hey Heather um can I get you set up to Are you doing the budget again i try to dodge it but I understand hey can I ask you a question
how can you ABD you don't get anything that has your money on the Well you get so the guide goes down so just by being here you go across as well so yes thank
you i think it's a difference between the first and the west so what about you can't wear like Well I have to say this to a board that's quite split actually work fine
no no yes they're really and and it helps my job it helps my job um I've been a VA for 20 more years no I've been here for you be here for 10 more right we've had
great No no no i'm winding down no no no um do you see that little man do you see i know you want to spend time with him what do you think explains it when we're surrounded by budgetary crisis in Northland so I mean I don't know situation i don't know a lot about swimming other than
what I can I can look at numbers and the hell out of them know exactly what happened a lot of districts got in trouble for a long You should give a talk on it well they don't like me but um I think a lot of it is because first of all they've been cutting for the last
10 years you know they went in under Christy they never funded so you read these things you know they just need to They never funed the never fun even when it was the So what happened to putting this
this new formula and then Murphy took it seriously so we started so but I I forecast exactly what it was going to be i did a formula and I knew exactly a general and then I was a
little more aggressive because I'd rather be too too short than which was which was that was hard enough to but then throw in all the tons and I And at the time I'm going to I'm going
to leave this open for you okay um we can minimize it and it's just down here so when you bring it up all you have to do the box should be checked already okay and then you just connect and my baby's going to And there you are
your baby's going to come up there he is and when you're done you click on leave okay so if you click on now it's still going to check the box yep okay it'll leave the box checked so the box is checked i just need to do connect yep
and it'll come and then leave and yes you want to leave all right and then I'll just need to find the budget presentation but I'll do that perfect so I'm going to leave that down here and we're just going to leave that on okay i hope Jessica does hey Jessica so with all that you were allowed to see did you
bank i did have no we weren't allowed we had four years it started in 2021 I think was our first year and then they kept there were different grants throughout the time this is federal money through the state that was the money
so check check okay mi you can mute channel one that means the title I How do I say you know what i don't know nobody knows
how to sing it right thank you over that's doesn't seem right do you think we should start okay can we Becky can you let them know we're
going to start we good everybody good hi we're good all right hey guys you guys ready we're going to start okay okay all right good evening everyone welcome to a meeting of the 10 Central
Regional High School Board of Education please be advised that this and all meetings of the board are open to the public and media consistent with the open public meetings act and that advanced notice required therein has been provided meeting notice was also posted in the boardroom of the upper school campus sent to the Courier News
Star Ledger Express Times and the Hunter County Democrat and sent to the clerks of Delaware Township Eastwell Flemington Burough Raran Township and Readington Township the public will have an opportunity to be heard as shown on the agenda
can I get a roll call please miss Spisser mrs dugen here miss Gong here mrs gray here dr halpern mrs kellogg here ms lacosta here mrs peterson here mrs
rothell here and Mrs santangelo here all right everyone please join us in the flag salute i aliance 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 okay sue would you like to read the district mission statement for us sure hunter Central is an innovative educational community dedicated to the intellectual social and emotional safety
and growth of all students while fostering curiosity and promoting wellness we aspire to create powerful learning experiences establish strong partnerships and serve as contributing members of society thank you all right i'd like to
move to approve the regular and executive session minutes of the March 24th 2025 meeting can I get a second second thank you and can I get a roll call please Mrs spitzer miss Gong
abstain since I was not there mrs dugen yes miss Gray yes mrs kellogg yes miss Lacosta yes mrs peterson yes mrs rothell yes and Mrs santangelo yes oh yes motion carries
thank you all right we just want to note that there was correspondence received by the board we will and the board will be maintained on file in the office of the board secretary um next up is the president's report so this month we are excited to share with you an announcement about the
new board of education newsletter and notes this will be a monthly newsletter capturing the information at the board meetings in addition we will be including additional links to easily access our board handbook the oath of office we follow board goals that we align with as well as notes from our
committee meetings please keep in mind these notes will not reflect confidential legal or deliberative information this is consistent with the open public records act in fact one of the things we are hoping to do is push out as much information as possible that we are legally allowed to in the spirit of transparency we hope to reduce the
time and cost associated with OPER requests we are also using this format to reach a larger audience so the day after the board meeting we will be emailing this newsletter to all students parents staff as well as posting it on the BOE section of the ofund Central's
website for community members to access as well as posting it on social media i'd also like to point out that there is a section for shoutouts so so this will be a great opportunity for board members to comment on things related to the district such as attending the student
AP presentations and things like that there is also a section for suggestions so since this will be our first newsletter we would love to hear from you in terms of how the information is received how easily it is uh to read it um and things like that so thank you and we are looking forward to your feedback
the board would also like to in like to introduce our new board attorney Kyle Trent from Appperi McDermott Master and Mastro and Murphy who is here with us tonight kyle started with us on April 1st and hit the ground running he is here tonight
because of a hip case so we thought it would be nice a nice opportunity for him to join us for the meeting so thank you for that and that concludes my report and I'd like to kick it over to Jessica for her superintendent report thank you Lisa welcome Kyle um good evening everyone welcome back to our students
and our staff as you know today is our first day back from spring break i hope everyone had a nice holiday and a relaxing break we are now entering our final stretch of the school year which is tough to believe actually um tonight we will have our public budget hearing
you'll hear a high-level overview of the more detailed presentation that our business administrator Heather Spitzer provided in March i am also pleased to be able to follow up with you all on our discussions surrounding co-curricular activities funding seniors Subash Derba and Anastasia Felman are here to give
you an update before we move on to those presentations I wanted to give a few other updates and I'm holding off on any updates and celebrations that are related to student activities and athletics as I know Bronwin and Aaron will be sharing more tonight first we
are continuing to work on a potential transportation shared services agreement with Flemington Ryan School District due to the need for us to complete our transportation routes for our students and the logistics involved in registering inspecting and ensuring the buses and vans we are under a very tight
deadline to finalize an agreement i expect to have a final update for you early next week as to whether or not we will move forward with the shared services advanced placement exams will be held the first two weeks of May so we want to wish good luck to all of our students taking the
exams may 6th is our annual 8th grade open house from 5 to 7:00 p.m we are excited to welcome the future class of 2029 to our campus for tours and to explore our extracurricular activities this is a great opportunity for eighth
graders and their parents to familiarize themselves with our buildings in our campus prior to starting in September and last but not least next week is National Teacher Appreciation Week and Wednesday May 9th is also school nurse appreciation day i hope you all will join me in thanking our team of
educators here at Central one of the reasons this district is so special and also so humbling and personally gratifying for me is our staff our educators are especially dedicated passionate and talented we really are blessed to have them here and I look forward to celebrating them more next
week so thank you educators i'm going to clap all right we will now move on to our budget hearing presentation i'm going to ask us all to move to the first row so we can see the presentation and we will move back here after You can say
anything slide down slideshow i can't see there we go sure okay good evening again we're we are
pleased to present you our final uh 2025 2026 school budget uh last time we started by making sure we noted that we have maintained our academic priorities and our funding for AC academic priorities and this is really critical
to our district goals that you all approved and that's really a continuation of goals we've had for a few years now so we wanted to just highlight a few that are on the list we are continuing to expand our work-based learning um it's also known as internships and job shadowing um as well
as dual enrollment and I mentioned last time when I first arrived here close to six years ago now we had 15 dual enrollment courses we are now getting up to 50 or more so we're doing a really great job with that if I don't say so myself
we are continuing to expand our magnet programs and add additional opportunities for students we know that Hunter and Central can sometimes feel like a big place and it's important for students to be able to explore their passions so magnet programs is one of the ways that they're able to do that so
currently we have programs in biomed sciences architecture robotics and computer science we have added for next year a media and communications academy as well as an engineering academy and in addition we are looking to expand computer science even
further we're continuing with our programs that were originally supported by the ESSER grants for the second year so these are things that we put into place with um the COVID relief funding from the federal government but we are able to continue with those programs so
there are things such as tutoring programs or specialized software that provide um students and teachers with resources and support so that we can continue to work on any sort of achievement or learning gaps that we're seeing um we have also as you know
because we had a presentation on it embraced artificial intelligence we will continue to embrace artificial intelligence and you'll know from my a presentation we did um in I think in January on artificial intelligence that our district has been recognized as a
leader um with the New Jersey Department of Education actually coming and asking us about what we're doing with artificial intelligence and how we're pushing it out so we'd like to continue to to expand that use and then finally we want to make sure that we're um keeping with any other sort of
curriculum initiatives we have so one such example is our wellness curriculum initiative and this is a good example because it ties in multiple departments so it ties in health and PE specifically the health standards and the curricular mandates within health and but it also
brings in our counselors and our sacks because they have really strong counseling expertise that perhaps our teachers aren't necessarily trained in so we want to make sure that there's good cohesiveness between the counseling curricula and the health curricula so I
will now pass it over to Heather thank you Jessica i'm going to try to make this brief um it's going to be a lot of the same information that we provided at last meeting um just some highlights so the first thing to note is that um at
the March 17th meeting the board of education took action to approve the tenative budget that was sent to the um department of education where it was approved with no changes it was advertised in the paper on April 24th which was last Thursday and tonight on
the board agenda is to approve the final uh budget so we can start planning and start moving forward um as everyone has heard uh there's a lot of budgeting challenges there's a lot of issues in many of the school districts that you're hearing all over the state of New Jersey for many reasons
um it's not different here um we have many of the same challenges state aid continues to decrease although this year is the first year we did get an increase year-over-year um and that increase is it it's a little deceiving because it says that we did receive a 6% increase
in state aid year-over-year um there's the thing to remember is there's a difference between 6% of state aid versus 6% of your budget that 6% in state aid was about $26,000 which equates to 27% of our
entire budget so even though it sounds like a lot of money sadly it doesn't go it doesn't go very far um we continue to have declining enrollment um overall in the last 10 years our student enrollment is down 785 students or
26% um and with that um it's kind of piggybacked off the next one as well um a new program was put in at the 100 uh county vocational school district um so there's when our students go there we don't get to count them in our
enrollment so we have had a decrease of about um 590 students since that program went into place and this year we're sending seven 171 so it's a pretty large percentage of the declining enrollment
that we are um no longer uh able to count in our enrollment due to the themies going on at the botch no sorry um so the increase in the budget for the vocational uh district enrollment
increase for year-over-year is about 356 almost 357,000 that's just the change in the students that are going there and the tuition that we pay to send them um our out of district tuition is projected to increase 27% year-over-year part of that
is the uh uh increase in student population going to the vocational school part of it is going to um the shared services group as well as part of it is out of district placement so it's kind of all wrapped up in in that number another
um reason why we um and and this is something that changes and continues to be a a loss for us every year so in January I'm sorry July 1st of 2020 the the state put into place what we call
chapter 44 prior to that it was called chapter 78 so it's two different um programs and that has to do with our health benefits what happens under under chapter 78 it was a percentage it's the contribution from your for each of our
employees that are covered based on the cost of the premium was chapter 78 and what the state of New Jersey did and it's it's brilliant actually in concept was look if we can offer you a less robust plan we can reduce the amount
that you have to contribute so what they did is they negotiated and they came up with what they're calling chapter 44 and what chapter 44 was supposed to have done is offered a less robust plan meaning it would be at a lower cost therefore your contribution would be
less and what they did is they instead of tying it to the cost of the premium they tied it to the cost of your salary and it was capped at a certain dollar amount so conceptually that sounds wonderful you're thinking that the less robust plan is going to cost the district a lot more money so it's going to wash we're going to we're going to
end up pretty flat that's not what happened um the the plan that came in under chapter 44 which is called the EHP plan which is an employer health plan is about is less than a couple hundred dollars um less than what our robust plan is so
what happened in that situation is our cost of premium that the district is playing in total didn't go down enough to offset the amount that we lost in the employee contribution so what that means is since this uh program went into place
uh July 1st of 2020 uh the district is down about $718,000 and that's the difference of what we had to pay in premium and what we didn't collect had those employees been covered under chapter 78 um this is a seven-year law uh that's in effect
that will sunset um in 2027 I believe and um we're not real sure where it's going to go uh it was supposed to save districts all this money and it and it it really hasn't also what chapter 44 uh chapter 44 does
is the employee new to the district doesn't get a choice they automatically are enrolled in that program so they can't take a chapter 78 plan and contribute more that's they're directed directly to that program so that's something that we continue to manage and we continue to watch um but we've been
uh a little bit more successful from the health benefits perspective because we're in what's called the uh a state health insurance plan it's a shift so all of the uh districts are pulled together and we hope to have a better um experience rating which is able to help
to save us some money um increase we have three class three officers in our district and one SRO officer this was the year that we were were renegotiating those contracts they come up every three I I think three years um the class 3
officer increased the rate increased 22% year-over-year so that was something that we had to kind of find a place for in the budget utility costs continue to increase just like at home um and we were told to project an additional 20% year-over-year although I'm hearing that
they're hopefully trying to to do something about that i'll believe it when I see it um but the last two years our our uh utility costs have increased 49.71% property and casualty insurance um year-over-year is up about 15% that's
not unusual cyber insurance is up 30% um that's been pretty much what we've been trending for the last couple of years and then um employee benefits are up of course when salaries go up all of these go up you know the unemployment costs the pensions the workers comp those types of things that are dictated based
on your salary continue to increase as salaries increase i talked about everything i probably don't need to do the next slide this was um as we were talking about the vocational school students and themies this is just a quick uh look in 1819
which was eight years ago we had 28 students attending this year for 2526 we're projecting 171 which is a 511% year-over-year and that program continues to grow um so this is something that we have to continue to watch very closely um we pay tuition for
these students to attend these programs we transport them and then we lose um uh state aid for lack of a better word um in because of the addy calculations because they don't count in our student count so it looks like we're going to have 171 students less than we would
have had if if this program uh wasn't inactive so how did we do it um you know we're all facing inflation you know we see the expense side but it kind of helps us on the revenue side uh we have a pretty robust uh cash balance due to our capital and maintenance reserves so
we're able to invest that money um and help to uh fill in some of the revenue gaps uh going forward what we have been successful in doing is staggering them so that they don't all come due at the same time so we have a big huge hit of revenue um so we have them staggered
over six months 12 months and 18 months so they'll they'll go over several budgetary years we do this every year uh we don't uh you know we try to take a look at our budgets almost from a zerobased balance so we're very analytical of all of our department
budgets we take a look at everything that's going on we tie it back to student enrollment and what the uh students need in the classrooms um so that's you know that's a regular part of this process as well the declining enrollment it hurts us on one
side but as it's it's it's more of a benefit on the uh saving side because as staffing re staff retires or um resigns from the district we really are able to take a very close look at um what our needs are based on our student
enrollment so that's been able to help us in many ways in terms of having to do reductions in force um we haven't had to do that um we've been able to make up the difference in the change in in uh uh enrollment uh due to staffing
attrition um again I talked briefly about the relative uh low increase in health benefits uh this year our benefits this was high actually um over the last based on the last three years it went up 9.2% where the state health plan is still in double digits they're inif
between 15 and 20% a year going up year-over-year another thing that we did that's on um it's on the agenda tonight is we did an administrative reorganization and a lot of that had to do with you know some retirement some resignations change in
in superintendent and a look at at what our needs are um on this agenda we're eliminating three administrative positions and we're adding one um and the reason is is just a reallocation of some of the resources that we have and some movement of some of the um
responsibilities in in some of our offices so that has approximately about $180,000 savings year-over-year transportation is a plus and a minus always one of the things that we've been able to do this year is
um we did a uh a restructuring um due to the dissolution of the JTC uh with Flem Rare we focus um on still tiering our routes and still being able to provide services to our sending districts but what this has allowed us to do is really take a look
at our own routes and um we've been able to recognize some savings because currently our high school buses aren't full and the reason they're not full is because we have time restraints to get to the next tier so if you can imagine you know we drop kids off here in the morning and then we got to go do another
route and we have to be there to pick them up and get them to school by their start time and then there's usually a third one after that so what happens is as our sendings grow right our efficiency becomes less because I still
have to get them there at the same time i can't pick up as many kids so we were able to do a deep uh analysis on this and we've been able to eliminate a lot of buses for the high school um due to being able to cover more area because we
have more time to do that so that's been a substantial savings for us as well on the expense side we still have fuel is very expensive insurance is very expensive and it's always a challenge to get bus drivers so we really um you know still struggle to maintain full staffing
and those types of things this is just an overview of um some of the other administrative cost savings we were able to recognize um with the change in some um uh administrative roles we eliminated
the overall elimination of one um administrator position above retirement that's one that's on the agenda this this evening and that's we're eliminating the position we had some breakage we eliminated the assistant superintendent position and we replaced it with the director of curriculum and instruction so that the difference in
salary there has given us some uh breakage which what that means is it's what we were paying in prior years or even in the current year versus what we're paying now the difference in salary is what I call breakage so it's a weird word but that's what it means um and we've also had some breakage on some
other administrative positions we did have some resignations um where um the person that resigned was more seasoned in the in the role and the we were able to fill it with a less seasoned person highly qualified but less seasoned so we were able to get some breakage on that
as well and um the other thing is as we were just talking about there's three administrative positions that are being eliminated and um that's going to help us to um reduce um expenses overall and re realign our positions where we need them to
be this these things together is about $180,000 in savings in administrative costs so I didn't I didn't do as many slides on the deep uh detail here but basically we're We have what's called fund accounting and what fund accounting
means like for those of us in business you know your revenues don't equal your expenses it's a miracle in a school district they always have to so um what you're going to see here as the um total revenues you'll see on the expense slide it's exactly the same so you'll see
where a big piece of our our our monies came in we had a little bit of an additional fund balance that's money that comes over from the 2003 2004 audit um the local tax levy this is the 2% increase so it's $1,100 year-over-year
other is um things like we rent a rack space or we have um we provide nursing services to the um vote right and um this is where you're going to see an increase in our our um interest income
is here so we were able to be a little bit more aggressive on this number but these are pretty big numbers the biggest piece here is interest um state aid went up 206 520 which represents about 6% year-over-year
increase but as I said it's only 27% of the total budget so if you look at that number compared to the total budget special revenue fund is what I call fund 20 those are our grant funds we were told to be conservative here this year because we don't know where
the money is going to come from the federal level this is what we call our um it's the old NCB it's now called ESSA so it's our title funds as well as our idea funds which is our special ed population we use that money for out of district placement but not knowing where
our federal money is going to land this year um I typically budget 85% of the actual award from the prior year this year we budgeted 75% on guidance our capital reserve now this looks a little misleading because we were very
robust in what we budgeted for capital projects last year so we budgeted 7 thou or $7.6 million this year we're only budgeting 5.6 million so this looks like a huge savings but this comes right out of the capital reserve it doesn't it's
not taxpayer dollars and if we don't use it it goes back there so it can't be used to supplant any of these other expenditures so that looks a little a little weird and then we do have a project that we're putting in i think
we're doing some uh switches um and that's going to come out of maintenance reserve so that's budgeted to come out of maintenance reserve and again it comes directly out of the reserve account and if we don't use it it has to go back there so that's the complete difference so if you look at this we're we have we
have a decrease in our total budget of about 1.89 but but this is a little kind of makes it look a little a little wonky so we're we're basically pretty pretty flat if you will year-over-year in our total revenue and expenses and the same thing's going to show on the expenditure
side these numbers should be exactly the same as this one because it's a miracle what we do every day no profit or loss we got to do something with the money um so you can see you know the majority of our money are going into regular instruction in programs we do have some
special eds going up year-over-year and a lot of this is because of the tuition we do have um we have more um ninth graders coming in than we do have people um uh graduating out of the programs so last year it was the opposite we had savings there so it's just it's just a
volatile number instructional support services our library child study guidance nurse curriculum staff training co-curriculum programs are usually pretty flat year-over-year oh I'm sorry um the biggest piece of the facilities
this is facilities which is maintenance custodials grounds and security the biggest piece here is the utilities uh year-over-year transportation costs i'm showing a savings here because we were able to expand our routes eliminated eliminate some buses which what that
allowed us to do is bring in some out of district I'm sorry some contracted routes that we were paying contractors to do um and do them in house which is a savings right now because contractors um it's it's there's not a lot of competition um so we kind of lose it's a cycle but it's it hasn't been very
competitive so sometimes we um sometimes it's better to do it inhouse sometimes it's better to contract and it does change um capital projects this is that that number we were just talking about on the other side employee benefits are going up 7.95 that's just not health benefits
and prescription that also includes pension payments um sick leave payouts things like that so that's all of our our benefits that are are uh covered under their disability insurance workers compensation insurance those types of things
so our total uh general fund budget is going up uh one or going is actually going down but again the big piece is right here um this is just a budgeted number i have to put it on the expense side which is silly but that's what you do um so that really doesn't mean
anything i keep it flat really the important number is the one on the revenue side so my total fund uh and then this was the I'm sorry this is the fund 20 again my grant budgets so again we budgeted this at 75% and these are our total expenditures um our total
change year-over-year um if you remember oops this budget this is the capital reserve for the current for the 56 budget and it's made up of these numbers
so we're going to be doing uh roof replacements on um the 300's wing and the um uh auditorium so these both are roof replacements and we're going to do a roof coding on the IMC music building
these are what are called rod grants which are regular regular operating district grant uh two years ago um the state opened up SDA money um which is this development authority uh it's out of my head sorry um and basically what
that allowed us to do is is they prioritize the type of projects that they will fund um up to 40% of the um uh final eligible costs so this year or this process the
last one I don't think the last time we did these was probably I think in 2014 was the last time they opened rod grants so what this means is we applied for for certain projects they tell us they give us an idea of of what things they'll approve they they approved
roofing projects out of this round they improved and they approved HVAC we did also approve um apply for some paving projects hoping that we would get them in but they didn't get that far down in the bucket of money that they had so what this means is this is the amount that was budgeted the state of New
Jersey will will refund us 40% of these costs i applied for 19 ROD grants and I got 15 so um we're going to be doing three this year we did one or I'm sorry this summer and we did one this year so there's we got a long way to go with
that we're planning more um air conditioning for next year um because that takes a long time to get that in um those supplies are are really uh um hard to get or take a long time to get so we're going to do a repaving project of
the transportation lot we're going to be doing some uh internal work and we're going to do some more upgrades to the um the lockers so the students have more places to sit where we've taken out the lockers and put in benches so basically these are the projects and that's what
that comes out to this is what's budgeted if say for example that 300 wings roof replacement comes in at 70 $700,000 i only do a purchase order for $700,000 the additional 153 stays in
capital reserve these are complete estimates so even though this is what we budget this isn't necessarily what we're going to move or get permission to prove we go out to bid or we get quotes if it's on state contract and the board will approve those projects as they
happen so in summary our tax levy went up 2% we did not exceed need to exceed the cap even though we could have we do have money currently sitting in a capital uh a banked cap in the last couple of years we didn't budget to 2%
anything that you budget less than 2% they allow you to bank to use in future years so say for example next year we find ourselves in a pickle and we need to use uh $263,000 it wouldn't be 2% it could be three and a half% or 4% whatever that
number comes to also in the final draft of the budget um we received $173,000 in um health benefit uh waiver um we didn't use that this year as well so that also goes into bank cap so there's more of this uh also currently
in the budget you have three years to use this if you don't use it within the third year the first year will fall off so right now we could use all of this next year it's only two years so next year is the year to make the decision on the first year's bank
cap tax recalculation is really kind of confusing because we're a regional school district i'll do my best here we get equalization and enrollment numbers that come directly from the state of New Jersey um enrollment numbers make sense to me we report those equalization
values I have no idea none of us do um basically it's based on your home valuation um and your wealth in the town you live in once we get those numbers what that's going to give us is it gives us a a
percentage of the total tax levy that gets allocated to each of the sending districts what and that provides the the percentage and and the enrollment um out takes the percentage so and that will give us the percent share of each levy
for each municipality once we get the share of the total tax levy for each municipality we also take what's um in order to determine what the actual tax rate is for each municipality we use the
ratables that are in each town so those are your actual assessed valuations i get that information from each of the municipal clerks and also I tie that back into the um county uh tax office this is how we determine your rate and
basically what it is is it's taking the tax levy this this number divided by the ratables and it gives us a rate and that's what um I report that to each of the town clerks and that's what they raise in taxes um for next year so that
information will be going to them as soon as this has been approved um I think I have until the the 18th or something of May to certify that with them and then you'll get your tax bills in August this is just a quick summary i
wanted to show you um what our our our allocations have been over the last four years so basically going through the calculation I just discussed Delaware Township is going up $46.98 per 100,000 of assessed values so
if you have a $300,000 a house this is times three okay but over the last four years it's only been cumulative $8.99 per 100,000 the reason for that and you see these
fluxes is because basically the biggest piece is enrollment so because Delaware Township and East Aml are small you know a couple student change can really change this if you look at it as a percentage so overall
um East Aml is going down $51.7 per 100,000 over the last four years it's gone down $192 per 100,000 flemington's going down 750 and over the last four years it's gone down
88.62 raritin is going down $510 on your current uh bill and it's been over the last four years in total it's gone up $6.94 readington has must have a lot more kids at least that's the trend for the last several years so they're going up
$37.33 and this year which is big but if you look at it over four years it's only a dollar more um o averaged over the fourth year so these are pretty these are pretty good numbers when we start to look at it as it trends um over many
years so we got to check off a lot of these we did this last meeting it was approved by the board of education and also approved by the TOE it went into the paper last Thursday tonight is the public hearing and adoption we have 48 hours to put the
user friendly budget on the um website for you all to to take a look at and and uh you know be able to be informed the communicate this information also goes to each of the municipal uh representatives and then on May 19th I
need to certify the tax levy with with the county tax board so that goes to each of the municipalities they get a nice little letter and it's called an A4F and that all ties into what they pay me over the next year beginning in September and that's all I have any
questions great my baby's still there [Applause] i think I did it perfect well done okay just on another go sleep
okay thank you Heather uh I'll just ask again does anyone have any questions now that we're back up here i think we got them out last time too so thank you very much Heather um so next I'd like to ask Subash Derba to come up um for an update on our
co-curricular activities funding subash I know I did it last time do I have to like write my stuff down here all right all right cool um hi everyone thank you for having me um again I'm Subash Derba
um I'm pretty excited to share like a brief update on the progress that we've made since my last time presenting in front of the board back in the winter regarding the transportation and trip planning for our school's co-curricular activities since the winter our administration has touched base with
myself and Anastasia Feldman to create a new form for activity adviserss this form is designed to be submitted ahead of time notifying that our notifying our administration when and where trips are going to be occurring and the purpose is to allow our administration to better anticipate needs and allocate funds for
transportation accordingly obviously we do have some budgeting issues so we want to make sure that those issues aren't um amplified and in fact we aren't causing a greater strain on those issues so this form is to try and alleviate that process without making co-curricular
something that's a burden on our school's budget while still offering these platforms for our students i'm also happy to report that the form was finalized by the administration just a few weeks ago maybe pushing a month it's not it not only addresses that transportation challenges raised by
myself and Anastasia in the previous board meeting that we presented in front of but it also helps ensure that advisers aren't left scrambling at uh the last minute or um struggling to find trips on trips and buses on their own on the funding side of things we've also
had productive conversations between uh the students and administration one major step forward was establishing a rolling application timeline instead of having advisors uh instead of giving them the ability to submit requests at any point during the year there's a designated window which I still believe
is TBD when it starts and ends but this designate designated window creates a more uh more structured way um for efficient planning which involves the adviserss in this process um and throughout mine and Anastasia's process of meeting with the
administration the group that we've been meeting with has navigated some important questions things like where the money is going to be coming from which as far as I'm still um aware is going to be from corporate sponsorships and grants and how to ensure that this money is distributed equitably across
the programs which again last we discussed was going to be just a pool of money that the adviserss can request from and these conversations are still ongoing even though the form is still finalized so that we can continue to work with the administration to create a
sustainable and fair approach i myself have um been really encouraged by the process so far and grateful for this entire opportunity to keep working towards better access and support for both the students and the adviserss um and this is just like a little thing for
myself i'm glad to have just been able to have a somewhat positive experience during my last year here so thank you all again for your time thank you Subash and I'm really proud of you and Anastasia and and everybody else brahman and Erin you were part of that
um we really needed your input so we really appreciate it and Subash was like coming off of a weekend of competitions and he volunteered to make the form himself i was going to do it but he did it and so um I applaud him even further for doing that so thank you very
much okay last uh you'll see our HIB and suspension report um I'll have a report for HIPB during executive session and last but not least I would like to go to our student representatives Aaron and Brunin good evening we hope you all had a
wonderful spring break and a happy Easter our names are Bronin Downey and Aaron Johnston and we are student representatives on this board of education tonight we'll be sharing updates news and insights from the students at Central first of all I'm happy to personally report that our band concert
on Thursday March 27th went extremely well um this was our longtime band director Mr kenny's last full um band concert as he is retiring this year and he alongside Mr hokma did a wonderful job conducting our performance with his
actual final concert being at the end of May additionally our jazz concert and district coral festival were great opportunities for central music students to showcase their talents alongside middle schoolers from our sending districts finally our Equips able and achieved students spring dance in the
Thespian lip sync battle these past couple weeks have let our students dancing talents shine with beater student Celia Graciano winning the lipsync battle for those interested in upcoming theater and music events we have the central jazz concert on May 7th
the Thespian competition showcase on May 9th that will feature award-winning performances from our central theater and the freshman sophomore play Lost Girl on May 16th and 17th with a matinea before closing night we are seeing great success across
the board with our spring sports girls lacrosse is currently 9-2 with 120 goals on the season so far softball has had an amazing start to the season remaining undefeated with 11 wins against tough opponents they face Watchon Hills tomorrow at four at home and again on May 1st away baseball played an exciting
game against Immaculatto winning 87 in extra innings we encourage students and families to come out and support our spring athletes especially with senior nights coming up over the next few weeks full schedules for all teens are available on the Hun Central website under the athletic section
for upper classmen seniors performed in a mock beauty pageant called senior central with Ryan Miller Subash Sherva and Lizzie Brun all winning awards with the whole night and seed by Casey Shenrren and Ryan Bastow junior juniors are currently getting ready for their
junior prom this Friday May 2nd and some juniors passionate about service and leadership will be inducted into the National Honor Society on the night of May 12th thread Cloths Club will be holding a blood drive that same day to help community members in need finally Central students were given the
opportunity to learn about volunteering and employment opportunities through our career and service learning fair at the beginning of April and Central will be holding an open house for eighth graders with Central student volunteers sharing their experiences with clubs and activities on May 6th in our monthly lunch meeting with
with Mr brent and Miss Angela Hade were able to meet with a group of new students of representatives from each grade level 9 through 12 we took a closer look at the results from the climate and culture survey that students completed earlier in the year and looked at a list compiled by AI highlighting
both the school's strengths and the areas for growth in summary students expressed appreciation for the variety of classes supportive staff unit lunch and a sense of belonging and raised concerns about student behavior bathroom cleanliness communication and some policies and resources we also
brainstormed possible strategies to address these areas and discuss ways to make Central a more welcoming and enclosing environment for all students we would like to continue to thank everyone for their support and attention to our reports tonight and at these past board meetings we are looking
forward to continuing to share the passion students have for Central as we enter the final months of the school year thank you Brahman and Aaron oh we can clap and I just want to add um we've heard a lot about climate and culture
survey results and so the board knows that we do plan on formally presenting that to you at May's meeting at next month's meeting so thank you again all right Lisa that concludes my report this evening and I'll turn it back over to you a a question for the superintendent now that we have these uh great kids
graduating will we have uh super replacements for next year well we only actually have one of them graduating um but yes there there will be like an election and and all of that to make sure we continue our student representatives all right at this time
we are going to open up the residence forum for agenda items only before I open up the first public residence forum I would like to just stress some of the guidelines again the board follows Robert's rules of order this is an opportunity for members of the public to
inform the governing body about their views the meeting however belongs to the governing body we require all speakers to adhere to the time limit of a generous 5 minutes most districts allow three minutes so we ask that you follow this rule also people may not give their
time to other people to extend the time to speak this is consistent with Robert's rules and our board policy as well if your time is up we ask that you follow the rules and end your comments at the 5-minute mark we also ask that members of the audience not speak while someone is speaking at the podium we
have the right to keep order and we are prepared to take a recess if the rules are not being followed so we kindly ask that you follow the instructions as outlined in order to have a productive meeting and to be fair to all the speakers thank you very much and with that I would like to open the first
public forum please state your name and town my name is Ed Mclaclin and I'm from Delaware Township and I will clearly print that right here well maybe I'll clearly print it after I'm done
pen's a little uh Oh there it is um first I have a question are we allowed to present questions to the board during the public comment period related to the agenda in this
particular this during this session you can present a question but we're not probably going to answer it at the table fair enough okay um the uh there's a set of policies that uh in the agenda that we're we're moving
to abolish these policies and um I was reading through them trying to understand why these specific policies were being abolished in the process of doing that reading through these policies I read on the policy on
policies itself bylaws and policies and um Um I came to find that there were a set of about I think about eight policies on the on the website um I don't have the I
don't have the site on I don't have it's not it's not in my head right now but anyway the site where the policies are available that there were there were about eight policies that had been it said that they were reviewed by the board in March and updated in April
of this here March 2025 and and March and April 2025 but at no point could I find uh a reference to those policies actually being uh discussed publicly a public reading
on them or or uh anywhere in the agenda where they had been referenced and I I can give you an example of of some of them the uh there was policy 0110 identification policy 0132 executive
authority policy 0133 adjudication of disputes policy 0161 call uh call adjournment and cancellation I believe is is what it was but these were these were they're marked
on the site as having been reviewed by the board in March of this year and updated in April of this year um but there's been no prior references to them in in minutes so I guess one question is
is is that what you know is that is that proper doesn't seem doesn't seem right to me that we're updating policies on the site where they're published um and uh having them reviewed by the
board when they should be you know they should be discussed publicly or there should be public readings of them so I guess in the process of understanding these policies that we're talking about tonight it seems like there's some things I wouldn't expect to to see with
existing policies is there any explanation for that so I wonder if during our policy readout we might address some of that okay when we get to it okay and then specific to the policy readout itself
um these 11 policies these are being abolished and they include district organization organization chart board superintendent relations these seem fairly fundamental to the to the functioning of uh of the organization in
general what h how how have these been selected for abolition so again I think when we get to the policy readout we'll probably address some of that stuff all right well I guess I would say then in advance of that that I' I'd be I'd like to
understand this during that readout session both how how some policies are being updated and not following what would appear to be due process or standard process um and then the other how these particular policies are are
being chosen to be abolished and um and uh what the meaning of that is um and in particular there's a policy 1555 domestic partnerships which is kind of an oddball with respect to the others the others are about management and
board superintendent relations and employee you know these are kind of operational items but this one about domestic partnerships kind of stands out as distinct from the rest so I' I'd like to understand that better so I'd like to hear some some public discussion across
members of the board um to address those possible so so again when Rebecca reads out the policy committee she can explain so she's the chair of the policy committee so she's going to address a lot of those explanations as she goes through it okay okay thank you very much
thank you i have nine seconds remaining thank you i'll quickly say what follow on i'm just going to um follow up great minds think alike i'm
Ted Huff from Raritton Township i also was kind of puzzled by 1555 so if I could ask precisely during your discussion of presentation if you could talk about what you know why what the rationale is for eliminating it but also
what your thoughts are about whether or not eliminating it violates the uh 2004 New Jersey domestic partnership act have you thought about the legal implications of eliminating it and then I was also
interested in this really out of ignorance i've not I mean you know the language is so vague I really don't know what is is being talked about but bylaw 0150 seems strange also the even the even the type face that you had on the
website showed that it's really old it's like 1994 or something but but I was wondering like why it's it was weird the language was such that it implied that if you eliminated it you would no longer communicate the preferences of Hunter Central High School to the legislators
who represent you that seemed weird and then you and you would no longer accept any communication from Trenton of relevance to the high school that was also strange so I have no idea what in the world 0150 eliminating actually means for this
school so thank you very much thank you thank you uh President Santangelo uh Re Reverend Vernon Williams Rariton Township and like previous two suit uh two uh speakers who have gotten up I I too have uh concerns
about the policies that you are uh looking to uh abolish uh and and I would like that as you speak specifically to it as you said you you probably get to it at the uh when it comes up uh particularly what's the impact especially for 15 uh what is it uh
policy 1555 what's the impact to our staff what's the impact to our teachers what does that really mean is there going to be something put in place does that mean that they lose their domestic partnership uh benefits um you know that that that sounds you know that if you do
away with this policy um could you uh in the future do something that would uh affect them impact them uh personally so I think that that deserves more conversation and discussion uh especially as you inform us of what the
impact uh is really going to be [Music] thank you okay thank [Music] you good evening um Miss Santangelo thank you for the update on the newsletter i think that's very
encouraging for community correspondents so I'm pleased that the board is moving in that direction and continuing to look for ways to engage the community and keep them up to date on all the good work being done uh I'm once again here this evening to address policy
0164 in regard to the conduct of board meeting which was on the agenda tonight for the second reading over the last four board meetings the board of ed has failed to follow the policies outlined and
eliminated the longstanding over 20-year run of having board comments on the agenda at the March 24th board of ed meeting Miss San Angelo explained that there had been consultation with the board's attorney and the NJPSA on the
elimination of those comments from the agenda she presented to the public a rationale of sorts as to why the board comments are no longer on the agenda she stated the discussion she started the discussion by stating and I quote "First
and foremost the role of the board is to work as a collective body at the board table it is not nine individual voices acting in silos but rather a unified body working towards the best outcomes for our students and
staff." And I couldn't agree with that statement more but if the board is truly to work as a collective body towards the best outcomes for our students and staff then why are they no longer afforded an opportunity in this space on the agenda
to discuss such items that may have arisen that they wish to discuss as a collective we heard last month from a former two-term board member sometimes it was used sometimes it wasn't but when it was used it was used in ways to
collaborate and to give perspectives and for the public to hear those perspectives miss Santangelo also stated "We understand that no single process will satisfy everyone's personal preferences and that change especially when it comes to change changes to
long-standing practices can feel frustrating." And indeed that's the case over the years the board has in fact not subtracted but rather added several items some examples include the monthly
hip rep HIP reporting that was provided as input from the community to add another one is the addition of having student activities and other student athletic activities recognized on by annual recognition nights which is fantastic
miss San Angelo also added in on the board a board president's report which is also excellent if the president though is permitted to have a regular monthly forum to address the public is this
considered a privilege as president versus allowing a time slot for the collective to speak if so this goes against the comments by Miss Santangelo that at the board table it is not nine individual voices acting in silos but
rather a unified body for every board member especially for those who have or will run on the theme of transparency the community expects you to deliver on your slogan eliminating the board comments severely
chips away at affording any board member any board member to be transparent what is the board afraid of why is the board trying to limit the conversation over the years the board
comments section has provided a time for rich conversation that often led to greater clarity on a particular issue for board members and helped to guide them to better outcomes what are we trying to silence or hide from the
public sure board members have input at committee meetings etc furthermore the board is giving the impression that they are uncomfortable with any dissenting views within the board which again goes against your
stated wish to present yourselves as a transparent board in closing I'm asking that the board members be thoughtful be bold have courage and vote no on approving the second reading of policy
0167 board conduct let your stand let your vote stand as your record when you vote on this critically important agenda item thank you [Applause]
thank you is there anyone else okay thank you for the speakers um at this time we will close that uh portion of the agenda and so I obviously I wasn't here for the past meetings i'm Kyle Trent the new board attorney uh so I only took over uh April 1st but I I do
understand I think the board has heard the comments about uh the board comments which I understand has been a topic of discussion uh there is no legal requirement that the board include a specific time on the agenda with respect to that uh it is a discretionary matter and I know the board has consulted and
and considered the topic uh extensively uh and at this time is comfortable with with the way the agenda will be moving forward um obviously things are always subject to change but uh that that's kind of where the board sits right now thank you all right with that we are going to
move to adopt the budget for the 2025 2026 year um can I get a second second second all right can I get a roll call mrs spitzer mrs duncan
yes miss Gong a resounding yes mrs gray yes mrs kellogg a yes with thanks for you and your team thanks uh Miss Lacosta yes mrs peterson yes mrs
rothell yes and Mrs santangelo yes all yes motion carries all right thank you i think we already reached our comments so we will move on to the student life and program committee leslie thank you so we met on Thursday
April 10th and in attendance was Sue Dugen Rebecca Peterson Lisa Santangelo Jessica Canalosi Hade Matt Hall Mary Pat Public and myself and we discussed an overnight trip for the speech and debate
team headed to Chicago uh May 23rd through the 26th to attend the NCFL Grand Nationals Tournament um costs for this trip will be paid through uh student family and fundraising we then
also discussed or we reviewed the summer 2025 sessions for summer institute and summer academy courses summer institute classes are elective offerings for student enrichment while the summer academy courses are designed to assist
multilingual learners in fulfilling graduation requirements and finally we reviewed a staff research project being led by Mr brandt to formally request permission to conduct a student survey as part of his dissert dissertation
excuse me research project um and with that I ask to move items one through three second can I get a roll call please oh sorry you know what is there any comments before we move on with the roll call any comments
nope okay sorry mrs spitzer roll call miss Gong yes mrs gray yes mrs kellogg yes miss Lacosta yes mrs peterson yes mrs rothell yes mrs dugen yes and Mrs santangelo yes all yes motion carries
thank you so with that we will move on to our operations and transportation committee jessica um the operations and transportation committee met on Tuesday April 15th with Ellen Halporn Sandra Gong Lisa Santangelo Jessica Canalosi Hade Heather
Spitzer and myself in attendance um as we do every month for action items numbers one through three we are moving the standard financial operations which include financial reports invoices and transfers for approval uh item number four requests um that we
requests approval to apply for and accept the Eric West safety grant item number five is being moved to refund the maintenance reserve account with funds unused and item number six is to approve that we enter agreement with PBG networks to upgrade and replace extreme
switching hardware and software um as Heather had said earlier this funding comes from the 202526 budget as well as um some - reimbursement items number seven and eight seek to accept donations from Christine Moss for a fit desk to be
used in the IMC as well as fabric donated by Courtney Grammone to be used in the family consumer science classes item number nine seeks approval to renew our contract for food services with Pmptonian for the 202526 school year and
with that I'd like to move items one through nine second second any comments i just have a few comments or questions specifically on um the the legal invoices that were posted um I I think
we discussed last month a lot of the concerns that everyone on the board shared about access to information that was going on um behind the scenes for the board with legal i do want to point out that you know in December of 2024
when Miss Dougen was board president 6% of the invoice of the entire month was related to activities that were handled by the school board president in January it was 20% by the school board president
and now in March it's 40% and I couldn't calculate February because we don't have the February invoices for Mr gio yet so I have significant concerns given the review that I've done and the activities
that are going on specifically the litigation that were involved in um that we are not getting information i also learned from those invoices that unlike the discussion we had last month where
we were told that it was last minute and we could not review documents before the meeting on the 17th that that document was provided to the board president on the 4th of the month and she had two full weeks that she was working on it
before it was presented to the board in that meeting with no time to review it so again I am very concerned i've asked for these documents i asked for the documents on the 13th of March i was told on the 17th of March that the
school board or the board attorney was reviewing it that was six weeks ago and I still haven't heard anything and based on our board handbook the guideline is that board members are supposed to respond to each other within 72 hours
so I I again have serious issues with everything that's going on with the with our legal invoices the significant increases in how much we're spending on our legal fees um and the lack of transparency that's going on both inside
of the board as well as with the public okay so I think last month we shared the same frustration on waiting on information so I don't have that information either and so that's part of the reason why we're
doing a policy to address that as far as you know the invoices and because of the legal uh sensitivity we're not going to address those specifics at the table i think it's actually inappropriate because of the confidentiality so again
you had about two weeks to bring this to the proper committee to discuss it and you did not do that so I realize that you're doing it here for a different reason but again we already shared our frustration over that and that's why
we're actually talking about doing a policy there's lots of information and lots of cases coming up now in terms of litigation that we can't talk about but it has nothing to do with um the board it has everything to do with the cycle of the uh actual legal process i we have
no control over that when that stuff comes up i think it has very the comm the lack of communication has very much to do with the board and the lack of transparency the lack of availability of information is very much a choice of how
the the board president is running the committee process and is running the access to information for for board members so again I I can just go I I'm just looking at it based on the the
dates that you are given information based on the invoices that we are reviewing so you have information that you could be sharing with the board and you are not and if that is at the direction of the board council he can certainly speak for himself well I'll
tell you that some of those invoices actually have discrepancies in them and so we're waiting to reconcile some of that information so some of that information that you think may have been disseminated hasn't and so we're still in the process of reconciling some of that stuff so again I'm not going to go
into specifics because of the confidentiality of it but that's part of what's been going on so it would be better to speak about it in a committee where we can talk about it in detail if you want to know all those details but we cannot do it
here at the table well I am not privy to those committees clearly you're privy you're privy to asking questions never had a conversation you are privy to asking questions and submitting them to the committee you are privy to reading the
information i suggest you provide it i suggest that you read the committee minutes minutes and you submit questions appropriately follow the committee process there is nothing we're happy to answer any minutes regarding We're happy to answer any questions of regarding
anything about litigation thank you any other comments all right with that I would like a roll call please mrs gray yes mrs catalog i am voting no on skank price
invoice 1266236 and 1269181 and Jacob's invoice uh 146198 and 144516 but yes on everything
else miss Lacosta yes mrs peterson abstain from the I I don't even know how to break it up from the uh shank price bills that are not the
uh special ed ones i don't uh just I guess abstain from the shank price bills and yes to everything else so the only thing on the agenda tonight are the invoices the ones that are provided are not on the bill list so there's there's two different
things one's for information and one's for um I don't know i apologize that I don't I thought I looked through it maybe I didn't i thought I saw them i'm just want to make sure I'm clear so that if there are some I don't know if there are some um there are some i think there
were because we approved we we reviewed those last month so I'll just abstain from shank price perfect and all others yes everything else is yes okay mrs rothell uh I'm going to abstain from check number
82046 and yes to everything else okay mrs dugen yes miss Gong yes and Mrs santangelo yes motion carries
thank you all right next is the personnel committee we met on April 15th in attendance were Jessica Hay Claudia Gray D kellogg Heather Spitzer and myself this is the time of year that we have the most action items to approve these are the recommendations by the
superintendent for the 2025 2026 school year which includes tenur acquiring tenur non-tenured staff par professionals custodians maintenance operations mechanics bus drivers administrators etc in addition we have also resignations contractual
appointments substitute teachers professional development courses for staff leaves of absences abolishment of positions approval of job descriptions as well as an appointment for the director of special services replacing our interim appointment and with that I
would like to move items 1 through 43 uh can I get a second any comments um I just um will point out what Mrs spitzer said in the budget that um while there is
some shifting we are we've been shifting working with the administration to shift to make sure that those um positions have not been growing um out of leaps and bounds above and beyond our student or teacher growth um it's been a hot topic especially for Flemington Ring
Township have been um seeing some of the issues that have been going on at the K to8 so we're really just um we are very much aware of that and keeping a very close eye on that all right thank you can we get a roll call now miss
Mrs kellogg yes miss Lacasta yes mrs peterson yes mrs rotel I'm going to abstain from number 26 and number 39 yes no I'm sorry number four number
26 yes to everything else so 26 but only one number right 26 so she's Yeah number 26 item number 20 yes and then number 39 item number 14
or four I'm sorry all others yes okay mrs dugen yes miss Gong yes mrs mrs gray yes and Mrs santangelo yes motion carries thank you next we'll
um discuss the policy committee rebecca all right thank you uh we had a meeting with the uh Sue Dugen Leslie Laccasta Lisa Santangelo myself and Jessica Canelosi Hay um just a quick reminder of the committee's work we've been engaged in a section bysection review of our
policy manual the reason that we have been doing this is to try to meet a goal of ensuring that our policy manual can be effectively implemented by the administration and used by students staff and family um so with that goal in mind the committee is recommending the
board approve two policies for adoption and abolish 11 policies on first read tonight along with the second read of all policies uh from last month uh we did not receive any questions from any board members on any of the policies first or second read
tonight the committee is recommending adopting uh one policy amendment and one new policy both are from our policy vendor the academic integrity policy uh 5701 is intended to replace our current academic integrity policy which is misnumbered and there's some musical
chairs of policies that's going on there um but this new policy will include the topic of artificial intelligence which uh as we you've heard us talk about many many times um recently uh continuing with our ongoing manual review the
committee this month focused on the administrative section administration section which is the sections of uh labeled 1000s uh there were 31 policies contained in there in that section and that covers all basic administrative topics we're recommending abolishing
nine of these policies none of which are mandated and all of which are quite out ofdate um which will reduce the size of the 1000s by about 30% so when you see what we have been doing because this board has not undergone a
review of the manual as a whole a systematic review um as far as we can tell not really sure that it's ever happened the uh when we review a policy a section of a policy but don't change the policy in any way we are putting a
review date on that so that review date is the date that the board looked at it and said you know what this policy might be 1998 but that's okay it's still in line with what the board and the district um are operating under so that date is there for the public to know
we've reviewed it it's not just sitting there from 1998 it's actually still effective and that's just our way of transparency with the public letting you know that this was reviewed and it is still viable nothing has been changed in the policy if anything has changed in a
policy then it has to go through the first and second read for um any changes so that is why you see some of those dates um and some of some of our bylaws were updated and if they were actually updated they went through a first and
second read and those might have a different date of when they were updated versus when they were re reviewed um so that is something new you will be seeing on the policies after we go through each section's review um the reason we have been reviewing
these as we said last month we have 492 policies and that is a lot of policies for our administration to have to implement and to make sure that we are following all of them and what we found is at some point it appears that we adopted everything um whether it was
recommended just suggested mandated seems to have adopted everything we have a lot of things in our policy manual that either we don't really utilize um like some of
uh like the administrative i mean yes Jessica Hay operates with an administrative team but it's not something she needs us to have a policy telling her to do it is something she does on her own so what we are trying to do is make this a more
manageable policy by getting rid of the non-mandatory very outofdate and very kind of questionable origin some of the policies have so that is why going through and doing our best to try to lower the volume of
this manual to make it easier to actually implement um as far as policy 1555 um this one is actually we're not actually sure of the origin of this policy it's not from a strame which is our policy vendor it's also not from the New Jersey school boards association but
as far as the question of what protections um couples have this became obsolete in 2013 with Garden State Equity versus DE when same-sex marriage became uh the law
in New Jersey and so the this policy was no longer necessary to have those protections to all of our staff and so with that change in the law and and certainly with Oberfell um in
the recent years that um that every couple has that same protection so that is why this policy um and because we don't even know really where it came from it might have been updated if it was from our Strauss Esme vendor but it wasn't so um we're not exactly sure
where it come came from like we said but it isn't necessary anymore um all the protections are still there so um I hope I covered everything I was going to cover and all the questions we had um did I miss
anything okay so with that I'm going to move items one through four second any comments uh yes given the first residence forum I would request a separate
consideration of and I'm sure our legal council will help us this the um abolishment of policy 1555 sorry about that domestic partnership uh thank you for the explanation but I I just uh uh you know
didn't know the reasoning behind the abolishment but I just on the surface would say that it sends a message out to our community to our staff um so that's why um I would just reconsider perhaps
abolishing that particular policy any other comments i I'm just curious were um the policies the new policies that were identified to be abolished were those run past board counsel no they were not mandated or they were
either recommended or suggested by our uh policy vendor so our policy vendor if they don't put a mandate on it we're not required to have them so we ran it by the we ran we went through them step by step with the administration but not with board counsel because they're not required by law okay is there another
manual someplace that has information about incapacity of a superintendent or incapacity like where where would the staff go to find that information now they would go to our attorney or board attorney okay so rather than having it in the policy manual available to them they would need to call the board
attorney those were from 1998 and we have tried to see there were no updates since then and we're not entirely sure that the information in these policies is still viable so um in that case yes the appropriate step would be to if we had a superintendent suddenly out would
be to have someone contact board counsel would be the right thing to do and if I can interject that's a matter of state law one of the requirements for approval of superintendent contract is certain provisions addressing those things as well so um again I wasn't involved in the in the policy reboot will say in my
experience in other districts I I typically don't get involved in the day-to-day the policy committee or committee of the whole if they operate that way handles most of the the issues without me you pay straight or you pay school boards association whichever one you want to basically provide you legal advice in terms of uh what policies are
required which policies aren't required and then discretion there so certainly I'm happy to help on any questions that come up but but that's not atypical and um uh there are other things that would address the incapacity of a superintendent and how to how to operate in that occurrence
thank you yeah I just had one other comment um on policy or bylaw 0164 um just to to sort of echo Mr cohen's comments um I do think you know one of one of the things that we keep hearing on this board is that no board
member has any more power than any other board member or any other any more voice than any other board member and I think um indulging the president in a president's report and having a board um memo or newsletter that's put out that
all the information needs to funnel through committee chairs and um I I think again it it sends a very specific message about what voices are are valued and
allowed on this board so for goes I mean we all have the opportunity to discuss all agenda items so um you know I I don't see how that is favoring or disfavoring any particular
voice um and as far as the uh newsletter I I look forward to the transparency with the public but yeah I I guess my point would be that if you're not a committee chair you don't have things that are added to committee agendas and if you're not the
board president or the superintendent you don't have control over what is on the agenda so the idea that that this is an an open forum for all board members to discuss the things that we all think
are important to this district or that we may need to be thinking and working on um again that the way the structure is is set up it doesn't um it just doesn't provide for that
refer you to the handbook which has a section on if you want to get something on one of the committee agendas you just need to contact either committee chair or the board president would be a good way to start the handbook would you just repeat that Mrs peterson i just can't hear
the handbook has a section on if you want to get something on either a committee agenda or on the main agenda you the right thing to do is to bring it to the board president who will either refer it to a committee or would as we have done here before or to just bring
it directly to that committee um that's generally the way I think most boards throughout the state do that no thank you i just couldn't hear you uh Madame Chair I would request then a separate consideration of the second reading of policy 0164
um conduct of board meeting uh you know I'm sorry that I had to miss the last board meeting but board comments are useful um you know I sit here and I think oh my gosh when do I get a chance to actually say something the
superintendent said that next week is teacher appreciation week i think that's fabulous that's great i would like to make a comment that there's a book out now called Teacher by Teacher it's a book about um people who are inspired by their teachers and I just wanted to give
a plug i don't know the author but I thought that was a really excellent book review um I wanted to make a comment about the uh you know I wasn't going to because it's like oh my gosh do I make a comment about the AP research presentations given by the students and
we have one of them right here it was about climate change and malaria it was excellent um I enjoyed the three presentations that I went to but you know to put it into I don't know just comments for the newsletter it sort of loses something for our public i think
our public and our staff um should hear board comments so that's why I've been so um strong about uh adding board comments to our agenda all right any other
comments all right roll call please mrs kellogg sorry getting organized um so on the first reading policies um for item one yes for abolishing I think
those um for so for item two I'm going to vote no for item three um I'm sorry for item two I'm also sorry on this agenda it has the district or chart and
and Can you come back to me after every Okay I'll get myself together i promise miss Laccasta yes mrs peterson yes mrs rothowl yes mrs dugen yes miss
Gong all right let me try this so for number one yes for number two abolishment um number yes on on all except for
number nine uh domestic partnership item three the second reading yes on number one two and three no on item
four yes on item five and six and I think yes on four thank you Mrs gray yes Mrs santangelo yes Mrs
kellogg yes on one um on item two no on items 1 through nine yes on items 10 and 11 um on item three no on item one or yes on item one through three no on item
four yes on five and six and yes on item four thank you yes they should all pass there's only a few okay all right moving on to additional
business um regarding the liaison report uh for the parent engagement committee does anyone want to comment on that who attended no okay anything regarding additional board business that we want to see on
the committees and D this is where you can make your suggestions we have this every month so if you'd like to put something on the committees you can certainly mention it here i if there is a committee that could have perhaps a summary or maybe the board attorney
could write a summary every month so that the board has a good understanding of what has happened what documents have been filed um especially on uh cases that are particularly active um and are sensitive that would be very helpful
okay thank you anything else uh just a comment about when we use the phrase the board or we so the attorney has used the phrase the board um I think uh Mrs peterson when she was describing the review of some of the policies it says
board review so it would be great if if the board is reviewing something that every member of the board just get a sort of heads up that something's being reviewed if that's possible yeah sure yeah so I I just want to
address this i may have used the word board earlier um so the board is a legal entity so I I am guilty of this constantly for you and others that that I use the board and district interchangeably uh so board could refer to the administration doing things staff you know high level administration um so
I I don't know of any school attorney that that doesn't distinguish between those two things doesn't interplay between those two things but I apologize if you take offense as if you personally reviewed it that certainly isn't intended to to suggest that the board as a legal entity acting through its administration acting through its legal
counsel um is why I use it interchangeably that way at times no that's great thank you very much um one other comment actually for the policy committee to consider i I think it is a bit confusing
uh to mark the policies as edited so the the way they're showing right now on the website is it says date edited 2025 and then board reviewed at the bottom if it's possible to not change the edited date because I think it it it for me as
a member if I remember the public looking at it it would imply that something had changed if it were edited and perhaps just note that the committee reviewed it as opposed to the board because again it Can you tell me which one you're because I'm seeing what anyone's been talking about tonight i'm
looking at 0110 which is identification so up at the top it says date created and then date edited and so when we actually do pass a policy that date edited changes um and again I think that the the board reviewed implies that the
entire board has reviewed it as opposed to the committee so I I I understand what you're trying to do and I appreciate you guys trying to keep track of what has been um you know what the committee has looked at and and intends to keep but I think we I think changing the language so it's clearer to the
public what has happened would be very helpful um we'll definitely take a look i think we've been uh figuring it out as we go well it's something with the system so we're going to figure it out something in the um I think it's prehit buttons
that affects things so thank you for pointing it out we will take a look and see make sure we know what is happening when those buttons are clicked all right thank you all right finally we will be moving to our final residence
forum this is for general comments anything um on the agenda as well as anything else if anyone is interested please come up you have five minutes you need to state your name and town good evening members of the board my name is Cole Costan i'm a junior here at Central and I'm a me a resident of
Readington Township tonight I wanted to share some and shed some light on some positive happenings within our school community often people choose to share their opinions on personal issues but I think it's just as important to recognize great things that are happening so I'm not here to speak
about something negative but to highlight an experience that truly stood out to me on April 2nd Miss Bilig organized the second annual job fair and I think it was a huge success i had the opportunity to attend as a representative of prevention resources and more specifically as the president
of Hunter County Youth Coalition it is a student-led community service club open to grades 6 through 12 and the fair gave a chance to share our mission recruit new members and connect with students who bring unique passions and perspectives in other words it was a
true celebration of diversity of thought it was also a great experience for students overall whether someone was looking for a summer job volunteer work or just the chance to network and practice personal professional conversations the job fair created that
opportunity in a welcoming wellorganized environment i wanted to thank Miss Billig and everyone who helped make that happen it empowered students like me to help lead connect and reflect the positive forward-thinking atmosphere that makes Hunter Central so special i hope to see more events like that in the
future thank you for your time thank you very much [Applause] hi my name is Nadia Ryan and I'm a freshman here at Central and I'm a member of the 10 Central dance team i want to share how great the team is for
its members and the and the school being part of it has been an amazing and really boosts our school spirit through dance I've learned teamwork time management and never giving up we work together to reach our goals supporting each other through tough practices these
skills help us in everything we do the dance team also makes our school spirit stronger we perform at games and competitions bringing energy that connects students teachers and the community we're proud to represent our school and the positive feedback we get
makes us feel like we belong the dance team is a place to express ourselves gains confidence and grow our talents for many of us it's more than just an activity it's where we find ourselves and make good friends we are so thankful for coach to for the support from the
board of education your belief in activities like ours helps us succeed and give back to the school thank you thank you oh go ahead good evening sandra D'vor Raritan Township i wasn't able to be at the
March 17th meeting but I did watch it online as a Ritan Township voter I am represented by Mrs peterson Mrs gray Mrs dugen and allegedly Miss Gong unfortunately it seems one of my representatives is only concerned with herself as someone who has attended more
board meetings than most I was completely embarrassed for the district because of the horrible and selfish behavior demonstrated by one of my representatives during that meeting this representative interrupted the entire meeting to demand the board vote on the question of board comments the board
decided that there would not be board comments and that the board would focus on the good of the district and not random thoughts of individual board members that unsatisfied with that decision of the board and unconcerned with anyone but herself this representative decided that she would
have her way and got up from her seat at the table and went to the public podium to speak embarrassing i wish I could say that this was her first bad behavior I've witnessed but it isn't in January this representative spent more than five minutes accusing another board member of
bullying and intimidating her and claiming her victimhood she said that she will not be silenced yet no one was trying to silence her she has every opportunity to voice her opinions on agenda items as every other member on this board every month ironically in
2023 this representative came to this podium and bizarrely made a victory speech about winning the election by 31 votes she challenged everyone to be positive role models i should apparently not hold my breath waiting for Miss Gong to take her own advice i appreciate all
the good work of the majority of our that our the majority of our board is doing i ask that the other members begin to contribute in a positive way instead of trying to selfishly land jabs at others during public board meetings thank you
thank you uh before I speak I want to I think ask you guys can you just please state your name again ted Ted off Ryton Township i checked the bylaws i think that you're not allowed to address anyone on the
board other than you so I think that violation has just occurred at any case um I want to talk about marks and I don't mean Groucho um in my community at least in Ron Township up here in Huntington County and so forth there's a lot of fear
expressed online at least about the um penetration of Karl Marx into the curriculum at Hun Central High School and high schools in general so um I'm being a very concerned person I thought I would check out um the history of Western society
textbook that's assigned here at Hun Central High School in your AP classes uh this would be the most likely place to find marks and sure enough I did find Markx in this textbook um but um I I guess I got to
ask don't we want our kids to know about Markx i mean he's only one of the most important thinkers for the last 300 years you can't explain the Russian Revolution the Chinese Revolution the Vietnamese Revolution the Cuban Revolution i can go through a long long list of revolutions in the developing
world over the last 80 years without an understanding of marks so I guess I'm glad uh he's in the book um the question is how is he treated in the book i mean even for people who reject Markx I think we have the view that you should know
thy enemy so you should understand Markx um in fact how I would characterize the treatment of Markx in this textbook is that um he's treated fairly and with
balance um and you all can read and judge for yourselves in fact the reason why I'm standing here is I'm hoping that if ever this uh demand that we remove marks from the curriculum comes to 100 central and to the board you'll actually read some of your textbooks yourselves and see whether or not the charges are
justified from some people in the community uh but in fact there's a fair level of criticism of Marks in this textbook um I mean no no criticism with which probably most of you are familiar all of you are very well educated well
you certainly know that you know Marx has been repeatedly charged with being a reductionist and reducing everything to class when in fact we know that class is hardly the beall and endall of human existence and even worse he reduces classes to just two the bourgeoisi and
the proletariat capital and labor we know that's wrong of course because middle classes are critical um and far from being scientific which he claimed to be scientific Marxism as he claimed himself uh what he really is is
prescriptive that is he's trying to make a revolution he's not just describing empirical reality he actually has an agenda which of course is where critical theory comes from right this is why Marxist considered to be a critical theorist because he actually was trying
to criticize reality and in so doing undermine it correct um this is all pointed out it's also pointed out that he's empirically wrong that in fact since around the 1850s just when he was writing um the communist manifesto
middle classes were taking off in number around Europe and working classes were getting better off through social welfare programs so the you know the emiseration of the proletariat was not continuing uh throughout his lifetime
um and moreover uh he excluded probably the single most important variable in the last 200 years of human history namely nationalism i he completely rejected nationalism as a way of understanding how the world works which was a big mistake he predicted for
example that you know the next time there'd be a interimperialist war uh they would not fight because the proletarians would understand each other as fellow workers and they wouldn't go to war well then we had World War I so that falsified that part of the theory
in some the book is quite critical it would be very hard for one of your students here at Hunter Central to come away from reading this book and go "God man Markx was brilliant." They come away saying "Wow Markx was really really influential and I don't understand why because in fact
he made a lot of errors so I just don't get it." Which is what the teacher is there for too right um so instead of succumbing to pressure campaigns from various interest groups interest groups in our community I'd recommend that the board members
actually read these texts for themselves um and I'd be hardressed to find any any place anywhere in this textbook of a Marxist interpretation of anything right so there's no Marxist
spin on anything in the textbook anyway that said wouldn't it be much better and far more American if these Marxist ideas were forced to compete with their detractors far better than being
suppressed i mean isn't suppressing them Marxist your time is up i'm sorry oh really i didn't see I thought I said a minute all right yeah i'm so sorry thank you okay thank you very much ed McLaclin still with Delaware Township um
uh first I I I hope you um um the ad homonym attack on on Sandra Gang was I don't think merited and uh um Sandra thank you for your your service here on on the board of
education uh so policy 0164 the uh the comment uh comments by board members very disappointed that that is uh moving forward as a bylaw that you're not going to have that common period there is obviously some
dissension on this board it would benefit us all to be able to hear uh uh different opinions about how we're moving forward in this in this forum i this is what I come here for i don't
care to to understand what the monolithic opinion is of the board uh we can read that in the policies and the bylaws and the and the and the minutes the the outcome i am interested in hearing some debate some commentary
about the policies that are coming up i'm also interested in hearing just generally you know your folks your opinions as Sandra was saying to be able to talk about what's important to you with what the board is doing what the school is doing so the the uh amount of time for each
board member to be able to make public comments uh to comment on the the agenda to comment on the the uh the activities at the school in general it would really be valuable and it's uh it's disappointing that that's going to go away it doesn't promote a sense of
transparency it definitely promotes what Miss Kellogg was saying it promotes a sense that there are voices that are being squashed and that we're not getting a sense of we're not getting a a a healthy debate and um obviously you
don't want a healthy debate in the public i don't know why uh certainly with Robert's rules we can manage a healthy debate and constructive debate but um um I hope at some point in the near future uh there's a
reconsideration of it and that you'll consider bringing back what was a fairly timehonored uh part of our our board meetings in the past so thank you very much thank you my name is Guy Citron i'm from Califon
good evening honorable board president um first I'd like to echo the the good gentleman who rose to to speak on the academic value of Karl Marx i would just add that you can't read Hegel you can't
read anything in Western philosophy without understanding Markx he inspired everybody whether you agree with him or not you have to respond to him but I wanted to make a comment uh more in the abstract about the importance of speech with respect to
policy 164 0164 is that correct board comment do you like Walt Disney movies you guys ever seen The Little Mermaid you've seen it yeah it's one of my favorites
um maybe some of the younger audience you know will appreciate this metaphor i think it's very powerful so when the little mermaid is uh living under the sea they're they're they're the bottom feeders you know they're the crabs
they're living in shells and they have to kind of pick up whatever's dropped from like the larger sea creatures you know the sharks who they're bullied by you know and so one day you know we'll skip we'll skip to
the point uh the Little Mermaid is like "Well you know I want to give human society a try i want to go be with the humans above the you know above above all that oceanic uh nonsense hiding from predators and whatever." And so she makes a deal with
Ursula you guys remember that part ursula makes a contract with her like "Okay I'll give you legs." You remember that yeah you got to ditch the tail you get the legs but what's the catch what's the condition does anyone remember can't
talk right ursula says "I'll give you legs i'll send you up there you can meet the prince you can hang out with the humans but what can't you do you can't speak." It's a very powerful message in Disney disney's great for that you know
they really embed a lot of deep um and beautiful and powerful messages in their works and I think for me personally um it means that you you really can't participate in
human society without your voice and and to raise the stakes one level um each and every board member here was elected as a representative for
hundreds if not thousands of others to to the gentle woman's point who who rose to speak about her displeasure with some of the speech those differences of opinion can and should be expressed with the full understanding that each board member has
a very important role to play in the community as a representative which fundamentally requires the ability to speak to make comments whether it's about a
book or a problem and one of the reasons why Robert's rules of order and deliberative democracy or deliberative assembly or whatever whatever we want to call the business that we're doing here which has been done for centuries and centuries and centuries under different names
whether we want to call it republic or you know however academic or you know wordy we want to get with it it's it's been so that we don't have to live in shark world we don't have to live in that thing that the Little
Mermaid wanted to get away from which is where the biggest shark gets its way and then everyone else falls in line it's so that we have a chance to come together in public which is really the key moment that Robert's rules reflects is that we
come together here in public and we look at the good to the young gentleman's point who rose to speak about the job fair we look at the bad and we look at the ugly and we do it together knowing that we are
neighbors we're community members here together and we will get through you know whatever uncomfortable moments may occur because we are all here for the students for the sake of education and for the prosperity of this school
district so thank you for allowing me to speak and thank you for your service thank you very much is there anyone else that would like to speak all right seeing none we will close uh the residents forum and um we
are going to move to convene into executive session where we will be spending approximately 45 minutes and then we will be coming out to take action can I get a second second and can I get a roll call
mrs peterson yes mrs rothal yes Mrs dugen yes Miss Gong yes Mrs gray yes Mrs kellogg yes Miss Lacosta yes and Mrs santangelo yes thank you
everyone for coming can I interest you in some karaoke jimmy J [Music] eyes from across the room in the quiet of the night you know that I
because they're so high up they don't have to play 11 and0 undefeated so awesome we've been here do we need to take a
Oh our microphones are on everyone i I think I might have Lisa your mic is not happened like second okay Sandra second it okay okay all in
favor i I Okay very good all right so we are going to move uh to terminate move to approve the termination with all rights reserved for the following employee as recommended by the superintendent uh employee number is
noted on the agenda so can I get a second second any comments okay roll call please mrs rothell yes mrs dugen yes yes miss Gong yes mrs
gray yes mrs kellogg yes miss Laccasta yes mrs peterson yes and Mrs santangelo yes oh yes motion carries all right thank you so next item is to move to approve the long-term suspension from school for the following student which is the ID number noted on the agenda
until the date as indicated which is April 15 2025 in accordance with the decision of Central Regional High School's District Board of Education student discipline ad hoc committee and on recommendation of the superintendent can I get a second
second thank you um any comments okay roll call please mrs miss Dugen yes miss Gong yes mrs gray yes mrs kellogg yes miss Laccasta yes mrs peterson yes mrs rothell yes and Mrs santangelo yes
all yes motion carries okay final item move to affirm the 10 Central Regional High School Administration disposition for the following HIPP case reviewed by reviewed by the Port of Ed in closed session on March 24th 2025 can I get a second
second comments roll call miss Gong yes mrs gray yes mrs kellogg yes except on HIP number 27 on which I abstain oh this whole thing is that one dane
I thought this was to affirm didn't we have to all of that oh we didn't do it i apologize okay estain okay so number 27 yes so I apologize okay miss Laccasta yes mrs peterson
yes mrs rothell yes mrs dugen yes and Mrs santangelo yes uh motion carries all right and finally motion to adjurnn motion second yes
discussion down there i don't approve any of them yes that's our earlier on agenda we just moved it to after executive so what you said was
they were already the one I did tonight will be next okay so uh move to adjourn the meeting can I get a second all in favor i just put anyone down yeah i think our attention