It's Yeah. Stop it. Testing. You're on. I don't want to push the button. We're going to call Whoa. We're going to call the meeting to order.
Roll call. Yep. say that I'm Don't even roll call please. Mr. Calvita, Dr. Genevacy here. Dr. Lilliston here.
Mr. Peters here. Dr. Resnik. Mr. Slottman. Yes. Dr. Stilliano here. Dr. Wilson here. We have a quorum.
Okay, great. Uh, the New Jersey open public meetings law has enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of the public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon. In accordance
with the provisions of the act, the Hopewell Valley Regional Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date, time, and place thereof communicated to the Hopewell Valley News
and the Times on January 7th, 2025. This meeting notice was also sent to Comcast Cable and Verizon FiOS. The board reserves the right to enter into executive sess session during all meetings of the board of education. This
meeting is being recorded for the purpose of board review for future reference preparation of the meetings and viewing on YouTube, Bulldog TV, and the school district website, hvrsd.org.
Please stand for the flag salute. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Um, where are we at? What are we approving? Minutes. Okay. Can I have a motion to approve the minutes from the August 11th regular meeting? So, second. All in favor?
Opposed? Abstaining. Motion carries. Um, first report is from our um, report of the Central High School student representative which we do not have here. Nope.
Oh, we're going to invite Principal Riley up. so much back in the back in the day. Dr. Resnik, I actually was the representative on the school board. Of course, you were
one of my very very favorite things about high school. But since I haven't been invited back, I am really excited to introduce our student rep, one of our student representatives for this year to all of you. Um, her name is Eileen Zang. She is a current senior here at HBCHS.
And one of my very favorite things about her is the fact that she is multi-talented and mult multifaceted. Um, she's absolutely brilliant. One of our National Merit semi- finalist. You'll learn more about her and the rest of them at the meeting in November, which I'm hoping you'll invite
me back to. However, um, in addition to her amazing test taking skills, she's also incredibly academically driven in a range of different ways. Who takes AP French, AP English, AP environmental science, and another AP science. Um, and
has equal amounts of interest in all of those things. She's really impressive. She is also impressive because of her commitment to the environment and her commitment to our community. She is one of the on-site managers for the Pennington Farmers Market and she is
also a land steward intern for the Friends of Hope Valley Open Space. So, her commitment to not only trying to improve the environment for everyone, but also really bringing our community together through those efforts is something that's that's really commendable. Uh she's an asset to our student council and I'm excited that
she'll be joining you this year. Thank you for your time. Awesome. Thank you. She'll be there next time. Are you going to introduce the other students rep next board meeting? If I could do that at the next board meeting, that would be great because I know she couldn't make it today. So, we'll definitely But could
you share her name with the board just Grace Corvaline will also be joining us as our second board representative. And I have a laundry list of wonderful things to tell you about Grace. We can do it now if you'd like, but I was hoping she would be here to hear all the wonderful things. No, I think she wants to hear if you don't mind. We'll we'll pause on that one. Thank you. I appreciate it.
All right. Thank you so much. Awesome. Um, our board president has you have noticed is ill tonight. So, we are going to uh forgo our president's report and I will hand it over to Dr. Thrice
for our superintendent report. Thank you. Um, before I begin my superintendent's report, um, I think our student rep just came in. Is she ready to give a a brief report? She is. But in addition to everything else that I already told you about her, the fact that she just came here straight from
tennis. Yes. We're going to give you a minute to get set. And while we're doing that, we have some other special guests that I'm going to go ahead and introduce um while Miss Sing gets gets comfortable and gets ready for her report. Um, I know that many of you have been following um the work that um one of our our younger
board members um Mr. Kabadia has been involved um working with some of our government officials, specifically Senator Turner, to get an appropriation of $125,000 to build an accessible playground at Bear Tavern. And our community is so
amazing, especially the Bear Tavern community, that they were able to procure the rest of the funds. uh some community members and parents who are connected to Bear Tavern uh donated the rest. So we have uh Mr. Billy here to share a little bit about the the donors today and the foundations that they
represent. Good evening. Good evening. Um just really quickly um we are very blessed to have with us tonight um Mr. Andrew Waller. Mr. Waller uh represents the uh first day of school foundation and uh I want to thank them for their generous
gift. Mr. Waller, come on up here. Come on. Everybody should see these people. Um their daughter Ryan is a student at Bear Tavern. I believe they have two high schoolers as well, Andrew and Suzanne Waller. And um also here tonight are is Mr. Moore House and
his mother and father uh George and Elizabeth Smith Foundation. and I want to thank them for their generous gift to help us get this playground started. Come on up. We're we're very lucky to have um these people who just talk to each other and
just say, "Hey, let's do something great for our school." And um I also wanted to make sure I I I know you already said it, but um thank Mr. Capadia for getting this ball rolling um and and the playground started secure the funding. So Bear Tavern is very grateful for the
amazing donations and grants and we look forward to the day hopefully this spring uh when we can invite them back for ribbon cutting. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. And if I could just give the numbers of how how powerful this contribution was.
$30,000 will come has come from the Smith um foundation, the George and Elizabeth G. Smith Foundation. 45,000 were from um the More Houses and the and the rest came from the um the Wallers and the the the schools uh schools first
foundation, school kids first foundation and their work is specifically around helping students u that have disabilities be able to have accessible experiences in school. So they and their children are going to be involved in helping to pick out the playground and
help design it. So we're very excited about having the whole commu community in involved in in the playground design. So thank you so much and thank you for your generosity and your commitment to our children. Thank you. While while we're here, let's just let's accept a donation while they're still
here. Okay. A motion second. I need a motion and a second to accept the donation. Motion. All in favor? I
I I. Any opposed? Abstaining. Motion passes. Okay. Thank you. So, thank you. Thank you so much. Good night. So, I'm going to go ahead and give my um
superintendent report. We have a lot on the agenda tonight. Um, but there are some things that I want to uh lift up before we um kick off the rest of our lift. Oh, I'm sorry. You ready to go? Okay. Sorry. Yes. No problem.
Flip it over. Okay. Perfect. Okay. Again, sorry for my late arrival. Um, but my name is Eileene and I'm a senior at HCCHS. So, in August to prepare for the start of the new school year, we organized transition activities for our incoming
freshman and new students. These included a schedule walkthrough and openhouse, both supported by our leadership corpse member and service learning pathway students. Following the first day of school, the class of 2026 celebrate celebrated their senior sunrise on the Akurson Field that
Friday. Schoolwide, we held class meetings where we went through guidelines, attendance policies, and other expectations. Additionally, starting since August, the newly instated driver safety meetings for seniors to receive parking have all been successfully conducted. All sports and fall extracurriculars
have also successfully started up again alongside the school start from girls field hockey, girls tennis, cross country, soccer, marching black and gold, color guard, girls volleyball, and football who are all carrying out their scrimmages, cap practices, and games. We
wrapped up last week with football win against Notre Dame on Friday. Coming in the second half of September, we will have the activity fair to encourage all students to participate in the many clubs available in the high school. Next week, we will start the first spirit week of 2026, culminating in the fall
pep rally that Friday. Saturday, the 27th, will then mark the first ever alumni reception in the morning and then the homecoming dance at night. Thank you for everyone's time. Did so did you win today
your tennis match? Was it practice or a meet? It was It was a match. And did you win? No. Oh, sorry to put you on the spot. Oh, not bad. Good showing. Very good showing. We'll take it. I just
Maybe I'll try to speak loudly. Um, is that okay? Turn it over and see if it put it on auto. There you go. Okay. How's it now? Better. Better. Okay. Well, I just wanted to welcome you, Miss Zang. And just for folks who weren't aware, we actually
modified our bylaws last year in order to increase student participation and really elevate and better integrate student voice into the board activities. So, we're super super excited to have you here in this enhanced capacity and look forward to involving you more in
the activities and in the deliberations of the board. So, thanks for joining us. Thank you. Thank you so much. And I know in your um extended capacity, we're asking that um if you can stay until at least the first public comment, but we know this is your first meeting. Um and
that the the two representatives will be alternating because they both have very packed schedules. And so this will give them an opportunity to weigh in on some of the things that we're doing a little bit more and we're going to be inviting members the the two members into some of our committee meetings, especially when we're making decisions that are
specifically about students. So you could get to be weigh in on that as well. So, thank you so very much for coming tonight. So, I will go ahead and start my um superintendence report. Again, I will keep it brief because I know we have a lot on the agenda this evening. Um so, I just wanted to give you an update on a
couple of things. Uh mostly the referendum. So, Mr. U Calvita, so we have been getting out in the community. We have a large outreach ha outreach calendar and I know that you've seen me at a lot of events and our board members. We will continue to get out at
back to school nights. We'll be at the harvest fair. We were at the Hopewell carnival. I was at a senior citizen picnic recently with a with one of our um community um relations uh parents that are volunteering to get the word out. You should see lots of posts on
social media that we're putting out as well. While we cannot engage with some of the the back and forth that goes on, um we're making sure that we're posting on our social media and there are some parents that are and and community members that are part of our get out the word campaign that we'll be posting
things like visit our websites are trying to get the the facts out to the community. Um we uh also are publishing many articles. uh if you check the Mercer Me Hopewell Express, we're trying to make sure that we're putting out lots of of of articles that are published by
us, but there are also many articles that are letters to the editors that have been published by some of our faculty and um I believe some parents are also writing some um very soon. I had a mini town hall at Bearer Tavern on Friday and I also attended their picnic
and we will be having a larger virtual town hall which I'll show you the save the date on the last slide and this slide deck will be attached to the agenda for anyone who is not here um when we publish this and we've been pushing it out in email to folks but we know that uh everyone is not on our list
serve as far as they're not parents. So, please feel free to share the save the date for our virtual town hall with any community member. Anyone can can attend and have their questions answered. We're doing a Zoom webinar so we can take large numbers of people. And um please feel free to send us questions in
advance. And we will also make sure that we cover those things that we're hearing um over and over again in in communications and social media or that's coming through emails to me or the board. And then finally, we'll be offering lots of uh alumni tours and visits for those people that have
graduated who still live in the uh from our schools and still live in the area. Um there's a lot been going on through our centennials are our hundredyear celebrations of Tollgate and Hopewell Elementary. I know they're already offering tours to some of the folks that are still in the community that attended
those elementary schools. Um it as a matter of fact Tollgate um at the opening um first day of school when they had everyone back on the black top in the back we had three women who had gone to um Tollgate. One of which one of whom um father grandfather was responsible
for the district looking like it looks. He was part of the first you know expansion of the district. So it was amazing to have them there. We're still looking for the time capsules though. We can't find them. We're doing our best. So if anybody knows where they buried them, we've had the we've dug everywhere. We've had the metal
detectors out. We can't find it. So, we're doing what we can. So, if anybody knows where that is, please let us know. I don't know if anybody's still around, but we can't find the time capsule. But the kids will be doing a new one, and we'll do a better job of keeping track of this one. So, so if you want to go to
the next one, so what's proposed in the referendum vote? The referendum vote is will be on November 4th during the regular election. We have two proposed questions. I put flyers on everyone's seat. So, if you can't see that little teeny tiny writing, because I know I
can't from here, um, you have a flyer that has the questions on it and more detail about the pro the uh projects. And if you turn the flyer over, the tax impact a general idea of what the tax impact to to you based on whether you vote one question or two questions and
um based on what municipality you live in, whether you're in Bur Hope Hopewell Burough, Pennington Burough or the township, that will give you a general idea of what the tax impact will be. You can go to our website which is also on there if you scan and click on the tab
at the top um that that talks specifically about um the proposal and you can there's calculators in there. There's um a link to find out that what your um appraised value of your home is. Uh folks have asked for a calculator where you can just plug in and get that
instantly. But because there's three municipalities and two question variables in there, we would have to have four calculators to do that. Although we're working on trying to design those, um it it's cumbersome to try to create something that's going to give you one complete answer. So, we're
trying to give you uh as best as we can an idea until we can maybe identify a way to do calculators. But in in a nutshell, the two questions are divided in into two in this way. The first question is a is the cost of just the building integrity critical
infrastructure systems repairs that we need. So, this is HVAC. This is uh repairs to our doors, our our building structures, um like our wells for um to Timberlane and Bear Tavern. Things that
if they were to fail, they would call cause a catastrophic failure that would maybe cause an interruption to school or it's a risk to our students if we don't repair them. Those things are going to be matched by the state up to 40% which
will mean for us $20 million that we will get back as taxpayers that you'll get relief. We have to bond out the whole amount first and then they will give us 20 million back. That's the only way you can access the state funding is by going to referendum and asking for it
in this this format. So when folks are asking us how are we planning ahead? This is how districts plan ahead for facilities challenges because the way we're being funded now, it's very, very difficult to save enough money out of your operating budget, which is very
limited. We're capped at 2%. Most of our budget is tied up in in faculty and staffing. That's 90% of our budget. You're saving from year to year. And the projects really you start putting off things because you can't afford to fix them. And then when you have aging buildings like we do, then it catches up
to you to a point where you can't wait because things start just failing. Uh again, I just shared that we have two buildings, two schools that are 100 years old. So is your board office. Your board office is 100 years old as well. Um the this school, the middle school uh
in Bear Tavern was built in the 60s and they still have a lot of the original infrastructure. And then the newest school is over 20 years old. So, a lot of time we're we're getting really behind on these projects. We're kicking the can for years because we did not have the funding and we're just it's
getting away from us. Even when we plan and our facilities director who was here today giving you a tour of a lot of the work that was done here, he works very hard to and with our BA with our finance and facility committee to do long-term and short-term planning and then it gets
blown up with one unforeseen project like the sewer failing at Bear Tavern. just re recently like the well failing at Timberlane that happened last year. Like the water pump failing in the cafeteria here at the high school that happened the day before school, galvanized pipe failing in the parking
lot here and then flooding not just our parking lot but the library next door. Those things I cannot plan for. There was also a galvanized pipe that burst at the board office that we couldn't plan for. It's over, you know, it's 100 year old right pipe. Um, so those sorts of things really throws throws a um a
wrench in our projects, not to use a pun. So the only way to really get ahead of it is to do a referendum. That's why you see other districts in New Jersey doing these and they do them every three to five years. This district has not had the culture where we've done referendums and we're really in a place where we we
don't have the option to not avail ourselves of these funds because the only way we can access these funds that you as taxpayers pay into anyway is through a referendum. Now the second question is the expansion. This came out of our our many many discussions that we
had after our first failed referendum in September where folks said you know it's just too much money when we asked for the 87 million. Um so we split it into two questions breaking it down in what was covered and could be matched by state funding and what would not be. The
growth that we're experiencing in this community though we are feeling the impact of it right away. A parents are and parents are feeling it right away uh is not covered by the state. So though they're take they'll cover a little bit of the drainage pro process on one of
these builds generally it's not covered. So, the two additions that we're proposing to deal with the increased enrollment that we're facing and to also get rid of the trailers outside that are are really to me a security risk. I don't like the idea, especially in this
day and age where we where school shootings are becoming so frequent and weather is becoming so volatile. The idea of having students still outside in trailers that that have been there for over 30 years. Miss Riley shared that she actually took classes in one of those trailers when she was a girl. So,
they've been there that long. It's time for our students to be in the building. Yes, she was in the trailer, y'all. Okay. Taking a class. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah. There were music lessons because music teachers didn't have classrooms back then and you took
it in the in the trailer, right? So, so that's those trailers have been there that long. So that's that's that's really unacceptable to me and I I would I think most of our parents here too. So Bear Tavern and Toggate both have proposed additions that would add 10 classes though they will be equipped to
accept any grade level including preschool and kindergarten. I know that was also a misconception. Those aren't the only grades that can go in there. But we're equipping them to fit for any kid because you cannot put kindergarteners or preschoolers in a classroom that does not have a bathroom.
It's against code. So you but you can put a fifth grader in a classroom with a bathroom, right? Um so we'll make sure that we are um equipping those so that any grade student can go into it so we can take students that are coming um no matter what grade they're in. So um I I
know that there's a lot of misconceptions in the community that I've heard as I've been going around on our tours with our board members. Um the first is that there is this idea that the district has not been and has not had a plan for growth and that's not true. the first plan and the biggest
plan is to build, right? And the only way that I can build is through a referendum because I don't have the funds for that. Um, so in September when we went out to referendum, one of the things that we all talked about a lot when we were trying to to um get the
information out about the first failed referendum was the need for expansion because we knew students were coming. And I think there was an idea that this would not have the impact that it has on the district. Um the demographer report showed um a low report, a media report,
and a and a a larger report of students. And they they suggested then that we would have students that were unhoused, meaning we wouldn't have enough room based on the way we currently operate and our current programming based on the enrollment coming and it is coming now. Our class size is coming up, which we
knew. Um the referendum failed and so that's why we're coming back again. If we don't build, this is going to continue to be a problem. It's also a problem financially because the building issues that we have are one problem. The
second problem is our general operating budget is not fully funded by the state. If we are capped at 2% and occasionally we can get a health care waiver to defay the cost of health care, which we're going to talk about in a minute, or occasionally we get a waiver to defay
the cost of enrollment, which we've gotten a little bit, but not enough to build or to address the number of students that are coming yet in a way that would allow me to add additional teachers. We are still struggling with inflation through the roof, with the cost going well beyond our budget. So,
in this all last year when we were talking about budget, we really talked to you about the need to to do some serious cuts and to increase class size because we can't continue to do what we used to do based on the funding we're getting. So, we did a lot of things that were uncomfortable. We talked about
class size being one of them. And even if I wanted to split all the classes, I literally can't afford to split every class that's 24 or 25 or 26. I can't do it anymore. We can't afford to do it, especially since we don't know what's coming with special education classes,
which we absolutely have to split. And that includes any inclusion class, a a class that's mixed. You can only have so many students that are special needs in a class, even if it's general education, before you have to split it. We are literally running out of space in the building. We are running out of budget.
Um the budget we struck in the spring is already in jeopardy. Um Mr. Mr. Kit can share some of what we're facing with health care already in the first month of school. You want to talk about what what the claims that we have just for the month of August? So we budget you know our budget is
increased last year about 15% um in healthcare. You're talking uh our healthc care budget is in excess of $20 million. Okay. We're spending um in in the a general area of $2 million a month in healthcare.
Um Dr. Trice mentioned to me at one of her co her discussions this week that uh a resident said, "Well, why don't you just, you know, increase co-pays or increase, you know, the deductibles and things like that." Unfortunately, we are not able to do that. Our our contracts
are collectively bargained and and those are benefits that have been secured by those those bargaining units. Um and that's a statewide uh issue. Um, Governor Murphy also instituted something called chapter 44 um, which was a law that that kind of struck put a
um, like a placeholder for health benefits and any new staff member that we hire is required to get those those benefits. That does not sunset until 2027. So years ago before chapter 44, this
district and all of our associations worked together unlike other districts in the state. We worked together to negotiate health benefits that generated savings for the district but also you know maintain benefits for the employees. We we no
longer can do that. The health benefit plans that we negotiated um were less rich and more um advantageous to both sides enabling costs to be shared. Uh but the the governor took that away. So, we have tried in the past to negotiate better
health benefit rates and to to keep costs down, but that's been taken out of our hands. So, at this point, um we are a self-insured outfit right now. Um I thank God we're self-insured because if we weren't, we'd be paying the uh projected 38, I'm not joking, 38%
increase in January that's being instituted by the New Jersey uh state health benefits plan. So, we will not be affected by that. Um but health benefits are as a general rule going up. I mean the cost of of delivering health in health benefits and
health services in this country is going up. So that's going to be a huge part of our budget next year and something that we don't have relatively little control over. So the plan Sorry, go ahead. I'll just add to this um you don't need
to believe Bob. uh Wall Street Journal just published an article that basically said that uh most private companies that do have significant negotiating power that we don't expect their
cost of their health insurance to go up well above 10% in the coming year um as much as 20% for many many large companies. Um, this is going to be a killer beyond this district, but
with a 2% cap on what we can do with operating expenses, um, it's a real killer for a new school district. Now, this year, the state gave us an exception. Um, so we were able to go above cap specifically for health
benefits. But again, that's not a it's one of those things that saves us from making very very deep cuts, but it does but it does have u an impact on the property taxes of those. So something
ultimately something else will probably have to be done about the health benefits issue. Again, as you mentioned it there, I expect there to be a waiver for health benefits this year, but as you said, the impact gets passed on to to our taxpayers. I will I will be
meeting tomorrow morning with um our health benefit consultant um who will is going to is talking about trends in the market and we'll be sharing that or sp uh spinning that out to the finance committee on the 6th. Hopefully, that's when we're going to meet. I'm going to miss that meeting. You can call
just because I don't want to hear the bad news. Yeah. Well, and I would like them to listen to me to too, Alex, when you said that. Yes. So, uh, the the the plan is that we need to get the word out for referendum. I'm hopeful that it's successful this time
because we have to see that expansion now if we want our parents to see relief. We have to to see that now and start building sooner than later. Um, we've already started some minor redistricting, but we're going to have to look at more more comprehensive redistricting for the 26th 27th school
year. Um, so we are working very closely with Hopewell Township. I have asked them to help us fund and they've agreed a new study, demographic study with the same demographer based on what we're currently seeing with the way folks are coming into the district. So now we have an idea of what it looks like because
they're coming. He's also going to explore any proposals that they have in the future for expansion in addition to the expansion that may or may not be proposed in both burrows. They will look at all of those numbers and the possible impact that it could have to the district. And I've also asked them to
give us a report on what redistricting could look like for our elementary schools, all four of them. So, we have to do a shift because I what I cannot do is shift students from Stonybrook necessarily and depending on where the houses are and way over at Bear Tavern
over to Hope Elementary. um that co creates a transportation issue and kids being on buses for over an hour which is not ideal either. Um so we're going to have a really uh more comprehensive study done. Um having more classrooms at
Tollgate could help will definitely help and having more classrooms at Bear Tavern will definitely help for us to be able to do that. take a a scalpel approach to redistricting versus a hacksaw where we have to say, "Okay, whole swaps over here at Tollgate need to go to Bear Tavern so that we can
shift things over from Stonybrook and from Bear." What is tough is is that we're having enrollment increasing, but it's increasing in concentrated grade levels. If there's three siblings and they're all coming in and there's several coming in in first grade and then there's a fifth grader and a second
grader, I can't split up a family and we can't have people crisscrossing across the neighborhood without adding a bus I can't afford. Right? We've already added another route. Um so we we're trying to do it in a way that's that reasonable that makes sense. um and understanding
there's only so much splitting of classes I can do because I'm just eating into a budget that's already struck and that means I'm going to have to take away programming or something that we have budgeted for later in the year because I'm not going to have the money left. Uh there's no the money that we budget for is it we don't grow money
because we decided to add more people. We we struck a budget based on the teachers that we had at the time and what could be a possible growth, but we're we're well beyond that because of some of the costs that are that are coming up with health care, with the cost of inflation for just buying
things, with repairs. It's just getting untenable. So, if we're going to release this pressure valve, we need this to pass. The first question well could if it doesn't pass then the second question can't meaning we can't say yes to the
additions and not replace the infrastructure it would be like adding an addition on your house and you don't have a water heater air condition or any of that right so the f first question is tied to the second question a lot of people ask why do we have it as a separate question if it's so essential
because we listen to the community and you all said that you wanted to have a choice and it is your choice So, we're leaving it to you in those two questions, but I'm telling you, if it were up to me, it would be one question because I feel strongly and I know our parents feel strongly as they're feeling
it now and they're um with as as our schools are getting crowded that they they're both very essential. So, I'm hoping that we both that we all show up to support this or at least get the facts and make an informed decision. So, the final thing I wanted to be um to talk about is the 16.1 million. There's
some rumor out there that folks believe that um if question two fails that we'll still get the 16.1 um from the township to build on Bear Tavern. The issue with the 16.1 that they've promised and we're working on trying to grow draw up an agreement now
with them is they can't commit to anything until the litigation is done with Pennington Burough. That can be anywhere from a few months to a couple of years. And in the meantime, we saw what happened between the first referendum failing in September of 14
and uh September 14th and now the inflation has made the but the the referendum almost the same amount with less stuff in it. So that bill at Bear Tavern is not going to cost 16.1 if we're still looking at this two years from now. And remember, I didn't have the promise for the first referendum. So
now we'd have to go back and try to renegotiate again in a year or two to try to get whatever the new cost is. You and you none of you will see that in in the time your children are in the schools, right? So if we want something to happen as soon as possible, we need
to have this now. And there then we can work on if they're bonding it out, if they're paying down the debt service that will lower the debt impact on every municipality, not just Bear Tavern. we can figure out that if you all decide to vote this yes and then we know where we
are from there. So, how can you help? Please be informed. I know social media is a quick and easy way and people post things. A lot of times people misunderstand school finance or what we can do and what we can't do. Like for example, recently a community member
reached out about the the tour buses that we're driving the kids to at the turf field. I know many of you were in the room when we talked about we have to bid out to get buses to transport our children to the turf field and the tour buses were cheaper than the yellow buses
and we always always have to go with the lowest bid. We always have to go with the lowest bid and we don't have enough buses ourselves and there aren't enough busing companies around anymore to run the kids ourselves and we have lots of sports running from this building every
day. So that community member, I was very grateful, reached out to me and asked a question and he's like, "Oh, now I understand." If something seems like odd to you or it just seems like it it doesn't seem right, please feel free to email us and reach out, call, I will take a call. I will I will email you
back. Um I, you know, I'll come meet with groups of you if you want to pick my brain about something or ask questions. We're an open book. Everything that we do is done in open court for you all to see. So, please go to the website or just call us up if you don't want to try to navigate the
website and ask your questions. Um, come to our our um our webinar and ask your questions. Uh, we try to put it in lay terms so that you can understand the very complicated way that we have to operate and purchase uh and plan for things in school districts. It's not the same way that you have to deal you deal
with your own housing, your own house and your repairs for your house. Um, we have referendum tables at um, every back to school night at all these events. Come up and ask questions and volunteer to help. Um, I got an a few emails today
um, that parents um, wanted more kindergarten paras than I can afford to give right now because again we have to prioritize for special education. And we also have kindergarten pairs that really I shouldn't be adding to a kindergarten class until they get to 25 and and we
don't have any kindergarten classes at that size, right? Um but we still have them in this district, but I can't continue to add them. I don't have the money. And if I did have the money, I probably couldn't even hire them anyway. They're hard to hire. And then when we do have uh someone that comes in, the priority is an IEP first. So
volunteering and coming in and being a mom in a kindergarten class and supporting us or a dad or a caregiver is also extremely helpful. There's a fingerprinting process you have to go through if you're going to be with our kiddos, but we would love to have you to come into the classrooms and help and
support in that way. I was just going to add that um another question that I see a lot from the community and I think it's sometimes confusion confusing is that the budget for all of these referendum items that
people think that once we pass you know the 58.4 4 million, then we can do whatever we want with that money, that we can do a bait and switch. And that absolutely is not true. But I hear it over and over again on social media
that, you know, this might happen and we're going to pay for staff or administration. And the fact is that the state is very rigid and overseas every penny of that. and we can only pay for
what we put in the referendum from the beginning. And so the referendum is for capital expenses that are completely listed out and that money can't go towards say a teacher or administration
costs. Um but it's a question that comes up a lot. Yes, it is. And um we can't do it twice. So for example, if and this is down the road, I don't know when this will be or if it will be if the township say takes responsibility for the Bear Tavern build
if this is successful and they decide if we find the mechanism because no one's ever done it before to bond it out. We can't double bond it. There will be one bond and it's either going to be under their purview and they have it and that relieves the tax impact or we have it
and then they pay down the debt services on that portion of it. So, we can't do it twice and do something else with the money. That's not permitted. You have to use it specifically for what you said um for it to be approved by the state and they will monitor it heavily. So, the last thing I wanted to show is I did say
um please be informed and I will push this out in my superintendent newsletter but I know everyone doesn't get that and we have published it in the newspaper and it will be in the newspaper in the Mercer um immers um this is the date of the virtual town hall. We will record it and post it on social media for you once
it's done. Um, we'll try to keep it to an hour because I know folks are very busy. Um, but um, please send your us your questions ahead of time. I will make sure I cover these things again that I just talked about today and things that we see that are kind of trending on social media or emails that I'm receiving or your principles are
receiving or the board. We'll try to make sure that we get the information out as much as possible. also follow us on social media or visit our website and this all this will be attached to the agenda digitally so you can um just click on those links and register to come. So would the board members of the
finance facility like to add anything before we move on? Okay, any questions? All right, thank you. Awesome. Thank you so much. Um next we are going to have the climate action
committee give a report. Uh, Miss McGrath. All right. Good evening. Uh, my name is Scott Patell. I'm lucky to be the, uh, principal at Hopewell Elementary School. I'm also here joined by, uh, Miss Carolyn McGrath, who is an art teacher at Hope Valley Central High School. And
we're fortunate to be the co-chair of the climate action committee here for the district. Uh before we begin with our presentation, I would like to kind of maybe figure out I don't know what's going on over at Tollgate, but hope school knows exactly where their time capsules are at and we'll be successfully digging them. All right. Later this year.
All right. So hopefully Miss Principal Lori isn't paying attention right now tonight because I have a meeting with her at 9:30 tomorrow morning. All right. So before we begin, uh a little bit about the climate action committee. Uh just this is just kind of like a highlight or a showcase really of the fine work that a lot of members have
done over the course of a year or so. Um you know behind me are are the subcommittees that we have and you'll see they're broken up between the education, transportation, food and waste resilience as well as the facilities working group. Um these those
are certainly the areas uh that we spend a lot of our time working on. Um, and you can see for the most part we've pretty much have every single uh subcommittee report uh reviewed and approved um by the board. Uh so we appreciate that and we're looking certainly fortunate um fortunately we're
working with the facilities uh subcommittee hopefully this fall. All right. So our first area is education. I'm going to call Miss McGriff. Thanks. Thanks so much for having us. We promised not to uh take as much time as
the slides look, but we did um I ended up just leaving them as is because we'd really like the board to see all of the work that our committee members did this year. Um one of the biggest areas was in
education. I'm not going to read all of the things that are up there, so some of those we'll just kind of skim over, but Um each action area is broken down into sort of sub actions and for the first
action the focus is on teachers providing teachers with professional development. So um just want to shout out Dr. Pulitz who was so instrumental in all of the work we did on the
education subcommittee um and making sure that teachers um from the district presented PD to other teachers during department members. She also was very kind to put um content in
the curriculum newsletter which you can see on the next slide. just some examples of things that um go out to teachers. Oops, sorry. That go went out to teachers in the
district about um best practices for teaching climate change and some ways that teachers in the district are teaching climate change across disciplines. Currently um going forward um we had a specialist
from NJP work with our STEM teachers and next YAS club worked with the faculty at Timberlain and the high school to present professional development on
climate change education. Um, and this was for an S day that was last March, I believe. And so the students prepped essentially the faculty for it and got
everybody energized and the um teacher education cohort shared lessons to the faculty and so we did that for a day last March. It was super successful. Um, Oops. I think that oops that's we
did oh so that was beforehand that was to prep but this was these are some examples of the estate which is a special schedule activities. So some of the things you see here are this was a
culminating activity uh on the left where students had to pick different climate actions that they would commit to and this was after a day of learning about different uh aspects of climate change including solutions in their
classes. This was something I did with my classes. It was an art-based activity. Um, so some exciting news for professional development. If you could just go to the next slide. So we recently received the
um, Epic STEM mini grants from uh, STEM Teachers New York City. It's not a huge grant, but it's $1,000 and that will be earmarked for professional development in the district for teachers by teachers
um just after school. Um and so we're very excited about that funding for that uh project for next year. um in terms of curriculum revision that's been
happening on an ongoing basis um in terms of integration of climate change across subject areas. I'm just going to summarize there's been a lot of conversation Dr. Pelitzus has led um making sure there's vertical
articulation across uh grid levels and subject areas. And next slide. Um and uh culminating in uh specific teaching of climate change in freshman biology, sixth grade
science, fifth grade science, and elementary steam exploratories. Um and there's a new elective at the high school which is ecology which has a service requirement which we're pretty
excited about. Um we continue to support green week experiences in all schools. You all saw that awesome presentation by the students. Um and Dr. Patel and I met with the green team leaders and one of
the things uh the teacher leaders one of the things that we're trying to do is coordinate better across the schools um and also to support those teachers. So providing funding opportunities and so
on. Um green volunteering opportunities. I had a lot of students working on this with our counseling department. So they uh updated our climate core website which you can link to through the
counseling uh department website. Um and they also created this volunteer sheet which got shared out by counseling. Um and it's volunteer
opportunities for students. One of the things we want to work on going forward is connecting students more with career opportunities as well. Um school gardens. You know that we have gardens at all of our schools. I just
took this photo today of the beautiful school garden at CHS um and talking about ways to support the garden teachers. So we facilitated a meeting again of all the garden club
advisors and also created a document with resources for those teachers trying to connect them both to funding as well as community resources and support. Um and finally establishing outdoor
learning spaces. Um which is we're sort of in the beginning stages of that. But one of uh to complement outdoor education and one of the things students in Yes Club did was create this document for teachers about kind of dipping your
toes in the water of teaching um outdoor education or integrating it into classes. And I will turn it over to So and that was the section. So thank you. Thank you Miss McGrath. So the next area in our climate action work uh certainly
is our transportation with the overall goal of eliminating carbon emissions and pollutions caused by certainly our district transportation. Uh so as you can see action one trying to transition to zero emission for our school buses. Uh with two certainly incentivizing
school bus riding and car pooling um and some of the work we've done with that. Our yes club has been instrumental um certainly in trying to get the word out es especially a survey. Um so moving along, we actually had the survey. We have some of the results here which um the board is privy to certainly all of
this information. Um but you can see just in general um you know how often you pick up your children from school in your personal vehicle in the afternoon. Um you're going to see, you know, nearly um 20% every day, you know, 15% most days. So that's, you know, a little over
35 36% of just families right then and there individually picking up their children. All right. So again, just just a small little sample of the survey uh that was given out. Um our next uh actually the next the next slide is just the documentation and communication of just ways to be
eco-friendly. Um, you know, I certainly shared it out in my school newsletter uh at For Hope Elementary School, and I know uh some of our principles are doing the same. But you're going to see this flyer um just encouraging uh our families to just be eco-friendly uh to and from school, whether it's with
refillable water bottles, you know, um zerowaste lunch, things of that nature. Um you're going to also see those wonderful uh no idling signs up up and around campus. So please if uh we can encourage our our our our family members picking up and and dropping off um just
to kind of as a constant reminder just to be certainly uh eco-friendly throughout that opportunity. Um action three promote biking uh and walking to school. I'm sure you've seen you know in some of the elementary schools our walk uh bike and roll to school days. As you can see on the slides in the pictures
there's a actually Hope Elementary School walk and ride. U quick shout out to Gabe. Thank you Gabe. There's uh Stonybrook. Um there's a picture of there. So kids love it. Um the family members love it and even the neighbor the neighborhood loves it. You know, when we're kind of going by them, um
they just love seeing the kids kids out there. Uh again, promoting biking and walking to school is another action that we're working on, our anti-ing laws, which I touched upon. Um district and then the next work is really talking about kind of our district maintenance vehicles, trying to
transition them to zero emission models if possible. uh improving our traffic flow, looking at possibly doing a traffic study with the students involved. Um possibly looking at installing electric vehicle charging stations. Uh we worked with the township to kind of find out what's what's
necessary for that. Um so there's a lot of work in transportation still to be done, but um we're taking the necessary steps um for that. Uh the other topic uh certainly that I that I'll cover is our food and waste with the overall goal working towards zero waste in all school
operations and promote climate friendly foods in our school cafeterias. Uh action one is eliminating sources of food waste in general. Um so we're looking at our again working with our green teams uh to making sure that we're conducting waste audits so students can see in maybe the beginning and the end
um kind of really what we are um wasting and hopefully reducing. Uh again, reducing our waist stream contaminations, making sure our compost is going where it should be, making sure, you know, the necessary um you know, recyclables are going where they're supposed to. Uh so again, really
kind of looking at that. Uh we work certainly with a with a company um trying to get more fiscally responsible composters either on in district or just at least on one site. Uh so we're look certainly working with the board on that and researching those ways. Offering
more plant-based meal options. Um trying to offer more inseason local food and organic foods. Excuse me. Uh reducing and working towards limiting plastic utensils and dishwear as much as possible. Uh and our green team hopefully our leaders are are looking into all that and working
certainly with our cafeteria staff and certainly the district. Um, number six, reducing and work towards eliminating plastic packaging, which I know uh, Pmponia has been great to work with and we're we're looking to continue to kind of work um, and and improving that area. Um, reducing our our and working towards
eliminating our all of our bottled water. Again, there's refillable water stations in, you know, multiple refillable water stations in in each of the buildings. Um, so continually promoting that. Um and then our last action certainly is reducing our overall school waste and switching just just to
more sustainable products. All right. So up next I'll bring up Miss McGrath for our resilience. Okay. So our resilience committee is kind of um separated into two parts. Um it's both to prepare school buildings
and grounds. Um and I remember Dr. Patrice mentioned a while ago about, you know, the extreme weather that our school buildings are having to deal with, but also to prepare students mentally, emotionally
um for those those disruptions. Um so one of the things that our uh committee, this working group did was to generate a list of resources, share them with Dr. trees um specifically about recent
events such as wildfires, drought, air quality issues which um Dr. Trice shared in one of her um newsletters. Um so just making sure that that information is
available to families um at times when um elevated risk might be happening. Um, so one of the things I'm really most proud about that happened this year was um, students from Yes Club created a
presentation for elementary school students talking about climate change and talking about their feelings about climate change and then transforming those feelings into empowered actions.
And we went to all four elementary schools. I think I had 16 students. It was a little chaotic in terms of scheduling, but it was so incredibly rewarding. And um we did a few different
grades, third, fourth primarily. Um and it was just really a wonderful positive experience, especially for the our students, but I I hope also the students at the elementary schools. So, we're hoping to do more things like that in
the future. Um Scott and I also met with someone from Crew, which is an organization that helps um organizations like schools and community um organizations respond to extreme weather. So, we've
been in conversation with them. Um and that's that's it for facilities. I'm gonna turn it back to Scott and then I'm gonna jump on at the end. So, again, this is the last area that we're looking to work with. uh certainly the board getting approval on um but
again our actions are certainly uh you know uh the go the overall goal decarbonizing schools and preparing them to withstand worsening climate change impacts. Um so action one like we just said earlier decarbonizing school buildings. Um action two maximizing our
opportunities to advance these goals um during renovations maybe like during the referendum hopefully that passes new construction and end of lifespan facility replacements. Um three certainly reviewing and expanding the efficiency of our conservation practices. So you know a lot of this uh
certainly yes at the board level and and the community members that we can work with but certainly our students have a voice in all the all of this as well. So our last action is uh Carolyn's going to come up and talk about our our fourth action. Um actually third and fourth. Um so we
also wanted to uh include our green teams, student green teams in um water and electric um efficiency practices. So that's something that we talked about the green team leaders. And the last
thing I wanted to mention was the incredible efforts of uh Mr. Drew Lloyd who's in the back and uh Dr. Steve Torto respectively from the watershed institute and Mercer County Planning who
have done a massive amount of volunteer work for the district completing a stormwater review of all six campuses and created recommendations that they would like to share in more detail with the board of education. Um they created
three different tiers of recommendations. So things that could be done fairly inexpensively, slightly more expensively, and then more expensively. Um, and
again, we're happy to share this with you, and I believe Mr. Lloyd is very interested in following up, especially with the referendum and how those could be considered as part of the work of the referendum. Um and finally, um very
excited about this. Um so we applied it and received a climate resilience grant from the New Jersey Department of Education for $30,000 plus, a little bit more. Um and this will support the installation of new or
additional rain gardens at each school, which is going to help with storm water management. This includes hands-on lessons for students. A team of teachers met over the summer. We created curriculum that's based on uh climate
solutions for storm water. We have a partnership, a free partnership for PD for teachers in our district and Monmouth as well as cooperating schools like Rutgers. Um and we're partnering
with Watershed Institute. And so these are some photos of the work we've done. We already started uh it started in June and we're really excited to continue that work. Um so thank you. Thank you
for your time. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you very much. Uh does the board have any questions at all? Um, thank you. This is an excellent presentation and I've been so impressed
by the work that this committee's been doing. So, really, really appreciate it. Um, I have lots of questions, but I'll limit it to two. Um, so one is related to the federal funding streams around this work, and I'm just wondering if changes to federal funding streams with
the change in the administration have impacted any of the current work underway. So that's the first question and then the second question may not be a fair one but I'll ask it anyway because I I understand that the sort of multi-tered nature of this work is really important but if sort of based on
the research based on the evidence we were to really put our resources or energy behind three of these recommendations what two of these recommendations what would they be where do you think we can get the biggest bang for our So to answer your first question Um the
big beautiful bill eliminated uh quite a bit of funding from the inflation reduction act. So, the inflation reduction act that was passed during the Biden administration had a lot of funding for schools um
specifically and there's um there's a website it's called undanted undaunted K12 and they specifically outline the way that schools can tap into money and it's direct funds go the direct payment
goes to schools. Um my understanding is that not all of those programs have been eliminated. So for example, ground source heat pumps are still covered by like 50%. Um
this is not under that, but the electric the federal electric school bus um funding is still in existence for at least a couple years. Um so it's it's mixed the but it's not
affected anything that we've done. Um mostly because the the big stuff has been um facilities and transportation and th those are big big ticket items
and they have to be you know kind of worked in at the right time. So they haven't affected anything currently. Yeah. And what was your second part? Oh, that's a tough question. I think
that um we've focused on everything that we can do on our own and I think like with the help of course of like lots of administrators especially I just want to give a big out
shout out to Dr. trees and Mr. Kvida, you guys have been very supportive. Um, but all of our administrators have been very supportive um of this work, but um yeah, it's we've done as much as we can
without kind of board involvement of like making big decisions. Um, so I think it would need like more board involvement to determine like what you all where you want to place your
priorities. So I have a question for you guys. We now have in the district um an organization that kind of focused on this as fundraising in the green PTO.
Um have you been in touch with them to see if maybe they want to pick a project or to adopt it and kind of fund raise to make that project happen? Yes. Cool. They are not at the point of fundraising. Um we have specifically
talked to them about for example the the the um grant that we got from the state um has a few little areas that we could use a little extra funding for and so um
the ECOP PTO comes to our meetings and several parents have been involved throughout um but we approached them about that and they said they're not there yet. So,
at some point hopefully. Yeah. Okay. So, just a a final note on this. I am working with a group right now that's trying to get us money for electric buses. Um, we'll be scheduling a meeting with them to they they they reached they
examined our facility to see if it was feasible. Um, and while it is, um, it's it got potential, the issue right now is electric. We don't have it. So, I don't have the electric service in place to be able to install the chargers to charge
the buses. Um, and they don't give you money for electric service. They'll give you money for the chargers and give you money for the buses, but not for the upgrade to the electric. So the next meeting I'm having is to kind of ascertain just what it would cost to bring in the
amount of electricity that you would need to fund to run those. So we're trying, but you know, the last five times I've tried to get electric buses, even one or two, they've denied us. And on the big reasons for denial, not only are we not in an area, we we aren't a
district that qualifies a lot of times because it goes to a lot of times they go to urban districts where the mileage on the buses works better because they're not traveling 30, 40, 50 miles a bus route, but um but that they have the electrical in place. Um it could be
several hundred,000 to bring in the proper electric to run it. So we'll see what they have to say, but we're trying. Um just to go back to and I appreciate that also this efforts um Dr.
Littleston, your question about like where would we get our best bang for the buck? I I do think that um you know we'd have to look back at we did the um inventory last year with our
consultant and looked at um all of the places where we are um spending or you know creating more emissions. I believe it's mostly facilities. And so I think that when we can start to look at some
of the newer options for facilities like heat pumps um especially if those are um subsidized, I think that that's a that's where we're going to see our biggest actual
emissions reductions from. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. So, I shared with the um the board and we will also post the full U 49 slides. They have been very active as a as a uh subcommittee of the board and they continue to really push the district
into meeting our goal initiatives, our green initiatives goals. Um a lot of them are tied to some pretty hefty expenses, but we are constantly seeking funding. Uh there is still funding out there, but it's, you know, for some of the grant writers in the room, you really have to dig and and look. Uh but
there are still some things that are that are linked to green spaces and and sort of efforts to increase farming and things like that. So there is money, but you really have to look for it and and it's getting far further and far between. So the help of a eco PTO, I we
I just had a meeting with them last week. I know they're organizing to do that and they're they're on board with supporting um but the as much as we can raise uh the better. I was at the FOV event last night. Um it's the more that people that are really committed to this work contribute and try to fund raise,
the more we'll be able to do some of the projects that we have planned. So, thank you. Thank you for all of your efforts. I know that was a lot to put into a short synopsis because you've been working hard for over a year. So, thank you so much. Awesome. Okay, so we are going to kick off with
our first budget presentation. Um, for those of you who may not attend board meetings all the time, um, throughout the year, each of our major sort of budgetary
components will give a presentation to the board and to you as the community on how we are thinking about budgeting for next year. Um, and so I encourage people if you miss a board meeting to go back
and look at the videos because every meeting we will have one of these budget reviews and it really gives you insight into how the district is spending money and what the challenges might be for next year's budget. So we are kicking
off with the office of curriculum and instruction with Dr. Preletus. Okay. Thank you. Hi everybody. Um good afternoon. I'm sorry. Good afternoon. Um good evening. Um and thank you for the opportunity to present today. Um for those of you who don't know me, I'm
Vicki Pulitzis. I'm the assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction. And tonight I'll be sharing an overview of the curriculum and instruction office, highlighting our priorities for the upcoming school year and outlining the budget impacts that support this work. Uh this presentation
is designed to show how our investments directly connect to student learning and the district's mission. I would like to begin with an overview of what the curriculum and instruction office does. We oversee all instructional programs and guide
curriculum development and serve as the district's liaison with local colleges and universities such as TCJ, Ryder, and Princeton. We also lead a variety of committees such as the elementary curriculum council, um the school improvement panel for the district. Um
and in addition, we revise and align standards, supervise staff, coordinate professional development, and manage instructional accounts. To give you a sense of the scope of the curriculum and instruction office, this slide shows how the office is
structured. We have supervisors dedicated to each content area from STEM and humanities to the arts, wellness, world language, and athletics. This ensures K12 alignment, targeted support, and subject area expertise. Supervisors
just don't manage their areas. They also lead professional development in their content areas and they oversee all of the curriculum for those areas. So, as I said, our work centers on four main areas. Curriculum development where
we design, plan, and evaluate programs for effectiveness. Partnerships with local universities with strengthen both teacher training and student opportunities. Coordination of staff development, which ensures our teachers have the tools they need to succeed. And finally, we seek
and apply for grants, which allows us to fund innovation while being fiscally responsible. Every year um the curriculum and instruction office develops three professional goals um and these are the goals for this current school year and they were presented at the opening day
uh convocation that we had with faculty. So our first goal is around responsive practices which focuses on social emotional learning and building a supportive climate. Our second goal integrates data to drive instruction which ensures our instructional
decisions are informed by meaningful evidence. And finally, our last goal is strengthening tier one instruction and our multi- multi- um tiered system of support which emphasizes highquality core instruction and interventions. These goals are interconnected and
grounded in both student needs and state priorities. Okay. So, um the next few slides are organized by goals and what we were doing to address the goals. Um so, for the responsive practices goal, our first four days of school, um at the
elementary level, we're focused on setting norms and routines. The uh we have a character strong curriculum for um we've just are piloting um a tier 2 um program, but we've been we've had the tier one program for the last few years.
Um and then we also offer professional development in responsive teaching. Um all of these programs foster stronger relationships, improve school climate and support social emotional learning. So many of these initiatives are actually funded through our some of our title monies and grant or our grant
support which makes them sustainable pending we receive title monies next year. Um so if you notice that the last um uh bullet point has an asterk. So I'm I've put asterisks next to those activities or explorations which require funding outside of title monies meaning
that the district covers those costs. So for goal two on the uh on the data side we are expanding our link warehousing at the elementary level um which incorporating intervention manager which will also help to support our third goal. We hope to build blended and
personalized learning cohorts. So we were on our ninth cohort that is fully run by teachers and uh we are using structured data charts to help teachers make informed decisions. At the secondary level encourse data helps us identify trends and respond more quickly
to student needs. The goal here is to ensure every instructional decision is grounded in evidence. So as you can see here um the two that are asterisk the district does cover the cost of those. Okay. Okay. And then finally, our third goal focuses on strengthening tier one
instruction and multi-tered system of support implementation. This includes offering instructional coaching sessions with our teacher leaders, offering targeted professional development, and consultant support. These efforts ensure that all students receive highquality
education with interventions provided early when needed. And so as you can see um as of right now all of our consultant work is being supported by our our title or our grant money. Um one major feature that we or one major initiative that we're doing this
year is we are collaborating with achievement network or AET to evaluate our elementary ELA programming and making a deliberate effort effort to build capacity for new teachers. These steps are about strengthening the foundation of instruction across the district and ensuring new staff are
wellprepared to succeed in our classrooms. So, I'm just mentioning this because our work with uh the the consultants right now is being covered through title two. Um and as for building capacity, of course, we have to we that's additional cost to the district because of the the training
that we have to pay for. Okay. Um so looking into the following school year 2627 we these are we plan to broaden social emotional supports in partnership with Rucker Behavioral Health which we have been in collaboration with them for a few years.
Um we we plan on expanding our character education program and prepare for new standards including as Miss McGath was here our climate change education. Um however it's important to note that some of these may be shifted based on funding. So, as you've heard at various
board meetings, this is a tough budget year and we've had to make some decisions for cuts to supplies and curriculum writing and we might continue to have to do that moving forward. So, in terms No. Oh, okay. Um so in terms of budget
implication uh the largest investment in the future year will be um the K5 ELA program which will we plan on rolling out in three years um because we're not sure what that program will be um I don't know an exact cost so I'm just
estimating it would be between 100 and 200,000 a year. Um, we also are going to be continuing with Character Strong program and hopefully that will be able to be paid for through our title funds pending we receive title money next
year. Um, based on the exact cost of these items though, I do want to stress that I will have to look at my current budget and make cuts likely. Um, I know Bob asked me if it's going to be 100 or 200,000 for the ELA program, where am I getting that money? So, I'm really going to have to take a critical lens at my
current budget. Some of the things I've looked at um that we may have to limit or eliminate is curriculum writing, which we eliminated for this current year. We might have to do that again for the following school year. Um I'm also taking a deeper look at the our technology subscriptions um to cut those
that are not heavily prescribed to or ones that have overlapping capabilities. Um, in addition to I'm speaking more generally, there may be um additional cuts to different supplies that we have per department or per building.
Thank you. Again, I I asked uh Dr. Plitz to go through this and bring that up um just so we know we've been talking about it. We've been hearing from the from the government now are the state government that that the revenue is not there. We
don't know what state aid will hold next year. Um we don't know what kind of uh enrollment waivers or health benefit waivers we'll get. We don't know what the board's um tolerance will be for tax impact. Um there have been districts around the state who have have shunned
the the waiverss and have gone to keep the tax rate down. That's the big discussions we're going to have. And I know that Vickiy's budget this year took a hit with curriculum writing. That was a that was a a a big cut for her. Um, and we're trying to figure we're trying
to figure it all out. Trying to do more with less. And we just at this point need to identify those areas where we can afford to cut. Circling back to what Dr. Tree said, we have a staffing issue that we that have to deal with as well going forward. So, we're going to have a lot of decisions
to be made over the next six months. Um can you remind me why we are doing uh why we're rolling out a new um ELA program at the elementary? Sure. Yeah. So currently we are working with um a consult we a consultant to do
an audit of our current ELA programming um because we have a lot of different programs. So we have phmic phonics, we have writing programs, we have spelling programs, and there's a lot of and our we have our units of studies. And there's a lot of variety um in in how
it's being implemented and all of these different programs that teachers want are using. Um we would just like to clean that up and make it more streamlined. And also we are looking critically at the units of studies that we currently use um to see if we if the
district wants to move in a different so so if I could just really quickly roll back if you remember the beginning of of the so-called reading wars when everyone was really examining what reading and writing workshop was uh whether or not it could meet the needs of all students and and it's it doesn't
right you have to have that that piece where you're teaching kids how to manipulate and form sound through phmic awareness uh you have to teach them how to read and and different ways to build up the mechanics of it before you can go into the reading and writing workshop, especially students that have dyslexia.
So, we've done a lot of work with training all of our teachers in Orton Gillingham and making sure they can identify um learning disabilities earlier. We have early interventions on on that. We also have added it back in those phmic awareness pieces to make sure that
students are learning phonics and how to manipulate sound. that was a separate program that we had to purchase and added on one grade at a time uh grades one through three. However, reading and writing workshop still had amazing components which is teaching kids how to what good readers do and to teach them
read in volumes. So you have all these separate programs that someone needs to come in and examine what do we need, what don't we need within the minutes that you have to teach language arts and make sure it's streamlined. So, what we don't want to do is buy a new program because we've already invested in a lot of great programs and added reading
programs and writing programs, but we need to make sure that we're we're meeting the state standards and also the needs of our students based on what we already have. So, so I'm going to be probably a little too brutally businesslike, but what I'm hearing, and
correct me if I'm wrong, is we have a lot of programs and we're looking for a to figure out how to use all of them better together, but perhaps to identify some potential cost savings where we could eliminate some of the many
programs that we have. But at the same time, we're going to spend $100, $200,000 doing that search. And so my question is, will we actually get a return on investment, right? Will we get
savings in excess of$100 to $200,000 on the tail end? And if we don't, can we just continue well one letting teachers use the programs that exist in place and not spend that money there? I think a lot Dr. if you don't mind. um
a lot of that 100 to 200,000 is due to the training that the publisher of the whatever company we go with provides and that's very expensive and I think we haven't been very consistent in offering trainings to our new teachers which has
al um created this inconsistency and so if we want to make sure that we are consistent so that there is the same education going on at all of the four elementary buildings we need to invest in this training yes and you also need to um it's also the expectation that you do evaluate
your programs occasionally and um what you if we don't make sure that we're being consistent and that we're meeting all the needs of the reader and make sure the program is fluid and there's hor you know you know you just learned that making sure there's alignment horizontally and vertically you're you're going to end up paying
compensatory for students that were that we're missing they're slipping through the cracks. So that's the savings is making sure that you're meeting the name needs of the students and and we're not so yeah. Yes. So we have um these teacher leader positions in
place. Um right and if it's the training that's expensive. Can we look into whether the teacher leaders can actually take up the training for the new staff that's coming in again as opposed to going out and paying
these guys 100 to 200,000? We have been doing that but for the programs that we currently use. So for if we adopt a new program like the teacher leaders are going to have to be trained on that program as well. So right so we're going to build capacity essentially within the district. Yeah. I'm not trying to pick on you guys
but I'm going to start getting really cheap. uh the the and the Alex just to give you an idea when we did the envision program I think it was like 300,000 right Bob okay over two two years maybe
yeah at least and so I mean this like what what I'm budget is not unheard of it's just it's expensive yeah I mean I've been long enough I know that it's not that it's unheard of or expensive it's just that if we cannot
spend the money here, then we can spend it on something else. And Lord knows there are other things that we could spend the money on. Mhm. As well. Yeah. And Okay. Thank you. Yeah.
Yeah. And just um if if we're going to spend money, early reading skills pay off. they they pay off five ten times what you will spend later on in interventions
not only reading interventions mental health interventions. So this is money well spent for our students. Yeah I was I was going to say that as well like teaching children how to read and write and to do foundational math
skills that's where it starts. I I I completely agree with you. But the reason I h I highlighted this, right, is this is not money we're spending on a program. This is money where we've got programs in place and we're either training teachers or trying to identify
some savings across the programs that we already have in place. So could there be a possibility to be a little bit creative there? Right? This is not questioning the programs that we have in place. Right? I I I completely agree
that we got to get kids to read as early as possible because everything else will build on that. Yeah. Awesome. A quick question. Um right, I know the state has been very concerned with elementary ELA outcomes postcoid across
the state. Um and they have I think their own kind of initiative right now around that. Does any of our work kind of align with the state or is that separate? Can you just tell me maybe a little bit about that? So this the state has really put in um
to effect like different regulations that we have to follow like in terms of the amount uh like when we have to do dyslexia screening, how many times a year we have to do benchmark assessments, notifying this the parents of the benchmark assessment results. Um so it's it's more of things that we've
we've been doing. we just um have to add to to some of the things that we've been doing. But that won't really impact um the programming um because the assessments that we currently use, it's already in the budget. But again, we are going using these consultants to um do
an audit to see what if we can be using our resources more effectively. So if we use one program for let's say benchmarking and it has multiple capabilities, well, we could potentially use that for other factors and then say have a cost savings. Awesome.
Any other questions? Thank you so much. Okay, we are going to open uh enter into um public comment. Um and this is on any
items of interest. Members of the public are invited to address the board on any matter for a maximum of three minutes during this portion of the meeting. You're asked to state your name, address, and municipality. In response to your
comment, the board of education may respond, direct the superintendent to do so, 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 district
administration. Public comment is now open. One small addendum here. I am a time keeper. So, as Dr. Jenny said, you'll have three minutes. So, look for me periodically. When you come to 2 minutes
and 30 seconds, I'll put up a yellow sign. And then when you reach that when you reach the end of your 3 minutes, I'll turn it red. Hi, Sylvia Kosis. Um, 7 Wel Drive, Pennington, New Jersey. I have two questions tonight. Um, in 2022, the Hopewell Township Community Development
Department provided information to the board about estimated student generation from the three pilot developments when they are at full occupancy. Um, there's a copy of that document coming around. It would be helpful for the public to have on a monthly basis a similar chart
that indicates the actual number of students generated from these pilots, residential pilots. This would permit the comparison of the estimated to the actual number. Committee man Kevin Cuchinsky in an article financing a better future with pilots projected that
at full occupancy in 2029 Woodmont pilot would generate fewer than 30 students. How many students are currently enrolled from Hopewell Park Woodmont and collections development as of September 1st, 2025?
Will the board provide this information so we can ensure that demographic studies and projections about enrollment from pilot developments are accurate and reliable. Question two, for the year ending June 30th, 2024, Mr. Kiva
prepared an annual comprehensive financial report. His notes included a statement on tax abatements. Your statement seems to agree with the lawsuit filed by Pennington Burough to the state supreme court that pilots shift the financial tax burden of
funding schools and thus the education of our children onto regional taxpayers who do not live in pilot developments. In another section, your statement seems to agree with the same lawsuit that states that school districts will lose
millions in our ratable tax base for school revenue that funds our children's education, pays our staff, provides building maintenance and construction and other critical needs. Mr. Kolivita, could you please explain in terms the
public can understand what you mean by in 2023 a portion of the 5,314,271 tax abatement would have been allocated to the district? Does that mean if these properties were taxed conventionally and
not with a pilot that the revenue the district would have received at Hopewell's 57% tax rate would have been roughly $3 million? Thank you. Hi, my name is Christine Rule. I'm from Hopewell Township. Good evening. I'm
here tonight because I have a few questions about policy 5460 that is up for second reading. For those who are unfamiliar, this covers our high school graduation requirement for classes such as math and English. The board is looking to add a new requirement that all students take a class in
intercultural sensitivity or service learning in order to graduate. I requested a list of classes that would cover this requirement and many of them are not currently running. So, I would like some clarity and I have a few concerns. Are they not running because of low
enrollment or teacher availability? What percentage of students currently take one of these classes? Isn't requiring all students take a class in this category equivalent to adding a program? What is service learning? And does it have a component that would
require students to do a project or volunteer outside of normal school hours? We keep hearing that we may need to cut programs in order to balance our budget, and adding a new requirement seems counterproductive. What is the reason behind adding this? Why not let our children have a choice
and decide if they need or want more education in these areas? Has anyone asked the students how they feel about adding this new component? I also have a question pertaining to the referendum. It has been widely discussed that we don't have enough room in our
operating budget to keep up with the costs of major maintenance and repairs. And that is why passing this referendum is so important. Maintenance and repairs is an ongoing expense and you've already had to add new projects since the last year. A few of you have said that the
problem is with Trenton and I would agree with you. If Trenton doesn't make a change to how our schools are funded, won't we need to pass referendums every few years or so. In Hopewell Valley, the average homeowner pays about 15,000 a
year in property taxes. The national average is closer to 2500. And most of us in New Jersey don't even have public sewer and water, trash pickup, a paid fire department, which most other states pay for out of their property taxes. We
already pay the highest property taxes in the c in the country, and no one seems to be trying to think of another solution outside of taxing us more. So my question is, can you give us more specific steps on who and how to reach
out to the people in our state government that have the power to to ease the education funding problem. There was an action campaign to engage the community members with our government which helped us get a grant for the for an ADA compliant playground.
I thought it was such a great idea to create a template letter and encourage us to participate. Perhaps we can mimic that to help shine a light on the school funding problem. Thank you. Good evening, Dr. Trees and members of the board. I'm here because uh I'm
deeply concerned about the current kindergarten class size of one teacher to 23 5 year olds, which is the current ratio today. This ratio is unreasonable and inconsistent with the standards of a
blue ribbon school district supported by some of the highest property taxes in the state. Um, kindergarten is a foundation year. At this critical stage, children are developing social skills, emotional confidence, and academic readiness. Expecting one teacher to
effectively manage and support 24 young learners is simply impossible. For comparison, just a few years ago, kindergarten classrooms at Stonybrook had small much smaller class sizes with the added support of a pair of
professionals. That model worked. Today's reality does not. 5-year-olds are expected to change themselves after bathroom accidents with only oral instructions through a halfopen door. While the teacher might simultaneously care for 23, 24 other other kids. This
is unfair to the teacher and it is deeply inadequate to the children. Our children deserve the nurturing, supportive environment that is critical in their earliest years of education. The track record of our elementary schools is a result of the supportive environment in the years past. A change
to that proven model disadvantages our children, especially our youngest and most vulnerable. I call on the district and the members of the board to take immediate steps to resolve this issue by adding a fully dedicated paraprofessional support in every kindergarten classroom. Thank you.
Okay, if there are no other comments, we are going to close public comment. And Dr. would you like to address? Yes. Um I'll start with Miss um from the top, Miss Kosis. Um
as I shared in my superintendent report, um we do have the demographer that's going to give us the exact numbers that are coming as a result of the pilot and also projection of what that will look like moving forward. And we're going to need those numbers sooner than later. So yes, we will we'll have that report to you. I can assure you it's more than 30.
Stony Brook in the first week of school had 45 new students and you just heard from a Stony Brook parent tonight um about about the class uh you know and the impact of of the the new enrollment. Um so go ahead Bob you have the number there.
So the the collection at Hopewell behind Shopright 46 students, Forge Circle, 70 students. Hopewell Park 162 students, 278 total students, but that's that's inclusive of um out of
district placements that came with it. So not they're not necessarily in our schools. They're not in our they may not be in our schools, right? And that's some movement of parents that already live within the district that may have moved into a bigger house in in those developments. But yes, that that that's not the norm. Most of those are are new um community
members that we have welcomed in. Um in terms of uh I'm going to just jump down to Stony Brook and then I'm going to pass pass it off to um to to um Bob for the taxed abatement question um because it ties in the largest kindergarten class in Stony Brook is 23 and there is
a kindergarten parah in there. The state code requires that when I hit 25 in a kindergarten class, I need to reach out to the executive superintendent and add a parah, one parah. So already we add paras to classrooms when we when we're not regulated to and we used to add two.
We can't afford to do that anymore. Uh which is what I shared at the beginning. Um so while I I know that this is not something that we are used to in Hopewell and I hope that we can we can move away from with with figuring out how we're going to fund our schools. Um, but with 23 and a pair, that is well
beyond what the state requires and it still is a is acceptable class size. And I would also argue that our teachers are very skilled and strong enough to handle this class size of of a kindergarten class. 23 is not not something that I that I would panic about. But I am
watching my primary grades as best I can, kindergarten, first grade, and third grade to try to make any adjustments I can. Um, so there other sections there and she would need to move things around and we we may have to and if a special education numbers increase, I might have to split a class.
So that's something that we absolutely will have to do and add additional pairs um if we can find them. Um, in terms of the uh tax abatement, do you want to answer that question? Not really. Um, I think
I can't the way the taxes would be calculated and I have to really go through what what Mrs. Kosas is saying here, but the the way the taxes would it would have to be a complete restructuring that that money that is abated. It we're we're a regional district, so the percent share
would have to change. So the monies that were the the value of the homes that are not included in the assessed value would have to go back into the onto the records. The tax assessor would have to take those records, equalize them, come
up with a new percent share to depend how the monies would be shifted around. Um, conceivably my what my thought is that if this money was to go back on the records, Toppo Township would be assuming a larger portion of the tax
than they would now. The the math that she's done, I'm not sure that that that's going to to work. It doesn't work that way. It's just a it's a formula of equalized valuation and assess versus assessed valuation. Um but it would and that that's the whole argument that's
going on these days within the burrows is that because of the money that's removed from the tax roles the p that shifts the percent share and forces more money to go to the burrows and less to go to the township. So Miss Rule, we're going to be
discussing um the graduation requirement, but I'm Principal Riley is here whose hands are very deeply in the schedule. do you mind us putting you on the spot just really quickly if you would come up to the mic. So in terms of the graduation requirement and I know that um the the
board um chair of the policy committee is talking specifically about this and you've given us a list of classes that we currently have that would fulfill the requirements of um of both the service learning and or if somebody decided to take a cultural competence course and we can list those later. But could you talk
to us a little bit about why certain classes are running and why they aren't? Yes. On the list that that we had provided, um there are several classes that aren't running. Some of them run on an alternating basis. Um others run depending on the the projected
enrollment for the year and some of them run um depending on different scheduling needs. We actually have a course on the list that was taught by a teacher who became a supervisor then went to Timberlane. he is now back at the high school and so we'll be adding that class back into the rotation next year
depending on staffing. So I think all of those factors contribute to um to why courses are listed but aren't necessarily running at this point. So also could I just add to that because I think there was also a followup question around cost and then the
percentage of students who are already fulfilling this requirement and so I think in our discuss within policy committee, right? We discuss this new requirement at length because there could be logistical concerns or other cost concerns related to it. And I think at that time, Mr. Riley indicated there
would be no additional costs because these are courses that already exist. Um, and additionally about 60 to 70% of the student body, I think you said, are already fulfilling this requirement. Yes. Yes. In the preliminary um research
that that we did, I it looks between 60 and 70% of the students are are currently fulfilling. Um in addition, we would be able to remain staff neutral. Um it would just simply be kind of a a reallocation of what students were
choosing to take when. Um additionally, um one I think part of your question and if you'd rather not have me address it, that's fine, but about u requirements outside of school. Is that okay? Absolutely. Great. Um, some of the classes that are currently running do have a a component
that is required outside of school, but students are aware of that before enrolling. I think really um I can only think of two currently out of that entire list that do have that requirement. One is AP Spanish through the Wii service component of um the College Board. The other is our newly
created environmental science course that we're offering for the first time this year. Everything else um would be an exploration of of service within the confines of the the school day and um you know within school hours. And truly most uh most service learning classes if they're really written the
way they're supposed to be written and ours are the kids develop those service learning projects. So sometimes they happen right in the building. It's it's things that they decide that they've identified as a problem and they want to to do something about in their school or at the elementary school level. Thank you. Um those were actually my
questions as well. So you read my mind there. But also one of the things we did talk about in the committee was um looking at what other schools are doing and right a common um option that some of the surrounding public school has was volunteer hours and we had some of that
concern too, right? that's well they're already going to school and they have after school activities and now to add more volunteer and so this was a way to really support them to do that but within the school hours and for school credits because that was important. Thank you. Thank you so much principal
and I know we'll talk about the policy more and list the classes. There's a long long list of classes that uh students can take. And then um also Miss uh R asked about um is is it going to become a custom that school districts need to go to
referendum to fund uh some of our facility needs and to to defay the cost of our operating budget which is you know funding has been inadequate. Um absolutely that's something that you can petition at the state level. Um, I don't know if it's appropriate and I don't know if if our if our board attorney
would suggest that the board write a form letter that the public puts out, but it's certainly something that you can do with your politicians. Um, I know the largest pot of money that's allocated is for education. Um, but those funds are are are limited now.
they're starting to shrink and who knows that with the new initiatives to um kind of um eliminate some of the outreach that comes from the federal government, our budgets are going to be affected even more. So, paying attention to your to um your the politics around public
education, going to Trenton and and expressing your your displeasure on how we're funded. Believe me, as bargaining units, the superintendent do that all the time. We go to the state level. We invite our our elected officials in. We let them know the pressure we're under
um all the time. Um but as a as a voter and as a taxpayer yourself, you can certainly go like we do and come as a group and really um ask to be heard about the funding in in your taxes. I do hear it hear you and I and I feel the pressure. But believe me, we are pushing
at our end all the time about what we're up against because I'm not just facing it. All the superintendents in New Jersey are facing this. So, just another little aside to that. Years ago, there used to be a waiver, a cap waiver annually to do small
referendum style projects. Like every year back in the day, we used to do a roof every year. We used to do, this was before air conditioning, and that's kind of changed where a lot of the money goes. We're putting more money into air conditioning now than we ever did. It was usually roofs and those types of projects. We used to do them annually in
our budget because they gave you, you know, for the 800,000 it took to do a roof, you put that extra in your budget and it came out the year after. The state wants districts to do referenda because they give you 40%. So, they pushed it. They took that waiver
out because they didn't want districts spending the entire amount on projects. They wanted you to go to referendum or rod grant, the Rod Grant way. But the with the rod grant, you have to have the money up front. Um, so they want you to go to referendum and a lot of districts
like Princeton who's done four referendums in six years, I believe it is, they've all passed. Um, and they've gotten a lot of work done that way. So, the only other way for us to do it is to to get savings out of our budget. During COVID, when we didn't spend a lot
of money, we were able to take money out of the budget, put it towards a capital project. And those of you who took the tour today, that money that was saved is building those boilers at 40 at a 40% cost reduction. With money that's being spent the way it is, we don't have that kind of savings anymore. We don't have
the money to put into our capital reserve. So again, I would encourage anybody to write to, you know, Senator Turner and and, you know, the other the other legislators that affect Mercer County in the state of New Jersey and ask them how
they're going to adjust funding. I mean, I feel fortunate and you might think why we feel because we've gotten money over the last seven years. This district has gotten more state aid and we're at a point now where we're at the we're at the highest levels of state aid we've ever had. So, I'm fortunate in that
we're not Hillsboro or Franklin or those districts that lost millions and even Robinsville who was held flat. Okay, a flat state is a loss. So, we've been fortunate. So, you know, we're always looking for more, but again, I feel fortunate that we're where we are right
now. Okay. Okay. Great. Okay. I'll make a couple of comments. one is um on us kind of helping um the the the folks in
a community with understanding who they should be reaching out to on various issues. Um, I would agree that it's not necessarily appropriate for the board or the district to say this is what you should say, but I don't see a reason why we can't
put out like a cheat sheet of, hey, if you're concerned about these issues, these types of issues, these types of issues, these are the folks to reach out to in the state government and communicate with. And maybe that's something that the government relations
committee can look into. Um um I I I had a related thought on that. Yeah, there there is on uh to Miss Rule's comments, I wanted to
add my own perspective having now been on the board for four years. There's layers and layers of problems that originate in Trenton in my opinion that um um that create fiscal issues at district
levels and not all of them have to do or are should be solved by Trenton finding a way to throw more money at the districts. there is um mandates
and all kinds of stuff that is thrown at the districts that is unfunded. So if I were as a citizen to be contacting um my rep my state representatives, I would be
encouraging them to start looking at the real cost of all the things that they're requiring public districts to do that cost significant amounts of money um that they're not funding that they just throw the law and said here you go
figure it out how to do that. Um because I think there's a a a fundamental problem there. Um so yeah, I just had to make a comment on that. Um, and the other point on Oh, and then I was going
to say to Miss Kos, yeah, um, we've I've made a request that we put those numbers out about what the actual referendum numbers are, and I think we need to get it out to the various municipal governments before they make a
decision. Um, before they start making any decisions. I attended the public uh uh uh Pennington Borro uh council meeting where the developer said that he um they were discussing a proposal for
an 80 unit development and he said we expect to have 0.5 children per unit in that development and because those meetings are in Zoom and we're muted and do not have the ability to unmute except during public comment
nobody heard me yell bull Okay, moving on. Any items of old business? Okay. Um, moving on to our consent consent agenda. I need a motion to
accept items on the consent agenda. Motion second. All in favor? I I opposed. Abstaining. Okay, motion passes. And our first
committee report is finance and facilities. Thank you very much, Dr. Genevvisi. Okay. Um, I have the microphone on. We can hear me. Okay, great. Okay, so we had our finance and facilities meeting uh that we typically do uh prior to this meeting. Uh, we had Tom and Adam from
facilities join us. They talked to us a little bit about some of the change orders on some of the ongoing facility related projects that we are hoping to address with the referendum. Uh, that included primarily the boiler project um that we are going to be approving. Um, we also had a chance to talk a little bit about some of the natural gas usage
in some of the buildings and some of the facilities. Um, I do think that it was nice to hear that we were uh saving money with some of these things, but it was not nice to hear that we were saving money on gas efficiency. Electricity went up 20%. So, we moved all of that savings to electricity, which is just an
ongoing uh conversation uh of where we're going to save money to spend more money that you're going to hear from us over the coming years. Um, we talked a little bit about the pipe issue uh down on the road at Bear Tavern that uh Tom and Adam and the team continue to do a great job to fill. Um, once we got done
with facility updates, uh, we did have a chance to um, talk about the bond council agreement um, which I know is on the agenda today. Um, I don't know, Bob, if you need me to comment on that at all, but if I do, just please let me know. Um, and we also, uh, had a chance
this month to meet again with Hopewell Township. Um, as I think I've tried to be very, uh, transparent through this process of, uh, what we've been doing regarding the referendum, uh, we have invited and continue to invite all of the mayors and their, uh, administrations to meetings to sit down
and meet with us. Um, we have done that since day one. Uh, I think that both Dr. Trice as well as Bob Kolivita have done a great job being out front uh, during this process. Um, during that time, um, there have been some mayors that have taken us up on it, others that have not.
Um, and that has been challenging to say the least. Um, all of that being said, we did have another meeting with Hopeal Township regarding their pilot programs. As I think was alluded to earlier on today, we as a board are expecting multiple pilot programs for the population in our uh, in Hope Valley to
know. Uh, there is active pilot discussions in Pennington Burough. There is active pilot discussions in Hopewell Burough. There are more pilot discussions that have happened at the township that we have not even seen that influx of students from. What we have asked uh which I think is a is a
reasonable ask as the board is to be a part of those discussions early on. Um some of those municipalities have allowed for us to be a part of it, others have not. Um, I think that where we stand today regarding the township pilot and the uh money that has been uh
promised to us publicly is as of today we have not heard from their attorneys despite what may have been heard in the community. We are still waiting to hear from them. We are waiting to get something done. Uh Dr. Thrice has asked very eloquently to get a memorandum of
agreement underway with a caveat of the lawsuit. uh at this point they have said no to that and we have asked them why and they have not given us a direct answer. I share this with you out of pure transparency more than anything else. It was my hope as the finance chair in the finance committee that as
we move to referendum that we could have moved and done so with this behind us, but unfortunately we're not there. And it's disappointing, discouraging. You can name every word you need to say. What I think at this point we all need to understand as a community is this problem is only going to get worse
before it gets better. And the challenge that we face for pilots is going to be one that sees over the next 24 to 36 months more students coming into the community. We want to be able to say that this referendum is going to solve every problem, but in reality it's not.
I have been trying to be vocal about this and I think that we have been as transparent as we possibly can through this process that there is a lot of challenges when it comes to a school budget in a local level in a state like New Jersey. A lot of things that none of the administration has much control over
at the end of the day because of the unregulated mandates because of the things like pilot programs. And all we can continue to do is try to stay together as a community in a way that we can pass this sort of referendum and say, "Hey, if we want the programming to stay the same, this is the way we've got
to do it." The one ask that I asked with the finance committee way back when when we made the consideration to go to a second pilot and try it again was not affect the programming because we know at the end of the day that a school's output is the type of education we
provide, right? And we wanted to minimize that at all costs. But with that comes a trade-off. And the trade-offs are small and we hear you right. We've heard it. We see the emails. We know the student class I'm sorry. We know the class sizes with the number of students are high. But as Dr.
Trice alluded to, we can't do anything about that right now until we take care of this referendum and then get into this long-term planning. But at the end of the day, we have a decision to make as a community. The decision is, do we want to do this and try to address it the way that surrounding communities
are, or do we want to stop? And if we stop, this is not a threat. This is not a scare tactic. It's just reality. We are going to continue to have to cut in places. That's just the reality. There is a lot going on, not just at a federal level, not just at a state level, not
just at a local level, that we sitting here as a board cannot control. And without that sort of control, we are at really an impass when it comes to be able to say cut here, don't cut there. So our hope and our goal is that we come
together as a community that we're able to address this in a meaningful manner. What I would encourage anyone listening on YouTube, anybody listening in the crowd, anybody listening on the phone on Zoom is to please get to your local towns and ask them to get us involved in
the process early. The reason we are dealing with this right now is because the township didn't get us involved early. Plain and simple. If we would have gotten involved early, we wouldn't be rushing to do this. And unfortunately, we're continuing to rush to try to figure it out so that we can have a good story to tell for all of
you. I don't like paying property taxes. Many of you have heard me say this. There's not many people in a room when you raise your hand that people go, "Yeah, I want to I want to pay property taxes." But I think all of us can agree and say we want to pay those taxes because we like the community we're in.
We like the school district we're in. We like the output that the administration, the faculty, the staff, and the teachers give to our students. And that's what we're asking at this point. So this is me trying to be transparent with you. You should hear the angst in my voice. This has been a frustrating year. It has
been extremely disheartening to see the laxidasical approach of the other forms of government in the hope valley and what they haven't done to help support us. And I would hope and encourage all of those forms of government and the councils to join us in supporting the referendum because that is a good thing
for everybody. That's all I got to say. Thank you. Motion. Let's do a motion to pass what we need to pass. So, what what you're asked going to be doing tonight is a first reading on a
refunding bond ordinance for 2025 school bonds. This is not, I repeat, not anything to do with the new referendums proposed. This is the refinancing of existing debt from 2016. We've reached the uh minimum threshold of 3%.
Um, this first reading gets us in the process. What we hope to do, knock on uh whatever we're knocking on here, is that we can u mingle this refunding with a successful referendum and do it all at the same time to save the cost of issuance. Okay, this is a good thing.
This is going to save uh the district debt service over the next uh remaining, you know, 10 years of the bonds that we have left. Can I get a motion? Motion. Motion
second in favor. All those in favor? I I I opposed. Abstaining. Motion passes. And we already accepted the donation
before so I figured out let's get that. Okay. Thank you. Okay, we go to personnel now. All right, I'm back. Round two. Okay, so uh the personnel meeting uh typically takes place before every board meeting
uh every month. We had our personnel meeting earlier. Uh and it was a great meeting as always. Um tonight, uh we do are going to talk about uh two retirements that we do have. Uh first, Kim Black, who is an occupational therapist at Hope Elementary. Uh she's been here uh with us since 2010.
obviously uh congratulations to her, but we are going to miss her as we do all of our teachers who uh retire. Um we also have another retirement tonight who is uh Tom McQuinn who was our director of facilities um who has been instrumental in helping to keep the district on track with all of our facilities needs since
he's been here uh in 2015. Uh we wish them both the best. Um additionally, we did spend some time talking about the normal items that we do this time of year. Um that is uh everything from some resignations and some new appointments to the extracurricular appointments that
you'll see in the agenda. Um we spent a little bit of time talking about the rubric evaluation process which I would encourage you guys to look at. Um and we also did our normal MOA that we do between uh law enforcement uh Pennington police and Hope Valley Police as well as the district. Uh this is an MOA that comes down from the state uh that we
typically pass this time of year. Uh that has all been completed as well. Um is there anything that I missed? All right. Any questions from the board? All right, we're gonna have to do a roll call.
You got it. Do we need a motion for a roll call? Let's do a motion for a roll call. Motion. Second. Dr. Lilliston. Yes. Uh Mr. Peters, yes.
Dr. Resnik, yes. Mr. Slottman, I. Dr. Stillanu, yes. Dr. Wilson, yes. Dr. Genevese, yes. Motion carries. If I can just add before we move on, uh
we really wanted to uh honor um Mr. Quinn today. Um but he he's like, I can't stay that late, but he's coming back in May when we celebrate all of the retirees. And um you know, we have to make we get him something in addition to the flowers. I'm not sure he wants the flowers we give out, but we'll have to get him something.
But he's around till December, right? He's around till the till the end of the of the year. So So we'll have to make him stay longer for at one. You work on that, please. He's done a lot for this district. Yes. And continues to do a lot for this district.
Awesome. Okay. Education. Education. I'm going to press the button since I'm going to talk for a while. So, uh we had a couple of things on the agenda that we discussed. We had a research proposal
uh from uh uh Dr. Arcelon at ETSS. um and she is researching how AI tools can be used to um to affect uh the learning
experience uh for mathematics. So she has a proposed study that she was asking us to support for a uh for a eighth graders. This would be an in-class um assessment
that the kids who would be participating in the study if we okay it uh would take. Um there were a couple of things that we discussed. One is we of course want to make sure that the study is clear to all the participants that
parents and students have the ability to opt out. Um we discussed the commitment the time commitment that uh Dr. Alson is asking for. We felt that was a little bit too long. So uh Dr. Pelitzus is
going to go back to her and kind of push back and see if we can do a shorter commitment. We also as part of that we hit on a couple of things that will probably translate beyond this study. One is um
because AI is being used we need to really understand how AI is going to be used what kinds of models uh right are those public models private models what kind of information is going to be shared make sure that that user is
consistent with our own AI policy but also make sure that the study participants the kids the parents understand exactly what is being done with AI um so I think that's going to become Um well that should become an ongoing practice. And the other one is
we've been asking as a matter of practice that people who do studies with us um provide the results to us and sometimes they do and sometimes things kind of move on. So um there was a
proposal to have them kind of initial a statement of assurance so that we have on paper um it's unclear how enforceable it is but at least we have on paper a commitment from them that they will provide the results back to us and in this case the tools that are that may be
developed at least for some limited time use for for free. Um, so we discussed that and I guess we're going to be going forward with something like that. So that was the the study. We discussed
um the math curriculum across grades and specifically um the issue that there's some inconsistencies between the topics that teachers cover across what should be the same level which is not unusual in
subject areas but in math it creates a problem just because of how serial the curriculum is and how it builds. we have a new uh I guess principal in charge of STEM. Um so he um he took an action to
look into that issue to work with the teachers and give us a readout on how things are going towards the end of the year. Uh we discussed the role of our new student representative
in um in in ATCOM and how they could participate given the new definition of the role. Um and we already figured out the timing of next meeting which is October 7th at 8
a.m. And I think that's it. Awesome. Any questions? And I don't think we have anything that we need to vote on for for ATCOM. They're all
uh nope. There's nothing here. Awesome. Community relations. Hello. Hello. All right. Just want to make sure this thing's on. It is. Hi everyone. We met on the 4th of September. I think it was just Dr. Dr.
Genevves and myself and Dr. Trice. So, it was a small group at the time, but had a great discussion on I think between Mr. Peters and Dr. Trees, I think we've covered everything that we actually talked about during that session. So, thank you both for already
doing my work for me. But just for my own benefit, I'm going to mention we did talk about the referendum obviously and all the different work that we're doing. In fact, the communications group that Dr. Trees assemble will be meeting on September 25th I believe is the date
that I have in front of me but uh time I think probably in the afternoon right the um comm the um committee of community members that are helping usmber u 25th and I think it's at six o'clock I don't have the time in front of me but for those who uh are still interested we
always we're taking more comers if anybody would like to participate in that for sure and then obviously uh Dr. Patrice mentioned quite a few of the different events that you may or may not have seen some of us at in recent days and weeks and you'll continue to see us
out there at various back to school nights, football games, the Hopewell Harvest Fair which is I think the forecast looks good for this weekend. There will be a number of us there. Please stop by, say hello, and ask any questions you might have because that's
what we're uh here to do. And other than that, I did want to mention this is we did not talk about this, but I'll just flag this that if you do look on our website now, you'll see head shot and bios for many of us. So, I know that's something we brought up a few times from a community relations perspective. And
thanks to those board members who have submitted those head shot and for those who who have not, I won't mention any names, but you can click through on the website and sort of see who we all are. So, when you see us community, if you haven't been to a meeting, you know who we are. So, I appreciate, you know, uh,
putting that together. I know Amanda was pretty critical in driving that as well. Dr. Stilliano, sorry, in making sure folks had that done. So, that was the community relations committee and like all like I said, you know, uh, referendum, totally referendum focused these last couple meetings and I suspect that'll be the case for the next one as
well. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to make quick comment. Uh, you know, this time around, I just want to thank John. Being a board member, I think I speak for the other board members, having somebody that's been able to spearhead the PR side of this has been super helpful. So, just wanted to publicly say
thank you. Appreciate everything you've been doing. You guys doing a great job here. Here, here. Here. Okay. Seal, um, which is me. Uh we had a a nice meeting and reviewed
um some of the initiatives that we are going to do this year. Um as per usual, there was a long list of different ways we're supporting social emotional learning within the district. Um we
already mentioned uh our character strong. Um last year we had tier one roll out and this year we are rolling out tier two with that. Um we had our counselor and principles pilot that and
uh training has already occurred and the program has started. Uh we also launched uh hope squad in all six buildings last year. We had a grant that supported that training. Um, we're looking at whether
or not we're going to continue doing that in all six buildings just because Hope Squad is very similar to what we're already doing with Character Strong. Um, and we just want to examine whether it's appropriate for the elementary school.
Let's do that second. I just wanted to clarify it. We're going to continue 612. The question is at the elementary level. Um there's a lot of crossover with character strong so we may end up um just making hope squad a
612 um implementation. Yes. There we go. Yeah. Um so we will be just to make sure we clear we will be continuing hope squad at the upper levels.
Um and that character strong really is doing the same work that hope squad does at the lower level. So, we're going to use the character strong tier one and tier 2 supports. Um, in addition to our inschool
um SEAL programs, we also will continue this year with uh supports from comprehensive mental health services. Um, and these services are really for students and families that need extra
support and they may not have insurance or finances to support those students. Um, and that is title money that we use. Correct. Yes. Um, we also will continue to have
our parent universities. So, please look out for those dates. Um we are considering um topics on um AI and well-being in the age of AI. Um so that
should be an exciting um workshop. We also having all of our counselors being trained in a solutionfocused brief counseling. This is going to be our October professional development and it
will help support students um with the child study team will be there and school counselors. Um and then we are also working on co coordinating um in-person training for parents with one of our local pediatric
counselors on attunement and emotional regulation which is so important um for our students. And then um the our own strive PTO will be honored at the municipal alliance on
October 17th. Um, for those of you who may not know, our uh PTO, our strive PTO is really um great in providing small grants for our staff. And so they've
done things like, excuse me, um enabled staff to uh outfit like sensory areas outside our student study center. Um they've also done uh small grants for
teachers um so that they could have yoga instruction and relaxation techniques in their classes um and other sort of supplies. And so um I think it's wonderful that our strive PTO is being honored for all of the
great work that they do um for all of our students in the district. And that is SEO. Any questions? No. We will move on to government relations.
Although Drew is not here. No. Do you want me to do it or do you have Yeah. So um we had an update on comm community um on the government relations. We've been working closely with um Executive Benson uh in Trenton to try to figure
out a way to get us to our students the ability to collaborate across districts, which was one of our our um goals on our strategic plan that community members expressed an interest in. So what one of the uh things that we've targeted is that um one of the organizations that we
use for assemblies called the young audience uh organization. They put on performances for our students in our elementary schools. They bring in artists that are residents and they bring in cultural experience to our students and most of the school districts in Mercer County do work with
the young audience um organization. So what uh we're looking for from Trenton is to help us one um support bringing students across elementary schools together for a joint assembly. So we would identify um you know maybe a grade level and a school because some of the
districts are much larger than we are that would come together in one venue to watch a performance. Uh so we're looking at the war memorial as a possible opportunity. Um we're looking at um them helping us with technical support, some funding and busing and and establishing
this. We're in the early stages of it, but this would be a great way for kids to connect over the arts and then maybe even continue the conversations uh virtually around what they've learned in that experience. Another thing that we're looking at in this initiative is ways for our peer leaders or our
leadership um of um groups in our schools to work together to cross trainin and to put on uh events with the younger kids and come to visit each other's schools and train the kids. So that those are the two things that we're working on. Peer leadership was one. Um Principal Riley is also key in helping
us with that. Our student athletes working on building citizenship across um of athletic organizations. She's already working with that with Mr. Becker at my request to really look at extending that because we play and we come together at games. How do we uh
extend that good citizenship and and and being good student athletes across districts? Um so that's what we discussed and we're still working on more ideas on ways that we can uh work across districts. Awesome. So that's all I have for government relations.
Thank you. Policy. Policy. Okay. So the policy committee met on September 5th and we were joined by Miss Riley. So thank you for joining us, Principal Riley. Um so the first thing that we discussed was the the student
representative position and as we as we talked about sort of the enhanced uh job responsibilities associated with that position in order to increase student engagement in board activities. And specifically, we wanted to sort of set up a process to ensure that our student
representatives are able to attend policy committee meetings when there are policies that are relevant to the student body. Um, so we are going through the process to look at what policies are calendar for the upcoming year and to make sure that we can schedule those meetings at times when
the student representatives can attend. The second thing we talked about and this policy was up for review only at the moment was um policy 5600. uh regulations, student discipline code of conduct. Um so we do review this code of conduct periodically, but there was a
specific question that came up during this review and it was really about how we treat lookalike substances like with no nicotine or non-alcoholic beer, for example. Um as you know, these are sort of becoming more common and the policy
is currently silent on this. Um, so we decided that we'd go through sort of an information gathering process as the next step here. So, uh, Dr. Trice is speaking to other superintendent to see how they treat these lookalike substances. Um, and we're also going to be in touch with the NJSBA to see if
they have a model policy around this. Okay. So as you can see from the agenda here, we have one policy up for first reading and then we have three policies up for first reading abolishment.
So this is bylaw 0177 professional services is up for first reading policy 1648.11 the road forward health and safety policy 1648.13
school employee vaccination requirements and policy 1648.15 recordeping for healthcare settings in school buildings are up for first deolishment So, can I have a motion and a second to bring this up?
Motion second. Thank you. So, we'll start with 0177 professional services. So, this bylaw requires the school board to establish a maximum dollar limit for professional services annually for each
type of professional services. So, this is really to ensure that the board makes every effort to minimize the cost of professional services. The polic also indicates that contracts for professional services will be issued by the board in a deliberative and
efficient manner that really ensures we are receiving the highest quality services at a fair and competitive price. Uh so this policy was last reviewed in 2010 and the re the revisions to the bylaw that you see here really just incorporate minor revisions
made in the updated administrative code regarding the awarding of contracts for professional services. So I'll and see if uh any of my policy committee colleagues have anything to add. Any questions or concerns about this one
from the board? Okay. And then we have these uh several policies here that we're abolishing um that are really CO area policies. So, the district does continue to follow local and state health department guidelines as they relate to CO. Um, however, the guidance really has changed
since 2021 and 2022. Um, since these policies were first implemented, making them no longer relevant. Are there any questions, concerns about abolishing these policies? Okay. All in favor say I.
I. I. I can I have a motion in a second to bring for second reading policy 5460 high school graduation policy 5339.01 Student sun protection policy 3216 dress and
grooming for teaching staff 4216 dress and grooming for support staff and policy regulation 9150 school vis motion. Okay, so we did review these policies in depth at the August meeting during our
first read. So I won't spend a lot of time on these but because it came up earlier in the meeting I'll touch for a second here. policy 5460 high school graduation. Um so just reminding folks the main revision that we incorporated into this policy is that students
complete 2.5 credits of coursework that promotes either service learning or cultural competence. And we really felt that this requirement was important to help advance the mission statement of our district uh which really prioritizes giving students the skills that they
need to positively impact the global community. So we did have one request that came up during first reading and this was to add definitions to the policy for cultural competence and service learning. So the edits that you see in here now really speak to that
request. So we defined cultural competence as the ability to understand, communicate, and effectively interact with people from diverse backgrounds. And then we defined service learning as a structured learning experience that combines community service with
preparation and reflection in order to foster civic responsibility and meaningful community engagement. So does anybody have any questions, concerns about this policy or any of the others up for second reading? So, so
since I requested the clarification, I'll just make a nitpick. You keep you're using the term cultural competence, I wish that was in the policy. I like that more than what's being used, but um I think since you provide the definition of what the terms
are, um I am comfortable with that. Um, and to I think Miss Rur's earlier comment where this came from was I think several years of discussion in the board about
finding ways to get our kids both either well hopefully both but at least either into the broader township that we're in um right and connecting them with um be it the farming that's going on or
other things that are going on in a township or in a in a hopeful valley, not in a township, right? And or um just exposing them to peers that have a different lived
experience than kids who grow up in Hope Valley. I know um from my own kids um you know they even going to Brooklyn they find some of that
somewhat bewildering and Lord knows I've exposed them to a little bit of that. So um I I I I support the idea um and I think this is one way of implementing it. Thank you. Anybody else have any
comments questions? Thank you. Dr. Resnik, Mr. Slottman, I Dr. Staniano, yes. Dr. Wilson, yes. Dr. Genevacy, yes.
Dr. Lilliston, yes. Mr. Peters, yes. Motion carries. Okay. Board calendars. Can I get a motion to review board calendars? Motion. Easy
one is uh personnel October 13, 6 o'clock p.m. And looks like Dr. Pitz superseded us and got in at October 7th at 8 a.m. So, we'll get that one down. Personnel
board meeting, which is October 13th. Okay. And I I mentioned to finance before the meeting started. I'd like to do October 6th at 8:00 in person if we can with the to discuss health benefits. Network for everybody.
Oh, the health benefits. That's right. That's the one I was going to skip, but um I I can make it uh at 8 a.m. on the 6. We'll be and you said it's going to be in person. Yes.
At the board. We also had um we se selected ed education program. You already said October 7th. And then we have uh policy. We picked um September 26. What time?
8 o'clock in the morning. I'll reach out to Drew tomorrow via email and see when he wants to squeeze in government relations relations October does October 9th at 8 work for you
Mike Amanda Jackie okay great thanks 8 am on October is what I heard You just need community relations. That's That's it. Community relations. Last but not least. I don't know. I'm
I'm a 8 am. I know, Jackie. Whatever works for you. I've I'm probably not going to be traveling around. So, if there's a I like the 8 a.m. time slot myself. Yeah, I do too. Any day that's good for you. Dr. Trese is fine with me. Drew isn't here. So, let's go to Mrs.
What works for you. Um, let's do how about Wednesday? Wednesday at 8. Does that work for you? Your schedule's probably worse than No, no, no. I'm sorry. October 8th, like the week before the board meeting,
or do you want to meet sooner? Do we need to? Oh, I have a PD that day. Okay. You tell me. Your schedule's more crazy than that. Thursday. Thursday. We already have Thursday. Thursday's the 9th and we
already have at 8. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm looking at Friday. Oh, Friday the 10th. That works. Okay. Community relations Friday the 10th at 8 a.m. Okay. What was the date? Uh, Friday the 10th.
Community relations committee. All right. Uh, Mr. Kapatia, Mr. Kapatia asked if Wednesday, October 1st at 10:30 a.m. would work for his committee, government relations. Okay, I'm sorry.
October 1st at 10:30 a.m. I can only for me I can do a half an hour at that time although that meeting might get cancelled that I have there. So you want to try to put it in that slot and see what happens? Yeah. How about you Mr. Dr. Wilson?
October 1st Wednesday at 10:30. Wednesday at 10:30 October 1st. Okay. All those in favor of approving calendars. I
Any opposing? Abstaining. Motion carries. Um, okay. Any new business? Let's see. So, there is a new business item for board for well, there's an there's an an
item on there for board selfie val, but you that's just a notice that it's coming. Okay. Uh, we'll start getting that out on the uh on the platform. You guys can start working on that. Okay. Okay. And we'll make sure we get make a
quick comment about the board self evaluation. So I think we do this every year and um we usually see the feedback which is really helpful um and I think make varying efforts to integrate it. But I think what would be great this year if we can really look at it as a
board and think critically about how we can integrate it into our processes and practice to really continue to improve upon what I think we're already doing. Awesome. Great. Um, okay. We're going to move
into our next public comment. Okay. So, we're opening up public comment for any items of interest. Members of the public are invited to address the board on any matter for a maximum of three minutes. During this portion of the meeting, you're asked to
state your name, address, and municipality. 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. Public comment is now open. And just a reminder that you have three minutes for public comment. At 2 and 12 minutes, I'll hold up the yellow sign and at Hi. Sylvia Kosis uh 7ell Drive,
Pennington, New Jersey. Uh the Pennington Burough Council has decided to seek review by the New Jersey Supreme Court. Hopewell Township's uh controversial three 30-year tax exemption agreement with the developer LAR. Since Assistant Superintendent
Colivvita's report, which I referenced earlier, supports Pennington Burough Council's position that these pilot arrangements fundamentally undermine the principles of fairness and regional cooperation that should govern how municipalities with regional school
systems treat each other. Community members suggest four things. The board submit an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of the burrow's lawsuit that details how pilots allow municipalities to circumvent their
obligations to regional school districts and may potentially violate the state constitutional requirement for thorough and efficient educational funding. Two, the board through its government relations committee strongly encourage
our state district 15 legislatures as was mentioned before, Miss Turner, Miss Reynolds Jackson, Mr. Varlli, to support legislation that will require municipalities share certain payments in lie of property taxes with school
districts and to address school funding in in just in general. Three, the board adopted a resolution affirming the district's commitment to the fundamental need for equity for all taxpayers in a shared school district. Every family in
Hopewell Valley who pays property taxes conventionally is subsidizing Hopewell Township's tax abatement development decision. The township pilot agreement allows them to externalize their cost of their decisions onto neighboring
communities while keeping 95% of the benefits to themselves. And fourth, all 10 Mercer County Public School Superintendent through the Mercy County Association of School Administrators release a letter to
families and educators to affirm their commitment to the principles of fairness and cooperation in school funding. The current framework for pilots creates a dangerous precedent for this state that allows municipalities like Hopewell
Township to make tax policy decisions that devastate their neighbors without any accountability. Will the board act on these four suggestions? Pennington Burough feels they have a moral obligation to protect their residents from this injustice.
Will the board support them in their efforts before the Supreme Court? And I'm going to just ask again, is the board going to print this in the agenda on a monthly basis starting next month? We can't trust demographic reports if we
don't know what the numbers are. Thank you. Good evening. Uh my name is Brian Kavanaaugh and I live in Hopewell Township. Um, regarding the research you talked about with AI development, um, I would strongly suggest you look at the
information that's being provided right now by the Center of Humane Technology, Center, excuse me, Center for Humane Technology. Um, they put out a weekly podcast or close to weekly podcast called your undivided attention and um, they are not against AI technology, but
their big concern especially because they were tech developers themselves before they saw what social media was doing. Um, one of them literally was the person who created the infinite scroll feature that all of social media now uses um and then realized what that did in the race to the bottom of the brain
stem. And his biggest concern is in the um way that AI is trying to leverage our um evolved ability to form relationships and how it's trying to hijack that to create relationships. So, I strongly encourage the board to look at the
information that they're putting out before they encourage any AI usage, but especially if we are piloting um AI research in our classrooms. And I'd also want to ask that if there what safeguards we can put with the way that
AI right now as they're being understood gobble information um we can do to ensure our students privacy in this research. Thank you. Okay, if there were no other public comments, public comments is closed.
Um, so I'll I'll start with Mrs. um Mrs. Kosis's um appeal to the board and I I can't answer on behalf of the board. Um but what I can say um is that it's not the board's place. It's not a board of education's place to sort of lobby for
for legislation that's happening that that's regards the municipalities. What we can do and what we continue to do is have conversations directly with those municipalities and hopefully that they would be upfront in their communications with us before they go out and make
decisions that do affect us. Um, you ask for the numbers, we share them. That's on the record. This recording will be launched. People can share it as much as they like. The demographers report won't just give us projections. he will talk about where we are right now um based on
where the kids are currently coming in in addition to projecting forward. Um he did project forward that we would have growth right not zero not 30. Um so um looking at that moving forward but we do have to have frank conversations with
the municipalities when he goes to them they have to be upfront and honest with what they're expecting as in terms of units that they that they're exploring to bring in. Um that's key to to this conversation about how much we can move legislation on whether or not they should have policies or not. Um we're
fighting the good fights. We're having the battles with them just on our regular funding. That is something that I urge the community to take up if you're in in not in agreement with how they're operating with these pilots. you have a bigger voice than we do on that because we're an educational um
organization and our focus has to be the schools and how we have to manage our schools within our set of rules. Um what they're doing outside in the municipalities is not how how we can really impact what they're doing. Looks like you want to say something. I was going to say that I mean I joined
the board towards the tail end of CO and um there was still some discussions about other issues that the district may or may not take a stand on and I thought back then that um the district needs to focus like we
need to stay away from spending time and money on um fights that are not necessarily our own and but also are very unlikely to be one. Right? That being said,
um I don't think there is anything wrong and I think this is something that the government relations committee may want to talk about in um sharing the experience of this district with the aftermath of
the issues that the pilot program created with the state lawmakers. Right. I I think that is something that doesn't take a stand on the ongoing
litigation but highlights the facts of whatever happens with the litigation right what issues the way that but the pilot program itself is structured right have created
for the district and I think that is something that we to me should be able to do and I'd like to again pile on more work for the governmental relations committee to talk about how and and if we can do it.
Yes. I'll bring it back to and then the other um Mr. Kavanagh. Yes, Mr. Kavanagh. We are Thank you for this resource center of humane technology. I took a note. We do have um uh one of our um folks that works in our
te technology department that's in charge of education who's worked very closely with us in developing our AI policy. Unfortunately, AI is in everything, including Google Apps for Education, which is designed to to to reach certain students. We do have to change our acceptable use policy and
parents signing off on what kids have access to and don't have access to. um they're already starting to change some of the models of of students being able to create content and those sorts of things. However, you know, students are using AI, whether we are allow it in schools or not. So, teaching them how to
do it safely, which which uh models are safe and which ones aren't, regulating which ones we'll allow in our school district and we won't allow in our school district are all conversations we're having. Um, and we're also coordinating with um the Pennington Burl Library to do a big read on some short
stories about AI and AI going terribly wrong and technology. And with that, he's going to have a a night where parents, grandparents, caregivers can come and learn what they don't know about AI and ways to protect their children from it. Um, and and themselves, like what you shouldn't be
plugging into it and how you shouldn't be using it. But you're right there. It has a great ability and that there's also great dangers that we have to be careful of. So, thank you for that. Okay. Okay.
Um, will we be taking action? I don't know. So, will we be taking action with executive? Yes, we may. Yeah, we may take. Okay. So, a motion to um
enter into executive session. We will be discussing HIPS. A student matter and the superintendent contract uh action may be taken. Motion. Second. All in favor? I
opposed abstaining. Okay. I don't motion that. Pam, did you first or second that? No, she first. Mark, but this mic is not streaming live, right?
He said my calls