to relate to my kids as
well I think we emphasize in teaching our kids the way that the world should be that it should be free of hate I don't know that
we fully equip them to deal with the world when it turns ugly both emotionally but also give them the tools to deal with it and it
came and it kind of became obvious to me um last year at the height of the protests some of which were anti-semitic and I will admit that not not all of them but some clearly were there was an interview with Jewish students and I
forget W University and they said that they were angry at their parents and their spiritual Jewish teachers because they their Elders did not prepare them to deal with what was
going on and so what I I and I don't know how we go about it I was just I was just trying to put my thoughts cohesively together in my head but if we can start looking at
what we're doing and thinking about are we yes it's very important that we educate our kids that the way the world should be is it should be free of hate and it is not acceptable hate is not
acceptable but what do you do how do you emotionally process and how do you physically deal and live in a world when that hate shows up out in the open I am hopeful and being here today uh
confirms my hope that we will get through as a country through what's going on right now and kind of return to a better normal um but I'm also sure that even in my own Lifetime and for
sure in my kids' Lifetime and right this will not be the last time that this stuff explodes right and so again I think having them prepared having them being able to deal with that to me is very important yeah I um I I think I just
want to acknowledge everyone who has spoken and I don't want to cut anyone off who hasn't had a chance to speak so I just want to check in with the rest of the board can I add one last piece absolutely just briefly I think I want
to Echo what Mr Resnik said um Dr res Dr res I'm sorry um but I I also want to just give this piece of um analysis for everyone and and I I hope that it can be a conversation that can be had in your own circles in the community a big
reason why our students in Hopewell are so susceptible to some of the rhetoric that we see online is the fact that we are a largely racially homogeneous School District but that's the same for the students in West Windsor who are
operating with a lot of South Asian East Asian students it's the same for students in Trenton in Ying we live in a highly segregated County one of the most segregated counties in the state and frankly along the east coast we don't think about it like that but that is
what the statistics show us and that is a larger systemic condition that allows some of this hateful actions and and behaviors to grow and and become cancers that that surface in some of these instances that we're
talking about today so in in the government Relations Committee report out I talk about some of the things that we're actively pushing for which is working with some of our neighboring school districts to do simple integrative measures it doesn't mean that you have to Institute mandated
School busing it could mean something as simple as having a pen pal with the neighboring School District from the time you're a first grader so you're able to talk to someone form a relationship and and speak to people who come from a different background and environment than you do because these
types of discriminatory behaviors they are learned and they are often learned from untaught lessons and a lack of exposure the more we talk to each other the harder it is to to say some of those hateful things so just wanted to add that that piece about the segregation
that we see in our community so Miss Williams if I could uh just add this really quickly because I don't think I I touched on one of the the comments and then I want to move the meeting along I know we got a lot to do yet um there was also a question about our staff now as we look at budget and folks have been
asking about specific line items in our budget part of our values and how we spend money is what we value as a district and a community so yes we spend lots of we spent lots of money not lots of money but we have spent lots of money over the years out of title two um not
as much as we probably should but we spend Within what that cap is that provided us with title two and title four to train our staff in specific things around making sure that our schools are welcoming for everyone so those line items that people have been asking about that do that
that's why we don't want our teachers engaging in language that's also making kids feel unsafe in the classroom or behaving in activities that don't we want them to implement curriculum that teaches kids what these things mean but they need to be able to do that because they know the information and they can
do it and enter into the safe space safely so yes we do spend money on that because it's important and we value that we can't just work on the kids and ask you to do it if we're not working on the adults that spend a good portion of the day with your children as
well awesome so um I will just put uh a final point on the issue um and that is we're going to need to keep working together this isn't the last conversation it is an on going
conversation and we we just are going to need to point to it when it's not a match for who we say we are as a community and most certainly I would say that the balance when we when we talk about Dei
and you know inclusivity we're talking about helping people understand that hate is hate that if you don't include everyone you're missing opportunities
like Mr kapia just mentioned where they get to interact with someone who is not the same as them if we ask the same of everyone they don't understand what it looks like or how to behave when someone is different from
them so as a public school system that is our requirement we are mandated by law to include every sing single child identity race and Etc so that is the environment we are
demand for your children to have and we need to recognize that collectively so that we can participate in ensuring our kids feel safe the last thing I'm going to say is that helping
our kids get steely and understand the world out there there is an undue burden on our children who are the least of these who are not the
same that have identities that are not like the majority right we put an undue burden on them to be Steely and tough and I know that's not what Dr Resnik is saying but I want to underscore the point of we need to collectively build
resilience that is the word ofal right because we want all our kids to have it but we also need to recognize when we put undue pressure on a child that has three hibs against them to Bear the weight the emotional
burden we need to stop asking that of our babies we need to stop so I ask you again everyone is of in their own evolution of this matter but every single one of us have an opportunity in the morning when we look
at our kids and send them off to school who do we want them to be who do we want them to be to their peers who do they we want them to be when they come home to us and I promise you this board will support you in every way possible to ensure your kids have the tools that you
have what you need as parents but we cannot do it alone and we certainly cannot not put the burden on our children who don't match the rest of the larger population we just
can't and with that I'm going to wrap us up and move us along but thank you thank you thank you for the [Applause] participation that also means public comment is now closed I have to say that all right board members any old
business items seeing none um I need a first and second to pass the consent agenda items on all in favor any opposed or abstaining seeing none consent agenda
items are passed we're going to go ahead and move to all of our community um sorry committee updates and so as usual we will start with finance and Facilities Mr Peters so I know we haven't really talked a lot about Finance tonight so
I'll make this nice and long haven't heard anything about it um okay so the committee mey uh met about a week ago uh we spent a lot of time talking about the budget um as was alluded to in the discussion that uh Mr Kito gave I think a lot of the board members had a
tremendous amount of discussion over the past seven days to talk about a tremendous amount of things that were presented um on top of that we spent a considerable amount of time talking about this second other big rock in the community is the referendum discussion um we talked a little bit about the uh
proposal that came from hopeall Township uh which we'll get into some more detail on into the future about how uh they may be a part of contributing to some of that um the committee was able to ask some questions there and we got some answers on some potential next steps kudos to uh Dr theres and Mr Kito for
continuing to push that uh with the township it seems like we are making some some momentum there uh we also got an update from uh our facility side of things um as Dr Resnik alluded to uh every month when we meet we do go into detail about the types of projects that
they're working on internally which gives us an opportunity to ask questions and uh make some good uh understanding of really quite frankly the money we save with with what's going on internally today um in the district um two of the major items that came up uh was around the boiler project at the
high school that's continuing on um we also were alerted to um at Bear Tavern what was going on there with some heat pumps um which were in the referendum um that actually failed and us having to make some emergency action to get done get that taken care of which is a a large part of what this referendum is
about making sure that we can avoid these emergency actions and get a longer term strategic plan in place so um there was some additional discussion there about how we close that budget Gap but as as we saw tonight uh from from uh Mr K's presentation um we feel like we're
in a good spot um lastly I'll just make maybe one or two comments that I didn't make as the fin share during this that I think is important to share um I've been a broken record about this for probably the past 6 months with the community um I've been a broken record about this for the past three years sitting on the board um I joined the board uh
explicitly for finance related items I think uh the general public would look at me and probably go you are uh cheap you are Frugal you don't like to spend money I think that I like to try to do more with less sometimes um I have learned a hell of a lot when it comes to
how education needs to be budgeted um for me and for my position right as the finance chair and I speak only for myself when I say this as the board and as we listen to the type of feedback that's given from what I would consider the executives of the district um I feel
very confident and comfortable that the current budget that's been proposed is going to do what the finance committee asked for it to do which was to try to minimize disruption and maximize what we've always done and in an environment that exists today that's nearly
impossible and let me tell you why 85% of our budget our costs are larger than our Revenue when that happens over a long period of time we face what we face today there's no way around that I've said this at many times at public
meetings and I'll continue to say it this is not a Hopewell problem this is a Trenton problem we are limited by what the state enables us to do or not do and sometimes that's favorable other times that's not we remain in a situation today where Dr Tes and the rest of the
executives of the district have to make tough decisions and the tough decisions that have to be made do have an impact I don't think there's a single board member that doesn't recognize and realize that however the alternative to what these things are is to ultimately
do one thing that nobody really wants to talk about cut so when we talk about things that aren't fun having to put activity fees back having to put Sports fees back having to deal with courtesy busing if you add those numbers up that is Teachers those are teachers that we
get to keep here that's the alternative so as a board and as the finance committee our goal is to try to minimize that disruption as much as we can and for me I have to continue to trust the CEO the CFO and the rest of the executives that are here that he they
know more than I do when it comes to their specialty right when I when we hear about curriculum when we hear about special education we hear about finances at an education level I don't think there's anybody at the board that can say that they know more than what these folks do and I share that with the
community to say that I feel that they are doing a tremendous job with trying to meet what we ask them to do minimum disruption maximize what's always happened with what they've put forward in the budget it's not fun I don't think there's many people that if I said hey raise your hand if you like paying taxes
that you'd raise your hand right not many people can say that but at the end of the day we have a special Community we have a special school district and that sometimes means that we have to do these give and takes and the give that we have to give as a community right now is if we're going to continue to expect
the type of programming the type of great education we get from really really good teachers and really really good Administration we're going to pay some more money it's tough to say it but it's true any other tradeoff is going to result in things that we're going to
have other people upset about so I share this with you to say that it's not over as Bob alluded to we have another month that we're going to talk about this and I would encourage you if you have any questions to come and talk to your board of uh uh education Representatives we all like to talk right you can hear it tonight we all like to get on mic and
talk for the most part right we want to hear what you have to say but just keep in mind that our number one goal more than anything is minimizing the the disruption and maximizing what we've always done thank thank you Mr Peters I second
that all right thank you I'm going to move us on to Personnel hello again told you I like to talk okay uh so we met uh this evening like we always do before every board meeting um and we had
a chance to talk about a couple items um the first item we talked about was we had another retirement uh Miss Leo party from uh hop Elementary School 25 years in the district so thank you congratulations to you we so much appreciate hearing the of the folks that can spend so much time with us and have
such a huge impact on the kids and impact on the community um not easy it's bittersweet like I've said before um and we're going to miss her but we are excited for her and what uh her retirement entails uh we also spend some time talking about extracurricular appointments um and then third we uh spend a little bit of time uh Tana
talked to us about uh the resolution here that we're going to authorize in the consent agenda right is that consent okay thank you um which you can see on the agenda uh that's about it nice and brief you're welcome awesome thank you so um
we need a first and the resolution is sorry yeah that's a good question um uh so this is a resolution that just allows us to authorize the affirmative action uh Team to conduct a needs assessment and develop the comprehensive Equity plan that's in the school years
2526 through 2728 um I'm going to butcher this T so if you just want to clarify this for the group you can as to why we're doing it that would be great I think you're doing a great job yes excellent that was it you want to keep going go ahead so uh the c or the comprehensive
Equity plan is something that um we have done before it is a requirement by the state uh the last one was back in 2019 yeah what year is it 2025 sorry it's it's been a long day 2019 was the last one um and the state uh kept
postponing their um release of the new requirements so over the last few years they kept saying we're going to come out with new requirements so just keep what you have well they finally released in January and guess what it's do in June um however we have been working on it as
part of our process so we have been updating and keeping things moving you might know notice that all the policies that's going through the policy committee have been updated because when we started looking those were really old and needed a lot of updates um so part
of that was because of us already working on and and looking at our processes and doing those needs assessments so this is just the board stating uh Tana go ahead and start with the committee since I'm the affirmative action officer for the district and then we're going to put everything together
and then we'll submit for your approval later this year awesome thank you um so we do need to take a roll call vote so I need a first and second motion okay roll
call Mr Capia yes Dr Liston yes Mr Peters yep Dr Resnik yes Mr slotman Dr Sano Dr Wilson yes Dr jasy yes M
Williams gallano yes motion carries thank you moving on to education programming sure this is going to be after all the other discussions this may be a little bit uh counter anticlimactic but um there are a
couple of interesting things to talk about so um I'll start near the end and then I'll go back to the beginning um so let's start with the easy stuff we had
Miss rot come and uh provide us an overview of both what she's accomplished in her short time leading uh the uh counseling uh Team here and an overview and uh her vision for what she's going
to do next um I have to say an excellent presentation so that was awesome um we had a uh field Tri proposed for the uh
for for our Chambers hangers to go abroad uh which sounds really good but is also quite expensive so um given the situation that we're in now I think Dr belitz is working with them to see if we
can figure out some way to reain those cost in but if not we may unfortunately have to not authorize that trip and I I think that goes along with the point that was made as you know as part of what we're trying to do with the budget we're really going to try and control
the cost of the field trips so that was the quick one now for the rest of it I'll preface that um one of the things that I enjoy having been on the education committee since I joined the board so is now the start of my fourth
year is getting to um look at and and review all the various research proposals from folks who come to the district and um basically want
to um work with our district um and it's usually on ways to improve the way we teach kids uh I have a very limited sample size of one District so I don't
know for sure if we do do uh more of this than other districts but I get the sense from people that come here that they really um enjoy working with hopel Valley um and we as a district get a
benefit of those studies because we get access to what they do we get some some training for our staff so in our meeting we actually had three proposals that we got to look at um so we had a uh
proposal from a team that included Dr Bailey from Monclair on teaching math with technology uh we had a proposal from uh the drael academy and I'm going to butcher it Jackie but you can correct me
uh from The drael Academy of uh sciences and Technology am I drael University's Academy of Science um and and it and this proposal is really to look at um
social and emotional learning and how aspects of seal impact our kids abilities to succeed in both learning and you know taking a stem pathway
further in life um and um then we had um a Miss Flanigan from and I bscs um who is work who has worked with
Dr angeni probably prior but she came back with a new proposal to um I'm looking at my notes um so she came back with a new proposal
on maybe Vicki can fill in too yeah it was about testing performance tasks in the science classroom okay thank you for bailing me out here I'm trying to read my so uh big picture I think we gave an okay to all three proposals two of them
we need some further details to go along with the proposal from Drexel University that's a proposal that's going to be developed so that's not yet a uh something that is ready to be implemented because we'll be applying
for a grant one of the things that the committee has asked for in particular from the BCBS team is that we find ways to so for the students who are going to participate and and and it's always with permission of parents it's always
Anonymous it never affects the kids grade but for those kids who do participate in a study that they will also be exposed to the research process so they be given an overview of what the research is about how how it works why it works right what the process is going
to be so this is going to create an opportunity for those kids who may be thinking about a career path into research to really uh start understanding what that's about and that's about
it awesome thank you Dr Resnik moving on community relations hi we met last week apologies to my fellow board members I haven't had a chance to type up some official notes so hopefully this will serve that purpose
and of course Drew and Jackie and Anita Dr Tes I think you were all there on that meeting so please feel free to jump in if anything anything I might miss we had a meeting on the 13th we went quite a bit over time a lot of discussion with the recently passed referendum in
Princeton think it was around 80 9 million had the opportunity to hear more about their strategies I'll say in terms of you know how they how they presented their referendum and how it ended up passing back at the end of January and
talked a little bit about how Lawrence had just passed a referendum as well they just passed one I think last week right $94 million in in Lawrence as well so that was a really great discussion to hear more from those couple of especially pron successful ref ROM
efforts and hopefully we'll be able to better inform our process as we move forward here from now until the end of the year Dr tce uh we also talked about the referendum Communications committee that we had mentioned in the last meeting I know that some invitations
were sent out so we expect to have that meeting in the near future though I think it's on the same day that we're talking about I decided I was I decided to leave it I think we're okay for that one but moving the other one okay great so that'll uh that'll be upcoming so looking forward to participating in that
in that discussion honestly the meeting the the almost the entire time was spent talking about referendum topics and sort of that strategy so looking forward to to you know moving that engagement forward moving forward on a personal note I will mention we did briefly talk
about something I mentioned last time was kind of board member attendance at Future meetings and I I will note the hopeall valley Education Foundation above and beyond Gala is this Friday the 21st so would encourage folks to attend if they can I'll unfortunately be at the
hopo Valley Children's Theater performance at the same time so I feel like I get a pass through that one but but for those who who who are able to attend certainly encourage it and we'll be working sort of on a on a plan moving forward where we can kind of get ourselves out there and and uh you know
be in the community as much as possible Jackie drove anything that I didn't miss that you wanted or I did miss that you'd like to to raise for the group and one more plug for the um the HV uh f um in their Gala that's the that's this Friday
coming up that money uh does the money that they raise at that that uh function not only do they honor our teachers our educators of the year and our support people of the year but they give money back to the schools through grants for our our folks um this year they're holding it at the um at the Hope Valley
uh Winery um and so it's going to be a very nice evening there's going to be live entertainment it's a good time so if you can join us please um you can go right online I think there's a button right on our website um for the fundraiser as well where you can just go right and and buy tickets so we'd love to see you
there did you okay pass yep go ahead pass it okay um so I'm reporting for seal um we talked about a lot of
different things atal um so uh we are going to to be celebrating inclusivity month in April around learning differences um the PTO the strive PTO
has um a lot of great um activities going on so um if you're not aware of what they're doing please go on their website but they're going to be doing a car wash um they do just regularly father outings mother outings kid
outings um they're going to have some videos up um their a new parents leading strive too um so like you know if you haven't been involved before even if you have you know join like we've got new
people coming in all the time so it is something that um everyone can be involved in um I wanted to alert people that coming up soon we're going to have um three new sessions for the
nurtured heart training so some of these things that we've been talking about in the meeting on building resilience helping our children um a lot of these things um I'm going to be talking about right now um we also our Rutter's Health
clinician will have a family webinar coming up on Mental Health um we have in our district also for our students with with the uh greatest need we have a
therapist that is specialized in uh childhood trauma that's a great resource for our students um we are working right now to implement next year some tier 2 supports so um all students get our tier
one supports and then students who might have a little bit greater need we have tier 2 supports and so we're looking um right now we're meeting with with all of our elementary schools and looking at the tier 2 supports that are offered
through our character strong intervention and so next year we'll be implementing them in all of our elementary schools um we've also been exploring other school districts seal websites so that we can kind of Boler uh hopewell's
website so that those resources um are really easily available to our parents and our community to help them out um we also have coming uh May 21st at the high school uh Jordan Toma
is coming um those of you um who might have children with IEPs uh Jordan uh is a inspirational speaker he has a book out I'm just a kid with an
IEP um I highly recommend reading it um just a really great inspirational teacher um and then I think I think I got everything
there yeah right thank you any questions okay moving on Mr kadia government relations all right uh the government Relations Committee convened on March 13th to continue advancing its mission of enhancing engagement with
government leaders advocating for State funding and policy Solutions and exploring sustainable structures for long-term government relations efforts um since the last meeting the committee has taken several actions to advance local government engagement um
invitations have been extended to Mayors Township committee members and Town Council Members in hul Township hopal burough and Pennington bur for the remaining School building tours um we just had one today for son Brook before the meeting um additionally emails have
been sent to the 15th legislative district delegation to request their availability for a rescheduled tour of Bear Tavern Elementary School um in terms of state level advocacy the committee has requested a meeting with assemblywoman Reynolds Jackson's office to discuss key policy and funding
priorities namely our FY 26 budget request for an ADA accessible playground at Bear Tavern um additionally recognizing the assembly women's recent appointment as chair of the assembly education committee um the government Relations Committee aims to discuss
hsd's unique Poli policy concerns including student growth rate fielded by local development constraints around the 2% tax levy cap and Rising operational costs Additionally the committee seeks to highlight the need for increased funding for ESL and marginalized
students especially in light of ongoing volatile Federal action to explore sustainable models for government relations the committee has also initiated Outreach to our board attorney to gain insight into the legal guidelines and feasibility of establishing a standing government
Relations Committee um so that we can maintain consistent advocacy and communication with legislators and Municipal officials um outside of all of that we did also have time to address some new agenda items um the committee reviewed the recent resolution adopted
by the Asbury Park Board of Education which declared itself a safe space for for marginalized communities in response to Federal Executive Orders um Garden State equality and other Grassroots advocacy organizations have been encouraging other districts to follow suit um the committee considered whether
adopting a similar resolution would be a meaningful step for hrsd But ultimately decided to conduct an informal listening tour with marginalized communities to better understand their experiences anxieties and concerns in the wake of volatile Federal action and I think this
informal listening tour will also complement a lot of the discussions that we've had today about instances of bias in our schools um the committee also discussed potentially a key word potentially endorsing the policy to allow 16 and 17 year olds to vote in Schoolboard elections to be clear this
DEC this decision ultimately falls under a municipal jurisdiction but our board can endorse support and advocate for the initiative if we choose to do so um for background Newark is the first municipality in the state to adopt the policy which will take take effect next
month during its April School Board elections um the committee plans to engage with the full board in the coming weeks to gauge members positions and gather input um future steps may involve discussions with Municipal governments and considering a formal resolution
based on board feedback finally the committee discussed opportunities for county level Outreach and cross District collaboration um as I talked about earlier Mercer County's persistent School segregation along racial and socioeconomic lines presents an opportunity for joint initiatives such
as a countywide field day or a penp pal program to Foster integration uh the committee plans to reach out to the Mercer County Superintendent to gauge interest on these initiatives and to consult with neighboring District administrations so next steps include rescheduling our Bear Tavern tour with
the ld15 legislators engaging assembly woman Reynolds Jackson's office on the FY 26 budget requests and policy concerns continuing seek continuing seeking legal Insight on establishing a standing government Relations Committee and advancing discussions on local
resolutions and county level collaboration initiatives thank you I have questions what I do go uh so these invitations that the committee
sent uh these invitations that the committee sent uh what's the response like to the invitations so from see any Township committee members on the tour ofon so for uh well the hopeall burough
mayor uh attended our Bear Tavern tour um the ld15 delegation actually I just heard back from assemblyman verelli today so he's actively looking to reschedule for early April we'll see depending on his schedule um and then hope well Township committee has gotten back to me expressing interest and
especially visiting Bear Tavern for when we reschedule it um I haven't heard anything from Pennington burough oh okay lovely all right well I I I I I'm actually happy to hear that you're getting a response on this um the other
thing that I wanted to comment on is um the countywide initiatives I don't know if um you recall the Dr teson AB board but sometime back when we were talking
about um engaging um our um School community and kids in or in increasing Civic engagement one of the um requests that I made was to
find ways to expose them uh to uh kids their age that have different life experiences just because of where they grown up and we talked about how count is probably the place to start because it's the easiest right uh so I'm
happy to hear that you're exploring that I I'd like to see us do something like that abolutely thank you that was a really helpful report out um I just had one comment about the initiative you spoke about um where the you were speaking to the
municipalities about potentially endorsing this proposal um to have 16 17year olds um vote in Schoolboard elections um and I just thought this would be a great place for us to engage our student representative and also just members of the student body both to hear
their opinions on it I mean do they care right um first of all but second of all if there is an effort to sort of go to the municipalities and to speak about this particularly if it's in support of it bringing a student with you to really talk about what the importance is of an initiative like this yeah no that's
that's very helpful yeah we definitely need to get Miss Lee involved with that conversation and we and we wouldn't also you know reach out in any type of taking any specific stance without the board's approval as a whole so just yeah exactly
awesome wonderful okay we're gonna move on to policy Dr Wilston okay so the policy committee met on Monday March 3D we reviewed one regulation and we have one policy and regulation up for first
reading four policies and one regulation up for second reading um so first in response to questions and concerns that have been brought to the board from the community the policy committee reviewed regulation 8451 communicable disease which includes
language related to headlice the committee reviewed the regulation as it relates to the lice protocols that are currently being implemented by the district the regulation lays out a set of procedures for identification of and response to over a dozen illnesses and
ailments of which headlight is one so the regulation says that students showing specific symptoms should be sent to the school nurse for evaluation the school nurse will then examine the student and make a recommendation as to whether or not that student should be
excluded from school for medical reasons uh this regulation ensures that medical professionals rather than sort of a rigid policy really guide decisions based on clinical best practices so after reviewing the school's life's protocol the committee did determine
that it is in compliance with our current regulation and also that it aligns with guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics the National Association of School nurses the New Jersey Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and prevention the committee
also felt that the current regulation appropriately leaves decision-making to the medical professionals and that creating specific policies for each condition would really not be in the best interest of the district as it
would really limit our ability to adapt medical protocols as needed to align with changing evidence and best practices in the field so while we're not recommending changes to the regulation at this time we do recognize the importance of really clear and
timely communication with families and moving forward the district really has enhanced communication efforts to ensure that families are well informed about our health protocols and our responses to cases within our our schools School nurses will also be following up with
families where a lice case has been identified to serve as a resource and also to ensure treatment of that case so now we have um one policy and regulation up for first reading so can I
have a motion in a second to bring policy and regulation 2423 bilingual education up for first reading motion second third great so policy and regulation 2423 bilingual education lays out the expectation and
the process by which the district will identify multilingual Learners and provide bilingual education English as a second language and culturally and linguistically responsive language instruction educational programs also called leap I think is that L do they
call it leap leap so multilingual Learners are students whose primary language is not English and who have varying degrees of English language proficiency so the district currently has about 30 students with over 30
languages who are considered multilingual Learners we do not currently have a bilingual program due to the relatively low number of multilingual Learners um bilingual education's only required when there are 20 or more K through2 students who speak
one specific non-english language we do however provide which is requir ESL excuse me which is required when there when there are 10 or more multilingual Learners in K through 12 so this policy and regulation were
last revised by the board in 2023 and the current revisions that you see here reflect recent amendments to the state code around bilingual education in public schools the Amendments address the services multilingual Learners need to meet or
exceed the New Jersey student learning standards to reach graduation and post-secondary success uh so in particular revisions to the policy further Define multilingual learner make clear that students enrolled in language instruction educational programs will
have access to educational opportunities and services available to other students in the school district and you'll see that the titles of both the policy and regulation have changed to bilingual education as well anything from my policy colleagues that you'd like to add to that
conversation no okay any questions from the board or comments okay all in favor say I I I any opposed or abstaining okay so can I have a motion
in a second to bring policy and regulation 5600 student discipline code of conduct policy 9163 spectator code of conduct policy 2 2365 acceptable use of generative artificial intelligence and
policy 5701 academic Integrity up for first reading second okay first reading or seconding second reading to clarify that was second reading sorry up for second reading
y okay all right so I'm not going to spend a lot of time going over these policies because we reviewed them at length in the last uh board meeting um but the committee did incorporate suggested revisions um based on feedback that we received during the last board
meeting uh so I'll just briefly go through the revisions that we incorporated so for policy and revision uh and regulation 5600 the student discipline code of conduct uh we revid this regulation to include an expectation in the policy that
disaggregated data related to the student code of conduct be reported back to the board including counts of school and out of school suspensions use of restorative justice practices and threat assessments for The Spectator code of conduct we uh received no comments on
this policy so it stands as it did for first reading for policy 2365 acceptable use of generative artificial intelligence we received um quite a bit of feedback back from the board and thank you Dr Resnik in particular so we did expand the
language in this policy to include generative Ai and non-generative AI we added language indicating that any individual affiliated with the school district must comply with the district AI plan and policy and we also indicated that teachers can only use District
approved AI platforms to determine if there's a violation of the academic Integrity policy for policy 5701 academic Integrity we also here made a revision so that we were referring to both generative and non-generative AI based
on feedback that we received from the board so I'll stop there and see if there's any questions or comments from the board or from uh the policy committee members uh just a quick add-on on the AI policy so thank you very much for incorporating the revisions I took a
look at those those are fine um just to make a note right a lot of the meat is in the AI plan that the policy only refers to and it's being developed so I just want to make sure that when that plan is finalized it goes up
for review at least with the policy committee and hopefully with the whole board I don't know that we need to approve it or not approve it but we should at least get to take a look uh at it as a board yeah we can absolutely request that thank you
thanks and I would just like to add when we're developing that um guidelines for using AI that um we take into consideration especially with our special ed students that AI can be a
great tool any other questions concerns okay Bob I think it's a roll call vote Dr Liston yes Mr Peters yep Dr Resnik yes Mr
slotman got Dr Sano Dr Wilson yes Dr genovas yes Mr kadia yes Miss Williams gallano yes motion carries okay I think that covers all of
[Music] our right committees um moving on need a first and second for calendars first second wow a lot that was big energy
over there big energy all right so we'll get the easy one out of the way Personnel April 28th 6 o'clock sounds good Finance um I was thinking sometime during the week of the
14th pref preferably the 14th but of April or the 15th yeah April what's that that's what works for everybody though got do it all right 8 a on the 14th did you
know there's nothing in there I had a request if we could move our Ed program to during the daytime which we can if that's okay with everybody else on the committee the MERS okay I'll I think
just depends when yeah Anita so I was looking at just the week of the 21st of April 21st um is it possible to do the um could we do maybe the week before then um maybe like the week of the
7th okay um what time like what times in the in the day would be well good no no no no okay um maybe we should sorry I can do early the week of the 21st we do the actual yeah I can do the 21st yeah
what time um any I'm good anytime before any time between not not at 12 12 to one but anything else works I'm also wide open Easter yeah the 21st is e Monday which is fine for me all back I don't does I
it's it's a regular school day okay we're fine yeah it's not no it's not no no okay so okay so the how is 9 on the 21st what time nine okay that works okay I need it
good okay thank you what do we think about policy I can do the we get the 14 are people available on the 14 you guys Avail on the 14y yeah we can do it we can piggyback right
after we can do it at n o'clock if that works for you I could I can do that can you do 9: a.m 9: a. on the 14 no not 9 okay how about 11 11 works too 11 okay got it April 24th at 8
AM April 24th at 8 AM does that work yeah I can make it work um community relations and the government one should I do it for government okay um how does the 10th or
11th April 10th Thursday ail 10th is good for me anytime uh Thursday April 10th okay what about the 11th okay all right um
n can you do yeah you can do the ninth what time it have to be like afternoon like 1:00 I'm good after I can do 1:00 as long as we're done by two
yeah 1:00 on the 9th did we do financing facilities okay what time was it the 14th yes 8 a.m. that was the one early bed it out thank you yes the
17th that in 17 8 A.M let me get over there and see what my schedule I'm usually find that early in the morning 8 amm works for me everybody else good for community relations Thursday to 17 I wait 8 am here is where am I I know
that's I'm trying to figure out what state I'm in Chicago 1 hour 1 hour so behind us yeah she be so it be 7 a.m. for you is that okay I think so because I don't think I'll be in meetings yet let
me I think that's okay okay I feel like I shouldn't have a 7 o'clock meeting okay let's say all in [Laughter] favor I any opposed or
abstaining okay those count calendars are passed people busy people y'all awake out there just checking awesome um any new business items uh it's not really new business
but I just wanted to say thank you to all the folks who stay here because by this time we're usually looking at a very empty uh so thank you very much for staying and uh heading through some of
this admitt rather boring stuff okay seeing no business new new business we're going to go ahead and move into our second public comment I know we've had a lot this evening but we had uh two special public comment sections so this uh public comment
section invites um the public to address the board on any matter for a maximum of three minutes during this portion of the meeting you're asked to state your name address and municipality in response to your comments the Board of Ed May respond or direct the superintend the
superintendent to do so the board may also opt to take up the matter at a future meeting so that the matter is researched by The District administration public comment is now open hello to me McQueen again in Pennington um when I was here up here earlier one
of the things I wanted to do was second the conversation or the comment of the parent who mentioned male mentors for our students um I have a daughter in high school who's had two incidences with young men um one more aggressive
situation and one where it was just inappropriate hands um I am who I am and so I told her you know the first time she hadn't told me she handled it and she told me how she handled it it's not a reason for her to get in trouble at home so I let it go
um or I should say I was comfortable with how she handled it uh the second situation she told me about it when it happened I told her she had one shot to handle it we triy to encourage them to manage it on their own first um and she handled it but sitting here listening to
some of the parents it made me wonder how many children have not yet found their voice and couldn't handle it on their own and so I reiterate in second the conversation and the comment of the parent who said we could really use more
males to Mentor our young men as they become young men in managing um relationships and emotions um but yes that was it thank you do I have to sign a second time this will be great you guys got to stand
there it's like 10 o'clock um I'll sign when I'm done Joseph beas Titusville backwell Township speaking as look I wrote it down speaking as a white Christian straight male I welcome any opportunity call me happy to have any
conversation I can I stand in privilege and I feel it and I know it um I also welcome everyone to eliminate the abbreviation Dei say every word
and um Dr you had said that there were um committees and that the population that was attending dwindled everyone here is well aware that a large issue we have is that we
have no Collective memory of our history so if you notice that if you reinstate the Committees and you notice that they are dwindling in number remind us of our history and what has happened even three years ago and
you will likely get another wave of people it's just the fact that we keep forgetting what happens and we think it's solved and it's not and I will give credit to the history uh my kids are 10th graders
in uh the the high school I will give a lot of credit to the apus history course there they teach history really well so oh got a sign thank you General sorry
Kate ham hopeall Township um not sure if this is for you DR tce or you uh Mr kapadia or both um I have not stopped thinking about the community issue at hand here um I am remembering back about eight years ago where there was a call
to action where all Mercer County superintendents community members parents came together for another purpose we had a huge uptick in Mercer County uh the loss of lives of our young adults and it was a call to action for
all communities within Mercer County so I'm wondering utilizing that and wondering is this information Dr trece that is being shared amongst all other Mercer County school districts are other superintendents reporting the same
incidents the same concerns the same areas that need attention and would it behoove us as a county to again have another call to action especially in these times of rising
volatile Nationwide behaviors happening to have potentially something like this again as it relates to the issues that we're seeing um I hear it mainly at the middle school level but I will tell you it's happening at the high school I'm certain that it's happening in elementary school so I don't think it's
Unique just to timberlan I think it is across the board um um and then I guess with that if that were to take a step forward is there opportunity for the community to become involved and participate in that that's it uh Emil bis hope B
burrow um I'm also an AP US History uh student at hopo Valley and I cons second that the teachers do a very nice job and one of the things that we were talking about just the other day in class was how they go about teaching events like
911 and one of the things that we came to a consensus on um as that class and also the teacher was that the way that it is taught is a little bit outdated it kind of still assumes that the people
learning it were aot even alive um during 911 and as someone who's learning about it right now that event you know is older it happened seven years before
I was born I think that some of the same is true with how we teach um about bullying and about discrimination and specifically social
media's role in it um as a student I believe our first introduction to like um anti-bullying and anti-discrimination in Wellness was in Middle School um and
throughout kind of the last five years of my education there hasn't really been a lot about social media's role in the rise of um in the rise of bullying and discrimination among my generation and I
I honestly do not know how uh the curriculum is changed in in that regard but the kind of the way that we are taught about bullying and discrimination it kind of almost seems outdated and it
also kind of seems like students aren't as interest or students can't pay attention to those kind of subjects as well as they should um and that just the whole way that it is taught could could use could use an improvement and I think
we would see a reduction um in in some of these events that have been going on good evening I'm sus palinsky um some of you probably know that I've stood up here and talked about um healthy Tech use and and how
important it is to me um I had a Timberlane student say to me this week how do I think it feels to them that the punishment for having their phone out of their Yonder pouch is more than for using a racial slur or another type of slur and I don't think that student is
right but it really matters that that's what they think um that their perception is that slurs are frequent um and sometimes met with an IR roll or or being ignored um so I I encourage a as
everyone here has mentioned and and underlined that we continue to take opportunities um not to look the other way not to just be disappointed but to to meet um every mistake that these students make with real consequences and
real conversation um maybe conversation more than consequences and I'll Echo something that's been both demonstrated and said um I don't know if my numbers are right right now but at some point in the last five years when I I lived here they were
were about a 90% white district and the community members and neighbors that came out tonight to speak on behalf of our kids um are caring a pretty heavy load um I speak as one of the 90% um and not a lot of us had a lot to say about
what's happening to kids in our district so I hope we will come out and do more work thank you let me coming up here uh cat Hogan hobo Township I um what the young man shared uh sparked
something in my brain that I know I remember there were conversations about um some I think people in the room were on this um sometimes these issues can be addressed peer-to-peer um when students are sitting across a
table or in a space with someone that feels familiar to them that is their age and um you know because they think that we don't know anything like I don't know how they think we got to like where we are at this point that we literally know nothing um but if they're hearing this
information from a peer um if a peer is talking about how it impacted them right what it meant for them to deal with some of these um these instances of of of of of you know bias or hate crimes or
whatever you want to call it um I do think that that can feel more relevant uh to the young people and obviously that requires training so there's conversations that would happen about that because you don't want you know things going out of control but but
it can be done I know that these kinds of things exist and I know that they're often centered around drug and alcohol use but we can Center them around other things and kids did training for that and they could do training for this um so that was the one thing I wanted to
say and then also the bit about resilience um I heard that uh from Dr Resnik I heard heard that um I also heard what another Community member shared and I will just say um you know
I've lived in this community for a really long time I I grew up here I went through these schools I've seen the gorgeous changes that have happened I've seen the areas where we need to do some more work um my children are starting conversations about
resilience in elementary school just so that they can get through being a part of this community so those things are happening I know a lot of us have to have those conversations it isn't a choice because the most frightening thing as a parent is for your kid to be called something before you had a
conversation with them about it and about what that means um and so I do know that a lot of families are absolutely doing that work we all have to do that work um I will just say that you know it is
really hard when the incidents that students are being impacted by are per trated by by children of Staff members in the district that's problematic and First Responders that's also problematic so clearly broader Community
conversation is what's needed here thank you anybody else okay so um thank you for your comments and thank you I just put a star next to that one parent's name U Mr uh beis yeah I just I'm going to put a star next to your name as a volunteer for our
male Mentor group um and to the student um we have been having very Frank conversations about because uh to miss Fulmer Hogan's point when when you hear from us older folk and quite frankly we did not live through what you're living through on
social media the the lessons are not as impactful so we've been talking about that with the digital Wellness Comm committee um really uh just recently about how can we start to train ambassadors to go down and talk to the younger kids about it um because you know we've already started surveying and talking to focus groups of you who feel
like the younger on shouldn't have it because of what you lived and then you know being able to talk to them about some of the things that they're experiencing um and always trying to to make history more relatable and relevant for you is something that we strive to do so thank you for that reminder I took some notes about some of your comments
and we appreciate that and it continue to I know Mrs fitzes is thinking about this ways that we can talk to students about our curriculum and how that's impacting them and ways that we can improve the way you interact with it government relations I think it was it community relations we were just talking about a call the call to action um that
the Mercer County had around mental health that was about eight eight or nine years ago um Dr Smith and and the rest of Mercer County superintendents and I was part of that movement was working very hard to support mental health in the community because we had lost several students uh to Suicide uh
we had big forums where parents and community members were involved and resources were involved around that the superintendents are presently engaged in conversations about how do we deal with the the the change in uh the climate that we're all facing in all of our districts and how we can really
Revitalize that call to action but it has been discussed with the board and also with the superintendent we're just you know trying to find out how we're going to attack this particular time and this particular problem because we do have a um we forget about history and I can say all day long that
this happened in this District recently and then when it's not happening and things get quiet then we stop thinking it's important to do and no matter how much I say this happened um folks just kind of forget and then it gets good it gets things get um clicking along things get better
because of the work we're doing and then we have a little hiccup because of something that happens in the larger world or because we let our guard down and we stop doing the things that we're working for all of us so um we going to continue to keep pushing forward I'm going to continue to keep doing the work
with students and my staff it's not always going to be perfect we're going to get busy and we're going to forget but hopefully um we're going to be able to come back and circle as a community and get back to the work um but peer-to-peer the community being involved parents being involved is all going to make the difference as we move
forward with this this work in the future did I forget anything oh yes yes so the punishment yes that's their Mis their misunderstanding it is not a worse consequence for the Yonder patch which is I think your parent has to come pick it up and then maybe you
get a detention or you have to put in a basket it's you're going to be some sort of suspension from school the police are involved with that and and the prosecutor's office is involved when it's hate speech or hate symbols involved it's very serious so that's why
we're trying to get the word out to the community to parents um that this stuff is happening and it and it can be a problem for the district if these things keep happening and we become considered a school that's not safe for students that could be a problem for the school district as well our rating how we're
seen by other uh districts people that want to move into this District because that SDS report in our self rating and the rating that the state gives us for the number of hibs we have affects whether or not we're considered a safer civil school so yes those consequen are much steeper than the Yonder patch and
we have to do some work in making sure kids understand that um but the consequences of a suspension is not really what I'm worried about the consequences of what happens when this blows up online and your face is attached to it forever on social media
is much more serious than than anything that we can uh give give you as a punishment um I don't want your name to be Googled forever in perpetuity with some racial slur or something you put out there in the in the world um and there's un students in this District that have that experience now because of
a bad choice they made as a kid um so we're hoping that we keep that from happening to our children and that's the conversations that our administrative staff are having with our students right now yeah and I think the other thing that I heard and I know the district is working on is teachers being more
proactive yes that when they're hearing these things they're not just letting the students work it out um and that when the administration is is hearing things about teachers that we are also handling that you know those those tend
to be HR issues so you will not hear about those things in the community but rest assured this Administration takes those things very seriously okay we did it guys
public comment is now closed and I do thank you I'm I'm just keeping it light all right um with that said we are going to um now move into executive session so I need a first and second to move into executive
session first all in favor any opposed or abstaining seeing none thank you community we will continue to work together to work through this but I
appreciate you hanging in there with us