e e
e
we'd like to call the meeting to order and welcome everyone this meeting
is being held in accordance with the schedule of meetings adopted at the organizational meeting held on January 6 2025 adequate notice of this regular meeting of the kennworth board of education has been provided to the home News Tribune The Star Ledger the local Source on January 16 2025 a copy has been filed with the Kenworth bur clerk posted in the board office the Kenworth burough Hall bril and Harding schools as is provided Al to the
flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all Mr ganal Queen please have roll call yes berer here Koli here David here Ferrara here hather here herina here LTI yes kichi here zman here Pa presid
thank you at this time we'll have the receiving of the Boe minutes and committee meeting notes of the secretary the regular Boe minute notes of the secretary from January 6 2025 and January 13 2025 and the committee meeting notes from the tab committee on 1925 and the finance facilities and negotiations committee on 2525 may I have a motion to accept the receiving of the minutes and committee notes okay motion made by Mr Ferrera seconded by Dr
canoli all those in favor please say I I opposed eyes have it motion carries Mr ganella do we have any public correspondence uh we uh do not okay thank you at this time we'll now have the superintendent's report and presentations superintendent Davies thank you thank you Dr panichi uh at this time I'd like to call nalie Sully our student rep to the microphone for the student report good evening and happy early
Valentine's Day I'm NY sylly and I'm excited to be here as David Bley Board of Education representative to talk about our recent and upcoming events last week Mr pello Mr Luciani and the counselors had great level meetings to discuss their scheduling options for next school year these PowerPoints will be shared with parents later this week barle Middle School had their winter Spirit Week students and um teachers wore sports related closing in jerseys and preparations for their schle on Sunday go Eagles on January 23rd students
were inducted into the Spanish National Nation AR Society it was a wonderful event hosted by Miss quento Miss Navaro and Miss um Morales midterm exams took place on january8 28th to January 31st all berley students were on an early release schedule the high school counselors ran a junior parent meeting on January 9 16th to help students prepare for their senior year and Beyond coming up we have the dbhs volleyball tournament on February 26th teams are being formed as
we speak on February 2 8 the Black Culture Society will be hosting a Black Celebration event periods 8 and 9 in the cafeteria thanks for your time and support I look forward to speaking again in March you much Nel any questions for Nel before she leaves okay thank you so much Nel uh I'm also eager tonight to present our robotics team uh who have joined us here tonight to show off to the board
and to the public what they're all about uh also so how their robot works and all the great things that our robotics program has done over the last 5 years since since its Inception um this year I'd like to introduce Mr Anthony Rosetti who is our robotics uh yes robotics team adviser um this is his first year doing that uh and again this was uh robotics Club was started five years ago and we've been uh able to keep it going strong um and the team continues to grow and compete uh so Mr Rosetti thank
you so much hello I'm Anthony Rosetti I'm the adviser for the robotics team and um the team is here we're going to do a little bit of a demo for you today um we did want to start by showing uh a short video that we put together to try to give you uh a better overview of what robotics is about uh I know that I didn't really understand the full extent of what the robotics team did until I became the adviser um
so like I said I think we're it's about to be showing up there okay so we have here video um just has some photos this is our team is our robot in the stem lab um the team working on the robot the students actually build a robot this is uh the robot uh the team actually working on the autonomous programming of the robot we weren't able to do this for you tonight so we thought we'd show you some of this on the video
this robot is doing what you see on the screen it's doing that uh through programming only so nobody's driving the robot right now that's pure programming and the students do that this is a photo of our last meet uh I think we were in Jersey City for that right is that Jersey City um and you see some photos here of the of the students uh preparing the robot for competition and uh part of this involves having the robot inspected by referees you'll
see that the moment but at this point this soon as like I said they're just putting together the robot to prepare it for competition this is Mr Carr he's our uh Mentor from FTC without him none of this would be possible here's our team getting ready to show their robot to the referee there we are being inspected making sure that we're not uh you know doing anything
we're not supposed to this is a meeting for drivers from all the different schools and teams that are showing up we thought this was a good uh thing to show you so you see how many schools and how many teams are involved here we are in our uh our final prep before competition with other teams and again this is autonomous um you can score points doing autonomous tasks where the robot does things by itself and then you could
also score points where we the students actually drive the robot and you'll see that in a minute and we're going to actually do some of this for you live here today this is just an example of what it's like to actually watch one of these meets it's like a like a boxing match it's pretty exciting this is just some of the other teams being announced before us uh and we do compete
with a lot of local teams team number 19227 the Breer Lee bots so here we are with it um on the left screen see the red arrow that saw robot there actually competing
driver this is obviously cut short this is how they announce who won we actually won this match um we compete with another team against two other teams they um randomly choose pairs to compete against each other um it's pretty cool um it's not exactly
Battle Bots but it has that feel about it when you're there and again we're in the bottom right side of here the bottom right side here in this video the uh the team is actually driving the robot and we're we actually have a very good driving team right am I right about that we have a very good driving team a lot of the other
teams um respect our driving skills I'm not gonna lie I get very excited when I'm there and I watch this I'm getting excited just watching it now I get very competitive so you're saying they get score points for autonomous and for driving correct what do you get more points for the autonomous or the driving uh it depends what you do right I think basically autonomous would be worth more
points yeah autonomous get scored again can you just pause that for a second yeah I did just want to announce that we have um a donor a sponsor Nest right here in kennworth they've agreed to sponsor us uh they made a sizable donation to the team and we've already started uh implementing um that donation and we're
going to be buying another robot and some other things that we need so we we'll now have two robots more students will be able to actually work building the robot like I said these students actually build the robot from from Parts um and now we'll have more resources more students and um hopefully better robot press play again and we have some other sponsors here on the next slide just wanted to give them all a shout out um these are all people who have either or
this here is um if you want to go to our um we have a uh a Facebook page I think some of you follow it but we have a Facebook page we try to post what's happening um so that's just a QR code uh just back to the sponsors um anything that we get from sponsors we've had people in the community donate tools to us or other supplies that we need or money or um someone donated us a trade of cookies that we could use for fundraising so and we really try to
tap into the community where we can and we're going to be doing some more um you know looking for uh sponsors uh without further Ado I think we should do a demo vade is gonna I guess we're going to leave the demo and do some talking for us chall there's Parts there's
you can see the baset set up with um those have different values the high baskets are it's about high so we have this part that show that extends out and then there's Chambers the red Chambers thatp something on and so we're going to just drive around show you a little bit of everything and each
year there's a different challenge this challenge is basically supposed to be um working in the ocean uh of driving a robot to pick up specimens and collect things and so every year there's a new challenge this is the challenge we have this year every team that competes has this contraption on their on their home turf that they they practice on
get
itches on usually
usually without the but this on this have atted each good move so is one of you driving it and one of you is work in the arm
okay and you're doing the arm okay cool all right cool with the autonomous Arenas are they like pre-programmed to like you know the width and the depth how and then where the other blocks are that's that's how it knows when you program it in yeah so it's we don't use
right and it knows where those bricks are and that's why it goes that spots pick it up or yeah
what's the significance of 1 19227 okay sign so does a robot get a name besides 19227 that you guys affectionately call it when you
guys are alone in your lab some form of Billy we were talking about having a contest that the other students name the robot name the robot we we haven't gotten there yeter wow is a lot of this 3D printed or not no I'm saying is a lot of stuff 3D printed or or just like man
and like true Engineers uh these guys are going to try stuff they're going to 3D print the claw try it see which one works better if
ites doesn't we'll go back this is an an older claw that we had so it's constant trial and error and even this uh even this mechanism that that we're using right now to drop to drop the pieces is relatively new uh a month ago we didn't have this so they're constantly changing it trying new things to you know what works better what score how can we score more points yeah so we're actually waiting for
some new parts to come in and going to hopefully hang right vade
uh well brand new robot's going to cost probably um $1,500 it's pretty so any of the any of the any of the funds that we get you know that's that's where most of it goes you say 1500 sorry, 1500 for a robot uh about it depends
yeah she got didn't she yeah I think she you got one yeah I did okay
which one oh yeah yeah could could you make that robot shake hands like with that clo thing with you know one of the students cuz I just thought of that when I saw probably
cuz that would that would be we kind of um I I I vaguely understand but if there wasn't 3D printing where would you get all those
metal buy them from uh specific vendors that sell parts that are acceptable for use that are approved by this league that we compete in um actually nothing on that robot right now is 3D printed but uh so we those are all um parts from vendors that provide those approved parts all right um they want to keep they want to keep to move forward so um we can talk more during new business
if you have any questions okay thank you okay just want we uh we just have some certificates we'd like to give the kids if that's okay sure you areest some um some recognition of um competing this year in uh in the first tech challenge um we have Matt s not here tonight rael's not here
tonight Sophia galz Melody Orga madano she's not here tonight either Jim Duran plos he's not here either Arya Shaw vade Shaw Sasa Sasha chesta
and thank you very much um we could just do a picture of the group before you leave and we also have a little uh giveaway takeaway um for you as well uh but this is while Mr ganella is getting ready for the photo um it's so impressive to see the hard work I know um FTC is all about you know robotics but it's also about the fundraising behind the robotics it's about the presentation to public so even doing this presentation I know is a big piece of FTC because they're working to train
students not not just to be robotics engineers or coders but to also be who have public speaking skills and social skills to go out into the world and um advocate for robots so um appreciate the hard work that you do as a group um it's really cool to see and you're making us proud as a district so thank you for your work I appreciate it Mr Rosetti thank you so we can do a photo with the background we'll take this out of your sounds good
the robot I know yeah definitely hold the robot in the photo
thank you very much one last question what does the rest of the season look like for the robotics team States okay excellent good luck thank
you congratulations well done yes very impressed way to go best of luck going forward so that field that they're carrying off right now in our in our stem lab it's probably about four times the size of what
they typically practice on quick clean too the real inovation they find way to have serve drinks in the summer for sure thank you very much congratulations well done thank um next up we have Mr ganella who's going to report on our annual audit as well as our referendum projects yes uh this evening we have uh Mr hsart
um uh our auditor uh who will uh give a presentation Mr Hol if you could uh take the podium and uh give us a little update on your findings and what we have to look forward to this year uh good evening uh so just briefly I want to just touch on a few points tonight um first and most importantly uh the results of our audit were excellent there's no findings in your report there's nothing I need to bring to your attention uh you know Mr ganella and
his staff the administration and the board are doing what we need to do to be successful in our financial reporting so I'm always glad to come and report that to the board um just going forward um our fund balance that we're allowed to maintain this year was $832,000 that's 2% basically of our budget that's down from previous years where uh during the pandemic we're allowed to keep four last year it went back to two now we're back to two again we also got a substantial amount
of American Rescue plan grants which were also coly related those are done now as well so those revenue streams that we had that benefit of for a few years are are going away so things will get a little tighter as we move forward but basically we're going back to where we were say four or five years ago before things got to that point so things will be a little TI um monitors that carefully he's already had discussions with me and uh so I think with with his guidance and the board's input uh we'll we'll
be fine to let you some of the resource some of the resources we did have in the we did have in the past now as we get into 2425 those are are going to fall off um but other than that um I said everything's good I still think our financial position is is reasonable and I'd be happy to take any questions that anyone have so you have any thoughts on the governor's budget or what he's going to do or what the state's going to do to our because I mean a big issue
is our reduction and the monies we received last year yeah um hopefully the governor is cognizant of the fact that you know districts are losing money they're already losing state aid so hopefully he's got something in his budget that's going to help uh restore some of the funding uh anything we can get at this point certainly would help is there any um future future AIDS or anything of Grants like that coming in in the future or not um we're we're always looking for Grants most of
the grants now are basically for special programs that that that we need for some of our students um you know the co was kind of a unique situation I mean that's really never happened before most of our lifetime so that was unprecedented Even in our food service they were giving us a lot of money that we're not going to have going forward so uh while it was nice to have it while we had it it did help uh you know remote learning and offset some cost of some other programs that we needed so it was helpful but
you know that's all we're going to go back to normal operations like we were back in 2019 220 um so we just need to be cognizant that you know we've got to kind of watch the bottom line a little more than we had to in the past because those resources are going away and through no fault of the board and this is not unique to kennworth it's it's all over the state so any prediction I know this problem I don't know if you can answer this but on our fixed cost like know electric gas any thoughts on
that going up down or staying the same we're hoping it goes down because our fixed costs are are I know could you mention talk about our fixed cost a little bit if we're okay or your fixed costs probably are 80% of your budget so before you even start to put your budget together % much higher yeah it's even higher yeah could yeah so you've got you know there's not a whole lot of room to work with but hopefully we get some nice surprises where maybe insurance premiums go down or maybe we
have some uh health benefits savings um sometimes you get unexpected revenue streams so uh Vince is always looking to take advantage of any of those programs for the district that he can but but it is limited um sometimes we get a year where we get a break and maybe we don't need to spend what we thought we were going to spend in some particular areas um but then you also have areas that probably are going to be more than what we expected uh so it's just constant watching it monitoring it making
the right decision decisions when we approach those situ so are we getting I know Vince does a great job are we missing anything that we should be getting money for or that you saw from other districts that you do audits for or not not really no we get our standard uh you know no trial Left Behind funding or Ida funding uh we take advantage of nonpublic monies if we can but uh now Vince is doing uh we're doing everything here that most other districts that I audit across the state are doing there's no District that's getting a lot
of money because they're doing something differently if if they did I'd be letting everyone know that was my question basically so but okay thank you so much all I have you're this is going to definitely I've been saying this for over a year now this is going to be a very challenging year um I know if you've heard me use the term kick the can down the road um but somehow I've used that for a couple years now but somehow somehow we squeak it out but last year's hit was really tough to overcome um because we're
really you talk about that that balance between F fixed and discretionary costs it's getting so narrow that I mean we're fighting over pencils now you know do we buy this I know we've done that or not you know we get to that point it's programs um it's Staffing and that's what we got close to last year but then we got a little bit of relief from the state but I don't know if we're going to get that relief
again this year so it's going to be challenging and we do go you know the committee does go through every single book and every pencil and every Crown that's ordered and making sure everything is right and that we actually need it so but thank you that's all I have I don't know if anybody else has anything anyone else questions on what was sent the auditor I know the report's like 135 pages so I don't know if you guys had a chance to go through it I spent the weekend doing it so everything seems to be in order that I reviewed
so yeah if anybody subsequently has any question just let mince know he'll get a hold of me and I'll get answers to you okay thank you Mr hsart appreciate it thank you Mr thanks for having me thank you good night take care here
okay right one okay uh good evening everyone um just like to give you my uh monthly update on the uh projects uh associated with the referendum um uh the field uh should be
be wrapping up uh very soon uh in the process of putting together the closeout documents there is one punchless item that is being delayed due to weather that's where the uh contractor comes back and uh regs the field one more final time um so we get a nice grooming uh uh prior to uh uh after the winter season's over uh and they professionally groom it at which time they will
turn officially turn it over where we will continue with the with the grooming uh the H HVAC project uh also is on in punch list uh and uh pending some review by the engineers uh the closeout documents are being worked on and training is pending scheduling uh so we' been trying to get schedu pend uh scheduling the training um hopefully that will be soon I'm actually in no rush because we don't
take over the warranty doesn't kick in until that's completed so the longer we live the war longer the warranty is so um so uh but everything seems to be going well with that we had some very very cold weather uh and everything seemed to be working pretty well I appreciate the staff for their cooperation in and fixing some of those Kinks um but um we seem to have
the system balanced now uh the addition Pro uh project um the our lobby entrance received its uh uh TCO which is a tempor a tempor a temporary certificate occupancy last week um and we're currently using the the entrance in the morning as students enter uh and it also hosted its first major event uh last week which was a cheerleading competition um and I was able to visit that and see it in operation was very nice and got some compliment over the
use of it the finance and facility uh committee was an opportunity to also tour it uh the other day and if you have an opportunity tonight on your way out you could exit that way and take a look at it yourselves um the auditoriums uh pure Tech which is our our Lighting and Sound uh uh contractor is in the process of installing uh Lighting and Sound in both uh both auditoriums uh buril has received its
new curtains and and hopefully bruy will be fully operational by March 1st and Harding operational by March 15th uh regarding the uh addition um and the middle school high school uh middle school and Science High School science Wing uh progress is also move pulling along nicely the roof's uh base coat has been installed um as regarding the field shorelands uh plans to rake the fields as soon as the it dries a bit
uh from the recent snow uh regardless of the air temperature that's not one of those things where we have to worry about the air temperature uh so the field are ready for when the side arrives the side manufacturer has assured us that uh we are the First on their list once the weather breaks and they start cutting the sod uh which will hopefully be the first week of uh March um once again it is weather dependent uh if that time frame holds that will put
us um on schedule to have uh the fields ready for play in early April um some other uh points uh in the addition you'll see work constantly being done over there and it's getting exciting that now you get to see exactly how things are going to be done the stair Tower is poured you're starting to see Brick being placed in there in addition to the concrete masonary block uh
so it's pretty exciting to see uh things uh working uh going on there here are some pictures of the uh addition um first one is interior uh uh addition uh uh the second one is an exterior and the Third Way is the um that's the uh elevator uh slab port and then you'll see some more additional Hall that's the hallway going down the the the believe that's this
the first floor the science science sng and then you'll see some of the electrical work that's being done uh and then the third picture there looks like the black Mariah but it is the middle school that's the addition um the back corner um you're basically standing almost in the corner of the baseball field looking towards Monroe uh on that uh and here's Harding's uh Auditorium quick sneak pre uh uh uh preview of that um looking pretty sharp
for 100y old Auditorium 102 year old auditorium not bad so um that basically oh and then this is the lobby I'm sorry this is the lobby uh so it's being used it's working um you know some things are some of some of the materials like the facade and the metal paneling and the sofits are are um in production long lead times on those uh but we felt you know what why wait for that when
we could operationally use it and I think everyone is enjoying the use operationally in the morning I think it's working well U Mr Davies noted the other day that he felt that the the it even helped the flow uh a little bit in the morning um so that's good so uh excuse me where is this picture with the with the black black building this is in in the the parking lot so you're looking at the parking lot yep okay uh regarding the overall projects uh um
Fields 96% done uh HVAC 93 addition alterations uh close to 40% Auditorium seating is complete uh the Middle School uh science is is they came out and did their field work so they measured everything um and now it's going into production as well as the um High School science and art room are also all measured and going in
to production as well uh those hopefully will be on site sometime in June and installed into the uh uh Edition any questions yes sir um about the baseball field um do we have a plan B like if the Field's not ready for like count college or somewhere we do have a field in Union ready for use uh I did we ask Mr um Miller to show some of the games
uh not yet but not okay so it's on you got to cover yes we do so the second thing is with the new auditorium at bar he's still going to continue to rent that out or I mean lease it out for plays and all that stuff and I mean I know I know we get indemnification agreements and everything like that but are we asking for more money up front like we have to take a look at the fees um at because now it's a little more nice well just more it's more quality Equipment it's all new corre you know we spent a lot of money so we should
get the bright price back for what they're using I'm just wor something they break something they Ru a seat that want the money back no we we we do they do pay us a a decent amount in security that's what I meant so now you have a better Baseline you know uh you have a better Baseline that everything is new uh so they can't come in and say well you know those initials carved in the back are Al that was probably from 1970 something you know right so so
they don't have that ability anymore so uh so now we have a fresh fresh fresh slate to work from so I think that's I just want to makeing sure that we're covering all those bases thank you that's all the revenue that we get from that is important especially after what Mr hsart said and what I've been telling you we need that Revenue we can't just say oh it's too nice to not rent understandable okay okay thank you when do you think the final contract paid off all the referendum money what are we looking at well don't forget this is
the first phase then we're going to be looking at to see what if we're going to do anything over at Harding with the preschool um or anything else so that probably wouldn't be until 27 27 yeah the board members any questions from Mr ganella okay thank you thank you Mr ganella uh just speaking of construction a few other things um know that we're in the midst of Designing next year's school calendar and I hope to have a final version ready for March Boe approval the draft we designed has
the students starting not the we like typical but the week after label Labor Day this is to give our construction workers the custodial crew and our teachers time to prepare the very very busy summer of Summer of remodeling and moving uh so just know that about the school calendar when does that push the end of the school year to though uh the last day is slated for June 24th according to that version uh so it's not too bad it's a little later than Labor day is September it's an easier year to
do that than other years for sure um also speaking of our custodial and maintenance team just a thank you for clearing the campus so we could run Thursday when I had a snowy icy slushy icy slushy uh mess in the morning it was a dicey decision um number of schools around us closed but we were open thanks to the hard work of our buildings and grounds crew that enabled us to hold school um similarly they were here over the weekend making sure that school could after the snow lots of little snows seem to be coming our way so that that crew is working hard to make
sure that school runs and people kids and staff are safe so thank you um also just we're in the midst of budget season as Mr ganela was intimating um the team is in the midst of presenting our budgets to the finance facilities committee that continues tomorrow night in the meantime know that I met with the Harding faculty last week and the Bry faculty this afternoon to present several topics um construction updates qack process our choice program as well as the budget my presentation was direct and honor I
reminded them of the reality of last year's loss of State Equalization Aid and the unknown of this year's state aid uh we're designing next year's budget without any idea of what our state aid is or will be uh the formula is broken on the state's part everyone knows it I was encouraging our faculty uh to contact our District 20 legislators legislators Senator cryan assembly men Atkins assemblywoman quano I'll also be sharing that with our pto's um for both and brely in the
coming weeks um anyone who can help contribute their voice to um fixing the funding formula is appreciated um so I'm hopeful that our voices will be heard and action will be taken to ensure that our kenor kennworth students receive their fair share of State funds I encourage everyone to contribute their voices um to support the kids of kennworth in other news I direct your attention to resolution 22 which is my recommendation to hire bry's head football coach uh coach Elliot plat Rose to the top
of a very competitive pool of coaching candidates going through three rounds of interviews with various stakeholders the final round was with me he spoke passionately about how football is more than a game it's about developing young adults with grit about trusting your teammate about commitment and dedication um this coach is eager to engage with our parents he's e eager to engage with our youth programs and I found him to be an upstanding individual committed to Brey and committed to kennworth uh so if approved we'll be rolling out introductions to players and parents in the the coming days and weeks as
we prepare for an exciting 2025 season um finally a couple of reports at the um in your packets uh the the oh resolution 27 is an HIV that you're voting on from December that we reviewed in January uh so that's resolution 27 uh in your packets are three new HIV investigations that uh emerged in the month of January you'll see two or from brierly one
was from Harding so you'll see those details in your HIV information all three of those were founded hibs um which then uh transitions me into the presentation up on the screen um twice a year we have to present the school safety data system report ssds as it's called uh we have two periods period one is the first half of the year period two is the second half of the year so tonight I'm presenting out the period one first half of
the school year results um and uh um you'll see um the yellow bar on this chart is the data from the same time period in 2022 2023 the blue bars are 23 24 and the green bars are 2425 so the current data is the green um happy to show that most things are trending lower as we look
at um hibs weapons substance vandalism violence you'll see that our data is trending down um which are all good signs um give you a second with that one uh I like to see those Trends overall the next slide is um the number of trainings or programs that we are implementing those first two again the green are current data yellow is two years ago Blues
last year uh you do see some of our restraints are up there in that middle um some people might ask to what do we attribute all of this we are doing a lot of work in this area with school um discipline with social emotional learning with harassment intimidation and bullying trainings with our students um you have a whole list of efforts initiatives events and um things that we're doing in the schools to
make sure that we're combating inappropriate behavior or inappropriate um language or inappropriate actions of students in our schools um from assemblies to initiatives like the week of respect Red Ribbon Week um we have um a lot of work that we put into new student orientations um new student mixers we have kindness weeks we have um all sorts of things that are happening whether it's our Student Assistance counselor our school counselors our behaviorists our case managers our teachers they're all
engaged in this and they know that this is an important component because kids need to feel safe and they need to feel welcome at school before they can engage with the learning so that's a big component of what we do um and I think some of the trends that we're seeing lower partly it's a result of we've emerged post pandemic we saw a big spike in incidences after the pandemic because students um some of them just kind of forgot the Norms of school um so behaviors went way up um post pandemic and now we're seeing them come down
as a result of the familiarity with school routines and such as well as the efforts that our school staff is putting forth to address these issues um finally um there's a discipline report in your packet there's an enrollment report and a residency report as always uh there any questions about the hibs the ssds or anything else that I've covered want to take a moment or S to look through before we
move on if you have questions good that concludes my report thank you very much questions good okay thank seeing that there's no questions we'll now move on to report of committees review of resolution and board discussion up first fin facilities and negotiations Mr lead okay so I know Mr fart's gone but I want to thank him for his presentation is to accept
the report on that's resolution number seven the facilities and finance committee started to review as Mr ganel Mr Davies spoke on two 25 we reviewed the Harding curriculum instruction budgets um really a lot of the focus was on textbooks and professional development we will continue the budget process tomorrow um we will be reviewing guidance special education in the athletic budgets on February 26th the committee reviews review phase three which is the
SBA documentation again these budget reviews are very detailed they include informative sessions on the instructional programs with all the administrators um and then when we present the entire budget to board each administrator will will come in here and present highlights from their budget we're not going to ask them to go line by line by you guys just the important items maybe some of the more costly items that they're they're um asking for and that the committee approved um the governor's budget
address is scheduled for February 25th with state aid as a critical State a is a critical component of our budget we'll be monitoring it closely as you aware we saw a decrease in Equalization Aid in 20 um Aid and 25 the aid is directly tied to sales home sales in Kenworth which increased above the a state average which resulted our decreasing our Aid so the higher the houses go up per house the less Aid we've been getting and
that's kind of flaw on the system um getting back to our last month's dilemma with the sore pipe collapse that ended up costing us $335,000 but Mr Canelo through the insurance we were able to recover $25,000 of that um and that's sort of what I oh and again Mr Davies mentioned this the ground staff did a great job um getting us ready for to open the school up whether it was on the half a day and going forward I'm sure they'll continue to do a good job so for tonight we have 11
11 resolutions for your considerations um resolution one was the superintendent report which you just heard the next three include the bill report in the financials and line item transfers I reviewed peruse the bills in the financials I found nothing to be no outliners all to be in order there were no line item transfers over our $55,000 cap um resolution five and six are for field trips for the staff they're all approved by the the superintendent
and Administration payment to contractors for ref referendum work kind of match up what was paid and the work was being done they all seem to match so I think that's good the annual audit Mr herard just um presented safety data system was um which goes over just um is that kind of part what you've addressed um Mr Davies that report yeah so I know there's a bunch of pages in there and I think it was like 30 40 pages of documentation of what covers in that report um you know
bullying policy on bullying athletic event conduct or some of the things and other school event activities 10 is the horse um pyman scholarship um even though we've given out these $1,500 over the last two or three years I think um which we increased from I think they were originally $500 but um at some point along the last three years we U mov those accounts to gain more interest so we're able to give more money out to each of a senior and that's for community service trade and Technical
School of Business and general academics and 11 is tuition reimbursement um I find them all to be in order and I suggest you vote in favor of them that's all I have oh negotiations want touch on that really there's been a little bit movement but we're basically in the same report during Clos session anyone questions for Mr L on the resolutions or anything related to finance just one one question on that
resolution six the the top field trip that says it's going to Scotch planes with 40 to 50 students and one chaperon would going to votch they're going to vot to explore votch options um so those are high school students who may be interested in votch um they take our votech bus in the morning okay um and then when they get there they're on a tour with over there all right so
it's not like a field CH field all right thank you anyone questions okay okay thank you thank you Mr we'll now move on to personnel and management Mr H thank you there's 14 resolutions tonight resolution 12 is acceptance of of a retirement resolution 13 is a leave replacement resolution 14 is an updated leave replacement for a teacher in parting res resolution 15 is the approval
of uh am lunchroom Ms for the 24 25 School Year resolution 16 is the approval of par professional aids for the 2425 School Year resolution 17 is a paternity leave of absence request resolution 18 is a uh six period additional teaching section resolution 19 uh the approval of student teachers resolution 20 is the approval of Co their stien positions for
the 2425 School Year resolution 21 is the approval of athletic stien positions resolution 22 is the approval of as the uh aforementioned um High School football coach approval uh the stien for that resolution 23 is the approval of uh payment of unused sick days resolution 24 is the approval
of sub insute staff and then skipping to resolution 31 somewhere here is the uh acceptance of a resignation of a par professional Aid um do you want me to read the policies now events or should you can okay sure uh and there are two policy resolutions 28 and 29 that I'll read off and then resolution 30 which is a disciplinary matter so
resolution 28 is a first reading for policy number P 9163 um which says just reading the summary right yeah um in May of 2024 the njsiaa updated spectator code of conduct to require that all members all member schools adopt a policy regarding Spectators and inner Scholastic games and events if a spectator violates a code of conduct the penalties increase progressively requirements of the policy
include immediate removal from the event disciplinary measures including suspension from future events an educational component for the individual who violates the policy and appe an appeal process and posting of the requirements of the policy and then resolution 29 is the adoption of policy P 5512 harassment intimidation or bullying um first and that one says because because the memorandum of agreement with local
law enforcement has changed our HIV policy must change specifically if an investigation into harassment intimidation or bullying involves law enforcement and the law enforcement investigation requires a pause or stay on the part of the school the school must yield to law enforcement the pause SL stay must be communicated to the parent or guardian and last but not least uh resolution 30 is disciplinary matter number three uh
whereas the superintendent schools has placed student number 20231 on a long-term suspension and whereas this recommendation is based on the students violations of student code of conduct and whereas the parents have waved their right to a formal hearing before the board regarding long-term suspension in accordance with njsa 18a 37-2 and njac 6 a1673 and whereas the board has reviewed
the evidence and information presented by the superintendent and whereas the board finds that the charges are sustained now therefore let it be resolved that in accordance with njsa 18a 37-2 NJ and njac 66-73 the board hereby upholds the superintendent's recommendation the Su that student number 202 83001 be placed on a long-term susp suspension from David brle middle High
School from December 19th 2024 to February 12th 2025 that is it keeps going oh it does right after oh sorry yeah there's more be a further resolved that student 202 83001 shall be ineligible for readmission as of February 13th 2025 provided that all preconditions established by the administration are met
by the student and the guardian at which time the student will continue receiving home instruction until the IEP process is finalized eligible should should be eligible yes sorry the student shall be eligible for remission a mouthful yeah anyone have questions for Mr hether on anything with personnel management or anything with policy review thank you okay at this time we
will now move on to curriculum instruction Mr Ferrara good evening um on the agenda tonight is three resolutions uh resolution 25 is NJ doe qac equivalency application uh resolution 26 is the appointment of a a new doctor uh neuros uh neuros psych neuros psychologist I still butchered it uh resolution 27 is
the hip report for December 2024 and that is for that's it for curriculum anyone have any questions pres Mr fera okay seeing that there's none we'll now move on to Old business anyone have anything to add under old business I would like to add my weekly or monthly old business please continue to review the Friday folder visit our website and our social media Pages the superintendent posts all types of information about supports events
referendum business and communication with the leadership teams please use those resources they're put together for the community anything under new business no okay at this time we will now open up the meeting to the public for comment can I get a motion to open up the meeting to the public please second second motion made by Mr Ferrera seconded by Mr hather all those in favor of opening the meeting to the public for
comment please say I I opposed eyes have it motion carries Mr ganella uh public comment will now be limit for the public to speak at the board of M Board of Education meeting to five minutes per person unless prior permission has been granted by the Board of Education to extend time pursuant to Boe bylaw 0167 uh for the record when you approach the podium please include your name and uh address prior to making your comments so any public that would would
like to comment please step up at this time uh Carmen buo 338 North 18th North 18th Street kennworth I wanted to say uh real quick I'm sorry I was not here for the induction to uh the new board members as well as the previous board members I wanted to say congratulations on a very well-run race you have a task at hand and I'm sure the town
is definitely looking forward to what the school board is going to do in the future uh Mr Davies Mr ganella and Dr panichi I would like to sit with you uh it will be coming out that I am running for assembly because it is disrupting our students this whole matter with the school funding uh it's something that needs to be and handled in the business way so if I can uh reach out to you guys I'd like to ask you some questions so we can move forward and get you this funding that you need just because our
house is increased does not mean that you should be penalized uh so thank you very much and again congratulations look forward to seeing you all thank you Shar contact information yeah yeah Mr puko I will uh I'll make sure you get my contact information yeah sounds good thank you thank you anyone else like to comment at this time ex Hi hi uh
Joey Grimaldi um I've been here before um I uh I want to know how come David brle doesn't have a rifle or pistol shooting team um I I know it it it may be something that's like oh what is he asking for that for but I uh I
listen to a podcast a gun for higher Radio podcast it's been going on for uh about 15 year uh 14 15 years um they uh the the two the two podcast hosts are Anthony kandra and Sandy barardi and um Anthony is a uh a master Firearms guy
he he knows how to teach people he knows how to uh shoot he he he was a competitive shooter himself for a while and he also um owns the um Woodland Park gun for higher range up in Woodland Park now I'm not here plugging his his uh gun range but I
am a a second amendment Advocate I I shoot myself I I like I like shooting um you know pistols and rifles it's fun it's it's great for for for people you know men and women self-defense but also as a competitive sport um I don't compete myself
um I'd like to eventually but uh it teaches you it teaches you discipline teaches you gun safety you learn the respect of the firearms and unfortunately um well they uh Anthony and and Sandy they've spoken about it a time or two when when they were kids when they were in high
school they would they would bring their their 22 rifles if they were on the the the shooting team they would bring them put them in the school lockers you know lock them up or they would be locked locked in their vehicles out in the high school parking lot and no no one was doing any mass shooting or or crazy stuff like that um there was there
had there had to be a different mindset and a different culture um and we we we shouldn't the culture we have now with with violence and and school shootings is is very bad for for everyone and and Society we should I would like to see us go back to that culture where the rifle is for a sport
and not not to kill anyone and you know as a discipline um and I do this is this is a newsletter that I get it's uh news and briefs and it's all about Firearms the laws um there's there's ranges in here there's there's um
the the shooting sport uh stuff um if any of the uh board members want to take this um you you could have it read it see see if if you could if you could find a reason to maybe start up a a Rifle and Pistol uh team in in gly and
throughout out throughout the school system um you know I I I don't want I don't want to shoot anyone I don't want to kill anyone I want to have I want to have firearm protection but also for recreation and sports um often in in in in the ports um um you know I'll be shooting and uh the guy next to me um he he says Mr
raldi I'm sorry to cut you off but you've okay grapped five minutes I'm sorry thank you for your comments all right I think it's against the law in New Jersey to have guns on school prop that's why there's no I don't think there's any gun clubs or any teams in New Jersey schools that have well yeah gun clubs um we participate in the njsiaa which is what we were talking about earlier um they don't recognize um gun or pistol shooting
as an inter Scholastic sport so because that's um there's if you want to campaign with them I think that might be uh a Next Step but the njsia doesn't have any Statewide U pistol teams um so that would not be something that we could do um but in terms of school safety I am proud to say that our school district I can't think of a safer School District um based on the amount of work that our school safety team does as well as our law enforcement in our community we between our resource officers and the
kenor police department I do have to say that we are quite a safe environment um but in terms of the Pistol Club that would have to be an njsiaa sanctioned event and Sport and I don't see that um happening at this point fencing though is still a sport and yet another thing wrong with New Jersey their gun laws but if anyone would like to pick this up just to educate themselves thank you you
any other public would like to comment at this time please step up Randy love sh 79 Park Drive uh trying to make this a monthly thing for you guys um I appreciate you guys listening to me uh last month I came up with I guess you could call it three complaints and um after the meeting Mr Davies reached out to me we exchanged information and uh not to discredit you but I thought it was going to be one of those like oh I'll get back to you later type things and never get back and um
to surprise Mr Davies was right on an email with me uh which turned into a face tof face meeting in the building he spent a good hour with me answering every question that I had it was a great meeting um if anybody from the town has any questions about what's going on here there's your Source he's got a open door policy and um you know I I really didn't expect that and to my surprise it it went really well um open-minded about
everything and I really appreciate it as a as a parent of two kids in the school system um if more people took that same approach I think uh the communication between the public and the um that being said the the one thing that's I know I'm going to be a thorn in your side is uh about the parking situation uh again pulling up the back parking lot was pretty much empty a dozen cars parked in the fire lane tonight something's got to be done about this because it's it's really a danger to anybody inside
the building that nothing is being done about it um if it is I I'm not aware of it but I I really think that whoever makes the call between here and the loop over it at um Harding whether it's putting notes on the cars if you guys need me to do it I'll do it but uh you know the public needs to know that they can't park in a Firelane even though it's not marked properly I know that it's going to be marked and that with due time because of
the the weather out there but God forbid something happens nobody's going to listen to that excuse that we couldn't paint because it's been cold or wet or raining or snowing or whatever it may be so but thank you very much for the time you spent with me it really the the parents need to do the same thing that you and I did and you know it might take a lot of your time away but it it was very helpful to me and I I spread the word to a bunch of the other parents as well and they were like oh what you do to be able to get a one-on-one I'm like went to a meeting that's it so no special treatment but it it was
very much appreciated thank you very much thank you for your thank you for your comments thank you Mr Le appreciate that um support uh also just uh we met with the police last week um we are working on getting new signage um and I I'm going to be sending an email out to the community about um the parking expectations I'm just waiting on the exact wording on that signage I don't want to be I'm not a law enforcement officer I don't want to say the wrong thing in my email to the parent Community without knowing exactly the wording
of those signs so I'm just waiting to hear back from the police before I send out the specific wording so that we can make sure that everyone knows where they should be parking what they should be doing how they should not be leaving an unattended vehicle in a fire zone those types of things so it's still work in progress but yes thank you that's probably mostly the wrestling yes it's been going on been going on since the school for the squashed it for quite a while well yeah yeah I mean I've been on the
board since I've been here since 1989 my first meeting was what are we going to do about parking around Harding school so it's an ongoing situation for 30 something plus years so but we keep improving and improving and trying to do things so we built that whole lot over at Harding to alleviate a lot of those concerns so we keep modifying and we will continue to be modify thank you thank you any other
public would you like to comment at this time no make a motion to close to the public second motion made by Mr lat seconded by Mr HTH are all those in favor of closing the meeting to the public please I I oppose eyes have it motions carried the meeting is now closed to the public for comment Mr gala are we ready to do roll call resolutions please yes we have uh 31 resolutions on the agenda do any of those need to be voted on separately
no no no yes yes yes yes number 27 yes number 27 okay any others need to be voted on separately okay um so this will be for Resolutions 1 through 31 on the AG agenda excluding number 27 berer yes Ki yes David yes Ferrara yes hather yes
Cina yes Zimmerman yes panichi yes motions carry unanimously and this is for number 27 on the agenda biner yes K Coy David yes Ferrara yes hather yes Perina yes lat yes Zimmerman yes panichi yes motion carries okay thank you Mr Gala is there a need to go and close executive sessions yes there is can I have a motion yes motion made
by Mr hather seconded by Dr Koli all those in favor of going into close executive session please say I I oppose eyes have it motion carries Mr ganella okay the Board of Education uh be resolved Board of Education Mee and private session from which the public shall be excluded to discuss the topics of personnel a Kea grievance um and negotiations secretary's clerk AIDS unit which private discussion is being held pursuant to
section 7B and 8 uh 7B and 8 of the open public meetings act the matters under discussion will be disclosed to the public as soon as final decisions and made and voted upon okay thank you Mr G thank you everyone for attending we're now going to go on to close session please thank you