##VIDEO ID:GfnaS6WaNUg## e e e e e e e Mr ganella okay uh uh this meeting is being held in accordance with the schedule of meetings adopted at the organizational meeting held on January 3 2024 adequate notice of this regular meeting of the C board of education has been adopted to the home News Tribune The Star Ledger the local Source on January 11th 2024 a copy has been filed with the K bur clerk posted in the board office the korth B halls brle and Harding schools as is provided by the open public meeting sence thank you Mr ganal please rise and join us in the salute to the flag put on theard draw one congratul congrulations to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice Mr Mr roll call please berer here David here droan Ferrara here D here L here Pichi here tears Zimmerman we have Corum thank you at this time we'll have the receiving of the board minutes and committee notes of the secretary the regular Board of Ed meeting minutes from July 15 2024 and the Personnel committee meeting notes from August 5th 2024 may I please have a motion to receive the minutes and committe notes from July 15 2024 and August 5th 2024 so move second second motion made by Mr hather seconded by Mr Ferrera all those in favor please say I I oppos eyes have motion carries Mr ganal do we have any monthly correspondence no we do not okay thank you so much at this time we will now have our um superintendent's report and presentations superintendent Davies thank you uh good evening everyone I'd like to um just report out that we had a wonderful uh ceremony just a little while ago at the track so the brand new turf field and track was officially opened at a uh Grand Opening Ceremony we had uh recognized all of our student athletes for The Fall season we had also um had our track team there to honor them they did an inaugural run around the track it was a wonderful event um got some good photos had a ribbon cutting uh so I want to thank the board um for uh all their support as we you know continue through the referendum um it's exciting to see some of the all the labor coming to fruition uh which will happen over time um and this is one of those firsts uh so it was a really exciting day we had a lot of great uh community members and students present coaches uh it was a great day um so thank you everyone for that which then um allows me to kind of pivot to Mr gella's report on the status of the referendum okay uh good evening everyone yes that was a fun fun uh fun activity um it was good to see the project completed on time uh and on budget um so that was a nice uh nice thing uh to to continue with our monthly updates on the three projects that we currently have uh running uh the hvc HVAC project it's starting to wrap up um should be done within the next couple of weeks we're 90% % uh complete um they're working on the control work and the balancing currently uh and finishing the some of the systems in the auditoriums uh and the um gymnasiums uh so that project is going quite well um did not have disruptions to the uh instructional programs like we planned for which is good um the field uh project as Mr Davies uh stated uh we just had our grand opening uh it's open uh to the the to the public now and for our use of the fields the the football players use it for the first time at the first practice today out there and soccer and we be using it next week um but the track is now available to the public uh in the morning when school activities and Athletics are not going uh taking place uh school school activities and programs do take precence over uh public walking the track for safety purposes um that Pro project is in the punch list phase um cleaning up some some Minor Details um some of the other things that are going to be happening over the next couple weeks hopefully we'll have the new scoreboard in by the the first game uh and uh that should really put the finishing touches to that project um the addition project is about 13% complete uh the foundation is almost completed um they their the foundation and the footings are done uh most of the underground uh electrical um and um um drainage and um um Plumbing installation is complete that was a very timec consuming process working with the municipality make sure that all the inspections were done properly um and we're pleased to report that everything is moving along uh nicely uh they did take a um they asked that they could if they could start early on the the renovation to the back gym creating that storage area which will be used next year to store the the the uh cafeteria tables while the Middle School uses the gym um and we allowed them to to get a jump on that so uh they were eager to do that so we're still on um schedule no change to the final completion date so here are some of the uh pictures for the HVAC uh upgrades um classrooms you can see um that bottom um right hand corner the work that's being done in in the um brly back gym um the other ones are the final touches to some of the classrooms over at Harding uh the field upgrades um this is uh some of the project um in progress uh it is complete now uh so you can see the different uh progress that we uh had uh for the uh track um and uh 14th Street is now completely uh has new fencing and sidewalk walks um uh from uh the boulevard all the way to Monroe the additions and alterations uh both auditoriums have been completely gutted uh meaning all the seats have been removed um as well as the ceilings have been um removed as well and they're making progress on that um that's uh that's about it does any have any questions regarding uh what's uh uh next the um the interest income now I think ibody recall we we were going to take $1.2 million and apply it you you want to mention something to that or you want to maybe wait till next month just to mention what we're doing with that oh yeah I mean we we could I mean some of the things that we we were using are like the storage the storage units out there but um I could give a full full list the 18th Street side uh sidewalk was was one of the one of the projects I'll give a rundown of where we are with that Y and do you think once everything is complete do you think we might have some money left over from the money that we borrowed I think so I think so I'm hoping so you know you never know with you know we don't forget we still have the the the Harding School phase which is the kindergarten phase um and that really depends on we didn't want to start planning that until we knew everything was here was completed um he if there's any money left over we limited to where we can what we can do with that money you are to a certain degree um you could either use it for Debt Service relief or something that's associated with the with the referendum okay because that's what I was thinking that we would use it to reduce next year's debt you know tax Lev year Well it wouldn't be next year it be the following year so that could be a possibility okay I just wonder all right thanks okay just just one thing that before the kids get here um going to go over like the safety like do a walk through with the people that are doing the work everything to make sure everything for which project for all of them for the whole thing to make sure that safety issu that's one of the things that's one of the main purposes of having in the construction manager coord to coordinate that especially with the um we'll probably have to have the meeting soon to talk about the logistics of of of how students are going to be entering since the lobby is kind of like now uh uh okay perfect Right Now fall's just going to get done that's good also from like a fire drill perspective so as an example when I was looking to get out to the field um the track for the ceremony I went down the hall right here and I did see the markings on the door that said like stop did not go further right I looked through the window and I saw you know like a giant pit and I was like thank God I didn't walk could through it but I'm just saying so I know you know normally you have for fire drills but if you can't go out certain doors then they have to be redirected yes yes we did that in the back of the building as well um along the soccer field yeah so we reviewed that with uh you know that's part of your site plan with the Department of Education to make sure that egress is is not compromised good okay good yes take it back off that those doors are locked or like chained or I think they are from the from the outside yes but if there's a alarm it might open and then uh no you don't want someone to walk out those doors cuz you go down 10 ft I'm saying if there's like actual fire alarm that goes off those doors are automatically supp open no okay they're they we don't have that system with none of our doors are tied to the fire alarm system they're just always you could always exit any door but you don't want to exit the door into a 10-ft pit so yeah yeah all our doors all our exterior doors have panic bars that you could exit they're not tied to electronically tied to the firearm system okay any other questions we're good thank you Mr G okay thank you Mr ganella uh next um please to introduce Miss Samantha hle and a director of curriculum instruction and Innovation as well as Miss Malin pavle our acting principal of David Bry mid and high school they are here tonight to report out the results from the NJ GPA tests which our Juniors took this past March um this is the graduation proficiency assessment and we're proud to show the growth over time our students have achieved um the growth is due to the concerted instructional support coming from Miss H's office with our instructional coaches as well as the entire leadership team and also a commitment from our brly teaching staff uh who roll up their sleeves each and every day to make um instruction a priority so I'm proud of this presentation miss hle and miss pavle thank you Mr Davies um so as Mr Davies just introduced to you we're going to be presenting the NJ GPA assessment results today um and then we're going to dip into our scores as well at the end uh to celebrate that as well um so the NJ GPA oh thank you so the NJ GPA um is our State graduation Prof proficiency assessment that all Juniors take um it's designed to measure the extent to which students are graduation ready in both Ela as well as math um it's and it's separately so they take math as well as Ela and they could reach graduation proficiency for one and or both um for ELA that's aligned to our grade St grade 10 standards and for math that's aligned to algebra one and geometry so that's the bulk of the content on both of those exams for 2024 um 92% of our students achieved graduation Readiness in English um and in math we had 54% % of our students that were considered graduation ready in addition to the njpa there's other Pathways that students can use to achieve graduation Readiness um we have the PSAT sat acup Placer um we also do the fall NG GPA for senior students um and the portfolio process but we'll talk more about all of that later um you can see here are Trends from 2022 to 2024 um we have had trends of improvement in both Ela as well as math we've had great Improvement in ela back in 2022 students were 24% of students were graduation ready um up to uh 2024 where we have 92% of our students that are graduation ready so that's a huge jump um our English Department as well as our math department have worked a lot to get our students to achieve graduation Readiness um in math as well 28.9% were graduation ready in 2022 um to this year we've grown 54.2% were graduation uation ready um and I mentioned some other Pathways for students if for some reason they don't achieve graduation Readiness on the fall uh the spring NJ GPA of their junior year um they can retake that assessment in the fall of their senior year um they or they can reach the minimum required score on Ela and or math on the other assessments that I uh mentioned before PSAT sat acup Placer um or students can go through the portfolio process so that's the last um pathway that they can take um and we have students that take a class with two of our teachers um an English teacher and a math teacher um that teach that class for students to create a portfolio to show their graduation Readiness all right one of the other things that's always a question is to take a look at us in um comparison to how the the state fared um so when you look at the scout scores and the percentage of our students graduation ready for ELA um we are above the average and when you look at the scaled scores for math we are at about average um like Miss pavle said both of these are great improvements over the past few years so we're very excited about this um the this slide and the next slide these two slides are broken up by subgroups for us to take a closer look at how specific groups of our students are performing um in general again most of our students regardless of subgroup are passing Ela and around half of our students are passing math if you want to take a look at this one is math and then this one is Ela I'll give you guys a chance to look at that for a second and then we can answer questions at the end all right so then we go ahead and we take a look at the questions that they're asking um again when you take a look at these you see the questions go in order from most difficult to least difficult um and when you look at this the blue line is the state average and the green dots are Kennelworth so this is Ela so again as you can see we're pretty consistent um at or above the state standards um across the board for math you can see that the questions again go in order from most difficult to least um and our students are are having more particular difficulty which we would expect with the more complex problems um these are two standards that when looking at where um where we were struggling uh and what we do with these two standards are we pass this information along to the teachers and then during planning periods we can take a look at some of these sample questions together and break apart and understands where the students might need some more support and embed these into our planning where appropriate this is the method that we've been using the past couple years with some of the targeted standards that have come up um and we have seen great results so these are two this year that we'll meet with the teachers and talk a little bit around where in our curriculum can we um add some work around these um as pavle Che mentioned Mo um most of these but in kennworth what we do with the results is we are allowing the students to take the NJ GPA in the fall again which was new last year here um we also have a specialized math support labs and I think that that's important because we're working around making sure that the students are understanding all of the basics of math before we're pushing them up to these higher levels so they're not immediately going into the higher levels um struggling a little more um we have a newly aligned curriculum in the high school the state did put out new standards this October um we have started to look closely at them the math team um the high school math team this Summer started rewriting the curriculum to align it with the new standards the state did come out last week and say we're just kidding you you have one more year to push back the math standards even though individuals have been working on that for many months with their teachers um so we will have one more year though to work around provide PD and get ready for the new math standards um which I think is a great opportunity for us to to work with um and then we provide teachers with the targeted professional learning opportunities particularly around um some of the things we see from NJ GPA and um we'll take a look at the njsla data and you know our own internal data measures that we look at um to to help support the teachers to with the with the students as much as we can any questions about the NJ GPA so how many students retook the test last year you said last year was the first year that it was in the fall so uh well whatever percentage of students didn't pass last year we could go back to that slide we gave the opportunity to retake it right but how many took advantage of it is my question oh every single student did oh they did we didn't really give them that okay good good and did we do anything to prepare them for the retake we did so in the portfolio class the math and the English teacher um did some prep work with them for the fall on ggpa good thank you so when you like when you're tracking all this data you track it right down to the class like the exact class or the exact teacher to find out where our holes are in there and then we work on whe it's a teacher or that class or something or try to find out how can we get better there yeah I mean we take a holistic View and we try to work with individual teachers and we don't just use one point of reference obviously so it's not just the NJ GPA we'll go over the NJ SLA scores and at the October board meeting as well um and so you know we meet with the teams regularly and if needed we work with people who um the teachers are really good about coming to us too if they see that kids are struggling in certain things and and ask for help um okay thank you okay yeah we want them to be successful and we're really happy that we're growing absolutely that slide right there Ela that's pretty significant flip anything that you can point to that that made that difference I mean I think in general if you look across this District let's just say in the last five years the amount of changes that have happened in the ELA curriculum in general starting all the way from kindergarten when they switched over to a new program and we've also continued to bring in some more of the phonics based Ela and then in the upper grades they moved more towards book clubs using authentic Tech authentic texts versus the basil giving kids the choice so if you look at research around Ela we've put in all the best practices up at the middle and high school for that I know one of the things that we are making a big push for this year is um you know partnering with parents just to make sure to continue this trend that kids are reading at home because one of the other things I know this is just NJ GPA so it's just one snapshot um and we'll talk more at the njsla but we definitely would like a you know a call to partnership around the reading um because kids are bringing books home now every day you know at their level bands um and we are encouraging the kids to have these rich deep conversations um the staff is really dedicated themselves especially in the middle school and high school to these book clubs and authentic reading and uh it makes a difference to the kids in wanting to do the the work it's a culmination of a bunch of things we've done it's amazing years from 24 to2 so I applaud the team a little Co in there but you know little and the math is not uncommon if you look at the right the math the state data says that many districts have so we're not different in the sense that math seems to be more of a struggling area for all students in the state of New Jersey not just here so it's not uh the math is not a specific to us the state even in the county and throughout like nor Jersey everyone seems to always have um a little bit difficulty for lack of a better term in the with student perform which is why I think that they pushed the standards the implementing of the new standards back a year again when all of us were like Ela and math standards in the same year like how are we supporting our teachers to know these standards and you know especially in a small District like ours um so yes math traditionally is lagging behind in New Jersey in Most states to be honest um but as long as we are continuing to do this targeted work and growth and I think again as the new standards come in we'll continue to be providing the professional development um um so I feel very very excited about it the opportunity you mentioned Co I'm just curious like you go back to 2019 would you know what our numbers were like they didn't take it they didn't resist yeah that whole year because we'd have to go back you many more years than that at a at a future time I can have that prepared for you if you'd like but these scores are that Ela score is definitely the highest that's been in a very very long time um and on that note um our next thing that we are proud to stand here and uh share with you tonight is some wonderful celebration of our AP scores um this year we had the highest average ac across the last five years um of students taking AP and also the highest number of students taking AP we had added two new courses this year AP pre-cal and AP seminar to which the students did very very well in um and next year we are adding one more additional course um to pair the AP research with the seminar as we've talked about for the option of the Capstone so if you looked across our last five years our averages were in the twos um to13 2.74 2.02 2.32 2.4 and this year um do we have a slide or no that was it um this year our average is a 3.09 it's the first time we've been over a three average in many many years in Kennelworth so um props to all of the work that everyone has done um the teachers have really dedicated themselves the admins in the building um obviously my department we have really been working to create an atmosphere of sending a message of our high expectations and it's really a nice celebration Miss pav has some things to add to that yeah so just how did we get to this point and where are we going with our AP classes and our scores um so we've provided our teachers in all AP classes with Albert which is a resource that students can have as a a supplementary to you know practice for AP exam type questions and they use that um to practice in class and at home um and we started making sure that our teachers are on track for every two years um to have either an AP training or um to be AP readers which means that they really um they are graders of the test so they get to score students from all across the state 1 2 3 4 5 on the exam so they really get to know okay this is a one this is a three this is a five so they become experts in the AP exam and that's that's brought back to their classroom so they can set those expectations for their students um so that's what we've implemented and we plan to continue doing so um and clearly it's had an impact so we're very proud of our teachers and our students great questions thank you ladies good news that's good broadcast that that is yeah it is good news um and just you know as communities often think about rankings and such rank all different rankings take different metrics but one of the common ones is your AP score and the percentage of students who take an AP and that number is rising here rarly and also the number of students who are passing and that number is also Rising here early so those that's great stuff because that is some direct metric for rankings um so I just like the the board and the public to know that we have been and continued to be committed to tackling uh student achievement head on uh with that in mind I'd like to let everyone know that Miss H will be back in October October 15th for the njsla presentation that she referenced uh so we'll see those results as well um and then a followup to that that I'd like to implement is doing um some level Town Hall meetings and and parent um conversations and sessions for informational purposes because as Miss hle said we you know we're we're really working hard internally and we know that the community is curious of how they can also join forces and assist us in this good work uh so we want to make sure engage with the community uh moving forward and have some like Town Hall meetings or and or parent info sessions where we give parents tips tricks um and strategies to help at home um so that'll be uh something to look forward to Once school starts we'll be promoting that advertising that and uh Distributing that information uh two more things in in the superintendent report um I'd like to just draw everyone's attention to resolution number 13 which is um the my recommendation to hire Mr John pillo to replace me as burley's next principal uh so resolution 13 I just wanted to give a shout out to Mr pillo he navigated successfully through a very competitive pool of applicants um indeed it was competitive um and then we have a very rigorous interview process here with four different rounds with multiple uh stakeholder groups so it was a rigorous process and I just wanted to um let you know that he demonstrated a vision that will push brely forward in both stem and humani Fields he also demonstrated compassion uh compassion for creating a caring student focused School Community uh he connected with parents he connected with students he connected with teachers he connected with all of our stakeholders and he also demonstrated a keen ability to connect with um all of those stakeholders um I'm excited for his leadership uh I trust him fully to take on the Reigns of brle and to take that school our school to a new level of Excellence um finally uh the HIV report there are no new uh instances of HIV because it's the summer um You're simply approving the incidents that were reviewed in June um so that's what you're seeing there um also in September know that I'll be presenting the ssds um comparison data which looks at all the different um school safety uh concerns uh so we'll look at that in September and then also in your packet is the um projected enrollment report uh so that's also in there and you'll see that at the back page projected enrollment for this coming school year oh yeah uh yeah one thing that we're just exploring right now is we're seeing a slight uptick in kindergarten enrollment um even though our general enrollment for the district is slightly lower um we're seeing uh potentially higher numbers in kindergarten and we want to make sure that uh we set those students up for success and our teachers have an appropriate class size so we're looking at options right now to opening up possibly an additional section of kindergarten to alleviate what's slowly creeping up as the summer unfolds and that is all for my report just one question so with all this uptick in the kindergarten increase in students and you know we always get that influx of um students right at the right in September so we're doing all the proper residency checks on everyone you know because you know it's not fair to anybody in the town that we're paying for kids that don't belong in the district so I just want to make sure that's getting done yes okay thank you definitely thank you thank you thank you anyone have any other questions for Mr Davies or we move on to report of committees no okay thank you Mr Davies well now move on to report of committees review of resolutions and board discussion up first is Mr LTI finance and Facilities okay um first by narrative um preparations for the annual audit continue with the order Auditors that are scheduled to be here the week of August 26th um classrooms are being rapidly cleaned and we'll be ready for the new year we don't anticipate any delays just some quick notes on resolution number six adds another option for employees to invest in postretirement programs and they're approved by the IRS seven is post Severance contributions um by implementing this the board you know will have some savings um of the fic on employees who contribute to their tax shelters when receiving sick time or vacation time it's also going to be you know tax savings to the district um just quickly we over 10 it's the lunches um we have a small increase of 15% but we're still below the um Federal maximum that we could charge for for the meals um the remaining are the resolutions um one through four um include the superintendent report where we just heard the bill list financials and light item transfers are riew the bill list and all the financials all appear appear to be in order with no outliners um there were no line item transfers over the $5,000 cap um number five is payment to the contracts contractors that's on page four and five and six of your packet um again all pertain to the referendum projects I took a look at those they all seem proper for the work completed um six and seven I just mentioned that about the retirement management for the employees um eight is the agreement with Morris County Joint Commission to service and maintain our school vehicles um nine is the organizational chart um 10 is again mentioned that's a school breakfast and lunches 11 is is the comprehensive Equity plan um I guess that is just um make sure we correct all dis dis um discriminatory or inequitable policies programs and practices that are affecting the schools um so that's it for Resolutions just one more thing the fireworks are set to be on property on September 3rd I think they're just going to push them back onto maybe that practice field a little bit more vent instead of right back to the bleachers or wherever so that's good news I that's a lot of rhetoric in the town about when the fireworks were going to be so I'm glad that's all taken care of um that's all I have for the financial facilities um any questions on those okay negot want me to go to negotiations please okay you'll see um resolution number 33 the teachers ratified our contract I mean that's such a great news and again I know Pet's not here but Ryan and John you know we put a lot of work and time into that to get it done and so did the teachers and their negotiators and our board attorneys so I'm glad that's done um you know we still have two two um we still have few entities to get done the secretaries AIDS and custodians that needs to be concluded I'm hoping to get that done in September I hopefully that's maybe not a wish but I'm hoping we can get it done in September and maybe vote on it at the October meeting or maybe if we kind of work hard at maybe we can get it even done at the um September meeting it just seems like we just got to finalize some little pieces of the puzzle to get that those done um that's kind of all I have I guess that was enough too so any questions on any negotiations again or nothing than thank youbody okay thank you now up Mr heair personnel and management y we have 17 resolutions before jump into that um Personnel committee met on August 5th at 6: PM the following members were present myself uh chairperson Bo vice president Mr David and Committee Member Mrs Drogan and superintendent Mr Davies was also president Board of Ed president Dr panichi and business administrator Mr ganella were present via Zoom Mr Davis began the meeting by introducing his recommendation uh for the forementioned new David Burley Middle and High School principal Mr John Perillo committee asked a series of questions and candidates and the candidate include of the candidate including questions about his background and vision barly academic support achievement School climate and culture and responsible for Budget responsible for budgeting and finance we next reviewed a confidential Personnel matter and the situation was discussed by the full board in executive session and last excuse me the committee discussed a candidate options for temporary perdm position of acting assistant principal at berley while permanently while permanent Bry assistant principal pav serves in the role of acting principal as the District waits for Mr pill's 60-day contractual clause in this current District to end this will also be discussed for full board in executive session and we convened or committee adjourned at 7:30 of the 17 resolutions uh resolution 12 is a res a resignation resolution 13 is Mr Perillo resolution 14 is the approval of an to hire an elementary teacher resolution 15 is the approval of hiring a consultant provide educational evaluations uh resolution 16 is the approval of a resource center icr resolution 17 is approval of a CST social worker resolution 18 are the approval of am lunchroom AIDS resolution 19 is before care before and after Care staff resolution 20 the approval additional teaching sections for 2425 school year resolution 21 is a six period additional teaching section resolution 22 are the approval of co-curricular stipend [Music] positions resolution 23 is the approval of athletic stip in positions 24 is the approval of stipend rates uh resolution 25 are various appointments and resolu resolution 26 is new teacher induction facilitators resolution 27 is the approval of student teachers and resolution 28 is the approval of substitute staff anyone have questions for Mr hather no okay I I will read um corc instruction from Mrs te resolution 29 is uh requesting approval for the 2024 2025 David reallyy high school middle school and Harding Elementary School student parent and student handbooks for the year resol resolution 30 is to approve the use of the evaluation software Frontline education resolution 31 is to adopt the following curriculums that have been updated to be aligned with the New Jersey student learning standards there's a list provided there and then resolution 32 is to accept the recommendations of the superintendent as a reflected June 1st 2024 to June 30th 2024 for the HIV incident report anyone have questions regarding curriculum and instruction okay so at this time we will now any other questions before we move on yeah this time any old business any new business okay for new business we just want to remind the public to please check the websites our social media to look for any updates about opening of schools and any logistical planning that'll be coming because it'll help transition to the beginning of school you know we do have one um not now maybe two years how about um thinking about having maybe classes for seniors like I don't know music like guitar classes music classes at the school or is that possible to do at night like an almost like an adult senior yeah yeah for credits or just to have like just to have you know maybe our seniors get involved more in the school or or I don't know I think it would kind of be a nice thing right maybe like a volunteer or maybe one of the clubs okay I don't know just an idea I know some other school districts are doing that at night have like a guitar class or a piano class or computerage class they're run through like a wreck program often almost like a wreck program for scene yeah and they could you know I don't know learn maybe somebody needs help with a laptop or something or computer or they want to learn PL to play guitar music I don't know just something down the line you know we have a lot going on here now with the buildings being built but maybe a few years from now just an idea yeah I love the idea of also being able to Showcase some of what our teachers do because we have some great teachers and if they could share their skills with the seniors learn how to use Facebook no you don't want to do that thank you that's all I have just you saying you want to learn how to play the guitar maybe yeah thank you anyone else think he's old new business any other recommendations okay thank you very much at this point we will now open up the make a motion to open the meeting to the public okay motion made by Mr David at seconded by Mr hather all those in favor of opening the meeting to the public please say I I oppose eyes have motions carried Mr ganel yes uh public comment will now be accepted the Board of Education sets limit for the public to speak at a Board of Education meeting to 5 minutes per person unless prior permission has been granted by the board for extended time pursuing to Board of Education bylaw 0167 uh when you approach the podium um for the record please indicate your name and address prior to making your comments thank you at this time is there any public that would like to make any comments uh hello my name is James Perillo um I live in Winfield and um I have a daughter who's entering 7th grade so we've been talking to her about high schools that she can go to of course this is one of the choices and the other one for us would be The Botch schools in Scotch Plains um now I'm familiar with both schools since we have other children who've gone through them and I think my daughter would be better off here so I'm trying to encourage her along those lines but she is rather adamant about going to votek so I'm asking her why and she's telling me that uh she's heard from current and former students of this school about drug use in the bathrooms and how the girls get harassed in the hallways from the boys so she's rather scared about coming over here you know I don't know how accurate these stories are but there's probably an ounce of Truth somewhere so I'm just bringing it out there for you to address and hopefully uh make amends so that you know the word gets back to my da that maybe she'll want to come here in a couple years thank you thank you for your com hello I'm Christine pello and I'm from Winfield I had two sons come through brly and I didn't realize how excellent the instruction program was until the second one was partway through when they said when the first one was planning his schedule and they said you know if you need a little help in one class we can do that we can put you in a in a class where you'll get extra help with science but if you feel very confident in Spanish you can be in an advanced class and I didn't understand how that could be done but somehow brierly does that somehow barely meets it's almost like a personalized IEP plan for each student without that requiring it um because they they meet each student where they are and they help them to advance right from where they enter as freshman I was a little bit surprised to see the scores I guess I hadn't seen overall scores I'm I'm guessing that Co hit and people weren't learning everything that they could have in in grammar school in 2019 and 2020 with online instruction oh so but um then another idea that I had was some high schools have a freshman for a Day program so I didn't know if since it's a district school I didn't know if really could incorporate that somehow um Windfield School classes are usually under 20 usually under 15 sometimes under 10 so I don't know if that could be implemented and then is they hear about the magnet school but the magnet school system is a bit of a shock to Windfield students and you know if my daughter should need extra help I would have been the first to ask for extra help in math myself and they didn't have that and I would not have gone to magnet which was not available um another thing that I would suggest is when you're calling the seventh and eighth graders to come to brierly maybe to emphasize that there's the shared program available after the two years so that even if you'd like to go into electrical then come to brly and we'll send you half day because I don't know that that was fully indicated either at being out of the district um so those were it but I I say that I'm I'm the brely cheerleader because really appreciate that they they meet students where they are and and we even had one student in between my son's classes who earned at least 21 college credits by being alone in the media center which also would have been beyond me but that's where he was so he was able to choose that instruction to to work by himself with the computer and learn his classes and get his college credits so I really appreciate appreciate brely I I root for you thank you thank Youk you any other uh public at this time like to comment hi um Tony Jano pno I'm also councilwoman in um kennworth so I want to uh welcome Mr Davies in his new position and I said to him in the hall I'm um happy that it was someone from within uh the learning curve is less and I think it's uh great for the students and the staff to be able to grow along with the admin um in our system so it says a lot that somebody would want to stay here and grow here um so I'm excited about what's to come and looking at the scores that's really great and I don't think that our school system gets the credit that they deserve as you're saying cuz I've heard the stories um I had grandchilden that were in Harding um and there she my granddaughter who is now 14 was nervous about coming over to brle for very much uh the same reason so and you know you can you can't believe what you hear but rumors spread rapidly and um so hopefully with a lot of this information getting out and I know myself as your Council liais on I will make sure that all of this gets shared every time we have a meeting which we have one next week um but I did have a couple of questions I know earlier in uh the spring when the state um rescinded some of the state aid and then through a lot of negotiations and communication uh the Board of Ed was able to get I think 1.2 million back of their funding I don't know if I'm correct exactly on that number was 66 that's all okay it was only 45 I thought it was more okay but anyway so that 645 um where was that money or can you share where that money was allocated because of course the first things people say when they come to a council meeting because we all know our taxes have gone up quite a bit why wasn't that money put back into whatever to reduce taxes because the majority of our tax budget is the board of education so if you could just give me a little you know snippet of where and I know like even with the municipality or the burrow some money is ear mark marked via grants and you can't move it to a different department like um Mr biner was talking to Mr uh ganella so is was that monies that came back had to be utilized in a particular way well or is it just go into a general Board of Ed fund and you don't have to get real specific it's public it's public comment you want me to wait um I think we had we discussed it last meeting and I think the two before what the money was allocated for when we had the meeting so it is available online it is public comment not really a Q&A okay so Mr ganella or Mr Davies can call you or email you those responses but it was discussed at a previous meeting how the money was used I could point you to our June 18th minutes okay and it gives you it's in there I'll find it there yeah and I think your website is great um there's so much information on there and I don't think um people utilize it um as much as they could or should um and the last thing and this is another comment and people talk about the choice program pros and cons of it and I don't know if that is public information of the dollars that come in from that program and and then what it costs to run so really what is the net and what is the benefit so those are the questions that come up that I am not equipped to answer yeah so on the Mr Gala can give that to you and point you to where on the website the information is I don't it's we we've done what the tuitions yeah where are the um meeting minutes we could share which have the specifics right right okay that was it thank you good luck in the New Year everyone thank you thank you any other public any comments at this time okay I make a motion to close the public portion of the meeting okay motion made by Mr David seconded by Mr hather all those in favor of closing the meeting to the public please say I I oppos eyes Havoc motion carry U Mr J roll call I mean do you want me to clarify a couple of those comments I think it might be easier just to clarify just so if someone's watching this on TV look like we're trying to hide something uh which we're not trying to hide something um so we if you recall we lost about $1.5 million in state aid they gave us back $633,000 so in order in order for us to submit our budget back in March to the Department of Education after we had that cut we had to reduce the budget by $1.5 million in the areas of professional development supplies Professional Services Staffing to the tune of $78,000 insurance $325,000 stiens and revenue even Revenue enhancements we reduced to come up with that $1.5 million cut so when that money was restored partially restored it wasn't fully restored there was never really a discussion that that should go to tax relief because we just lost $1.5 million and we cut our programs by $1.5 million so we restored some of those programs um including some of the supplies of materials for for for our one-on-one laptop initiatives Staffing to bring back several the positions that we had cut um insurance that goes with those uh as well as some some stip in positions and that's it it was really didn't even get us to where we were the pre previous year so so there's this little bit of a misconception that well why didn't they use it for tax relief it was really never really our our idea to use it for tax relief because you know um we were at cap um and we got cut below way below cap our budget was below adequacy so the board never really contemplated considered using it for that purpose um um yeah and that's that's it uh want me to talk about Choice yeah right choice program we bring in about $2.5 million for 163 students there's a misconception that you well our student per pupil cost is $188,000 so that's what it costs it's not really what it costs it doesn't cost what it's not like our enrollment goes from 1,400 to 1399 now we could cut $118,000 out of the budget we all know this around here okay um you're not reducing his salary you're not reducing my salary I'm not turning the lights off anymore I'm not doing anything the most you could possibly do when you come up with those type of situations for reduce those 163 students and take them out of the equation maybe three four teachers you might be able to reduce and let's say those three four teachers are $100,000 each that's $400,000 let's say you buy and this is a high number each one of those kids has $10,000 worth of supplies which is ridiculous that's $163,000 so now you're up to a little bit over a half a million dollars we're getting 2. $5 million from the state the state is paying us a lot of money to run this program and it that is a tax savings to the county worth people if we were to get rid of the the the choice program your taxes would go up about $2 million flat out go up $2 million so that's the misconception of of the choice program so so also misconceptions on the academic side but I think at some point Mr Davies is going to do a a full full presentation on the benefits uh of of the choice program and what it brings in not only academically but uh from A diversity standpoint and other other benefits to it so there is that misconception that misconception has been going on since 19 I don't know 99 99 I mean feto sat in that seat for as long as as long as that and they've been having these discussions we've been having that those discussions about that so it's from a fin from a purely Financial decision it's a no-brainer no-brainer okay Mr K when you're ready a roll call resolution no no no thank you okay whenever you're ready thank you all right this is for Resolutions 1 through 33 on the agenda do any of these need to be voted on separately no okay Miner yes David yes Ferrara yes hather yes Madi yes panichi yes motions carryed and honestly okay thank you very much Mr ganal do we have a need to go into close exec can I make a motion to go into close session second motion made by Mr David seconded by Mr Ferrero all those in favor of going into close executive session please say I I opposed Mr gel okay um I thank you take care uh be resolve by Board of Education private uh meet and private session which the public shall be excluded discuss topics of personnel and negotiations and potential litigation which private discussion is being held proceeding to section 7B and 8 open public meetings act the matters under discussion will be discussed to the public as soon as final decisions are made and voted upon biner yes David yes Ferrara yes hather yes L yes kichi yes motion carries okay e