##VIDEO ID:KuEqzewjQKM## e [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I for [Music] [Music] [Music] for [Music] [Music] [Music] there [Music] okay [Music] I [Music] for [Music] e [Music] [Music] what I [Music] know I get [Music] [Music] [Music] come e e for we [Music] here out [Music] [Music] [Music] for [Music] [Music] I'd like call States this meeting is in compliance with the open public meeting law and has been duly advertised in the newspaper as an official meeting roll call Dr Osman Mr Walsh here Mr McCarron president Mrs Rivera present Mrs barokas present Mrs gordel present Mrs Cass okay at this time I'm G to ask Dr Osman to come forward and join me in front of the flag for the oath uh of office okay please repeat after me I Erica Osman do solemnly swear I Erica Osman do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the con constitution of the state of New Jersey that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and to the governments established in the United States and this state and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and to the governments established in the United States and this state under the authority of this people so help me God under the authority of the people so help me God I Eric Osman do solemnly swear I I Erica Osman do solemnly swear that I possess the qualifications prescribed by law for the office of member of a board of education that I possess the qualifications prescribed by law for the office of member of a board of education am not disqualify qualified as a voter pursuant to RS 19 4-1 okay um am not disqualified as a voter pursuant to rs9 col 4-1 am not disqualified due to conviction of a crime or offense listed in njsa 18a Colon 12-1 am not disqualified due to conviction of a crime or offense listed in njsa 18a 12-1 and that I will faithfully impartially and justly perform all the duties of that office according to the best of my ability so help me God and that I will faithfully and partially and justly perform all the duties of that office accordingly to the best of my ability so help me God [Applause] thanks before we approve the agenda we have an addition to personnel and students okay we're going to add number 24 to personnel as follows resolved upon the recommendation of the super attendant that employee ID number 11 14611 is hereby removed from the District substitute list for the 2425 school year and the addition to students number 11 reads resolved that the board affirms the finding of unsubstantiated Hib in case number 271 373 j102 42024 and be it further resolved that the family shall be provided with a written decision along with information on their right of appeal thank you I need motion for approval of the agenda with the addendum motion second discussion rall Dr Osman yes Mr Walsh yes Mr McCarron yes Mrs Rivera yes Mrs barokas yes Mrs gella yes I'd like to turn the meaning over to miss permil for her superintendent's report thank you good evening everyone so tonight's superintendent report is going to be rather brief um we'll do a short superintendence report followed by board business and then we will present uh to the board and the public the Strategic redistricting and restructuring Plan update um and recommendations following that presentation there'll be time for the board to ask questions and comment and following that there will be an opportunity for public comment from the obviously the public um so I'm going to get started right away I know people are here um to hear that update so we're going to actually begin tonight we did have our annual audit report it has been concluded and we have our auditor here miss Kathy Perry who's going to come to the podium and just give a brief update on that audit uh whichever you're comfortable with is fine good evening my name is Kathy Perry I'm the auditor uh partner at Jump parrying company we did the audit for June 30th 2024 it was due to the Department of Education on January 15th it was filed properly and timely as part of that audit we give an opinion on the financial statements on how you spent your grants and your internal control and in all the testing we did which we test payroll dispersements bids grants uh with the grant documents have and detail out how you should spend the grants the ones that were selected we didn't have any findings or any significant question costs so there were no issues uh the financials uploaded had no findings uh we went over with the board office we like to thank the board office for all the hard work they did no one really likes an audit but they did a great job getting us everything and if anybody wants to review the audit is on the uh New Jersey Department of Education website under Finance all the audits of all school districts are there and you can review the audit thank you Miss P can I just ask one question um as part of that comprehensive audit you also select certain Grant funds to audit you just comment on a couple of those oh yes so you receive federal grants and state grants and as I said we review grants we make selections based on what is a major program Bas there's significant rules on how we make those selections based on money spent was it spent in the prior year and upon reviewing of those grants we'd have any findings so the grants selected this year was a CO covid-19 Grant and I believe we also some Stak grants and your lunch program so in those grants we have to review the grant document see what your budget was how you spent the money we select invoices or we also look at lunch applications and things like that for lunch and we did not have any findings on any of those things you spent the money in accordance with the Grant and that's what we reported on your data collection form which was uh filed on 115 also thank you very much so we are going to now move to uh one of my favorite parts of our board meeting is our high school board representatives are going to share an update from each of the high schools so this evening I'd like to start with Colin from [Applause] Memorial good evening Mrs permil members of the central Administration staff and Board of Education members my name is Colin Williams and I am the student council president at Jackson memoral high school it's a privilege to speak with you this evening and share the latest updates and initiatives that make jmhs a dynamic and inspiring place our school Community continues to thrive through the collaboration and dedication of students staff and Families First the interact Club is hosting its annual socks for senior's Drive which will run from January until January 21st this initiative aims to keep the senior citizen of our community warm this winter we encourage everyone to donate a pair of Cru socks to support this meaningful cause donations can be bought brought to room 156 or dropped in the collection boxes located in the main offices thank you to everyone helping to make a difference the jmhs DECA model konas and fbaa are busy competing for leadership positions and attending winter conferences these organizations give our students outstanding opportunities in the business and political science Fields I would like to congratulate this year's teacher of the Year Megan Maro a dedicated special education teacher and Brenda an outstanding PA professional their passion and commitment to our students are inspiring and we are thrilled to celebrate their well-deserved recognition as we approach the transition to the second semester students are preparing for final exams scheduled for January 29th and 30th January 31st will serve as a transition day offering students and staff the opportunity to reset and prepare for the new semester it's a pivotal time of the year and we encourage everyone to stay focused and finish strong for seniors early decision College acceptances are just around the corner marking an ex exciting and hopeful period for many of our students we wish them all the best as they take significant steps towards their future goals and dreams our winter sports teams including basketball ice hockey winter track and wrestling are in full swing the athletes and coaches have been working tirelessly to prepare for their seasons and the excitement is palpable throughout the school we look forward to cheering on our Jaguars and celebrating their successes this evening speech may be brief but we are already looking for forward to the next semester and the many exciting updates and events will bring thank you for your continued support as we work together to make jmhs a thriving and Vibrant Community thank you Mrs Peril and the board of education for your continued support and for allowing me to highlight the outstanding moments at jmhs I look forward to sharing more up to to you the next month have a wonderful evening as always Colin excellent report thank you so much for sharing all of that information next to the podium to speak about the happenings at Liberty is [Applause] Katie good evening superintendent prilly the Board of Education members guests it's a pleasure to be here again and share some exciting news happening at Liberty over the past month first off the winner sports are in full swing our boys wrestling team has a winning record Armani mccan won first place in the prestigious Mustang classic wrestling tournament and the boys basketball team has some great wins as well indoor track is off to an excellent start with the standout performances from Delany spal Victor Akim moo and Bon Casas boys bowling has also been impressive with Jacob kofen bowling back-to-back 600 series The Performing Arts Academy recently had the opportunity to visit the count basy theater where they enjoyed the show Newsies seeing our students gain such valuable exposure to the Arts is wonderful our Performing Arts have also been active on the stage the atlet players have begun rehearsals for their spring production of Percy Jackson The Lightning Thief this will take place on March 6th 7th and 8th we look forward to seeing their hard work payoff on the stage tickets go on sale February 15th additionally our clubs have been very productive this month the Jackson Liberty Key Club is holding a hat and glove Drive in partnership with your grandmother's cupboard at Toms River based nonprofit the leadership academy is also hosting a Valentine's Drive benefiting care one they collect socks sweatshirts hygiene products and coloring books finally the class of 2025 is hosting a big sale to help students enjoy the upcoming half days Liberty will be hosting an ESL night on Wednesday January 29th at 6:30 p.m. this will take place in the main hallway it'll be a night of games Raffles and Community tables with information on what's going on around Jackson we will also have the Li's Closet open and available for families and as well as student work on display as the first semester comes to an end many of our students earned recognition for their outstanding achievements senior Julia kth was named 92.7 w OBM student of the week and Senior Delaney spof was honored at the njsiaa girl girls and women in sports day at a Rucker basketball game additionally Cory Harnett and bonica SAS were named the athletes of the month many of our seniors are beginning to hear back from colleges and trade schools I'd like to express my gratitud gratitude to our dedicated guidance counselors and staff at Liberty without their support many of us wouldn't be where we are today I appreciate the opportunity to represent Liberty tonight I hope you all stay safe in this cold weather and I wish you all a pleasant evening thank you thank you Katie for the wonderful report really appreciate the opening of the Lion's Closet during some of those activities great way to support the community as a whole uh nicely done so by way of very quick brief um update I just want to welcome everybody back uh this the first time since winter break really that uh we've done a a full public meeting um we might be back from winter break but obviously the winter has not taken a break very chilly weather um and we've had some snow for the first time in a while um so hopefully we don't have to adjust our school schedules anymore for snow um but stay warm everyone it's hard to believe it's the end of January um already it's it's gone quickly we are as you heard from the high school reps tonight uh we're ending the end of the semester here uh next week where they're entering into finals and then there is uh the professional development day that school's closed for for transition for our high school teachers and some of our Middle School teach teachers and professional development for the rest of our staff so the mo the year is moving very quickly uh in January there were also many um of our elementary concerts or chorus concerts were held hopefully you had an opportunity to enjoy some of those wonderful um opportunities of our students being able to sing and our incredible music teachers who have instructed them I want to uh remind everybody that the 2025 2026 preschool Lottery sign up is currently open it closes on February 13th at 300 p.m. please make sure you get in there and uh apply everything is on our district website so please go there to learn how to sign up um and it is free to Jackson residents with three and four year olds so as I mentioned it's a busy night tonight so I am going to conclude this portion of my superintendent report and turn it back to you um Miss Gardella thank you um I'd like to do standing committee reports um first committee is buildings and grounds Mr McCaron yes uh Capital Improvement projects uh for the district homeman had four trailers that were decommissioned and sold and had been removed Johnson Trailers one through four have been decommissioned and sold and also removed uh Jackson Liberty lecture hall roof drain leak has been repaired and painted Li already had four subcontracted roof leaks that have also been repaired all outdoor non-heated areas throughout the district have been winterized gets had two new OEM control boards for boilers uh replaced switlick is in process of decommissioning 14 trailers and switlick installation of a brand new fire alarm panel is taking place thank you um budget and finance has no report this month Transportation had no report this month and we have curriculum and instruction and special education the chairperson is Dr Osman okay the curriculum and instruction committee held a virtual meeting to review the qac monitoring of our curriculum and instruction elements under District uh performance elements 1 through 7 the district is evaluated on student Proficiency in El Ela Math and Science growth on state assessments based on student growth percentile scores four and fiveyear graduation rates and chronic absenteeism the scores are all calculated based on the J Doe rubric the Department of Education has put out an equivalency application that revises the waiting of some categories districts can apply to use this alternative application Jackson will pass using either formula but will score higher using the equivalency waiver the application was reviewed and will be voted on on tonight's agenda um the next report is an ad hoc committee it's the advocacy Comm committee and I'm the chair um the Department of Education has been holding public hearings regarding su2 funding um I might say the date wrong but in last week of December Mr binsky went and speak spoke and on January 14th um Miss Peril spoke and um Miss Baro brokas and myself were in attendence so I just wanted to kind of give a highlight of what we heard um Miss Peril spoke and gave insights on areas that could be reform within S2 funding such as different different differentiation I'm so sorry between districts to account for their individual needs um there are many districts in attendance uh Oldbridge plumstead South Brunswick South Brunswick Kate May County Lecy Monroe um that was just a few majority of them were S2 affected this past school year um there was also some Statewide advocacy groups such as like ptn and um you know School New Jersey state um business administrator groups um ideas that were suggested because the Department of Education held this hearing to say like they didn't want to hear your sto your story but they want to know do you have any suggestions for how S2 could be changed to benefit each district so essentially some of the ideas that these um speakers had suggested was leaving the top 1% of earners um off of uh any District's local fair share because it skews the number especially when you have a lottery it winner um funding nonpublic transportation in districts with high non-public to public student ratio fully funding multilanguage learner education funding just to adequacy funding security 100% um sharing the formula so districts could prepare in advance of knowing what state aid might actually be rather than guessing on the back end um having um a rolling property value of over five years which would allow the district to have more continu uity of how much they could expect year over [Music] um and uh some were even talking about going above the 2% tax cap Levy every year um and bringing back old Aid calculations for special education costs um districts such as Newark and Lakewood were were there and they pointed out that there is a large amount of funds mandated for charter schools and non-public students and it's hard to manage under S2 it was really interesting most districts there had a revenue problem um towns I can't tell you I didn't take copious notes and I asked Allison if she remembered exactly but some towns they couldn't purchase toilet paper this coming month they were laying off 14 staff members because they couldn't make payroll um they basically it was just story after Story what will happen in the coming uh school year if the state didn't offer relief every one of these districts moved to a 9.9 tax levy and they still had the same story um some towns went for refer to raise additional funds the towns obviously did not support those additional fund uh increases and more than one town that was present closed the school um you know the Department of Education was there they were taking copious notes and supposedly time will tell if they'll make changes and what ideas will come back to them and what they'll bring to State legislation legislator so it was definitely um an eye-opening experience and you know we were represented there and we'll continue to do that with the advocacy committee um continue on okay gu I need a motion for the approval of the minutes motion the Clos session meeting December 11th 2024 the official board meeting December 11 2024 business meeting uh discussion a second oh I need a second second discussion roll call Dr Osman yes Mr Walsh yes Mr McCarron yes Mr Rivera yes Mrs barokas yes Mrs Gardella yes uh Financial reports I need a motion for the approval of a bill list motion second discussion roll call Dr Osman yes Mr Walsh yes Mr McCarron yes Mrs Rivera yes Mrs barokas yes Mrs gardel yes I need a motion for the approval of the treasurers and board secretaries reports motion second discussion roll call Dr Osman yes Mr Walsh yes Mr McCaron yes Mrs Rivera yes Mrs barokas yes Mrs Gardella yes I need a motion to open the public forum on agenda items only we will hold another public forum during the meeting for other questions this public forum will be on for questions on the agenda only um I know many of you are here for the redistricting as M pery said so we will take those public comments in the second session so this is related to the agenda only thank you motion motion second please sign in and state your name whether or not you're a Jackson resident each person is allowed a maximum of three minutes to speak no person may speak more than once on the topic until all others have been heard yeah sure um Mr binsky will be keeping a clock yeah so for the public forum tonight we have a large crowd especially for the second public forum um I'll be keeping time and I will signal to you when you have 20 seconds left how long do I okay start with the okay a motion to close the first public form motion second discussion all in favor all right um we're going to go to resolutions for Action I need a motion to move Finance motion second discussion roll call Dr Osman yes Mr Walsh yes Mr McCarron yes Mrs Rivera yes Mrs barokas Mrs Gardella yes I need a motion to move facilities motion second discussion question roll call Dr Osman yes Mr Walsh yes Mr McCarron yes Mrs Rivera yes Mrs barokas yes M gordel yes I need a motion to move programs motion second discussion number five okay what are the meanings of those values in that short qac so I mean is there any type of meaning to those numbers or going to turn that over to to Mr rante he's been working on the um instruction and curriculum portion of the qac yeah the department of Ed puts out a rubric for they assign different values to your um your growth your your scores absentees and graduation rates they put a standard um formula basically for each of those categories uh the new equivalency application that they allow us to apply for changes the waiting on some of those to be in our in the district's favor um so we would end up with a higher score than on the initial initial rates we would pass either way we just pass with a higher score with the uh equivalency application so we get to choose our score well we're going to apply to the count to the Department of Ed with the application and then if they approve our application then that that's how our scores will be weighted on on the new application Okay the reason reason for the choice this year obviously we never have had Choice before which method we want to use is because of the feedback that um the state uh Department of Education received from school districts about how we uh the calculations were occurring and how they didn't account for certain things and so this is in response to those um concerns from other schools and they're making this change for next year's qac so they're saying to this year's School districts that are being cacked that you have an option to use the new way that will start next school year or to use the existing way that's why next year there won't be a choice for cohorts good roll call Dr Osman yes Mr Walsh yes Mr McCaron yes Mrs Rivera yes Mrs baroas Mrs gella abstain from number n-2 yes everything else I need a motion to move students motion second discussion roll call Dr Osman yes Mr Walsh yes Mr McCarron yes Mrs Rivera yes Mrs baroas yes Mrs Gardella yes I need a motion to move Personnel motion second discussion roll call Dr Osman yes Mr Walsh yes Mr McCarron yes Mrs Rivera yes Mrs barus yes Mrs gordel yes at this time I'm going to turn it back over to miss Peril for her superintendent report on the Strategic redistricting and restructuring update and recommendations thank you so tonight we will share an update on the progress and the rec recommendations for the districting um the district's redistricting restructuring um strategic planning better known as the srrp work that we've been doing uh since the beginning of the school year I have Mr binsky the business administrator Mr Raton assistant superintendent of the elementary level and Dr godleski assistant superintendent of the secondary level who will assist with the presentation tonight board members there are slides behind you if you may want to turn around to view them so before we begin and get into the work of the committee um and the why we'll start with the why tonight I just want to comment that um I've said this before this is not something that any superintendent Board of Education um Administration really wants to to do in a district it's um it's a it's a lot of work it's a lot of emotion it's a lot of change um tonight I hope that you can better understand why we're moving in this direction uh we recognize that this is difficult that change is difficult um change is never easy but we respect the fact that these decisions impact people um our students our staff and our community um and we've had many sleepless nights um and as you hear through through the evening the the process that the committee took has considered many factors multiple factors in the decision trying to consider every possible um Avenue and area so that we can provide a recommendation that we feel is going to benefit all of our students in this district and provide a direction forward for the future uh for the sustainability of an excellent School District so this evening we'll start with the why and as we've said multiple times we all want strong programs for all of our students we want timely curriculum updates that we haven't been able to do over the last eight years we want to keep and expand AP offerings acmy we want to have robust electives we want strong supports for all of our students intervention enrichment we want to have up-to-date supplies have all the supplies that our our teachers need and our students and and technology and we want to have strong opportunities for everybody when it comes to our co-curriculars we're tired of losing things for students I know you all are we all are um and we're tired of the fiscal issue that was not created by this District um but we created for several factors and through this process we do this to make our district fiscally sustainable and we have an opportunity to achieve that through this restructuring so with that why must we change change we've said this before two major factors here are in consideration we've had enrollment decreases enrollment has decreased over years providing an opportunity to be more efficient cost-saving and to lower operational costs our cohorts have uh have come in lower numbers of students lower than the number of students that we are graduating out for example uh this year alone we graduated out um you know more stud students then we received um in in our kindergarten level which was actually 346 students less than who we graduated out and that's been happening for several years so students leaving is a higher cohort than the students coming in kindergarten and as you can imagine those cohorts make their way through each grade level we also have budget deficits we are super grateful for all the advocate advocating that our parents have done our staff have done and our legislators to help with this state a funding formula that has been a nightmare for Jackson um and although we are very appreciative of all of that we don't have any hope of anything changing it's been seven years and there has been no change um and so we need to take that control into our hands um and we will not even receive our state aid numbers until uh late February but with that we are looking at what will our possible deficit be if we don't do anything um to impact the loss and and with that we are anticipating just roughly through our our estimates right now a $13 million deficit for the 25 26 school year and as you can imagine that is significant and would mean a tremendous amount of cuts so the the the deficit of a $13 million deficit um when you think about it last year at the same time we were at a $32 million deficit when we rolled everything over so to play off for the auditor tonight it's kind of ironic the audit was here to describe uh a district that is very fiscally well managed but that has been the case for our school district we have a very singular issue here and it's already been mentioned a couple of times it's a revenue issue and the slide that you see up on the screen illustrates what is the byproduct of a very disproportionate educ reduction in state aid over the seven years of S2 uh especially when you look at it versus our enrollment decrease the enrollment decrease during that 7-year period was uh close to 1300 students which is 15.6% uh decrease in enrollment at that same time during that same time period And as mandated by the S2 legislation our categorical state aid dropped from $49 million to 23 million per year a 52.9% reduction does that seem fair for comparative purposes on the right column you can see what an aid reduction would have looked like if the Aid had been reduced by the enrollment decreases themselves the difference is Stark close to $55 million over the entire 7-year S2 era and this very specifically is why we are where we are today despite the work of our local legislators our plight has seemingly fallen on deaf ears at the state level the disparity between enrollment and the categorical state aid has forced the district to continually employ a cut model year after year just to stay afloat these Cuts during that time period have included 285 position eliminations the postponement of facilities and curriculum improvements the combining of sports programs and the reduction of Transportation of after school programs not to mention everything else the cup model reached its limit last spring when we actually took very significant measures to close and sell the Rosen hour elementary school property which closed the budget deficit for this current school year on to the revenue side to take a look at what we're projecting for and this is not a budget presentation the budget will be tentatively introduced at the March board meeting but we obviously this is something that is a very very important part of what we do every day um on the revenue side we're looking at budget projections that are going to be a 15% reduction in Equalization Aid and this is what the county officials and the state officials have told us to prepare for for us that that includes a projected decrease of $2.5 million in state aid for a school district that has already lost as you saw on the previous slide year after year after year and unlike previous years we are planning to receive no State stabilization Aid which most recently brought 2 million into our budget this year and we must also factor in one-time revenues that we availed ourselves of this year that included the land sales and also the state's inclusion of $2.5 million in infrastructure funds that came in on June 30th so these one-time revenues as good as they are for this year's budget they they create challenges for future budgets we also are returning to the 2% annual tax levy increase um set forth by the state which will bring our maximum tax levy increase to just over $2 million this is far different than the tax levy increase the onetime only one that the state legislation passed for last year which included a $9.2 million tax levy increase in one year so it's not just revenues uh like any other school district and Mrs Gardella was talking about how other school districts are are falling into the same place we are um the expense side is is not without its challenges we are currently building a budget with some very significant increases in the instructional support costs that we have very little control over they include increases to utilities special education out of District tuition that is a these added District placement schools actually set tuition uh that is higher than the 2% cap um and then obviously uh transporting our our students and our non-public students with a loop payments insurance premiums for next year we're anticipating a 10% increase in health insurance premiums that equates for us to be over $2 million it actually equates to larger than the tax leevy increase that we're allowed to to make by law so altogether we're anticipating a 6.4 million increase in in instructional support costs for direct instructional costs we've AG L negotiated contracts to be at or below County or state averages and yet it's not enough we're still facing an increase of over $2 million just to roll over the staff and the and the salaries that we have for this year to next year so all of these increases are in the context of a world that is just simply to say more expensive you know what inflation has been over the last three years we're talking about some of the highest inflation that this country has ever seen this region has ever seen and we're anticipating that to continue and this past year we were at a 3.4% inflation rate so we've done all this expense wise and we've put the bare minimum to maintaining our facilities and we have we are a big school district we're maintaining a large number of schools two Transportation Depot so we have had to postpone and punt on many of those projects because simply we're paying for other things we're paying to just keep the L the lights on so what is the path forward for the Jackson School District to become financially sustainable and I will tell you that there is no greater importance from my office and from me personally than to make sure that this school district is financially sustainable it's an obsession it's something that is I don't want to say a singular Focus because we all have large oversight but it is a primary focus of the school district and it started already with the balancing of this year's budget so the sale of the Rosen our school has put us in a place where we will we will are projected to finish this year uh at with with a positive cash flow um however this does not necessarily translate to next year okay and the potential sale or rental of another school property and the potential Revenue that that could bring in and permanently reducing our operating expenses and that is really one of the key factors here with the redistricting restructuring plan is we have to bring down these operating costs to a level that matches our Revenue so that we can be in a place where we can just sustain and continue and to build like a school district should and lastly the school funding formula is currently under review Mrs Gardella said I testified at the state level Miss uh Miss permil testified at the state level uh last week uh there it's under review and uh we can only hope that this will be bring forth a more logical or reasonable uh change to the disproportion of funding that we've already received so for those uh who may be in the audience who are doubting whether we should be restructuring um the last slide I really need you to think about what the Alternatives would been and $13 million deficit is a large deficit so if the the choice and doing nothing is a choice um if we were not going to do anything to address that from redistricting or restructuring we would be looking at a at another spring of clinging to hope that the state's going to ride in on a white horse and solve this situation for us and we know how that played out last spring or keep this cut model going and keep cutting and eliminating positions programs and stripping resources from students and staff members so both of those pathways are not necessarily the most palatable paths uh in our future and that's why um we are where we are tonight and uh we're looking at uh an aggressive redistricting restructuring plan that could put this this uh entire School District on a path to sustainability thank you Mr binsky um so I think that paints a a pretty clear picture of the why i' I'd like to go into now the process of making these decisions and so um actually 5 years ago the board made and formed a uh board enrollment committee to review enrollment every year um and the board committee the subcommittee met several times over those last five years to keep an eye on enrollment watch for Trends and enrollment when might it be a time where we have to look at redistricting um and I do believe we have moved to that time um for several reasons based on enrollment and our fiscal situation that Mr binsky just outlined uh this committee was also part of the redistricting and restructuring committee so that board en RMA committee sat on the srrp committee this year the one of the district goals and the board goals was to set an Embark upon the strategic planning redistricting and restructuring planning and as part of that goal the srrp committee was formed and it was made up of equal representation of Administrators teachers and staff and parents this committee included um as I said earlier the board subcommittee and this they met for four months uh several meetings each month hours upon hours long they did intense hard work and I just want to take a moment to recognize them it was an incredibly important work everybody came to the table with an open mind ready to tackle every Challenge and task uh formulating a a framework for the future for this school district to be sustainable and to be strong for our students there were absolutely no shy voices in the room each member advocated strongly to ensure all perspectives were heard um and what were the benefits and the consequences of every option that um that was presented so it I just want to say thank you to all of you on that committee it was an incredible amount of work intense um at times and um I again thank you for that so I have shown this slide before this is the purpose and the role of the committee was to review data and other information presented identify priorities provide perspective and input and act as a think tank to address the challenges that were in front of us and to also help the administration make recommendations to the Board of Education um for the future of the district there was a priority list that was created these were some of the things on that priority list things to consider as we worked through the process some of these things would be U moved to the top of the list and then shifted back down um and moving from time to time depending on the situation and the considerations and other information that was shared um so you can see there I won't read them all to you but obviously Equitable courses and program opportunities for all our students uh long making sure that we're thinking longterm not just shortterm for our restructuring plan and making sure that there are Equitable um opportunities across the district at every meeting we reminded ourselves by looking at this slide of the results of the community that the community sent to us through the survey results uh this was a survey sent out in early fall asking people to comment about what is the most important outcomes you would like to see from a restructuring plan and as you can see the three main ones we're maintaining programs and academic supports for our students Equitable class sizes throughout the district for all and creating a district that is financially stable um and so these were reviewed at every meeting to keep us focused on what we knew our community felt was important as outcomes of this planning throughout the process of every meeting there were certain meetings where we came to a place of consensus this slide outlines I've shared some of this um at previous board meetings but I just want to note right here that at the the November um the November meeting meeting number four a consensus was reached to narrow eight options we'll look at those in a moment down to four options for our our school models that allowed us to achieve a goal of consolidating um one school consolidating to consolidating schools and being able to close a middle school which then would um lower our operational costs at the December meeting meeting number five consensus was reached that we cannot pursue a 10 through 12 High School configuration we had spent a lot of time looking at that would it be more feasible would it be better for our students um but decided that that was not something that this District should move forward with it there was not a lot of models in the state other school districts that had this and felt that they would not have enough time to really research and do it well so that came off the plate then leading us to a consensus that was reached now to narrow to two models at our meeting number six consensus was reached from those two models to one model also at that meeting um we finished our High School tours discussed the benefits um and challenges to each of our high school facilities and we reviewed the mission statement and core beliefs and at every meeting that we were able to we shared any of the concerns that came to us via email or phone calls so the community concerns as we tried to respond to all of them that came in that your concerns or suggestions or thoughts were shared with the committee they were they were read to the committee and they were also shared with the board the full board so just to put a little visual behind what I just said uh in October we had started with six models that we presented to the committee to review for possibility and Analysis data was provided behind those models the committee itself added three more models so we ended up with eight model models that we analyzed carefully I just want to note here for you um the yellow model the 4B was actually um created by the committee was a hybrid of the original four um and so the committee spent a long time looking at these models and looking at uh data Behind These models and discussing them and reviewing them against our criteria as I mentioned at meeting four narrowed those models those eight down to four eliminating models that did not allow for keeping cohorts of students together it was clear through the survey results that our community felt it important that our students stay together that we don't redraw lines and move and shift students away from each other who have been together um for years so that eliminated right away certain models that would require redrawing of sending areas for our schools so you'll see here that got narrowed down to four for that purpose um we spent a lot of time looking at a possible model for example of a 712 model that would have kept two 712 schools that was eliminated um recognizing that it would have to require redrawing of lines because that we would have unequitable availability of programs with a larger number of students in one school and a smaller number of students in another school it's very difficult to run two programs that are Equitable when you don't have the same number of students to fill seats for classes or electives or extracurriculars it also does not narrow or down our operating costs if we're trying to run two of everything so therefore that model was re removed narrowed down at meeting number five to two models you'll see here are the two models and this was the last board update and public update I had provided that we were to two models um and at the next meeting they do narrow down to to one um so after reviewing the high school uh areas the attention then got turned to these two models to our prek-8 uh portion of these models and analyzing those deeply um to consider what would be the best model selected and so this evening we are presenting uh committee consensus on the model of number 4B the yellow model which Nar the committee narrowed down to one which consists of a prek four for our elementary schools again recognizing that this will not change any sending area lines for students allowing our students to currently stay with their cohort of students creating a 56 School creating a 78 school and creating a 9121 comprehensive High School we'll go into more detail as that is as as we move forward that model I just want to show you some of the data behind the model that was considered and you'll see some numbers here I know it's a lot to look at but give me a few minutes to walk you through it reminder of what I said earlier about our enrollment Trends right so what you see here is the enrollment Trends and we took those enrollment Trends from our current numbers and en rolled them through the grade levels for three years and 5 years and you can see to the right there some of the trends that we've seen since 2020 the difference the number of student difference in those enrollment Trends so this is a very conservative estimate that we used because it's taking our existing cohorts and rolling them through the grade levels not anticipating any other enrollment decreases we may get so we felt it was good good to stay at a flat enrollment rate based on the current cohorts we have um and that's how we took those enrollment numbers through three years and five years you can see through that uh rolling out the current existing enrollment in 5 years if that stays flat and those cohorts make their way through the grade levels we're looking at an estimated 1,135 decrease in our enrollment this model can support that um and we'll talk a little bit more about what else the model can support I want to note here that the aster the first Aster um represents one additional preschool class of 15 students they're capped at 15 students for those schools we're required to meet a certain Universe they call it the universe with the additional state aid we get for preschool uh we believe we still will have some increases in that Universe for the next year or two after that I believe we will run flat as well uh therefore you see that we have plans next year to add one additional preschool there we currently have the preschool Annex here at Memorial High School it's the hallway of our preschool students fabulous uh program here for our students for preschoolers we're not planning on adding any additional preschool there currently and I'll explain a little bit more um down the road but basically that's to help us for any overflow that we may need if we have additional preschool space needed we'll have that space at the annex and therefore not affecting more space within the elementary schools okay I think I covered everything on that side so as I mentioned this model was introduced by the committee members themselves and we spent a lot of times time analyzing it using the data that I just shared with you it does preserve the sending boundaries for our elementary schools respects the feed feedback we got from our community it keeps our cohorts of students together for middle school and high school again not breaking up those Co cohorts and sending them to different locations it's mindful of the developmental needs of students um working with fifth graders in sixth graders they are more alike than our sixth graders our seventh and eighth graders so it does respect that developmental age group it works with our transportation tiers that we'll look at in a little bit and respects the concerns about the time spent on the bus as Mr binsky mentioned we must lower our operational costs we have an estimate here again once everything rolls out we'll have a better figure but it's an estimate of saving um permanently saving $8 million with this model by consolidating and and closing another building plus it does create the potential of closing another building for either renting it for revenue or selling it for Revenue and most importantly it allows for Equity of our programs and maintaining our programs our co-curriculars for all of our students and it unifies the district obviously creating one Jackson School [Applause] District okay so there's several benefits to all of the different levels um you know beginning with our elementary schools uh moving fifth grade out of the elementary school is is going to provide much needed space at the schools right now uh with the eliminate with the trailers uh being eliminated uh we definitely have some very crowded situations especially in a couple of our schools and uh removing the fifth grade gives us the extra space to make sure there's room for all all levels of instruction including not just whole class but small group um also special area classes like art and music will be able to be moved into classrooms uh which provides really a much better learning space and more optimal uh instructional space for that kind of instruction and as has been mentioned several times uh the elementary plan does not change the sending zones um very clear from our surveys and our and our feedback uh that'll allow students in the elementary level to remain with their with their friends in their schools uh the 56 building would be an upper elementary school approach it would be a new approach for our district um but keeping this age group together will be a much slower transition uh into Middle School uh we'll be able to use a team teaching approach as well for our students which would be very beneficial to get used to the idea of changing teachers but not be in a full middle school or High School approach um this school setup will also allow us to introduce additional opportunities for students such as inter murals and clubs uh on the fifth grade level we'll be able to bring back instrumental music something we have not had in our fifth grades for many many years um and allow us to create fifth and sixth grade bands fifth and sixth grade choruses that can really help build stronger programs uh for the upper grades uh going to the Middle School the our 78 model um again several benefit SE several benefits there as well uh combining our students will provide a lot more opportunities for Equitable courses and clubs and by utilizing one of our high school campuses as a 78 building uh the students will have access to additional Fields courts gyms um a lot of extracurricular space uh it's room and situations that are much better suited for a lot of those extra things that are not available right now on the Middle School level and again as been said many times the 78 School unifying all our students at that level will really help our district as they're unified and middle school going into High School uh together and then of course our High School uh the benefits on the high school level which are tremendous um by combining we can really keep all of our programs very strong our Academy programs our Junior Roc right now which is only located at one building and students from uh the other school do need to be busted over if they're part of it it allow all students to have equal access to being part of that which would hopefully increase our enrollment in that program um having more students will really provide more scheduling opportunities uh more options for classes a lot of our with our block schedule a lot of times there's single Singleton classes where there's only one section offered uh during the whole school year and students often have conflicts and might have to choose between one or two courses that they really take having additional courses additional staff would allow us to provide more opportunities and hopefully limit the amount of conflict students have with their schedules uh we'd be able to keep and expand our AP our honors classes and electives and in the world of Athletics uh the increase will really provide opportunities to expand our JV and also offer freshman teams which is something that we really have not uh been able to do in many of our sports for several years uh due to enrollment due to interest um having both schools together can really help uh you know build our Athletic program on all levels from freshman through JV and varsity and then again most importantly has been reiterated several times it really does unify us to be one Jackson one school thank you Mr rante looking to the Future this plan is flexible for enrollment shifts whether they're increases or decreases that was important to the community the committee to ensure that that um was possible either way um even with flat kindergarten enrollment as I as I mentioned earlier as the cohorts move through move through the grades will experience Elementary decline so we have room to um if there are some buildings we've been keeping an eye on all of this construction that is planned for Jackson We recognize you see some of them listed that up there on the screen um we have allowed for growth if need be in this plan um and also if we continue to decline in enrollment now it is hard to predict when the that construction will actually be built um it's also hard to predict um how many public school children will come out of those developments as well um but we wanted to pre prepare a plan that would allow for either increase or decrease in enrollment and we believe this model does that um we also as I had mentioned earlier about keeping the preschool Annex flat right now um it allows us the opportunity to um ensure that the priority in the elementary schools is for a kindergarten through fourth graders to have adequate space available in their buildings so that if we need to we can move a preschool classroom into the annex providing more space and opportunity um within the elementary school for the other grade level students so moving on to the very next difficult decision um and recommendation that needs to be made is the recommendation of how to use the facilities and what facility we will look at to to close uh this decision was obviously not taken lightly uh was hours and hours and days and days and months and months of consideration lots of factors considered and weighed um not easy and uh we really spent a lot of time in discussion and figuring out what would be the best use of our facilities for our students um across the entire District um and so with that the recommendation for the board to consider that aligns to the model that the committee is um suggesting for grade stands that gets middle school will be closed and sold or rented to lower our operating costs that we utilize McCulla middle school as our one Upper Elementary School to house fifth and sixth graders and that we utilize the Jackson Memorial School as one middle school for our seventh and eighth graders and our preschool Annex and that we utilize the Jackson Liberty as our one high school for our 9th through 12th graders all schools that we've selected have room for students instructionally the decision to utilize muli as an upper elementary and to close gets is based on the ages of the schools the two middle schools and the architect's analysis uh for those of you who recall gets was built as an Open Space School um it has metal walls s that were put in to make individual classrooms and our architect has said to bring that up to 21st Century Learning would be most fiscally responsible to actually tear it down and rebuild it um so that was a major factor in that decision Liberty was designed and built as a state-of-the-art high school meeting all of the needs for space inside and out does not mean that any one of our high schools is not not good both of our high schools are wonderful schools um it just provides a more high school focus for some of the uh concerns for example of parking for our students our staff our visitors large hallways for transition time between classes and the outdoor uh campus itself Memorial can better function as the Middle School the annex for the prechool and in the past the Clinton Wing actually was a a middle school it was built for that I recognize that that this decision is a recommendation um and is something that is a very emotional decision and an emotional um moment for many people we recognize that and we will address and work through all of our challenges of uniting our staff and our students to ensure that we become one United place please know that's not going to change the wonderful teaching of our wonderful teachers that happen in our buildings we still will have our same teachers we'll still have our same students it's the facility that's different and the facility for some of us will be different some of it will be the same but we want to come together as one Jackson more on that a little bit later in the presentation the tiers for busing I we wanted to ensure that um everybody understood the recommendations for next year's school start times and the tiers for busing so the High School will remain on tier one uh as it currently does it does also provide the time of tier one is less congested on our roads for around Liberty so we will continue to keep our high school functioning on tier one tier two will remain the same for the Middle School a 7th eth middle school but in addition it does move uh two of our elementary schools to tier two an 810 to 220 day it was important for us to break up the Crawford Johnson tiers as they share the same uh bus ramp and it's very complicated uh those of you who work there those of those parents who are there on the drop off um and pickup line recognize that and so we have moved that up to tier two tier three um is a recommendation for the 56 building to operate on tier three and the remaining elementary schools of Crawford Elms and switlick as well as the preschool Annex this recommendation allows for the best use of all of our buses and our drivers and not overburdening one of our tears um we've been through a lot through Transportation um over the years with the lack of drivers and um just running into issues with buses being backed up because one tier was more overburdened than another tier this spreads out the tiers more evenly allowing for smoother times um and less delays so as I mentioned earlier we have been keeping track of the questions that come to board meeting that the parents have brought to board meetings the public have brought to board meetings and our staff any emails we've received with questions uh we have been keeping track of those and we have a Q&A document that we have started and and Miss Irwin will push that Q&A document out tomorrow to our community and our staff so that you can see some of the answers that we've already provided um please know this is a work in progress and we will continue to add to that list and answer questions when it's appropriate some decisions we're not ready to make yet until there is a final decision and a board vote um but I just want to highlight uh for example just a few of the things uh tonight in that Q&A document that we've heard um will the total bus time for students traveling from one side of town to the other be kept at a maximum number for minutes that's a big concern for our parents and we recognize that and so uh Transportation travel times were a big factor in our decision making and our analysis and working with the transportation department they work to keep bus runs under 50 minutes or less that's the threshold to start with and then they work um after our software pushes that information out then they work to lower those times by combining routes shifting things around so we'll continue to do that and try to get that even lower um but that's the minimum that we set we set the max that we set as we as we move forward and plan will there be moving up Ceremonies for fourth graders this year um yes and that is going to be planned by school administrators what about the opportunity for fifth grade to have safeties yes we anticipate this spring there'll be some time for for safeties to participate we are also hope that um in the 56 building there'll be some opportunity for safety role that's developed in a more uh appropriate age level way have we considered converting one or two of our elementary schools into preschools as other districts have yes we did we did talk about that this was discussed um this was a model that was not selected as it requires the redrawing of the sending lines for most of of the schools then to do that all of your Elementary schools would have new sending sending area lines to do that um and probably also true for our middle school and 56 uh building um and as a side note having a preschool in our buildings helps our budget because it is um state aid that we receive for our preschoolers that can be applied to our our buildings that they are housed in we've had some questions about GPA class Rank and NJ stars um the way that the GPA is calculated will not change that's a mathematical calculation um the work done by students will be be reflected accordingly in a GPA um and I just want to note here that um when colleges review the transcripts they are looking at the rigor of coursework and the size of the school those two things are heavily weighted as colleges look at transcripts um and it's a mathematical calculation class rank um anytime a larger cohort is used it could impact where students are in comparison to the peers um and that's that's truthful uh NJ Stars again yes you're bringing students together it's a larger cohort it could impact some who um some number of students but the criteria doesn't change it's still 15% of the total number that's used for NJ stars um and it's just when you bring a larger cohort together that's that's what's going to happen um traffic gestion um is a concern on the Liberty side of town has it be considered by the committee absolutely the traffic has been considered and having as I mentioned earlier the high school in tier one addresses some of that concern not all of it but some um tier one is less of a congested time uh there is also a traffic uh flow plan that both our high schools have um and Liberty will have a plan as well that helps because there's multiple entrances and exits um easier able to control control the flow of who's going in certain ways and who's coming out certain ways to help with that congestion we certainly will also continue to ramp up our driver education program and requirements for students when they um they go for their permit to drive um and on our campus so next steps what will be next after um this final decision is made by the Board of Education um as a reminder tonight after the board has an opportunity to comment and ask questions there is a public forum forum for all of you to come forward and share your concerns um and questions there is a specific meeting that we arranged on Wednesday February 5th again for this purpose for second public forum on this topic um for our community to speak and present their concerns as well that meeting is a sole focus on this plan and um we hope that the board will vote on that evening as well at 6m here additional next steps okay our administrative team this evening has presented the best work and outcomes of the restructuring committee to date while that collaborative work brings us to this recommendation after the board of education votes on a restructuring plan new work will need to quickly commence as we've discussed our financial situation doesn't offer us the luxury of time time in this regard so I want to take a few minutes to share a broadscope overview of what some of those action steps will be collaboratively we'll be creating schedules for the new 56 school that maintain the goals of an upper elementary school including among other things recess and team teaching also we'll be working to create a new middle school schedule for a 78 school which will have the potential for expanded electives possible when all of our dist District Seven seventh and eighth graders are in one building voice is incredibly important throughout this change process we'll be surveying staff about requests for placement while we'll always prioritize what's best for our students our goal will be to accommodate requests when possible we'll determine the need for coaching staff as well as extracurricular advisers and a protocol for hiring for all positions we'll create and share a timeline so that staff are informed at the earliest possible date of their assignments for the 2526 school year we know that change can be difficult and communication is an incredibly important component to facilitate change we'll oversee the various technology needs and shifts that need to occur in each of these schools and create a timeline for movement for staff as well as instructional and curricular supplies culture and climate are also incredibly important during this District transition will aim to create stakeholder committees including students to plan activities events and opportunities for our students and staff to join together to unify our schools we'll want to get started with these activities prior to the end of the 2425 school year lastly the Jackson School Districts and its schools have a rich history of traditions as we merge middle and high schools a committee will work to honor and repres present a collaboration of the Traditions at each individual School through rebranding and unifying one Jackson while these changes are vast for our district there's an incredibly exciting time for all of us to be a part of this change it has to be our combined mission to unite our students staff and Community we obviously recognize that these changes um there will be some challenges along the way um but as this district has done and this staff has done over the past seven years we will work through them together for the benefit of our students that's why we were all here for the benefit of our students and we believe these recommendations are in the best interest of moving this District forward honoring the past and building a new new future to our school district making these hard choices now allows us to preserve the programs that make this an outstanding school district and it is an outstanding School District with offerings for students in Every Which Way of what they're interested in and we need to keep those things and if we don't do this we won't be able to keep those things we have the opportunity to come together to create one Jackson school system that is United change can be difficult but it is can also be good and exciting and I hope that we can come together to make this an exciting time for our students with that I conclude the presentation and turn it over to the board for comments and questions do I have to say anything can I just start um I'll open it for discussion by the board does that mean I can start or do someone want to start um I just want to know when the recommendation um is anybody able to tell me how many students from switlick Elms and Johnson are in the fifth six compared to Johnson I'm sorry Crawford and hullman sorry um the the students like how many students at swi Lake Elms and Johnson versus how many students at Crawford and hullman are going to be fifth and sixth graders next year I can get okay okay will sorry I will answer that publicly once I can get them to you I don't have them in front of me right this moment um do you know if there are more fields at either Elementary School for recess time are there fields at every Elementary School is that what you're asking at the middle schools oh at the middle schools between the two middle schools is there one with more Fields For Recess guest would have more yes guests would have more Fields um aoli has a um it's a it's a fit um obstacle course um fit I believe is the name of it so that's established in the back part of the front parking lot so there's a front parking lot there are some um there are some areas behind the back of the school but not per se Fields um you mentioned not necessarily you but the presentation mentioned um the engineer report for the facility at gets requiring a full tear down for it to be a state of bringing up to the 21st century Teaching Standards for a middle school and when you're discussing a 56 being an upper elementary school would the same recommendations for facility upgrades be um I don't know the correct word that I'm looking for man mandatory or necessary yeah I understand what you're saying so I would say yes because you know you're you're looking at a school that was not built with the intention to have single classrooms it's you know we over the years you know um Administration through the years have put up the walls um so there are classrooms but they are you can hear through them um and there are certain updates you have sinks that are in the hallway for the bathrooms the bathrooms need updated that would not change um so what's best instructionally for students um would be a mof type setup now looking at the enrollment numbers I just like jotted them down and then I was going to take my calculator out but essentially if we're looking at a 5year with just flat enrollment no UPS or Downs right in five years you're going to be down about the same number of students that you'll be down prek to four versus 56 so what what would that look like at the fiveyear Mark so again we don't have a crystal ball these are estimates but if enrollment continued to drop this model uh down the road maybe it's 5 years maybe it's seven years maybe it's longer um if enrollment continues to drop that I would suggest I I don't know what it will be then and and whatnot but you have the opportunity then to move fifth grade back to Elementary and sixth grade into a middle school model if you needed to to consolidate I don't want to take over but I had a few questions I don't know if someone wants to like jump in I I have you want to go ahead go um so one of my questions is can the state require us to have to choose to sell one of those m middle schools or is it our choice we vote on selling or renting or is there like a situation where they go you know we're overriding you you have to sell so the first thing I would say that's going to be dependent on our state aid numbers and our budget situation on whether we would recommend selling or bringing in continued Revenue through renting right so that's going to depend on our budget numbers as they come in I would guess but I will ask Miss Morris to help me with this is if we were in a budget deficit that could not be closed by renting I think that they would make a sell that would be my guess would that be pretty accurate you would have you have to have a balanced budget presented to the state so in order to have it approved okay so I guess what doesn't make sense to me maybe you can answer this is if you choose to sell that will help in the very short term and then we're right back where we are where renting is revenue you know schools that have a really hard time other than like lunch where do you get your Revenue right so so my question I guess you know you do you advocate for us do you do you tell the state like you know yeah they could sell but it's not helping anything you mean now or I know you were talking about 5 years from now you're talking about now I'm talking about now because we are deciding okay so one of the things I want to say for the audience members here because um you know I live in the community and people ask me some qu some questions and what of the things that I want people to understand today is that what we just saw is a recommendation from the committee but the committee is not your board of ed your board of ed ultimately has to vote okay not saying that we don't appreciate everything that the committee did but right now we're looking at which school we should vote for should we keep gets or should we keep mlla so one of the things that I would like like to see because I would one I think we should rent and not sell so that we have Revenue but I would like to see like numbers from a realtor that says how much money can we get in rental froma versus gets so that when we are voting on that we kind of have an idea of which one could keep us out of this hole better does that make sense I don't know if that made sense did that make sense okay I I don't see any reason that you cannot ask a realator to do that if that's what the board wants to look at and and have um I don't know if they can provide you with u that kind of a figure um if you're asking as I understand it now you're asking uh for an estimate from a realtor as to what the what kind of Revenue renting it would bring in right but as opposed to selling yeah but also if we can can earn money through renting would the you know would the state support that instead of selling I mean ultimately right now we could vote on anything and you can override us so well I think you'd have to we'd have to look at the ENT ire proposal um you know your superintendent and committee that is has been working on this has a presentation obviously that they're making tonight and to you as a full board um that represents everything they've looked at and I don't think anybody could accuse the committee of not having looked at everything possible as far as the the um options are concerned um but you know until the board makes uh a decision obviously it will be your decision on the agenda to support the superintendent and committee's recommendation or not um so you know I at this point in time the state the state's interest is seeing that you have taken the steps that are necessary to generate revenue for your District that can sustain the kinds of programs and recommendations that have been made tonight um so you know that that's really what's online in other words if it does be very difficult an emotional question but it becomes a very very uh easy one to to explain which has been explained tonight you cannot spend and propose a budget for the district no school district can in the state that spends more than you have the revenue to to support it I mean you you can't get to the middle the state is not going to permit you to get to the middle of a school year um you know and simply close the doors and say we can't go anymore we don't have any we don't have any money that's not the interest certainly of anybody so at this point in time in answer to your question um you know I don't know if that's was a consideration of the committee um to to get an estimate on on what you could rent it for or not but um I don't even know if that's available that would be available at from a realtor I think you'd have to explore that we certainly will explore it um you know it's something that the administrative team talked about um once we were closer to a recommendation um so we will we'll see what we can do okay I just have one more comment um just something for the audience to think about while you're sitting here so soon it's going to be the open uh public session so I'm guessing a lot of you came to speak during that time and we don't vote until February and so you know I am hopeful that when you people come up to the microphone tonight that we're a little less emotional of oh we love this school the teachers are great at this school nobody's debating that nobody's debating that right but when you watched this presentation did we miss something where's the Gap in our thinking what you know think about like the data let us know if you know that we're missing something because we have to take this all in we have to digest this we have to discuss among ourselves and then we have to vote on this in February so don't be shy if you know like they're not thinking this but again that's not emotional stuff I mean you could say whatever you want when you're up there but that's not emotional stuff we need that like concrete data okay thank you yeah you can go yeah um are we concerned about transporting 600 kids across town to a middle school that only has a oneway in and a one way out with our buses that now we have more children and those buses cannot make sometimes a left out of the one way in and the one way out well certainly um you know we currently use that school um and they currently have um buses coming in and out staff and parents um in this case a 56 school we would um we would have mostly bus traffic coming in and out um and again we would hope that parents would put their children on the bus and maybe alleviate some of the um drop off and pickup so with with all of our buildings and all of our schools all the schools that we we use all these schools currently and so we try and strive to create the smoothest Transportation plan we can what we can't control is the traffic that um is out of our hands based on what happens in a in a in a town I think across all of New Jersey uh we've seen increases in traffic but of course it was a factor um to consider and um as I said earlier lots of factors were considered and different weights provided for different reasons um and we would hope that we can create a plan that could be the the best plan um using that but of course always concern yeah um I guess a concern that I had uh just put it out there was moving everybody over onto one side of town that's already riddled with a considerable amount of traffic and um accidents and putting putting some of our newest drivers onto Hope Chapel Road that I try to avoid at all costs so that's a uh that's a concern for me um and having an increase of traffic on that side of town is something that I think we need to [Applause] consider do we have any idea of what staff costs would be made um certainly we've we've looked at that but we're not in a position to be able to make those decisions and you know move that forward yet once we'll have a better idea once the a recommendation or not is approved but we're not there yet but we will in this model we believe we'll save about $8 million in operational costs how would you make these Cuts what would be your parameters for that um it's a it's a little early to be um speaking about that until we have a better idea um but the same way that we always um address any staff Cuts we've been doing unfortunately staff cuts for seven years um and so we have a process that we work through which is obviously looking at CS for certain things and then obviously tenure versus non- tenure I want to piggy back on you Mike um I had a couple little question just at the beginning of the um presentation and I might sound out of order and go back but I felt like when we talked about um the staff reductions it was kind of shocking at the number of cost savings so can you speak on will we actually be able to do the great things that we're talking about with elective Sports classes um with with those reductions and um yes so that's the Hope um you know until we have numbers in front of us and a vote from the board to where how we're moving forward these are all estimates got it so once we get closer to a final decision or we have a final decision and we better know what our state aid numbers obviously that will help us too but by consolidating and not having to as I said earlier run two of everything um when you have two middle schools and two high schools you're naturally now having more availability and Opportunity by using some of our facilities by using um a facility that lends itself to more electives and combining our staff with who have certain certifications for certain electives it provides more opportunities for students we can also run more classes because we have more students who will fill those classes we had gotten into a place where in some cases we didn't have enough students to run courses whether it or electives at the middle school or the high school level so this will by making it more Equitable it will allow us to run more course opportunities for students and electives can you just like describe for me um an example of like what would what would a Community member look at and be like wow that's like an awesome robust elective that we're now offering in 25 26 wow um I can speak to certain atives yeah certain AP courses that we have you know for example AP Calculus BC uh typically we only get maybe 8 to 10 students maybe interested in a class like that once you combine both high schools you'd be able to have you know one robust class of 15 20 kids in a course like that um several of our AP courses F fall fall fall in that category where we really just don't get the enrollment to really run full sections of them so that that would be one of the biggest things same with some of our honors courses um when you start getting into the areas of business accounting economics courses like that uh sometimes they will not be you know fully enrolled in one one of the two high schools if not both of them so those are those are like your higher end electives courses like that so like robust means that if a class is full right kids can have a discussion and maybe more interaction and the class is offered eventally trying to understand yes and it's more cost effective to run like a unfortunately what happened because we've been in this cut model is a class that might have seven or eight kids we're just not going to run it because it's just not cost effective to run a class with that few students so um being able to run the class would be you know where our cost savings and our cost Effectiveness would come in I want to just go back to what Erica was saying and because one of my questions was like um Dan had brought it up like when we have these one-time revenues uh Dan you had mentioned like this could create issues like what what are the issues like what's the big deal of just having a one one time fund and not getting something consistently so just take this year's so we we built a $7 million land sale into this year's budget that we're in right now so we anticipate getting more obviously we have a buyer for Rosen hour we're going to get more than $7 million so it it makes it okay for this year but as we roll into next year our expenses matched that Revenue this year with7 more million so now when we roll over now we need to find Revenue to make up for and connect with the the expense level that we're at in like business administrator world if you had a one-time Revenue what would be something you would actually do with it that made sense besides balancing the budget yeah so putting in into rolling in into fund balance like basically rolling into the next uh School Year's budget would be something that you'd want to do on a very limited basis you could also uh put it into capital reserve to pay for construction projects for facilities you could also put into maintenance reserve for required maintenance uh maintenance that you do on your buildings and our comprehensive maintenance plan is about 1.5 million every year so we could put it into those things to make a sustainable um source of uh of funding for those those necessary expenses the maintenance fund I know it has a title but that fund has been defunded so to speak for us yeah so so our ability to maintain things yeah so this school district hasn't made a a contribution to the maintenance Reserve fund um in our recent history U we do have a very small capital reserve fund um and really in a school district this large we should be having a much larger one because at any time you could have a you know a facility need that requires you know like a major repair like a roof or something like that I have a question what collaboration efforts have been made considered to address Traffic Safety in especially in tier three um in the congested area and any recommend ations regarding number qualif I just want to make sure I heard your question correctly so what have we looked at in tier three um traffic-wise to address um so the normal things that um you know uh currently we've had an issue um you know that we've asked the police to look at and make recommendations um and we also met with the police department but you know they have limited resources too so that's cult as well um and so some of the things that we can explore is um on our property ensuring that maybe only a right turn gets made um or allowing for um you know again certain times that we make sure our buses can get out easily and hold on parent pickup or parent drop off to be a later time um so that they're not coming in together so those are some of the things that you look at to try and alleviate that other than that you know it it's it's it's it's beyond our our control of what has to happen there those are County Roads too so um you know that's difficult um the police department was kind enough to invite us to a a County Traffic meeting that we're going to tomorrow to express our concerns and see if they can help it at all as well and you'll keep us posted with that absolutely thank you how about Transportation maintenance how are we going to keep up with all these extra miles that's we're going to put on these buses and that I know our Fleet is getting pretty old yeah so so we've kept up with uh with replacing our our school buses on an annual lease every year a lease drops off a lease payment drops off and we add one and we've been able to to purchase uh nine school buses every year n new school buses um so that's been the cycle that we've been on um and when we ran the numbers we ran every scenario that the committee came up with for transportation um and there was actually some surprising things when you written the numbers what you would think would be a long a longer set of routes for longer mileage or whatever else actually it turned out to be uh shorter in some cases so I mean it it does wash out the transportation department does a great job and our our garage and our mechanics do a great job of maintaining our facilities doing the preventative maintenance to make sure that they last as long as they possibly can uh the Jackson standard for a school bus and the is the state standard we actually just talked about this with in our transportation department meeting um we use buses for 20 years so you know if you're a school district that's doing a replacement cycle at 14 years yeah you're spending a lot more money on school buses but we we we really uh we really invest in maintaining them to to get the most out of them what is the state required this the State Maximum is 20 years that's when we retire buses y anyone else yeah sorry um so thinking of the tier three dismissal times if you're using one side of the town you said that the Jackson Police don't have the resources to really help us out there right and Patrol during that time I know that we have discussed because their County Roads I guess that would be like the state police um did sheriffs okay um did we look into that further it like would they help with that would they delay any of the lights would they um Patrol traffic did anyone look into that yet that's our hope tomorrow at the meeting to discuss that yep any other further discussion from the board um I want to thank the administrative team thank you very much um I need a motion to open public forum on any topic pertaining to the Board of Education motion second please sign in and state your name and whether or not you are a Jackson resident each person is allowed a maximum of 3 minutes to speak no person may speak more than once on the topic until all others have been heard the gam begin are you guys going to select who goes first okay I'll start with you officer HBA okay uh good evening most of you know me uh Jeff Hena 43y resident um Memorial graduate 99 I know a lot of you here um I'm also a police officer in Jackson a sergeant I was in the traffic safety unit for the last two years I do have data from Traffic Safety that test that we just ran the last two weeks um I'm going to go over that Mr binsky you this 3 minute time limit in my opinion is absurd with a decision like this um so if I talk a little longer it is what it is to the school monitor with all due respect none of these problems even happened until you got here and until the Murphy regime took over the state so really I don't really her opinion doesn't matter to me all right so I have a couple questions and I'm going to get into to the data so just give me give me some time here why are we continually running millions of dollars in the negative when you have cut multiple positions in programs the last 7 years where's the money going why haven't we figured out how to operate a sustainable budget these last seven years with the decrease in students how is this committee formed I was never asked I'm a resident here 43 years a member of the police Farm was never asked members of the committee and Schoolboard members had a meeting on January 8th two weeks ago with our public safety director and traffic safety the officers to discuss the traffic in and around both schools the traffic data around Liberty was completed today and Memorial hasn't been started yet because we were just asked to do this a couple weeks ago but apparently already made a decision without this data why don't you put grades 5ifth through 8th in one school then 9th through 12th in another why are we wasting our time putting a fifth and sixth grade fifth and sixth graders in a in a in a in a middle school it makes no sense this decision was rushed the committee didn't do all the research before the decision was made as you can see by the meeting with the police department uh was only conducted on January 8th Memorial has 20 more classrooms in Liberty yes parking spaces are more at Liberty however the senior parking argument that I see on Facebook is ridiculous as you can go back to a lottery for senior parking permits like we did in the late '90s and 2000s driving as a a privilege and if a student isn't selected in the lottery system then guess what they can carpool with their friends which would decrease which would decrease the amount of vehicles driven high school every day and my last concern before I get into the data is Athletics something I'm very passionate about we have 20 more seconds off well that's going to go over man cuz I got a lot more to go over sir sir everybody's going to have to follow the three-minute rule tonight uh until everybody had an opportunity all right Traffic Safety has run some preliminary inquiries through the New Jersey Division of highway traffic safties New metric crash analysis tool to obtain comparison data for crashes around both the Memorial High School and a Liberty High School we filter the results to only show data for crashes occuring 21 22 and 23 I'm sorry but your three minutes is up come back you can come back around [Applause] M am I do what you want can you hear me you're um yeah over here thank you thank you uh my name is Andrea frangela I have two kids in the district just a few things I want to State um where do sixth grade Sports fall into to um anywhere because now that's a fifth sixth and then the 7th 8th so are they not going to be included in Middle School sports since they're now considered an upper elementary um traffic we get it but um when they're starting that early in the morning I can get my kid to school in six minutes straight up Hope Chapel Road without a problem so and then the last thing I want to say is um I just hope that the board regardless of what side of town you live on you vote objectively and clearly on what the committee has come up with thank you before the next person speaks I just want to let everybody know we're going to respond to questions at the end so we are taking notes got it thank you uh I signed in Jennifer Lun uh Jackson resident 48 Redwood I'm also um a council member council president for the last two years um a lot of you guys know me you're probably not going to like what I have to say right now but I'm very transparent if you've seen my meetings I've opened up the lines of communication between the township and the Board of Ed in the last two years I've met with you I've talked about traffic safety we've gone over you guys selling property Township has bought them and there's still no money selling is obviously not working so I think we really need to look into with other schools with gets looking into renting it and keeping the real estate as the values go up in town and that you guys can situate when when we're in that 5-year plan then look at the redistricting look at what you're doing and also in regards to putting fifth and sixth graders I know as a council person a lot of residents reach out to me a lot of people don't understand that the council in the township has nothing to do with the Board of Ed or your own entity but again I constantly try to reach out you guys don't reach out to us throughout this whole process but when we when you guys wanted to sell property and we had to sit down you guys were going over traffic and busing I'm the one that set up those meetings the county meeting that you're talking about I reached out I reached out with traffic safety and we set up those meetings he's going to read reports and they need to be read and I understand it's a lot but we know what's going on with the accidents and stuff like that I am not getting into decision of where to go or what to do but I am going to get into the decision of that the you guys need to reach out and work with the township and the council because we need to ask answer people that come to our meetings and ask us questions and say where's my fifth grader going to go you know one of my best friends has he's not going to get to enjoy what fifth graders get to enjoy that's a lot for these kids you know it's a lot for a fifth grader to be in with a seventh or eighth grader I'm just saying it's it's whatever you guys are doing with the reg thing but I am saying I'm reaching out on Olive Branch on behalf of administration and counsel I am legislation I am councel but we here and we would like to work together and be involved in these decisions thank you officer hamba I'm so sorry but you have to wait till everybody speaks it's public it's just the law president ofon school I want to hear what he has to say too but I just my time to the officer I'll go back over there then Dr Dr Christopher Val I just wanted to say that I hope that we can all come to together as one whether it's at school A or B and be one together thank you um hi my name is ashon kinsky I'm a junior at Jackson memoral high school I lived in Jackson Township my whole life and intend on finishing my senior year at Memorial in the event that it rains on that momentous day I will walk across the stage that you all sit in front of I love this school of course she isn't perfect no one is but she's full of memories for me and other students here my older brother was a senior my freshman year meaning I had a guaranteed best friend best friend throughout the year seeing his paw print in upstairs Memorial is a constant reminder of his legacy at the school and the dream of having my pal print next to his has been mine for as long as I can remember in this massive Auditorium I have performed countless times before I was even a thespian both solo and alongside my dear brother this room means more to me than the thought of sharing a classroom with upwards of 30 kids if not for this room to be blunt I wouldn't be here I would have given up on myself far too early luckily Miss larsson's drama club saved me from the never ending spiral I found myself in the guidance staff not notably Miss kazano whose office I've have cried in more times than I'd like to publicly admit has ironically been my Guiding Light for the past three years at Memorial I know I can walk in Miss seer's office whenever I need to talk about anything stressing me out and I can stop by Miss Leopold's room just to talk about my day I would argue that this school holds some of the best teachers and staff in all of New Jersey and uprooting 60 years of dedication just to send students to a newer shinier School School seems awfully unfair every board meeting held in the past however many years has been held and recorded in this Auditorium the classrooms are significantly larger than those at Liberty and the student drivers have a much safer chance of making it to Memorial scor parking lot than they do trying to get into Liberty please let me and my friends finish our time at Memorial I understand fully that I'm just some random girl standing up here probably crying about a subject that you probably don't really care about but this is my community it is my school my senior year and my me my memories 60 years is a long time to throw away in an instant thank [Applause] you hi my name is Dave Mazika I'm a Jackson New Jersey resident I have kids in the public school system here my question relates to the operating savings it was cited that we would save $8 million permanently I'm wondering if you mean per year um I'm also wondering um how um where that savings comes from from going back to Michael's question it seems like if um we do nothing from what Dan said we're going to have to cut faculty and staff it also sounds like by doing this we're cutting faculty and staff um miss permil you seem to indicate that we don't know what those numbers are until we make a decision that seems to be a little bit backwards it seems it seems like you need to present you need to present those numers so it's clear so you have a clear comparison on what are the cuts by doing nothing and what are the cuts by by making this change um it sounds like we're going to have a $13 million deficit in 2526 um you subtract a from that that still leaves a $5 million deficit um presumably selling or renting um uh gets will you know get us out of that hole a little bit but that maybe buys a year or two if that and then we're right back to where we were question mark and and then what right do we have another like we we only have so many schools that we can sell um so that's a concern and lastly I would like to see um the comparative value of gets versus mcauliff and mccauliff is that much more of a desirable asset um because it's a newer shiny building and also probably because it's location and uh presumably of who the purchaser is going to be it seems like that would be that would be important to look at cuz theoretically if you got double for aalla for gets then maybe you could roll that money into refurbishing gets and getting it up to a 21st century classroom thank you good evening members of the Board of Education faculty and community members please assure that I am a very nervous high school student so this is kind of hard to do my name is Nicole raslin I'm currently a junior at Jackson Memorial High School when my family and I moved here from New York I wasn't sure what to expect but I quickly realized that this school wasn't just a place to learn it became a home over the years I've grown academically finishing my 8 to9 AP class room um where I plan to finish in 2026 joined extracurricular activities and even started my own medical BL based Club here and build friendships I'll treasure forever the school has given me opportunities I couldn't have imagined and has become a Cornerstone of my high school experience so when I heard about this possibility of our school be being moved I felt compelled to speak up not just for myself but for everyone who calls this school home I know you've likely heard about many defenses for keeping the school in its current building however I ask that you put this into consideration as I also propose a solution to minimize crowding in memorials hallways a shift schedule that balances our needs without uprooting our community our current location isn't just convenient it's essential bigger building equals bigger opportunities less traffic chaos more police uh departments here senior and Junior parking to address concerns about overcrowding I propose implementing a shift schedule that would divide students into different shifts such as for example but not limited to because of Transportation shift 1 7:20 a.m. to 1:33 shift 2 8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and shift 3 9:52 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. this plan allows us to keep the current building while managing class sizes and resources more efficiently it also a solution that minimizes disruption while addressing the concerns and I want to thank you all for the incredible experience the school has given me the teachers staff and my peers have shaped me into who I am today I know I speak for many students when I say that this school is more than just a building it's our community please consider this proposal as a way to address the challenges we face without sacrificing what makes a school so special thank thank you for your time hi I am Sophia Pano I am a sophomore here at Jackson Memorial High School uh first of all I would like to say start by saying thank you for taking the time to listen to the public on this situation my time here at Jackson Memorial has been limited see as seeing as I am only a sophomore however it has been special to say the least I've been given opportunities to do the morning announcements participate in fun school events and have the full Jaguar experience the most important thing to me about this school however is preparing for my future being in drama club has always been a plan of mine since I was in elementary school seeing as my dream has always been to go to college for musical theater and eventually be on Broadway I'm extremely happy that the drama clubs are combining next year because that means a bigger cast and more friends because we will have a larger Club next year the only answer to putting on a good production would be keeping jmhs as the high school combined drama Club means having more kids which means a bigger audience our Auditorium would be the only option to fit all of the kids even on the stage let alone people in the audience if the decision is for Liberty to be the high school does a bigger Club mean Cuts because the stage at the Liberty at Liberty High School is so small drama club is supposed to be a place where everyone is welcome no matter what some kids may not even feel comfortable auditioning next year because everything would be so unfamiliar I feel that keeping both our advisers would help with the merge and also give us a familiar face for a director our club is self-funded and we want to be able to do what we love unfortunately Liberty does not have the stage and space to do so if Liberty does become the high school next year and we wanted to use Memorial's Auditorium because of its size busting to this Auditorium for rehearsal almost every day would be impossible and a huge hassle lastly the tradition of fantastic production Productions put on here at Jackson Memorial are shown here on these walls the playbill paintings show how long the school has cared about the Arts and should continue to we want to join with Liberty we want to share that tradition with you whether or not that means here or there next year overall we want what's best for both theater communities thank you for listening and have a great night hi Deb Jones Jackson resident I like many people here I went to school here I raised my kids here Jackson's changing I'd like to thank the people who were on the committee cuz they did give up a lot of their time to do what's best for our school district and you guys have said one Jackson and I hate to be the one to say it but this school board is not facing this situation because of anything they did I wish half the people in here would be at Council meetings zoning board meetings all these changes that are going on in town are what's causing our school districts so we need to save them we can't put it on the back of anyone else we need to put it on our backs and start showing up uh hi my name is Gregory Sinclair um I am a junior at Jackson Memorial High School and I am part of the stage crew for the drama club um I wanted to come up here and kind of represent them because I feel like we're not having much enough like talk about them and representation as a club um I think that like as points that have been brought up before combining the two schools will mean double the drama club double the sets double the stage crew and the facts are that Liberty doesn't have a big enough stage to accommodate all of the sets everyone on stage and even if we did want to rehearse here we have a full week in which we' need busing and have like everyone have to be here and that's just a lot of resources that I feel like is unnecessary if we made Memorial the high school so hi I'm Marian jackon resident my whole thing is the safety of our students so traveling from one section to the other to a more congested congested area is a big fear for me and what is Jackson going to do to make sure our kids are safe are we going to put more street lights so the kids can see pedestrians walking are we going to have more traffic lights to stop traffic are we G to have police officers directing traffic to and from the area because we don't want any of our kids getting into a major accident also studies show later start times for high school students help them academically many other states do later for high school now you're asking our kids to travel further which is going to impact their academically also big class sizes is going to affect our children academically and their most important years because High School depends on high school depends on how they get into college and like I'm sorry but I'm just want them to be safe and to have a good education thank you hi um Nicole DTE Jackson um resident so am I correct that I heard before that the panel is who will make the decision um and that this was just a recommendation tonight if that is in fact true I would like to know how many of you are Memorial parents versus Liberty parents seems a little biased by some of the questions that were being asked um earlier um I would like to know who from the Jackson Police Department did this traffic report that he's so eager to share um I would like to know what cop it is because my daughter goes to mcauliff and I see the traffic at muli just so you all know it is not a lot of hidic Jews it is just Everyday People Like Us going to work that are passing by um so there is an officer that is there but he actually just stands there and talks to the security guard so I'm wondering this report who was it is it that same man that's there that's a little confusing to me um as for car pooling uh you would think as an officer that you would know you can't carpool because you can only have one other high schooler in the car with you not going to work um also for everybody super concerned about the high school traffic I drive my high schooler to school at 6:50 a.m. there are no hidic Jews out thank [Applause] you hey Jeff if if you'd like we could call you back up when everybody goes so you don't have to stand on there if You' like yeah going yep all right um I'm Derek Leighton I'm a junior at Jackson Liberty High School and I come to you here today because this is the deciding factor of whether I get to go to my own school next year or whether I go to Memorial um as far as I know um Jackson Memorial just this summer actually had one of the walls crumbling in the gymnasium and there were reports of rats and frankly I don't want to go to school here and I'm sure many of you are concerned with the safety of the students here as they are both your kid kids and here we are today deciding the safety of both your kids and their kids after them it is the future of this District that is coming in a question today I don't even know where to start because not because not only is the entire I don't know where the police officer went but you can't carpool like the memorial uh has one entrance and one exit and Liberty has three entrances and three exits there is no question as to whether there should be senior parking or which school is easier to drive into because there is simply just a lack of entrances and exits here at Memorial and as a member of stage crew at um Jackson Liberty the stage here is not that much smaller than the one over there maybe 3/4 the size but with a decreasing number of students as you all have pointed out it should not be an issue for next year I don't know the exact size of the casting crew of uh Jackson Memorial but I don't think it's going to be an issue in the future thank you hi my name is Jerry porlo I live in bayhead but I am the longest 10-year teacher in Jackson thank you thank you um I I work in mcalli I I'm on the side of town that there's traffic and I wanted to sure everyone that I never had to sleep over cuz I didn't have to get out you know I couldn't get out of Maller I am always able to make a left turn and might take me at some hours might take you know a little bit longer but I'm always able to make a left turn um and I want to ensure people that when when even though there there's a lot of people there we we we get out we come in and we come out it's all it's all good um I I want and I Hest I know how hard this committee worked and I know how tough this decision was and there are many people here that support you and I just wanted to take a moment and thank you hello Veronica Bernett um I live in town and I teach in town Jerry's number one I'm number four I just like to say um these decisions I so appreciate that the board has had to make the decisions just based on the facts and no emotions and I can tell you as a as a resident as a parent as a teacher especially I do a lot of things in Jackson I coach I do the musical at Liberty and the teachers that I know we are all committed to when this merge happens making it easier for your kids we want to embrace all of the students I have always said I want to teach everybody now I get to teach so many more people and I love that and as far as cutting um none of the programs that I do I cut anyway I don't cut cross country kids I don't cut musical kids your kids are going to get to be involved and my very favorite um musical composer is stevenh sonheim and I'm just going to give you a couple of his lyrics from one of my favorite musicals um into the woods um careful the things you say children will listen careful the things you do children will see and learn children may not obey but children will listen and children will look to you for what they can be and what they will do we have to set the precedent for how we're going to handle this if the parents act like their children can't succeed their CH their children are not going to succeed you have to make it okay because the change regardless of how the change happens the change is going to happen and one side of town is not going to be happy but those children still need to be successful those children still need to find their place those children still need to be accepted and they still need to enjoy high school and it's got to come from you guys so I'm imploring you please trust the teachers that are going to do everything we can to give your kids the best experiences we will treat them with tenderness and generosity we know that next year is going to be difficult for them and we want to be part of the solution so please don't think that just because it doesn't end up at the school you want it to be that they're going to not have the same opportunities and they're not going to be considered thank you you yeah you spoke already so I'm going to have to let everybody speak I'm so sorry y okay thank you Bonnie Holton uh Jackson resident westle Court um I spoke at the last meeting I just the traffic thing if that's such an atro atrocity in this town and I mentioned this the last meeting we need to fix it across the town my there's traffic everywhere there's accidents everywhere my kid drives I guarantee you if my child lived on the other side of Jackson they would drive to Starbucks which has to go through the side of Jackson to get there so to go to school to go to Starbucks to go to Target it's everywhere so traffic studies need to be done I live off East Veterans it's like a highway I put my kid on a bus on a highway every morning people flying by disregarding the buses so traffic needs to be addressed not at your level obviously but it should not be involved in a Boe decision this is about funding this is about saving the town and this is about saving our schools and doing what's best for the kids I will also say I do appreciate all of you up there I immensely appreciate the committee the work that they've done what you showed Miss parmelli on the numbers and everything that was done and the steps that were taken very methodical the last couple of meetings I've been attending please use data not biases not history not emotion let hit the history of this town left it's gone the history that once was is gone I moved here for a better life for my children 12 years ago we need to make it new and we need to make it something that they can be proud of now with the change that's happening now and not take more away from any of them make it better come together for them and I really hope that the forums that you mentioned about the students and I mentioned that last time really bring the kids as part of this journey because that's the only way that they're going to get and make it equal that's the biggest thing here because there is a divide and it is big and our children feel it if it's in this room our children are actually feeling it as well and there's fear and they need to be brought on this journey to make things better for everybody across the [Applause] board I am not touching this uh Carla cardace have been a resident for over 25 years at this point one is I do think we need to recognize the the high school kids who have come out here tonight to speak up I'm super super impressed with all of them I think it's great to hear from them who are going to be impacted the most so um just want to thank them uh number two is the traffic um yes everyone's talking about the traffic throughout the entire Township I fully understand that's not within your control however the traffic involved in combining two high schools is a reality it is very dangerous I personally like many of us others do not really like the whole veterans and Hope Chapel section is very dangerous so my request is not that you solve that problem but at least come up with some options because leaving it alone is not one um I've already had one accident there and that was just in the middle of the afternoon not during the school day but in the middle of the afternoon when kids are going to be leaving their extracurricular activities double the seniors double the cars and I had an accident so I I just think it's inevitable and I think we need to have a solution whether it is a traffic who is monitoring those intersections I understand the resources are tight but something has to has to be proposed so that would be my request is let's not just say we know it's bad let's do something about it the last thing is I have been part of the gymnastics team going on third year um every year we've begged for funding and every year understandably we have gotten zero so we've been self-funded we're gearing up for yet another self-funded season which is completely unfair to these girls I might add they had an undefeated season last season they were I believe 11 and one as a talented group of individuals who have had to bust their humps uh to pay for it the gym the floor needs repair there's a lot of things going on and so I speak not only for the gymnastics team but any other club or activity that has become self-funded I would hope that during all this planning there is a plan to bring some of that back if we're saving money and I love all the new programs and all the things that we're offering but how about returning the stuff that got taken away so that would be my request thank you hi good evening Diane leapold I'm a teacher in the school district I want to Circle away from traffic and I want to Circle away from the animosity that I feel as a vibe in this building right now and I think that we need to focus on the fact that Memorial kids don't want to be lions and liberty kids don't want to be Jaguars so I think what we have to focus on isn't this right here we need to Rebrand whatever we're doing and the rebranding can't wait till May I can't wait till June you need a committee and that committee has to include kids because our kids haven't been included in any of this they get to come to the mic they get to have their say they get to give their opinion but they have not been brought in on this conversation there wasn't a survey sent to the kids I talk to my kids all the time they have opinions they have Vibe they have passion that passion you need these kids involved stop having the parents come in stop having the parents talk about the traffic and the safety let these kids talk about it regardless of if they're a liberty kid or a memorial kid let these kids have say in what happens to our one Jackson and I'm air quoting it because we don't know what's going to happen you want us to come together we want to come together but we cannot do this without our student body we need our representatives in our student classes we need at 9 through 12 of the kids who are currently here we need our kids to have a voice and it cannot just be a bunch of adults making decisions on what's going to happen to them thank you okay so my name is Ronnie farelli I'm in sophomore I'm 15 years old at Jackson Memorial High School um I originally went through the gets and halfway through my I went through gets middle school and halfway through my e8th grade year I decided to go to valy Forge Military Academy to um personally um not only grow in my academic side but also because I want to pursue a career in the military this year I decided to come back to Jackson this is a decision between me and my parents and not only have I loved Jackson Memorial but it has been the best year of my public high school career Jackson Memorial High School has offered so many programs with the RC and you know keeping two separate schools and having two separate bodies it's not something that can just easily be changed overnight one of the big things for me was the location Memorial is a little bit more centrally located than Liberty has the board considered that those bus rides from the people on the super far left side of Jack all the way to the libert all the way to the Liberty side of town is going to be a super not only large commitment on the parents for you know not really parents that want to drive their kids to school but also the kids that are going to be on those buses losing out on so much more time during their day if we're talking about parking we also have to consider that maybe we don't have to give parking passes out as easily we can make it a merit and academically based system parking passes for seniors can be based on academic involvement honors and AP classes and overall like involvement in the school thank you that's all I have to say hi good evening uh my name is Mike Smith 55 year resident here uh graduate here uh 30-year teacher 25 year coach I'm not going to propose one school or the other my daughter's went to Liberty supported every athletic academic achievement they received so I'm not going to tell you one school is better than the other that's not going to happen but first first of all I've been here 30 years there's no rats in the building falling down that's just a fact all right I mean let's not exaggerate what's happening um second of all the east side of town is growing we know that I live off Whitesville Road is expanding all the time I just got 50 new houses put over there it is what it is grown road is also being taken over Jack's Memorial someone else said history and tradition doesn't matter that's the worst thing both schools have history both schools have tradition build what you have stay one stay sound I feel like it's Dayja Vu I sat here in 2006 and said one school should be to Junior High one she one school should be to high school and I was told I'm the football coach that's the only reason that happens but the reality is we knew this was happening we had 3,000 kids the bottom line is we have housed 3,000 kids here that's a fact so 3,000 kids have been here we were successful I just think stay where you're at you know we can do we can't go back and change it once we do it we get over there the East Side grows too big what are we going to do that's the bottom line I think we stay what we know it's successful hi I'm Jackie malinsky I have three kids in the district one's at Liberty so I mean obviously you know what I'm going to say about that like I live close to Liberty the traffic is just as bad on the other side of town the people that are saying that there's not accidents on the other side of town are full of crap like there's plenty of posts I see about accidents on the other side of town so I don't want to hear anything about traffic but my concern is like I I know you would ask for other issues that you might not see that are coming I have two at home in um I would like to know you to make sure cuz one of them is disabled so I would like to make sure that you are taking into consideration that all of the schools are capable of addressing issues with kids with disabilities second of all the tier for transportation I would like you to also consider the effects that it'll have on parents and issues with pickups and drop offs because in a year according to that my fifth grader is going to come home after my third grader so that's going to be an issue so just take that into consideration too Pete Boo as a lifelong resident of Jackson I just want long-term sustainability of our school district um I think we need to stop these shortsighted fire sales of our assets and uh like rosenhauer for pennies on a dollar uh what happens when we run out of assets to sell where do we see the district in 5 years from now there's no there's no crystal balls I understand that there's but you know how do we stop this bleeding and and and really you know I mean okay so these these uh developments they uh you know maybe there's no kids being born in these developments what if there are would we we build more schools we buy them back thank you um you spoke already so if you could just let the young man behind you go please all right um I'm going to speak about uh hold on I'm Donovan from Liberty uh r DC at Memorial is going to be bigger because of just the two schools combining and more opportunities but also just I lost it but just because there's more opportunities for people to grow and everything I lost it my fault oh come back to me later um I still got a couple new people that came to the mic how you doing guys Vin Mista uh 633 Winterberry uh Jackson um Jackson moral graduate um employee resident here since 1995 um so couple things first of all for everybody in the room um this is an unbelievable opportunity for Jackson to come together and Excel in the Arts in academics and in sports in athletics all right so we have to focus on the positives we got to come together first and foremost before anything else and again stop the animosity of us first them and all that nonsense um yeah and for anybody concerned about you know there's more people in this club or there's more people in this sport competition will breed success and will breed you know will allow people to fight through some adversity and get better at their craft so don't be afraid of competition let's embrace it all right um just going back to you know one of the slides you guys talked about some of the things points of emphasis when the committee was meeting um at the top of that list there was a couple things there was location of schools there was busing time and there was minimizing the number of students impacted and I think everyone has kind of touched on it and again we don't want to parp on traffic and all that stuff but as far as location if you're talking about the high schools Jackson memorial is a more centrally located school there is not going to be a 50-minute bus ride from any corner of town to come to Jackson moral high school and for my next year incoming fifth grader who's going to be affected and going to be one of those children on a bus for 55 minutes or whatever the the allotment you guys decided was appropriate it's not appropriate for my 10-year-old to be on a bus for an hour long before a school day it's not um and again you look at numbers and you look at the changing demographics in town and we are taking you know the majority there's there's a lot of kids on both sides of town still and I understand that but if you're talking about minimizing impact on the numbers and the data if you're taking the larger group and you're telling them to move to the side of town where there's the smaller group that doesn't really make sense as far as numbers and data go in my opinion um so it's a thing that we should look at you know both buildings are good I'm excited for the opportunity to continue to send my kids here to continue to teach in this District to hopefully be involved in athletics as it continues on but um you know as far as look at your words and the things that you put out here I don't think that a bigger hallway at Jackson Liberty is the main reason or should be the main attraction for that being named the high school it doesn't it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me thank you go ahead sir hi Dr Steve wusi uh I have three daughters in the district my oldest is a junior here at Memorial um I'm a 25 year educator so I want to talk about maybe some data that we haven't talked about uh I know traffic was a big piece of the study but I think we missed out on some pieces like uh violence and vandalism reports I don't know if we've looked into those numbers I have I know that the violence and vandalism reports at Memorial um are different than the ones that are at Liberty so I would ask you to go do those uh researches for yourself uh those are the type of pieces that we should start to look at at a high school ranking um you know when we look at the high school ranking between Memorial and Liberty I'm not going to stand here and disparage one school over the other I would encourage you to look at that my daughter my daughter is a a junior she has a full compliment she's taking four AP classes right now so um if we are missing classes for AP let's look to see maybe where those classes are being missed um because they're not here at Memorial I'm not going to disparage one school over the other but if you look at all of those type of data points and all of those data points point to one school but yet the other school has a fancier hallway I don't know if it makes sense to take academic Pieces away from the school that is already thriving so that they could be in a bigger hallway those those are some suggestions for actual data that you might be able to look at when making the decis decision on where students are going to go I am I have stepped foot in Liberty but I am not going to say that one school is better than the other that is for for the data to say the answer thank you uh hello um my name is Sophia King I'm a junior in Jax mamora high school I just have a question nothing really serious but I was I was just curious what's going to be how we're going to assign teachers to AP uh classes cuz uh I'm I'm going to be going to be a senior next year and I'm worried about my academics and my college and I want to know if we're going to sign teachers by seniority or by their score res results depending more on AP scores that's really thank you hi my name is Dar I've lived here all my life um I heard about Liberty's amount of students that are allowed to go to Liberty and the amount of students that are allowed to go here I believe it's 1,400 here and 1900 at Liberty so it's not about the hallways um it's not about the hallways another thing I wanted to address that I heard earlier that you guys wanted to hear was if you rent out a building you are responsible for maintenance on it so that might be something you can consider and I'm right in the middle of it all because I went to Memorial but my son goes to Liberty so it's very this is a very big decision and I bless all the students no matter where they go thank you hello my name is Erica r I'm a junior at Jackson memor high school and I'm really concerned about the security for next year because as many people may know Liberty Memorial kids do not really mix um as evidence from many football games as to oh sorry as to why there was not uh Jackson Memorial and Jackson Liberty football game this year because there's been many incidents um regarding fights and weapons brought to those games so will security increase will there be more um like some like more security with bathrooms will be be more security with common Lynch will Common Lynch just go away entirely how is how can I be sure that me and my friends and my other peers will be safe in depending on whichever school we go to that's all I [Applause] have um here and I'll everybody okay Stacy richardi I actually have a sixth grader and I have a junior at Liberty so you know this is a big b of contention in our homes and the only I wasn't going to speak but once I heard that gentleman speak about um the disparage he didn't want to disparage between the two schools I also have a junior who takes four AP classes at Liberty so I I'm confused on why he thinks Memorial having four AP classes is so much more significant than Liberty um I also wanted to say that I'm also confused about the whole traffic thing like we're not closing Jackson Liberty High School so aren't we still go whether we're busing our seventh and eighth graders to Jackson Liberty High School or we're busing our 9th through 12th graders to Jackson Liberty High School it is it's the same thing and I and I actually will have a child at either one of these high schools so um it's very important to me that everyone is safe like everyone says but I also up until recently drove my junior to high school every single day and I drive my mcalli student to mcalli every single day and I have to tell you I do not hit any traffic and when I pick my junior up by they get out at 133 by 1:40 the entire lot is empty the buses are out that second one and the kids use the first lot everyone's out everyone's safe there's no traffic and um yeah I hope that's taken into consideration but thank you hi my name is Isabella finer I'm a junior here at Jackson Memorial High School my family has been in Jackson their entire lives I have family members involved with law enforcement Jackson Police and Jackson towing the traffic isn't made up um I've witnessed it myself so I'm not just nobody here is making it up we've all witnessed it um that is a major concern that should not be taken lightly that are that's why so many people are mentioning it and that's why it's a concern to so many people cuz it's not made up and it shouldn't be taken lightly at all yes Liberty has nicer hallways this and that but it's more about safety concerns when it comes to how people are getting there and if there's middle school middle schoolers going there that means there isn't as many students driving there because none of them can drive so if there are as many high schoolers as there are driving to Liberty with the traffic that I have witnessed at any time of the day after Sports after school that's more concerning than having having middle schoolers who are being bused and not driving themselves obviously that's all thank you hi my name is Rich Haber I'm a 20year Jackson resident with three kids in the district I'm just hoping that's um someone can clarify what specifically the committee was responsible for recommending versus what the administration recommended because this was presented tonight as entirely a committee recommendation but my understanding is that the committee recommended um a structure but that the administration is recommending the buildings and if that's true I think that should be made public that's not how it was presented here tonight thank [Applause] you okay I'll rattle this off quick 21 22 23 there is 330 crashes 59 involving a driver between ages is 16 and 20 around Liberty High School um most crashes occurred on Tuesdays between 4 and 6 32% of Crash involveed this ta to driving 35% were same direction RAR Styles 1 mile radius around Memorial 95 crashes with 29 involving driver between ages of 16 and 20 um in 2024 there was 184 crashes around Liberty High School there's M to some one mile radius there was 68 around Memorial the volume per day on roadways this is East Veterans Highway North Hope Chapel South Cooks East vets another Direction and South Hope another Direction all done within the last 2 weeks total volume on East Veterans Highway member 1 mile radius 43,81941 156 Vehicles so that's 990,000 vehicles in a week um North Hope Chapel Road 45,2 72 Vehicles South coxbridge Road 88,9 vehicles in a week East Veterans Highway 44422 vehicles uh that's another Direction that's another week as well it was January 16th it started and on South o Chapel Road 82,000 uh vehicles um I have morning data I have afternoon data the problem is I don't have time to go over it all uh this is future plans and plans that were're already approved in the town to help determine future traffic infrastructure and congestion issues in the future near Jackson Liberty High School McCalla the Jackson Township Police Department traffic safety unit examined proposed sites that were submitted to this unit from the years 2019 to 2024 after reviewing all responses to the Jackson Township planning board 35 proposed sites were identified as being near the two schools and having a potential impact for the future of these sites 20 were able to be fully researched and 15 are still awaiting responses from the respective engineering firms with requested information while researching these plans the areas of South Chapel Road North Hope Chapel Road Whitesville Road East veteran Highway South cooksbridge and Brewers Bridge Road were focused the site PL are broken down so as to determine proposed use residential commercial educational retail from there the number of buildings for each site and any parking space that were proposed were also identified residents uh were not counted as having parking spaces some of these plans that were submitted are still in approval stages some have begun land clearing and some are near completion plans for single family homes with only one residence were not included of things to note there are SE there are there are several large projects each encompassing hundreds of acres of land that are being proposed to building hundreds of homes or large warehouses with hundreds of parking SP spes some of these proposed sites are Jackson Trail South Hope chaper Road 357 single family homes 102 low-income homes one house of worship with 208 parking spaces allotted Denton Pines Whitesville Road Denton Lane 41 single family homes gr toown Estates gr toown Road 482 single family 96 low-income homes there are also four other proposed gr toown Road sites with at least 225 homes requested to be built the formal Maple Lake Campground of site plans proposed consisting consisting of 200 single family homes and 104 Park space for house of worship there's also proposed private school that will educate 1,350 students uh on Brewers Bridge Road uh there's at least 27 more school buses to the area twice per day what's that um going to wrap you up here I have a question I know we said Le to the end but since you presented a traffic safety report can you tell me in the years if either one mile radius had any fatalities between Memorial and Liberty I don't have the fat fatality information uh with me but I'm not going to I don't want to misspeak I can get it to you yeah that'd be great okay thank you all right I come back again as uh representing Jackson Liberty High School when you consider merging the schools you do not consider one student body over the other after this year we will be Unified no matter what occurs or which school we go to there will be no avoiding fights but we can work past that there will be an ideological clash as these schools combine and there's nothing we can do to avoid that but we will merge after this school so when you consider what what location you're going to you do not have to consider the uh student populace but you do have to consider their thoughts and views on where they want to go not their views on each other speaking of one of these schools is quite older than the other and I do not know how that affects maintenance fees or anything like that I'm not an expert on economics or any of that sort but when you take into consideration how much you would have to repair Memorial as it continues into the years and gets older and older compared to Liberty which is only what 23 years old now it will be you sending your children's children to a school that is either uh 80 years old or like 120 so just keep that in consideration um just two quick questions I know you can't answer them right now but what will happen with common lunch at the high school and my other question is for fifth and sixth grade normally fifth graders are used to having before care is that something that will happen when we merge into fifth and sixth graders together will they have before care and after care now thank you um youngen all right hi my name is Julie nyman um I am a Jackson resident I have a fifth grader and a sixth grader there's not a lot of discussion about middle school right now so I kind of just wanted to basically say that no matter what happens with the high school if the middle school children aren't taking care of there are not going to be kids going to this these high schools whichever High School um the most important thing that a lot of the students have brought up is a sense of community that they feel in their schools and the pride they feel in that and putting fifth and sixth grade in a school and seventh and eighth grade in a school uh my daughter is a fifth grader she started kindergarten in covid uh mid year and they've had covid in kindergarten hybrid first grade this would move her to four schools in 5 years and that is not fostering any sense of community in our town and among our students um and the only other thing I just wanted to ask was if a 5 through eight model on both sides of town was ever considered because I feel like as someone who lived in Howell and went to one Middle School where nine elementaries merged this would be a big adjustment for all of the students who've already had a lot of adjusting um I know that if you moved 5 to 8 say here um they would have a theater and a track and you wouldn't have to bust a middle school to those facilities and you would only have to move half of the students to use the facilities at the Liberty side so I was just curious if that had been looked at and taken seriously because I think for as a few people have said the majority of students as I understand it live on this side of town and potentially moving them for six years of education to the other side of town there there has to be a better way for all of us I think thank you hi Katherine Baker Inari um resident of Jackson a 2022 uh graduate of Memorial and I have sophomore Memorial right now um first of all I want appreciate all the time and effort that's gone into everything and respect that this is going to be extremely difficult difficult for everyone that's involved um two couple things first off the 50-minute bus ride I can guarantee you I live over by great adventure along that way it's going to be 50 minutes if not more because I've driven my daughter from there to this school or to this school at 25 minutes with traffic so I can only imagine what it will be to Liberty so and I know everybody talks about I can get to this school easily I can get to this school easily there will be twice as many students so whatever you're doing now you can throw it out the window there's twice as many students and you're factoring drivers for a high school and if anybody's driven to Memorial in the morning there is a very long line of high school drivers that line will now be at Liberty along with twice as many buses so traffic is going to be a factor regardless um the other thing that I want to say is that everybody's talking about rebranding and I think that has to happen but I think if you look around you've got a lot of kids with graduate jacket jackets that say Liberty lions and say Jackson Jaguars so I really hope that whatever we do we are looking out for our Juniors and seniors next year because this is going to be really hard for them and they are lions and they are jaguars and you can Rebrand all you want but they're wearing those jackets now they don't want to wear a new jacket in the next two years so appreciate that this is going to be difficult for them all right um so I do track and the track field at Liberty is one of the biggest in the state that can hold the meat and there's also just more fields at Liberty than Memorial and also the traffic would just be bad at Memorial than Liberty it would just be as bad because of all the parents and students and buses going getting out of there and also we have theem at Liberty I'm not sure how we could have this at Memorial so that's all I had to say I just I would like to point out that there has been a lot of talk of traffic and with the parking and I'm not saying that the traffic is not important of course the traffic's very very important but I have heard little to nothing about the education and how big the physical class sizes are going to be and I think that if the board and the district is focused more on parking spaces then the education I feel like we should really just stop and really rethink what we're really focusing [Applause] on my name again is Dr Christopher vard and I've worked as a teacher um a principal I hope whether it's Memorial or Liberty you can provide these Juniors and seniors with the resources that they need to get ahead and prepare for college whether it's vocational school or academic school they can have the resources to learn more gather more and mature and go into college in a productive manner thank you as well I want to say thank you for your service as a police officer my friend and God bless you all guys thank you I'd like to make a motion to close public forum motion second all in favor I don't see discussion okay okay want to address them I mean I have one I want to address so I just want to address um president councilwoman cun who came up um asking for the board to work together with her and I just want to point out that the enrollment committee had former presid Board of Education president josephi Palmar reach out to the council um in November to start talking about some of the concerns that we could foresee happening and I just want to respectfully request that all of the people that are working to the benefit of town we don't play into the discourse we're here you know the people up here are volunteers and we're doing what we feel is best for students with a focus in mind and um I'm just going to respectfully address that uh comment thank you I I would like to just add to that that um I started uh this meeting by saying that this isn't anything anybody wanted to do um and I'm going to repeat that we have worked hard to make the best recommendations based on um based on what's best for our students academically um and what's best for our students um longterm and keeping extracurricular activities things that we can no longer do so this is all with the best intentions these decisions have been made so I know that the decisions for many people are emotional and we respect that but please know that this is about trying to make the best decisions for this District we care about it um certainly we wouldn't be here with the administrative team if we didn't um and so we really do care about this District um so I'm going to attempt to answer some I will not be able to answer probably all of the questions in this moment in time please know again that you have an opportunity if you you don't hear an answer or you don't see it in the Q&A document we'll go in there and add some of these as well um please look at the Q&A document tomorrow some of these questions are answered in there and we will continue to grow that document and you can also reach out there will be a link in the email tomorrow for where where you can send your email for any further questions or input you would like to provide um as I said we have been listening to all of the input all from the onset and we will continue to and I know the board is continuing to do that um so I will start by saying a lot of conversation tonight about the high school decision um this is a comprehensive District not just High School um and it is an important decision for all of our families and our students both of our high schools are Great Schools they are wonderful places with Incredible teachers I have said this time and time again our staff is amazing and to the staff that spoke about that and you will make sure kids are okay and that they transition well and that they have wonderful programs thank you because I know our staff will ensure that happens so thank you for speaking about that are buildings Memorial is not crumbling it's a great building Liberty is a great building but again we had to make a decision in the best interest of what we thought we could provide our students instructionally and program wise so that we are Equitable for all of our students none of our programs will change we'll still have AP we'll still have Roc by uniting those things are at risk if we don't unite so I want to reemphasize nothing will be lost and no matter what this model recom recommends coming together as one we have many of times that our students come together as one and do activities together whether it's a school across school um activity or it's a community activity um we will work hard through this time to ensure our students are part of that Dr godleski spoke about that bringing our students together that's part of our plan absolutely our students need to be included in the next steps about how we join together what are some of the wonderful activities we can start to do now to unite not just high school students but our middle school students as well a lot of concern for traffic we too have a concern for traffic unfortunately it is not something the school district has a lot of control over boy do I wish we did but we don't and unfortunately there is more congestion right now over um in the Liberty area based on the number of stores that are there based on the number of homes that are over there um but I do want this community to also know watching what's being approved for Construction and building we are going to see that grow on this side of town as well and so our plan is also to consider what's the future um and again all in all decisions have been made with good intentions um we certainly want to continue to have conversations about traffic how to you know alleviate it with what's in our power we want to work with our Police Department we want to work with our Township absolutely it's always been our goal um and we hope we can continue to do that I think all of us care deeply about our kids and we want them safe and that is obviously what we want to do here there's some things within our control we we can absolutely do and then there's some things that we can't you heard that we will be um hoping to Advocate tomorrow for the county sheriff's department to do some things with these County Roads as well um we want positive experiences for all of our students as far as the students that spoke tonight nice we would never want you not to to to give your opinions or to share your insights and I'm happy to hear so many of you have had such positive experiences in the buildings that you're in and that's because of our staff our teachers our staff and our administrators who help to build those cultures and we will continue to do that please know you will be okay you will have wonderful and continue to have wonderful experiences and you'll get to be with your friends thank you for sharing your concerns and your comments the uh conversation and questions around renting and when do we run out of schools I I want you to know I asked the assistant Commissioners was that last week right last week the same thing what will Jackson do when it runs out of schools are you fixing the formula we ask that same question would we prefer to have a revenue stream that we can count on and rent a building absolutely but as somebody mentioned before we need to take into consideration what are the costs as a landlord to keep a building up and also how big will our budget deficit be will we be able to do that so that's still all under consideration um I'd like to again thank the uh people who spoke um and acknowledge the hard work of this committee all good intended I will address that um the recommendations shared tonight from the committee were the model was also the uh facility selection for the Middle School the committee toured both high school facilities and spent almost an entire meeting sharing and we opened the floor for every board member to um Committee Member to comment on which school they felt was more appropriate but In fairness to them there was a lot of emotion in that room and I didn't feel it was the right thing to do to have them come to consensus but I will say within that room the majority of the people who were speaking felt that uh Liberty was the better facility But ultimately that recommendation they did not come I didn't force them to come to consensus but rather we heard every person who wanted to speak and we continue to do that even outside of the committee I think we mentioned about the rebranding um and we also are very concerned and will continue to work in honoring as we said earlier the traditions of all of our schools and our students that have experienced those and we want to encourage our students to wear their varsity jackets we want them to do those things we can't erase that we need to embrace it and at the same time Build Together unity and moving forward for the next phase of the Jackson School District the decision on Liberty was not just based on hallways it was multiactor there were many decisions um that went into that recommendation all of our students are coming together so um deciding about statistics on one school versus another school these are all our students we are here for all of them and we want um equable able opportunities for all security um absolutely priority for us and we um right now again we're still in the initial phases we don't know what the final um the final decision will be but it is at the Forefront of our decisions about how many security guards how many SRO in a building um and providing lots of opportunity to build culture and climate um our hope is to continue with common lunch times are different we do not have students who can um stay after school for extra support or to even be involved in extracurriculars so um our hope is to continue that with more students though we feel we need may need some more structure to that a little bit but still allowing for a time during our our day that students can have help access and opportunity to other activities time on a bus is real uh 100 square miles town the third biggest town in this um in this state so that is real and we will continue to work on eliminating as much as we can off the time of that by create by presenting the tiers that we presented it provides wiggle room to have um a little bit more extra availability in fact do you mind speaking a little bit to how that that all works and how you configure the transportation routes and how that has a benefit to have a couple of routes afterwards to make some of these longer routes shorter sure you know when when we design when the routes are designed um they look at the totality of the routes for every tier and then the last tier overlaps with a lot of the co-curricular activities the Athletics and and so that has been impacted over the previous years because of the tightness of the of of the schedule and also the lack of bus drivers and so you know alleviating that third tier we we'll make sure that U we can get our students to games on time we can schedule games when we want when we want to schedule them not just move them to times when when we are after the last tier um so all of those things go into it uh to try to maximize the the the total student experience especially for the co-curricular activities thank you absolutely special education students are considered all of our students are considered um in making these decisions um just wanted to address that a question and it is in the Q&A but I willn't answer it um are we considering child care for the 56 school yes we are and we are also um looking to create an inter mural program for our fifth and sixth graders inter mural sports program so they have an opportunity to experience many different sports again in in bringing our students together it allows us better opportunity to expand and do things like that um the questions about uh the operational costs we think we might save those are all estimates please understand that we can't put final numbers to that until we have a model we know we're working with clearly through consolidating you're are not going to need as many resources because you're not doing two of everything but we still have the same number of students so we are still going to need a great number of Staff but I also want to be careful in not putting something out there that's final yet and worry my staff either so that's why we haven't come forward with how many staff is this um you know what are we looking at and you know how are you how you configuring this the same with the the expenses that we the operational expenses we have our facility operational expenses we can easily speak to but as far as the other pieces we have to get a final model before we can figure that out and then we have to look at what are uh the number of students will be taking what course and how many teachers we need for this and for that um and certainly uh we have very talented teachers here and all of that will be taken into consideration as will our coaches and our co-curriculars I think I addressed most of the the main points that were made tonight um again we'll look through this we capture everything anything we missed we'll put into the Q&A if we can or even bring back to February's meeting to answer maybe a little bit clearer or more details I know I got to get back to you about a question you asked so we'll make sure that we get that for the February meeting um so with that I am I think I'm done and then I will turn back to you for board comments again did you so someone asked about uh fifth through eight model so the committee did talk about the fifth through eight model but the administrators and everyone in that committee um did not feel that that was a model that we could move forward with and actually in this district there was a fifth through eight for a little bit and that's why you now have your fifth graders back into your Elementary School schools and actually I'm a numbers person for those that know me so if we did a fifth through eight in this District we would be the largest 5ifth through eight in the state we would have 1,991 kids in one school all the schools that have F through eight are one schools and some of those schools have 900 kids and most of them have 400 to 500 kids so that's why 5th through eight plus the age range wouldn't work for our district being that that large of an amount of kids in the one school second of all just so many of you may or may not know we are the 32nd largest District in the state out of 670 schools so we're dealing with a lot of kids so it's very easy when people message me or put on Facebook can we put a 7 through 12 sure we could put a 7 through 12 if we had 400 kids there are schools that have that they have 400 kids through their 7th and 12th we have 7,000 kids we would have over 2,000 kids in each of those sth through eth through 7 through 12 schools so just to give you a little bit I'm sorry we would have 1350 kids if we put McCulla and Liberty together and we would have actually 1960 kids if we put get the memorial so it'll be very large and that age range again 7 through 12 um just to give you an estimate um someone asked I think the young lady left what schools our children go to so I am a memorial parent my daughter is a junior she is one of those seniors you talk about but if if anyone knows me I was voted upon not by just the memorial parents but I was voted on by the entire community and so I don't take these decisions lately I actually do a lot of my research for those that know me and so for the last two weeks I've been driving to Liberty at the crack of dawn and I've been doing it for two weeks and I've been doing it at every time and I've been doing it from all areas in Jackson whether it's Hawken Road whether it's Reed Road whether it's Hampshire Hills Hope Chapel Road at the crack of dawn I don't know if anyone else is doing that but I've been doing that by now I might as well be a student at Liberty um so for those of you that think I make decisions just based on what it's good for my children well then you obviously didn't rode in the right the right person and you should know that there's an opening every year so thank you I'm just gonna say we should probably do board comments so let's start with Mike and then we'll that would be Alison I think and then we'll continue through so go ahead Mr Walsh actually uh I was going to bring this up earlier but for all the seniors this year okay there is over 250 scholarships and it is open right now for seniors to apply for these scholarships it is going to close February 13th so I just wanted to do that little broadcast right there to get the seniors going this is a very difficult decision and it's an emotional decision that's going on all right and me personally I don't have all the facts yet so that I'll leave it at that I'm just collecting information yeah I'm kind of in the same position still looking at uh facts we just got uh some traffic data that came across so looking that over I am attending the meeting tomorrow for traffic um with the county so I'm interested to hear what their plan is and how they could help our district out um I appreciate everybody who got up I I think it's great that we have this involvement it'd be great if it was here over the summer too thank you Dr Osman um I also wanted to just add to the parent who came up and asked what side of town we're all from and you know where we go and same thing as Ally was saying I think people need to remember that they did vote Us in you gave us the responsibility to do this and I just want to speak on behalf of the board you know being on this board this is my second term that I got sworn into today um this is a really ethical group and you know I have a senior I'm down to my my last senior uh in the district and you know we're not basing things on what does Jack want right when we look out in this audience I'm just looking out today and I see Little D over here I know this kid like his entire life right he's on the other side of town I would like him to have a nice education too so we are trying to be as bias free as possible which is why I did make the comment earlier to try to give us information and things that you think we're missing that are not emotional because we're trying our best to look at the data and make you know an informed decision that we know whichever one we choose half the town isn't going to love us right but we have friends and family on both sides of the town so it will be much better if we could go well we did that because if you look at the data right so we're trying to be bias free in that way um a few people came up and basically said we should appreciate that this is a difficult this is difficult for seniors as we all most of us have children up here we get that it's difficult we appreciate that this is a really hard decision to make we're volunteering our time we're trying to read all the data we're trying to make everybody happy it's a tall order right so I also just want to say that change is always hard but it doesn't mean that it's bad like I'm looking at what was proposed to us and I really like the upper elementary school I think because we have and and I'm speaking as an educator now like because we have kids who did go through covid who have been like moved around with um virtual live sessions at home uh that in fourth grade school starts to get more difficult and so a lot of you will start to notice in fifth grade where your kids' strengths are but you'll also notice where their weaknesses are and so there's a captive audience of fifth and sixth graders that the school could just focus on those fifth and sixth graders and it's a great opportunity um to be Innovative with that group of kids who maybe you could stop some some learning gaps quicker because it's a smaller there's smaller grades there you could focus solely on them so I see some good opportunities here and I think that we need to recognize that as well I've said this in past meetings I'll say it again you create the own culture in your schools if you want kids to have great experiences it starts at home you set the tone right so I think we could get that in whatever schools we use if like one of our teachers said you're careful with what you say you're positive around your kids you let them know that they're going to be successful wherever they are so I just want us to keep that in mind and thank you all for coming out tonight Mr all right thank you for everyone for coming out this evening and viewing us as live stream I value your input comments everyone's hard work and dedication um we all have a lot lot of considerations we all need to come together United as one Jackson thank you and everyone have a safe and wonderful evening um I just want to say since I have a front row uh coach mrea right in front of me but I want to say I hope that all of our coaches from both schools and all of our um Co you know our extracurricular um advisor I I hope that you're all starting to talk to each other you're all colleagues of each other you've all working in in in the Jackson School District and wouldn't it be nice if for for the sake of the children you come together and figure out how to work together and create the most amazing teams to to create the most amazing uh theater Productions I think that for the if you really got into this profession for all the right reasons that would be the the most exciting thing to me is to see everyone come together it's not the building that makes these children CU listen listen I've been talking to people throughout the state lots of friends of mine teachers uh principals superintendents in other school districts and they some of them work in the worst buildings that you've ever seen but they are ranked in the top 10% it's not the building that made the kid it's the it's the teachers it's their families it's the students that made those kids who they are and so that's all I have to say thanks so last meeting I really didn't say much um because it is an emotional decision um so I just want to say I know I typed something up this time so I'm going to read it on and off so I know I'm not alone up on this board when I have said that I can say I've lost sleep I've spent countless hours having discussions about all the same concerns that many people brought up um you know asking myself a question like why now is now it I was elected to the board two years ago and if you paid attention to when I ran I talked a lot about that our S2 Cuts if we didn't resolve them there was a lot of tough financial decisions that had to be made in Jackson and be sustainable it's not really like a new idea it's just that we're here now and we didn't want to sit here but this board's sitting here and change is hard it's emotional you know we all know this in this room as adults and we know it because we've lived it you know we have kids many of us right and we know what it's like to give them something new like God forbid you bring home the wrong mac and cheese okay and your kid gets negatively upset over that right and sometimes we have to get what we have to get sometimes we need our kids to deal with what we get them sometimes we can't let their negative emotions trickle down to our family because it's going to impact all the other things that we might have going on in that same exact instance so I'm not saying that kids shouldn't have to deal with change um but when we get that off brand mac and cheese right whether we mean to or we don't right I've made so many mistakes like that I pull the wrong kind of mac and cheese okay we probably worked a full day or a full night we have even commitments that we are driving to um we have maybe chores we do around our house every evening um we have volunteer opportunities right we can completely lose it as parents in that moment of the wrong mac and cheese and or we could guide them through the wrong mac and cheese and I'm going to say that we in our community right now we have to pick the ladder you know we have to point out similarities the positive impacts of certain decisions the cause and effect and we need to know that eventually our kids ability to cope positively will benefit everybody around them including our parents and our communities and our future kids we have to give them the tools to build something great within themselves and that is a tool called resilience the capacity to withstand or recover quickly from difficulties a toughness we hurt each other tonight and my hope is that all the engaged adults and kids here at today can focus on accepting the challenge of building resilience collectively we can make a decision to focus on the positive outcomes and work together to support our children into fruition pointing out shifts along with how those shifts benefit us in the future so you know I don't think it doesn't mean that there's not going to be tears or feelings of disappointment but every day we have a choice to pick our Outlook and you know I just want everybody to know that my perspective is going to be to on every decision or recommendation that we're voting for it's going to be trying to pick a positive outlook and be a positive role model for the people around me um and I hope that we can all do that listen to each other constructively we're going to come here again in two weeks and really I think everybody on this board would appreciate I mean I can't speak for anybody but I could say that I could appreciate that you know constructive comments are a lot better than decisive and discorded ones and if we could just model that um it would be appreciated moving forward and I I appreciate everybody coming out tonight um I appreciate all the hard work of everybody up here um committee members admin the board and everybody in our community so thank you very much and with that I'm going to make a motion to adj adj adjourn by acclamation oh I need a second I'm sorry motion to adjourn motion second by acclamation I okay [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music]