all right we're going to call this meeting to order please rise for the pledge pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and
justice for all adequate notice of this meeting was advertised in the Asbury Park Press and the Beacon on January 9th 2025 and by posting the notice in the Fork River and Lenoka Harbor Post offices and by filing a copy of this notice with the Lacy Township Clerk as
requested by the Open Public Meeting Act roll call please mr armato here mr peters is absent mr bell still absent uh Mrs armato here mrs walker absent mr prody here and Mrs claus here okay all
right we're going to go into executive session be it resolved that an executive session be convened for the purposes of discussing confidential student matters including but not limited to harassment intimidation and bullying confidential legal matters including but not limited to the current case load and confidential personnel matters the subject matter of these discussions will
be disclosed to the public when the reason for confidentiality subsides the length of the executive session is estimated to be approximately 60 minutes after which the board shall reconvene and proceed with business at 7 p.m action may be taken motion motion yeah I'll second all in favor i
I Dan is here so I All right we're we're going to get started we're going to resume our meeting uh Mr zalinsky is going to make a quick special announcement we have something to celebrate yep we're we're starting yeah too much
we're on thanks Tom thank you Mr lidles we are going uh I'm jumping in thank you uh President Claus uh I there's no I mean I'm not the biggest fan of it but I know it is the biggest deal that Dylan
Zach perfect game today first [Applause] You want to thank the team that is awesome congratulations all right now we're going to turn it
over to our student representatives okay tonight I'm going to start us off with our monthly update from the Student Government Association sgaa last met on April 7th the sophomores just held their walk-athon fundraiser this afternoon and and are currently preparing for their
graduation lawns sign fundraiser the juniors are planning their endofear activities and fundraisers including kiss a senior goodbye um powderpuff and junior prom the seniors are planning their senior prom and currently advertising that the
senior raffle fundraiser which the drawing for is planned to be held on May 9th for the executive board the 2025 2026 SGAA elections for next year just concluded today and we are also
preparing for our Mr lacy F fundraiser which is going to be taking place on June 3rd and lastly the last um SGA meeting for the school year is going to be taking place on May 5th thank you
Kayla i would now like to announce our April unsung hero Olivia Miller is Olivia here looks like she's not here but I'll read a little bit about her the Matthew Blum Blum Unsung Hero Award is awarded to a person who has exemplified unselfish
acts within his or her community for the month of April SJA has chosen the recipient of this award to be someone who is always able to lend a helping hand when needed she is truly a role model for those who surround her she's extremely involved at Lacy Township High School including being a part of the
Lacy STEM Academy a member of student government and a challenging herself and challenging herself with AP and honors classes in school she has been ranked as the top few in her class with a well over a 4.0 GPA she's also a member of
the Lacy varsity girls soccer winter and spring track teams in her athletic career she has broken numerous Lacy track records and has already left an incredible legacy at our school outside of LTHs she can be found playing club soccer at uh the Cedar Stars Academy and
volunteering with the Lacy Elks for these reasons SJ is proud to announce that our April unsung hero is Olivia Miller congratulations Olivia keep up the good work okay I'm now going to turn it over to Mr mr zillinsky and and I really appreciate that it's still the Matt Blum award
those of us who knew Matt Blum he was really a selfless like unsung hero for our school there's probably a couple people in the audience who remember Matt he was really a a really wonderful individual for our school uh back in the day so uh right now I'd like to introduce principal Mr jason King he's
going to introduce our seniors of the month for April two or three of them two this month yes sir okay and uh definitely a highlight of our meeting thank you Mr king good evening everyone it gives me great pleasure to introduce to you the seniors
of the month from the Lady Hip High School our first senior of the month uh has an alias and if you had the luxury of going to our spring uh musical this year you may not recognize her given name uh we have the blessing and honor
to have the one the only Morticia Adams in the house this evening with that I am proud to call up Sophia Muzmani as April Senior of the Month i'm Sophia Musmani and I'm proud to be
named April Senior at Lacy Township High School sophia Musmani congratulations on earning senior of the month here at LTHS I participate in the National Honor Society i'm a part of the Student Government Association i'm also a part of the LTHS drama club and I also am a
part of the school's select ensemble i also participated in both winter and fall cheerleading your work ethic is impeccable you have worked so hard over the last couple years you put your heart and soul into everything that you do and uh and that's why you are so deserving
of this student of the month so again congratulations outside of school I like to hang out with my friends i like to bake and I also like to travel and spend time with my family sophia you have worked so hard over the last uh couple years and I'm so uh happy that you
joined our select choir last year uh you have improved so much and you are an athletist left choir especially in our alto section it was also so great to see you on stage for the first time uh landing a lead role as a role of Morticia in our spring musical the Ashes
family and I could not be more proud of your growth and all the hard work that you've done over the last couple years so congratulations after high school I plan on attending Coastal Carolina University which is in South Carolina and I plan to major in
education and minor in music you're going to be successful no matter what you do because of all your hard work and again I'm so proud of you congratulations
[Applause] always take a picture and Sophia's family was here this evening a round of applause for them as
well thank you [Applause] all right as we heard our next senior of the month not to be outdone uh did pitch a perfect game today which for those who
are not sure no one the team sorry I apologize the other team showed up warmed up got dressed came onto our field and no one touched first base up and down every white player congratulations
[Applause] it's amazing what we do dylan come on up this is Dylan Zach and his family's here a round of applause for them as well [Applause]
hi my name is Zack and I'm proud to be April's senior of the month for LS congratulations Dylan on being named senior of the month out of my four years of my high school I've played baseball and it's been really fun and I became
more of a leader throughout the years and as now I am the senior captain of baseball i got to say Dylan you have really surprised me over the last four years you came in your freshman year little me quiet but at the same time that's only because you were super
confident in your own ability i've watched that ability grow over the last four years and I got to tell you I'm extremely proud of the man you are today confident in yourself mostly at times but at the same time you're the man who understands exactly what he wants in life goal oriented hardworking and high
achieving i got to tell you I am super proud i would say the things that I do at school is I play baseball i hang out with friends and I really study all my activities in school for my future plans I am committed Stevens Institute of
Technology and I'm pursuing a career in mechanical engineering with a concentration in robotics so congratulations Dylan Zest of being a senior [Applause]
[Music] [Applause] Mr uh so Mr homeberg you have some additional presentations to see this afternoon i'm losing time where I'm at
so the last time I did this to Mr homeberg he didn't know I was calling him presentations he said he's prepared tonight do something pretty good yes when your superintendent surprises you it's not to surprise you it was a good surprise that was good um good
evening it's a full circle moment i taught with five of the teachers of the year that are up there um they're wonderful humans so congratulations congratulations to Dylan and to Sophia who I taught as an elementary band student and to Olivia so congratulations
to everybody um we're going to congratulate some more people in the music realm uh sometimes in the hustle and bustle of everyday life and with the noise that seems to surround us daily it's easy to lose sight of what really matters achievement takes on many different forms and tonight I am here to highlight the musical achievements of
some sixth grade students sadie Mcgalli if they'll come down sadie McGalli if they're here uh I think I think a couple of them that went on vacation already so So we had Satie Mgali we have Estabban Rios
Oal we have Victor Figueroa who I believe is on vacation uh Alexis Smith i saw her and I didn't see Christian but Christian McGee are you here no okay uh Christian McGee so these
um students um congratulations for being selected to perform in the 2025 elementary Honors Band Festival it's kind of a misnomer because it's being hosted by the South Jersey Band and Orchestra Orchestra Directors Association it's a festival that's open
to students in grades four through six so it made a little more sense when we were sixth grades in Milpan but they still accept them when they're in middle school which is awesome um these students are chosen by their band director me um uh students must demonstrate proficiency on their instrument good work ethic be an asset
to the band and a great representative of Lacy Township Schools i have the honor of teaching 105 wonderful musicians and these students embody the very best that Lacy schools have to offer uh we wish them well and we know that they're going to represent Lacy with pride and dignity go get
them oh Mr mr zinsky said "What do they play?" And uh no I'm just kidding uh Alexis plays flute and Sadi and Estvon play the trombone nice and I got to tell you they're really good so right that's it thanks sir all
right thanks guys congratulations did they get a picture thank you uh we're going to invite back principal Kane who's going to kick us off with one of our more exciting board meeting events of the year where we honor our really wonderful homework equipment our wonderful teachers of the year
welcome back Mr thank you Mr zillinsky uh tonight is a special night uh the six individuals you see up there on the screen are labeled the teachers of the year there's a lot more to it than that uh each of those individuals who who were selected
to win uh went through a selection process that uh not everyone understands the pool of candidates is vast we we can name any teacher we want and at the school level we have to narrow it down to three and when I say narrow it down
it it's almost an impossible task we have tie votes we have people being explained two three times in a row names coming back into the mix uh eventually we make it down to to three individuals and each school sends up those three at that point at the board level the three
candidates are from each school are looked at once again and a winner is selected from each school these six people represent a lot more than just being the teacher of the year they are the tip of the iceberg of what goes on in this district they are the people who
represent everyone who was nominated everyone who made it to the board level and also everyone who's in the building every single day so when we honor these six this evening just remember we can only pick six if we had our drillers we
had our our will there'd be 600 up here so tonight I am proud to introduce the Lacy Township High School teacher of the year Miss Kina Fchette kina come on down [Applause] while she makes her way down here a
round of applause for her family who are here in attendance as [Applause] well all right so what does Mr fchett do here in our
building i don't know no that's not true mr rashad has the uh unique skill to teach both English and digital media in both of those roles she is compassionate sincere and pours her
heart into everything she does her students are better for being there not for the knowledge they get that is a given they're better for being around her and seeing the inspiration that she brings outside of the classroom that doesn't stop she works with the Interact
Club for those who don't know the internet club is a service club they provide service and help to those around us who need it be it a food kitchen down Atlantic City be it a township project mrs fchett takes students into this club and teaches them that the world is much
bigger than these four walls or what's on my screen or just the friends I know who are just like me she shows them that there are people in this world that are not like them that don't have what they have but need help whether it be in the
classroom whether it be in the studio where she's amazing at what she does inspires kids to be more creative than you can imagine or be it in the club where she teaches these kids what the world can be like for some people it's all about heart it's all about passion
and for over 20 years she's provided that to this the students in in this building in this it's it's an amazing thing i am honored i am proud to stand next to her i'm proud to that she was selected as our teacher of the year kan you deserve this i know you don't like
this but it is time the world hears what you do congratulations [Applause]
all right with that I'd like to call down Mr brandis the principal of Lake Central Middle School [Applause] applause i appreciate that um uh certainly congratulations to the
unsung heroes the seniors of the month um our sixth grade musicians congratulations and all of the teachers of the year uh I am up here to congratulate and announce the Lacy Township Middle School teacher of the year Miss Melissa Paw congratulations
i'd like to congratulate her husband Steve uh who's here tonight and her son Will congratulations to her family um Miss Paw is one of our Mil Pond teachers who came to the middle school uh two years ago during our reorganization of the district we asked
her to teach uh science full-time she said "I'm happy to do so uh for the kids." Uh just last year we asked her to step up and teach our STEM students and again she's more than happy to do so uh an amazing team player and an amazing
teacher currently she's pursuing her master's degree at Western Governor's University miss Paz focus on integrating instructional technologies and enhance the learning experience she employs a flip classroom model that promotes exploration and interactive learning
catering to the diverse needs of all her students what truly distinguishes Miss Paz is her unwavering commitment to building meaningful relationship with all of her students uh she uh passionately shares
her goals to engage every student as an active participant in their educational journey uh please join me in celebrating Miss Paz as Lacy touch [Applause]
congratulations at this time I'm going to invite up Miss Holly Neimik to celebrate the teacher of the year for the Cedar Creek Elementary School [Applause]
all right thank you Mr brandice uh congratulations to everyone being honored tonight it's so great to be a part of this district and hearing all the great news um I have such immense joy and gratitude that I get to
acknowledge Mrs papa from Cedar Creek mrs papa could you make your way down as she makes her way to the podium I'd like to recognize her husband Damon who's up there and her daughter Addie their son Chris couldn't be here
tonight he is at college at Satan Hall so I know he wishes he could be here um Mrs papa has not only shaped young minds but she's le left a lasting imprint on countless hearts you may not know this
about Miss Papa but she actually went to Lacy Township High School and it was I know right let's give her a round of applause for that during her time here as a student she was actually a part of the child care and development program which is
still going on um after graduating from Georgian Court Mrs papagre began her career as an educator she's had the opportunity to work in a multi-age program teach fourth grade and teach third grade which which is what she currently teaches right
now she's helped develop curriculum and assessments to support the learning of the students at Cedar Creek she's also served on various committees and led community efforts to support strong relationships between the school and community when I think of Mrs papa I
think about the impact that she's not only left on her students but their families as well her consistent acts of care creativity and compassion inspire her students each day when somebody walks into Miss Papa's class it's
evident that every child feels seen heard and valued to watch Miss Papa teach is to watch magic in motion she transforms lessons into adventures creates hands-on learning experiences and takes time to
support students who may need extra help she does this with heart patience and joy if you ask any parent they'll say "Oh my kid just loves Miss Papa she really makes learning fun and she really
knows the kids." It's hard to believe that Mrs papa has been teaching for 28 years i know the students faces light up when they see her and they love to share stories about the
weekend william Arthur Ward said "Teaching is more than imparting knowledge it is inspiring change learning is more than absorbing facts it's acquiring understanding each day when Mrs papa and her students enter the classroom they
have a shared understanding of the same goal to make each day better than the one before while taking on new challenges thank you Mrs papa for always inspiring us to bring joy and laughter into the classroom and most importantly
for creating a family with each new class you get congratulations [Applause] at these at this time I'd like to invite
Mr feedler down the principal of Fork River School good evening Lacy Township Board of Education Mr zalinsky and community members on behalf of all of us at the Fork River School I am honored to introduce the Fork River School's 2025
teacher of the year fifth grade teacher Mrs kirsten Knack mrs nackman is a graduate of Lacy Township High School and Georgian Court University where she earned her bachelor's degree mrs nackman's professional career as a teacher began
in 1996 when she started teaching here in Lacy Township immediately upon graduating from college during her 28-year career she has taught third grade at Lenoka Harbor third grade at Cedar Creek School language arts and
math and science at the Lacy Middle School fifth and sixth grades at Mil Pond and we are so happy presently fifth grade at Fort River School based on Mrs nackman's impressive resume here in Lacy it is safe to say Mrs knackman is a jack
of all trades and a master of all this is because Mrs knackman her desire to learn for Mrs nackman her desire to learn never stops as a recent transfer from Mil Pond to the Fork River School due to the district restructuring in 2023 she embraced her new assignment
not only by learning the current fifth grade curriculum but by taking it to the next level she took on this position by researching and implementing the latest cutting edge elementary practices and techniques to help her fifth grade students excel socially emotionally and
academically mrs nackman's dedication to our students goes well beyond the classroom during her tenure here in Lacy Township Mrs knackman has served in the various schools she has taught as a drama club adviser a math club adviser a
science club adviser a peer mediation adviser a grade level coordinator a detention supervisor a building that's important a building representative for our LTEA a principal advisory committee member a teacher of the year committee member and
most recently at the Fork River School our hero club adviser where she where she built our first ever hero club from the ground up with much success mrs nackman's passion creativity and dedication are boundless she prides herself on connecting with each and every student to inspire their self-worth confidence and self
asssurance mrs nack Mrs nackman can be quoted as saying "The rapport that I have been so fortunate to build with all of my students over my 28-year career means a lot to me i care tremendously for all of my students success and I absolutely love what I do." This evening
Mrs knackman is joined by her husband Allen allan are you out there her daughter Lauren and her son Evan lauren and Evan are both Lacy graduates as well mrs nackman on behalf of all past and present students and staff members of the Fork River School
congratulations on being named the Forkid River School's 2025 teacher of the year [Applause] congratulations congratulations
at this time I'm happy to introduce Mr brewer from the local harbor [Applause] school all right good evening everyone
um let me start off by just saying to our students you guys rock right you guys did great what an incredible two weeks athletics activities perfect game i mean dude I knew you when you were this big playing T-ball that's awesome i am so excited for you guys
i'm also really blessed because this is why Lacy's awesome i have personal connections with all six teachers um half of them have taught my kids i taught a third of them melissa I'm sorry about the whole tennis ball incident ashley's my neighbor and I mean
Michelle Kirsten we go back to those awesome classes of the early 90s but this is what makes us special we are the biggest small town you will find there's those inner connections and I am just so so blessed my time with Kina up here at the high school I got to say honestly
she's one of the most genuine colleagues I ever got to work with and I I couldn't ask for a better night and a better person to introduce on behalf of Lenoka so at this time I would like to introduce Lenoka Harvest Teacher of the Year Mrs debbie Rener
[Applause] i would also like to acknowledge her husband Joel her daughter Kelsey son Max and his fiance Christina mrs rner is another one that
has deep roots here in Lacy having served here in the Lacy school system for over 24 years she began her journey as a world language teacher at Milton everybody knows her as math but she's world language she then became a classroom teacher and then in 2018 she
became a math and science teacher all this being at Milpon then in 2023 Mrs rittner came to us again to be a classroom teacher this time instructing all subjects in fifth grade um after some unnecessary but
understandable u nervous twitching um and some counseling for Mrs kilmurray and her Lenoka colleagues Mrs rittner said she settled in um realizing that she had this she could do this and Mrs rittner
quickly became a leader not only within her classroom but within our building mrs rner is the epitome of the whole child teacher and notice I didn't say instructor I said teacher she takes a great deal of pride in creating an environment where students can take
risks to learn we all know that learning does not happen when you're comfortable so she makes them comfortable with being uncomfortable and that's where learning is going to occur i'm amazed at the level of kindness responsibility awareness that her students have learned
from her and that they demonstrate on a daily basis her students are as focused on how they do it as much as what they do they're leaders within our building in an old school focus for norms values
manners and respect for others that are coupled with contemporary educational materials and pedigogy mrs written as I said is is the epito epitome of what I would say is teacher of the year given the quality of the candidates to select from at Lenoka this is truly an honor and one that I'm
proud to announce so on behalf of Mrs kilmer the staff at Lenoka our students and our parents congratulations Mrs rener [Applause]
at this time I'd like to call another great colleague Mrs jody Daniel [Applause] thank you very much thank you [Applause]
so thank you Dr brewer so good evening everyone what a wonderful evening to be here to celebrate all of our Lacy teachers of the year i've been very fortunate to actually happen to work with five of them and for that I am
deeply grateful it's an honor as an administrator but also as a parent of two successful Lacy graduates and a Lacy resident to celebrate these wonderful educators that show such dedication towards the success of their students
congratulations to you all it is a privilege to represent Mil Pond Elementary i'm extremely proud to introduce our Mil Pond teacher of the year Mrs ashley
[Applause] Smea tonight Mrs smita is joined by her husband Jay son Oliver daughter Ruby and baby Smeita soon to make an appearance
in just a few short weeks but not tonight ashley's parents Casey and Lorie and her in-laws Donna Nancy are also here to celebrate this great accomplishment we all know how important it is to have a strong network to go
home to after a long day at school her educational history started right here in Lacy Township as a kindergartener after she graduated from Lacy High School Mrs ma went on to achieve her bachelor of science degree in speech pathology and aiology from
Stockton University and her master's of science degree in speech language pathology from Lel University but she didn't stop there she continued to hone her craft by adding multiple certificates in specific areas such as neurodeiversity affirming and n natural
language acquisition and that's just to name a few of the certificates that she holds you see what Mrs smeita does daily in touching the lives of her students takes a great amount of passion for learning she strives to provide the best for her students and to do so she never
stops as our speech teacher at Melpon she works tirelessly to help our students find their voice she opens up the door to communication her perseverance and determination to provide her students with the best possible experiences has
brought her here this evening but she doesn't stop there she's an integral part of our Mil Pond community as she chairs our spirit committee is a member of our special events committee is the Mil Pond representative for the unified champions
organization and is a member of the youth athlet athletes committee her ability to work collaboratively is the reason many team initiatives are successful now I could go on and say lots of positive things about Ashley but I think it's important for you to hear
the voice of your colleagues ashley carries an air of joy along with a smile for everyone she's a huge asset to every student in Milpond she's a dynamic member of our school community limitless amounts of patience
that give our students the ability to grow there is no bigger heart for our Mil Pon kids than Ashley dedicated compassionate knowledgeable she is a passionate educator i'm so fortunate to have Mrs
smita on my team her patience and compassion are an inspiration i wasn't surprised and I'm extremely proud to have Mrs smita as Mil Pon's teacher of the year congratulations congratulations okay so we're going to take a um five
minute break those families that want to start Easter break or or spring vacation are welcome to leave probably a few people waiting outside anybody wants to go now your chance each other all right guys we're going to start
public comment an audience member wishing to make a comment will raise his or her hand and when called upon state their name address or affiliation and attention to make a statement guys quiet down please comments will be addressed to the
board president comments will be made one issue at a time comments will be limited to five minutes no audience member shall be recognized twice until all who have wished to comment been recognized this portion of the meeting is for public comments only there will be no questions answered the purpose of this board meeting is to perform our
business in public everyone is entitled to a public comment if there is a question for the board there's an established chain of command so I promised last night that we were going to start with a student labell if he's here yep come on up good evening everyone my name is Corey
Lobdell and I'm a student athlete at Ly Township High School as you all know why you're here today on behalf of our school sports and extracurriculars are being cut yesterday I was walking through the school hallway and was looking at all the athletes and successful years that
have came through this school from every sport pictures hang up on the walls and displayed throughout the building every sport has years upon years of winning and their legacy is throughout this school this program and all of its staff members brought so many athletes through
their hands countless college stars and even my own father the program did not just make them athletes but the program changed their lives and made them better people this school has also provided countless of athletic and academic opportunities
for kids in every sport other than sports extracurricular activities such as clubs that we all need for us to help to get into college as a student it is extremely upsetting to think that I may not be able to get into my desired college due
to the cut of clubs and sports overall it's not fair to anyone we just want to continue that legacy we don't we want to continue playing for the sake of fun and joy for some kids sports is all that they have and all they look forward to at the end of the day and if that's
what's going to be taken from them then they will be extremely upset and frustrated i myself and every student athlete at Lacy Township High School is just asking that you would just give us a chance thank you thank you good evening members of the board i'm a
student of the Lacy Township School District you may remember me from last year when me and another student GG fought the same fight we are facing today and we brought this fight to Trenton and are willing to do it all again if it means saving our schools i've done my research and I know that this is the fault of the governor and senator Sweeney for creating the current
S2 funding formula and while I agree there may be some things that you can you as a board can do better I am no means mean to blame you as other schools are also facing the same problems because of this funding formula i've created an Instagram page where anyone can follow for updates about the funding
crisis upcoming meetings and more and I know some of you board members are already following which I appreciate your support last year I worked closely with Dr pereira and together we helped get a bill passed in the Senate to restore some of our funding mr zalinsky I hope I truly hope you are willing to
put in the same level of effort as your predecessor if you choose to stand up and fight with me I look forward to working alongside you i'm not asking your for your support i'm expecting it you were chosen to be the Lacy School Board members for a reason and we deserve and expect leaders who don't give up on their students i think you
can all agree as Mr romano stated last night "This 14% tax increase should be a complete last resort there are many ways that not only the board but citizens of Lacy have brought up." Last night I remember Mr ryan brought up the idea of selling a piece of land uh there were
other options that were stated there's options on the table to be taken in order to avoid that 14% tax increase getting rid of sports and clubs and all extracurriculars will hurt students even more for some students football isn't just a game drama isn't just a play they
are lifelines i'm sure you're all aware of the nickname given to Lacy in 2013 Heroin High um if there are no uh sorry in 2013 there were still extracurriculars in athletics how bad do you think this is going to get when you
cut everything um if there are no outlets for students like clubs and sports who knows what kids will do especially since many use sports as an outlet for the bad things in their life without them some may turn to bad paths like I said earlier drugs so I ask you would you
rather have a school full of students who are supported and have healthy outlets or one where students are left vulnerable and susceptible to bad things the answer the answer should be simple no right without these programs students lose their sense of belonging their safe
space and their feeling of community students come first students not the parents me and Gigi will continue to fight this fight until we win we are in it to win it we did not sit all day in the Senate committee room for us to lose this fight
if need be we will go back again this year that is all I have thank you for your time thank you good evening board students and parents as I sat here tonight and watched the awards go on of our good students and of
our par of our teachers and I listened to the students speak about the cuts going on excuse me can you state your name and address oh I'm sorry sean Judson thank you okay i'd like to know why you can't redo the
referendum make it clearer because it was not clear was not clear at all what the school had put out was a much easier that fire that they put out was much easier to understand and in fact I spoke to a lot of people about it and they finally understood it
and they voted for the schools on top of that why should the teachers and the students suffer when you put a classroom of 38 or 40 kids the teacher is only going to pay attention to the students that are
either good or to the students that are disrupting classes and it's not good for the teachers mental health or the students mental health along with cutting sports that's not good for their mental health at all you these kids need an outlet and they need need direction
you you can't take that stuff away you can't take away their music their arts their sports it's not good for them they lose out on their scholarships which is very important because college is expensive how are they going to get scholarships if we no longer have those
programs and people cannot afford $1,000 for each sport come on that's ridiculous somebody did some poor planning here some poor mismanagement and you all need to sit down and redo what you did and look for a different way to do this
without taking away from these kids or from the teachers because the teachers are valuable and so are the kids they are our future that's what we need to worry about is bring giving these kids a good education a good outlet and some
kind of structure in their life because many of them don't have it because unfortunately parents today have to work two three four jobs to be able to pay their bills so you guys need to sit down and redo what you did and do it all on
time because you missed the time level thank you thank you good evening my name is Emily Sierra and I'm a senior here in this district tonight I want to speak from the heart not just as a student but as someone whose future was shaped by the very programs that are at risk i'm here because we've the student body has heard
the possibility of cutting sports and after school clubs and while we understand the tough choices that need to be made when the budgets are when the budget is tight I urge you to consider what programs truly mean not just to me but to hundreds of students across the district these programs are not just hobbies for some students they're
lifelines for some students sports are what keep them motivated to maintain their grades stay out of trouble and build discipline and teamwork for others clubs are a place where students can make a difference in their community they're a safe place when people feel like they belong it's a safe space when they can explore their interests outside
of the regular school day student government for example plays a crucial role in shaping our school our school culture it's not just about planning dances and spirit weeks it's about leadership problem solving and creating real change within our school student government organizes events that bring the community together raise money
for important causes and serves as a bridge between the student body and the administration without it our school would lose one of its strongest platforms for student student voices and leadership it would leave a gap that can't easily be filled as a student in the STEM Academy I've been fortunate to have the opportunity to find my passion
through my coursework but outside of the class it was the opportunities that these classes gave me that were the most beneficial they allowed me to connect with my peers who share my same passions and turn my skills into something real i've seen firsthand how these programs transform curiosity into confidence and ideas into accomplishments it's also
important to recognize how deeply these cuts would affect the students who are planning to apply to colleges colleges don't just look at grades they look at the student as a whole for many students these programs are what make their college applications stand out without them we lose the opportunity for scholarships for rums that reflect who we really are and for the experiences
that help us compete in an increasingly demanding world cutting these programs doesn't just limit our high school experiences it limits our future i know I'm not alone here i'm speaking for the artists the athletes the coders the musicians and our future leaders for every student who have found their voice on a stage their strength on the field
or their future in a classroom after school as a freshman I started with high hopes and big dreams as I progressed through the years I lost hope and cut back on dreams openly being told with what I wanted I wasn't able to achieve with all the cuts I've experienced in my time here I can only imagine how f future students will be affected
opportunities for these stu students are dwindling forcing kids to make tougher choices to stay or move to rival districts we ask you to see us not just as members on a budget sheet but as young people trying to discover who we really are and who we can become so tonight I ask you please don't take these opportunities away we understand
the challenges you're facing but we're asking you to make your next decision not just with a calculator but with compassion thank you thank you hello again hello Matthew Holberg resident of Fork River um last night I sat and I listened to a lot of people um
and I had no I have no ideas i don't know what the best of the worst solution to get anybody out of this is um so the way I understand it is there are three choices one we get a miracle from
Trenton that the money shows up and all is fine the second thing is we raise the heck out of taxes or the state tells us we have to raise the heck out of our taxes or the third option is that we cut everything um and everybody loses in
that battle um I don't and I'm not asking for an answer cuz I know you can't you who can't answer but after I left and I was walking down the stairs I started thinking um our higher education institutions right now are um experiencing some blowback on the federal level and some of them are
standing up and they're using the legacy money that they have um they have it we don't um Harvard University is a completely different entity but they're able to make decisions because they have a pot of money that they can rely on and
not be beholden to the government um is there an avenue are we legally allowed i'm not asking for an answer but planting seeds are we allowed to find that avenue i mean we are a multi-deade district we've got alumni do we have an
alumni organization that's even cohesive um could we build a coalition i'm not looking for millions i mean we're looking for millions obviously but there's got to be somewhere where we could build that and financially have some sort of seed money that we don't have to rely on Trenton and the whim of
whoever the governor is or whoever is in the office in Trenton and that was just a thought that occurred to me um I don't know if it's a Thank you thank you um so years ago we had a um it was called the Lacy Education Foundation I believe um
that no longer exists but that would be a good avenue to for people to start donating um so really that needs to come from a person in the public to start a a nonprofit correct we've got to have we've got to have alumni out there that but we need someone to actually to do
the work it's it's work and um you know it unfortunately we had it and it went away um but if someone's willing to do that work that's another way we can get money into our districts and then we can do fundraising it's a nonprofit which is amazing um but if anybody wants to
donate anything just email Miss Ornsby um she will put it on for the minutes for a donation and that's how we normally do donations but we definitely need more than just $100 150 so if someone is willing to step up and start an education foundation uh we can't do
that um it has to come from someone else in the public so that's that would be a great idea that would be a great avenue thank you can I interject too yeah just for the good of the order I have a lot of clients you know that that over the years um that at some point have had a started ed foundation or someone in
the community has it's important to understand that's a legally distinct entity from the board so typically the board can't you know um incur legal fees on behalf of the 501c3 for that but um if you do if somebody is willing to step up and be the president of a new ed
foundation and you know do the tax filings and do the the little bit of you know um accounting work I guess that that it goes along with it and of course a lot of the fund raise it could be as big a thing as you make it with you know what you do with it um I'm be happy to check with my partners if they would be
willing to um you know have us do the like the 501c C3 filing on a pro on a proono basis or something like that um I can't guarantee that i don't run the firm but I'd be happy to take that back i have almost no time and no financial background but um if somebody wants to
assist I'll I'll assist thank [Applause] you hi my name is Maya Rogers and I'm a junior here at the high school i just moved here so I'm not exactly in the
happenings of the district but I do know this some of my very close friends have stood up and fought for what they believe in and they believe in this district i write to the members of the board with a fervent heart and an urgent
plea i moved here with almost no friends and almost no hopes for my academic future or my social life when I got here my one of my friends in my English class and during my lunch had asked me to join the drama club and I
with no other prospect said yes i then found out how much of a heartwarming community that Lacy Township is i if I had not joined I would not be standing here before you if you cut these programs there will be kids who
will not be here anymore and I say that as a personal outlook if you cut the sports you'll be cutting out these children's futures and you do not want that children and their families will find another outlet to provide those
futures for them and you do not want that you want the vibrant community that you have right now if you let that go I unfortunately will say this town will fall to ruin no one wants to see that some of
these people have been there been here their entire lives so as someone who is currently watching world affairs and local affairs very closely with a very open heart I beg you and whatever you
can do please do something to help our community because I've seen so many teachers in fear trying to look for other outlets and other jobs so they don't lose this one and are unprepared there are so many students that are looking to their teachers to ask where
to transfer to if god forbid this school closes down or if any of the schools in this district close down because we have a lack of money it is heartbreaking to see and I really really hope you take all everyone's please here and everyone's accounts seriously i understand that increasing taxes is
something no one wants and all these options are available to us but unfortunately you might have to make the very tough decision and it might hurt everyone but it's going to maybe help the children and that's what the main goal is and I hope that's what this
meeting's goal is to help the children because they really really need it right now thank you thank you hi everybody john Satello Lenoka Harbor so last year I stood up here and I said I didn't want to be standing here in 365
days saying the same thing to the same people on the same items and yet here we stand we're staying we're standing here talking about the same things the same budget problems that we had last year we're still seeing the same thing logan
Gigi myself Mike Ryan we went to Trenton last year and we spoke on a Senate floor we sat in those hard rock hard chairs for six hours listening to them talk about Oprah for hours on hours on end and we basically come out
with an option of raising taxes or not raising taxes we got a little bit of money back in that bill we were able to get $1.4 million back to the township but the unfortunate reality of it was we had to raise the taxes 9.9% because
there wasn't enough money to come back and keep everything funded we were able to keep all the programs active we were able to keep the majority of the teachers unfortunately we did still lose some teachers last year and that really is sad it's a sad thing
but you know he standing here listening to the options that we have right now what do we have we have an option of 14.24% increase which isn't attainable for a lot of people it really isn't you
know I'm fortunate enough to be able to say that it may not hurt me terribly but there's a lot of people in this town that can't do that and I agree 100% but at the same at the flip side of that what else do we have the op the other
option is to remove all programs and activities that's absurd it's absolutely absurd i can't I couldn't even fathom thinking about that so you hear a lot of people talk you
know I'm here i'm here i I just can't think the performing arts department here at the high school has about 150 students in the program if you look at the middle school if you look at the grammar schools there's hundreds of
other children that are in that one aspect of a program in this district one that's it you saw all the kids that were here that were that were talking about the no hitter the no hit game that was amazing it's amazing to hear that we have that kind of talent sitting here in
Lacy Township all sitting here yesterday looking at everything these seats were completely filled there were people waiting outside there were people in the auditorium there were hundreds of people sitting here coming here in this town because they heard that they were going
that that there's a potential of you guys dropping activities it's unacceptable i don't understand why that would even be part of it because being a part of extracurricular activities it teaches you much more than what anybody
can think and I know there's some here that don't think that it's necessary and that's absurd too it's not necessary well what does it teach you it teaches you skills like cognitive and critical thinking problem solving teamwork leadership these are not the skills that
you're going to find in a book you're not going to be able to teach that in a classroom sitting down in a in a chair learning that you teach that you learn that by doing and that's what all these programs do they teach the kids the things that they can't learn out of a
out of a book having that barebones no frrills garbage education i'm sorry i don't care what what you think of it that is a garbage education that is not an education I want for my kids and I don't think that's an education that anybody here who has children or any of
the educators that are here too want to have in this district we have it's it's just absurd to think that the state has taken so much money away from us and then the Echo turns around and says that the that the the township
is underfunded by $17 million well no crap you took $14 million away from us where do you think the money's going to come from if we had that $14 million back I bet you anybody in this township would say "You know what we'll cover the $3 million difference if we don't have
to hear about this anymore." I heard a student say to me that and it's really sad to think of this i I heard students say "We represent the township of Lacy but lately the community has not been
representing us." That's a sad thing to hear people don't think that the students hear what's going on but social media is a really big thing thank you could you come up again yeah if you want to finish I'm going to take Eric
[Music] um hello board members and Lacy residents i just wanted to get up here to talk a little bit about the impact of these budget cuts from a student perspective as you know sports the arts and all of our clubs are the heart of our school yes we may have an
outstanding faculty and our facilities left but without these clubs and sports the school's attendance numbers will plummet and you will be losing your most valuable students i've already heard students um personally that say that they will be switching next year if these budget cuts do go into effect and
this is not just one person that that I've heard this from um um the students remaining will be miserable as well um you won't be worrying about large class sizes because nobody will want to raise children in our town anymore um our schools will crumble and the heart and soul of our
school system will be gone along with stu along with the students of Lacy as the town will become a mockery of what we take pride in cutting these programs is not an option i can only speak for the arts but despite threatening cuts in
the past couple years the arts are still thriving last week we had our jazz festival an outstanding success i had numerous students coming up to me and saying how nice our school is uh which was great to hear whether the quality of our band our great auditorium or our digital media department streaming the
concert across TVs in our school three weeks ago we had the Adams family sold out as well um do we have the budget no but we have the heart and the potential to be great despite our school's challenges our our achievements are impressive to
say the least and I'm sure there are great things to say about our sports programs as well uh you're not only impacting our schools this is impacting our whole community with important clubs that aid to improve the world outside of these school walls such as Interact and Surf Rider on the chopping block additionally SGA which funds homecoming
prom countless other activities our school would become a prison these extracurricular cuts no matter what will destroy Lacy Township our school our community will be ruined schools and these students are the future of our town i'm asking you as a board to do everything you can to stop this and
please do not let this happen lastly I just ask what do you take pride in in our school and by this $1.2 million that we're missing what will you have left when everything is cut thank you thank you Rian Mendes River um I was here last
night in the overflow and as a teacher and a parent um and alumni I hate to see what's happening the infighting that's online is terrible because that's not the community that we are we're a community that comes together for one another and when I think of where we
live in New Jersey I think of we're like the top property taxed state top five we have casinos we have tolls every five miles we have beaches that we pay to go to we have legalized marijuana we have lotteryies and we have a nuclear plant and I can't understand how all of these
districts are experiencing this because we're not alone and I was given the name um Assemblyman Suiki and that he was very knowledgeable on S2 and helping Jackson and Tomver so I called him and he called me back and I was shocked um
and I said what can we do i said "This is our situation and I know you're familiar with it." And he told me he said "On May 13th there is a Senate Budget Appropriation Committee meeting that is not open to the public however if you submit a letter to the Senate Chair Paul Sarlo it has to be submitted as public record and given to all the
committee members you can also apply for an indoor permit and be present in the halls when they come to the meeting there's also another opportunity because May 7th is the public testifying uh for the state board of education there's not many state board of ed meetings
throughout the year that are public um and this is one of them you have to register by May 1st in order to attend if you cannot attend though you can also submit a letter um this is a week of state testing so the teachers would need the community to support and represent at the state board of education meeting
you get five minutes just like here so you need to put your thoughts together and try to take the emotion out of it and give what is happening to our district and our children and imagine if all of these 130 districts were able to send one person on May 7th and one person on May 13th and have the state
coming together with somebody from each district to tell how this is affecting all of us um and I was given a quote today that I'm going to leave with by Simon Synynic it says "We invest in things like our future like our children like our education." In other words we invest in things that we understand will
not see an immediate return of investment but everybody knows it will have a positive impact and you can easily measure it over the course of time and your why is exactly the same thing so I wanted to share those two courses of action since we are in such dire straits that possibly um our voices
can still be heard the letters uh to the commissioner or to the um Senate committee hearing need to be in before the end of April and there's also one in the assembly but I didn't get that information before tonight so thank you
thank you [Applause] good evening board my name is Zay Pageant i am a 10th grade student here at Lacy Township and I'm here for one singular reason and that is to fight for these kids and myself to keep extracurricular activities and clubs
here at Lacy Township everyone that's here tonight I have a question how many of you you or Can you just address me please i'm sorry you have You have to just address me please it's not that's okay how many of these kids are in an extracurricular activity a lot of them most of them right so how bad would it
be if they take if you guys take away these clubs we'd be losing college opportunities scholarship opportunities and an outlet for these kids mentally and or physically to keep in check these kids show up to school for one reason these clubs they want to do well in
school because they want to stay in these clubs you taking that away is affecting them mentally and physically they break their backs doing what they loved and to that for that to be stripped away the school would fall to dust especially with all of them planning to move and switch schools if
that happens I know there's other reasons that we can't exactly address the govern the government and the governor have to but for me personally we could fund ourselves
realistically the drama club choir club SGAA and DECA can fund themselves personally and even if the clubs cannot fund themselves we should be able to find the money whether it be from our governor fundraising or otherwise like ticket sales snack stands or more i'm
hoping that you guys are willing to hear us all out and keep these clubs in Lacy Township thank you and good night thank [Applause] you good evening members of the board my
name is Alexandra Medo and I am a sophomore here at LTHS i'm a member of the soccer team and the marching band and tonight I want to talk about the budget cuts for next year when I found out that sports and all extracurricular activities were being cut I was absolutely devastated my coaches here at
LTHS have given me more confidence in my sport than any other club coach has ever given me marching band has given me such a big love for the arts and the best bunch of friends anyone could ask for color guard has been such a joy to be a part of and thinking I won't have that next year makes me feel great sorrow
that you are allowing this to happen i don't want to have to go through the next two years of high school without both of these things in my life and I'm sure my peers around me can agree with me the next thing I want to talk about is classroom sizes my little brother has a learning disability and the fact that he will be in a classroom with 30 plus
kids is absolutely diabolical because of these numbers it's going to be even more difficult for my brother to learn and that will result in my parents being under tre tremendous amounts of stress thinking he is going he's not going to get the proper education that he needs and deserves i hope you all go home tonight and think about this because
what are you doing to myself and other thousands of students that are in this district is insane and we all deserve to have a proper high school and middle school life with sports and clubs and normal class sizes for the elementary students thank you for your time thank you
good evening my name is Vincent Markeel i'm a junior at Lacy Township High School and I am a multisport student athlete every day in school I see posters saying how we the students matter but taking away our sports extracurriculars teaches us the opposite
when I started playing as a freshman I was antisocial had no self-confidence and had no way to cope with life's problems however sports have transformed me as well as many others into confident kids who have learned social skills and how to deal with life sports and
extracurriculars also provide students with opportunities for scholarship and things to put on college applications the solution can't be punishing and taking opportunities away from the students instead of taking things away the community needs to come together to find a better solution for
example we could send buses to Trenton with town members to protest and we could speak to news outlets to get media coverage on it thank you thank [Applause]
you hello Alisa Waller crestwood Drive um I'm just listening here and I'm thinking about how we are in this moment right now in a constitutional crisis and a previous speaker mentioned that our world is in an uproar and we are at war
with several countries and New Jersey contributes over 6 billion billion with a B dollars towards the funding of these wars our tax dollars i'd also like to mention that $23,000 per person in a foreign country
is covered for their life uh so our tax dollars are going somewhere else so our congress people our senators our governors are failing all of us by not sharing that information not telling us that all that tax money that is being
cut from us is going somewhere else and our students are suffering our colleges and our campuses are being attacked our student protesting at campuses our first amendment right amendment rights are being attacked our fourth amendment
rights are being attacked at this moment and our students who are here right now are going to be immersed in this mess so our tax dollars we all know where it's going right now and I think that our Congress people and senators need to
fight more for that amount of money should be coming back to our communities and thank you thank you [Applause] welcome to the club
terrible in um Deputy Governor of River New Jersey i was up here last week and I spoke about the tax hike um I think everybody in this room and I know every one of you sitting at
the table all agrees that um nobody wants to cut sports nobody wants to cut any programs we would love in a perfect world not to cut anything um I do think it was um a little funny how the only thing
that is dangled is sports classroom sizes and busing to make sure that you incite chaos in this district so that upsets me because last night I was here and I was really hoping that the workshop that it was advertised as was
actually going to be a collaborative effort from the community that it was actually going to be a workshop that we were going to kind of have discussions as to problem solving and what would be some other options i have faith that there is things that can be trimmed out
of the budget without cutting sports without cutting um extracurriculars because they are unbelievably important not only to the students but to the entire community it gives us a sense of pride um it makes Lacy proud and by
having those it it serves so many kids in this district but there is things that we can trim unfortunately we've known that this has been coming for nine years now so we can't roll back the clock what we need to do now is figure
out how to move forward and start chipping away there's ways to trim the budget but it's going to be a lot of work it's not a quick fix it's not cutting out a department it's not um cutting out you know four employees that that you know do a tremendous amount in
this in this district such as the grounds department you have to trim little by little but it is a lot of work and um I am not for the tax hike for one um I still believe that it sends a terrible message to the state that if we
always fall back on the taxpayers and we pin the taxpayers up against the wall that's going to be their go-to excuse every time they're going to hit us year after year after year with a tax hike if we allow it the first time they're going to keep pushing just like we allow we had to do it last year they are coming
back at us again there's no reprieve from the state so we have to keep pushing back at the state we can only bend so far before we break um another reason I am against the tax break Mr pinto I appreciate your comment yesterday as far as that it's difficult
that it's easier for an elderly person to leave the community than it is a family and I respectfully disagree the elderly people in this community are the heart and soul of this community they don't live in this community because we have great parks they live in this community because their children live
here their grandchildren live here they support this school system they are out at those sporting events and at the school plays and at the band concerts just as much as the parents are sometimes they're there more than the parents because the parents are stuck at work and us as a community as parents we
rely on the elderly community to have the backs of our children and it's not easy for them to to make up a deficit for their taxes there are a lot of them are on fixed incomes we don't want them to leave this community that is not the answer so I I feel for the the senior
citizens um they they are the ones that buy our fundraisers they buy popcorn and cookie dough and they don't even need it but they are supporting this school system in more ways than we can even count um and and Kim to address you last night you had mentioned that boosters
the boosters can maybe step up and help unfortunately Boosters is run by volunteers hard incredibly hardworking volunteers but the majority of us work we have families we have full-time jobs we are all trying to do the best for our
families we are already funding a broken system a broken athletic system we are spending $9,000 on um on scoreboards because we have to keep unplugging them and replplugging them back in to get them to work we are purchasing face
masks so that our kids don't knock their teeth out with field hockey balls we are purchasing uniforms we are purchasing all kinds of safety equipment and volleyball nets this really should be funded by the district we are strapped as main boosters and the sub boosters as
well we do everything we possibly can to support the athletics but we are pushed to the limit so I feel that I feel very strongly we have to push back on the state because if we send a message to the state and we keep raising taxes they will keep coming back and hammering us
and pinning our backs against the wall thank you very much Debbie i just want to address uh a couple things um the board workshop that we have the um the workshops okay we do them every year usually two or three at least since I've been on the board so
that's been scheduled um the finance committee talks about it we pick a few dates because of the budget so it's a budget workshop for the board so when we have a budget workshop it's just for the board actually to discuss we have to have the community we have to post it to
the community because it's over three people so if we have a quorum we have to open it up to the public we welcome comments we welcome conversation but that particular meeting or any meeting over three people is for us to talk as a whole because we can't
talk as a whole otherwise that's why we have committees so that's why we did it here um in public usually we have the library because of us people last time we had it about 3 weeks ago one person showed and she was an employee so I I
just wanted to address that that's why we have to have our budget workshops in public we will if we have uh if we have the opportunity again um to vote on the budget we will have another workshop most likely uh before that vote for the
board to discuss and everybody could watch and that's what that was i appreciate that i just had a problem with the three major things that will endlessly incite a riot in this town and everything everything is being
looked at and and were sent out and principles reached out to all okay I I get your point yeah okay so that's uh one thing we have been getting your emails and we will obviously discuss any suggestions if anybody else has a suggestion please
email us um we'll send it to the finance committee and uh we'll work on it we're looking for ideas and suggestions but that was the purpose of our budget workshop which we've had many many times and we would like people to come and and participate okay anybody else like to make a comment
go ahead good evening Karen Hopson um good evening members of the board and members of the community before I share my comments I would also like to voice support for Miss Judson who spoke first about the effect of this
continuing turmoil has had on the mental health of our staff and our students so I I really feel that and I think that needs to be said too i'm here tonight to speak in support of our four dedicated grounds personnel whose positions are being considered for abolishment tonight
um I urge you to take a closer look not at just a shortterm savings on the budget line but at the bigger picture we can't continue to balance the budget on the backs of the employees and of course I do support the extracurricular
activities and the sports that everyone's spoken on tonight privatization of grounds might seem like a cost-saving measure on the surface but privatization often comes with a higher price in the long term these four
individuals are not just employees they're part of our school community they know our grounds they know our facilities and more importantly they know our students and staff they take pride in their work because they're not just maintaining property they're caring for the spaces where our
children learn play and grow a private contractor might mow the grass and shovel the snow but they will go but our people will go but will they our people go above and beyond of course but if we hire a contractor and it's on a contract
they're going to come mow the grass they're going to shovel the snow but will they go above and beyond uh for our students when we need them will they clear the walking path early for the special needs student will they fix a drainage issue before um a sports game
will they blow goose geese feces off our walking pass paths or notice broken branches or dangerous areas in a play area um when we outsource we lose more of that control and that personal touch we lose commitment we lose relationships
and we risk the integrity of our school's environment so let us not be shortsighted in pursuit of small immediate savings this is a bigger problem than that um let's instead recognize the long-term value of our dedicated employees who have proven
their worth time and time again um I hear the stories of how versatile they are they're aren't just taking care of grounds they're they're jumping in and helping out uh as when other issues uh come up our students deserve a safe well-maintained
grounds and they deserve the steady hands and caring hearts of the people who are invested in our district not outside contractors please reconsider this decision and for the sake of our schools our staff and our students um thank you thank you
uh Tori Freeday i live on Brentwood Road in Fork River i'm a proud parent alumni and teacher of this district i'm here to ask a question um suggestion maybe but I was wondering if there's a way we can have a clear reliable method of
communication from the district that can accurately address misinformation when it's arising um unfortunately misinformation is spreading faster than facts on social media lately and that's just unfortunately where people get most of their information it's the easiest
way to get information without correct getting it correctly um other than our district is becoming very vulnerable to these harmful narratives sorry um other than damaging the reputation of our schools it's also breaking the trust
between educators families and most importantly the community and I think we're all seeing that right now um I feel like having a communications lead who can respond quickly and factually would ensure that the truth has this chance to stand on equal ground this person wouldn't just be putting out
fires but would help educate the public and build a culture of transparency many people have posted questions about the budget as well as the things the district does or does not offer and so much was misinformation i think people tend to gravitate towards what's easiest and that's believing what
the person before them posted or says imagine we had someone that could address these questions in a respectful manner that could address the misinformation and give the public an accurate answer i can only imagine that this and hope that this could bridge the gap that has formed this is about
valuing the voices of our educators and students and protecting the integrity of our schools it would be giving parents and students access to the truth so they can feel confident in their schools and informed in their choices we owe it to our staff our students and our community
to speak clearly consistently and truthfully especially when others are not thank you for your time and your consideration thank you just just as a reminder to what Tori had said um there's not a phone call that comes to my office that does not get
answered so if you're looking for information that took place and our website is always factual so just keep that in mind thank you go ahead good evening good evening board members
and today I would like to ask for another meeting to not see if we're going to cut sports or not but how we're going to solve this as a community and as a whole and I like uh
earlier speakers addressed what we could do with Congress May 7th May 13th and how we could contribute and how we need to come together and I want to ask for some way that we could
all get together again and address that um on last night um this came up a lot and Mr zalinsky put it on the website last night so if you go to the website uh there's a sample letter it's up a sample letter it's a way to contact Congressman yeah and how to contact Congressman so if you can go on there
and click each one and if you want to write a quick email just tell them how you feel um it's right when you go on there's like a little exclamation mark just click it and it opens right up that would be a big help if the community actually could do that reach out
okay thank you for your time thank you is there anyone else that would like to speak okay go ahead okay uh Jessica Duca Heatherington Court um I unfortunately do not have any magical wand that can help any of you
guys right now um I'm not really for any of the suggestions unfortunately um but the one thing that I do want to say is that yesterday's meeting what it looked like for us was it was uncomfortable first off at one point Kim said that we
missed the the state deadlines and the entire board said "Well why are we here then?" That was a huge like almost like a kick in our gut because all of us are here for one reason but you board as a whole did not know and that's
unfortunate to like hear that um I think one of the biggest problems is you could feel the division in our board that is a humongous problem in itself and if that division doesn't come back together as a whole you guys are going to fail it's
just it's inevitable it it's going to crumble and things like this taking away is just going to add to you know the crumbling my my my last thing was Cheryl made a few points did they Was it going to cover $7 million no but it was it was
a it was a a suggestion and Mr zalinsky kept going "Ugh well that's just a drop in the bucket well that's not going to be enough." Where you got to start somewhere like it doesn't matter start at $100 and work your way up but you guys have to come together and be more
conclusive you guys have always tried to hide us and keep us as a whole out of like your meetings and this and that and and somebody said here that um a lot of people would have voted differently if it was um portrayed in a different way a
lot of people saw the turf and they were like h another thing for sports no it could have been it could have brought money in the problem is the communication is terrible on your end terrible and it's because of your division if you guys come together it will be so much better and the last
piece I will give you is we are looking for you guys to guide us you guys came to that meeting yesterday with nothing nobody had any suggest a couple of suggestions but why didn't why didn't you guys have a plan why didn't you say let's start here hey is there a Mr or
Mrs smith could that could start this fundraiser or start a GoFundMe nobody came with a suggestion like that was sad very very sad if you guys don't get it together it's going to go nowhere thank you i I just want to correct one thing
that was said in there um the idea that uh that the board like blew a deadline because they weren't a they weren't aware of the timelines that's not true they submitted a tenative budget by the statutory deadline it was not approved by the county office they went back to
work you know held further meetings had the uh the session last week to discuss whether or not they were going to submit an application to exceed the 2% tax levy cap which is the option that the state is affording districts this year um and you know we had the meeting last week it
was debated nobody wanted to submit an application for a 14% tax hike so they consciously chose not to apply for that it was 6 to1 right i I suggest and it was 6 to1 it was conscious decision it was not as though they were asleep at the switch and just missed the deadline i want to be clear on
that go ahead oh you know what you spoke already so um that's going to be after everybody else okay is there anybody else okay go ahead meg fory Leno Garber um I just wanted to follow up our last speaker by saying
that I think we're all a little bit tired of the buck being passed on the state constantly we hear that we have a problem the state is blamed there's a lack of trust in the community and the school board and there's been no communication on what you guys are going
to do besides cut busing cut sports raise our class sizes and so on there's been no real discussion of what other things can be done and if they are small and drops in the bucket maybe that's what we need to do or the conversations that need to be had so that we build a
bigger trust in the community back with this board because right now if I hear that it's the state and S2 which was a law that was passed in 2018 and this board and this district knew that the cuts were coming and did not prep for it properly or we wouldn't be here i we
can't do it anymore we need to hear from you guys what small incremental steps are going to be taken that are not large threats about cutting busing cutting teachers raising our caps and so on that's just not We don't want to hear it
thank you would anybody Go ahead Richard good evening Lacy citizens members of the public members of the school board frustration i am so frustrated first because seven years ago
I spoke to members of this board there's only a couple of them still on here from way back then about the S2 legislation and the impacts it would have on our district
unfortunately the school board made the decision to actually do nothing so basically they took a gamble and they lost doing nothing is making a decision and now the school district is
in a precarious financial position the sad part is there are two innocent parties the taxpayers and the students last night i was here and I do
not appreciate the spectacle that took place it was all staged i know who was behind this it was Mr zalinski he literally did this to bring out all the stops because the sports were being talked about being cut but actually
there hasn't been any discussions amongst the board about any cuts about anything their budget that they p did not pass on the 14th excuse me of April uh they had to go back to a you know and
come up with a compromise of some sort sadly nothing has been decided upon but yet fearmongering was used and you know what i'm sorry the students i feel really bad for you because you're pawns in their game of chess and you should be
home studying and enjoying your life and not really having to worry about the cuts that are going to be happening this is really the adults have to make the decision and to bring you into it is just it's despicable as far as I'm concerned
mr zalinski's failures were also on full display and he embarrassed the entire board last night and I will explain to you what I mean by that a qualified superintendent would have had three budget scenarios in place which because
of Mr zalinsk's inexperience the board does not the board now looks ridiculous and you are now between a rock and a hard place on another note Adam the union representative
stated that there will be no givebacks no anything and demanded the board raise the taxes such arrogance and entitlement just so everyone knows if all the clubs have to be cancelled and all sports and
other extracurricular activities you can put your blame squarely on the teachers union i offered an opportunity where the union could save all positions all clubs all extracurricular activities and they absolutely refused in fact they laughed
at me i must remind the union it's not smart to bite the hand that feeds you because that hand might come back and bite you twice as hard the school district is in dair financial crisis the entrangence of the teachers union
complicates it even further the board needs to get to work quickly and you need to have to work within the 3.15% tax increase that you are legally allowed to raise taxes and come up with a budget which I'm sure is going to be
painful for many but the school district is in a dire situation and is lacking leadership at this point so get to work do what you were elected to do the most important task that a board is employed with is fiduciary
responsibilities because of the situation we are in with lack of planning lack of accountability you have placed the school district in uncharted waters please get to work and make the hard decisions and be leaders for once
and take whatever is going to be thrown at you because that's what that goes with the job the buck stops with you on another point there was a a mention made by a member of the public about an
education foundation well we once did have an education foundation it was actually founded by a former board member who was actually a part of my Lacy citizens for responsible government group and nobody wanted to do any of the work they couldn't even keep people on
that body i'm sorry that's your time i understand you can come up yeah I'm just I'm just finishing right now just finish up yes so I just wanted to mention that avenue has actually been tried before thank you very much anybody else john Pinto Fork River
um so I'm just going to speak on this is my opinion uh I keep hearing a constant story at these meetings and I just started attending them maybe two months ago and the constant story I keep hearing is mismanagement of
funds should have planned for these cuts because we knew they were coming however the same people who are saying this are the same people who fight tax increases every year so how are you supposed to plan for $14 million in budget cuts if you refuse to raise taxes every single
year these people there's plenty of years that you were not raised to the 2% cap that it could have been done that is how we wouldn't have been in this situation by the way okay so the reality here is it's not just because of
mismanagement the state played a factor and for the people who want to act like that's not a factor 66% of funding being lost from state aid $14 million is a problem it's a reality that everyone has to accept is part of the problem and yes
we need to continue to keep fighting the state but right now we are in crisis i agree with that we are in financial crisis but the answer can't be stripping things from kids and then my other thing I have to say as well is to the kids in
this room you are not pawns what you did last night got the news here today okay and if Mr zalinsky was the one that caused that to happen then props to him too we need the news here that's how we
actually solve our problem that's how we get the $7 million we need from the state not the taxpayer but in the meantime we can't allow this stuff to happen listen to these kids listen to what they're telling you okay they're
going to fall apart without this stuff and I get it pay to play all this stuff i get that that's options but what about the people who can't afford to pay to play what about the kid that plays four sports that was here last night how is he going to fund that for decades upon
decades upon decades upon decades the older generations funded the education for the youth that is how we keep the progress going through the future i am all about keeping taxes low i don't want to pay more taxes but when we come to this
level the hard choices do have to be made and the hard choice the hard choice in my opinion is the tax increase not cutting more teachers not cutting some grounds people not cutting sports not cutting extracurriculars because sports and extracurriculars are part of
education okay for everybody who wants to keep saying academics only sports extracurriculars all that stuff is part of education you're hearing the kids tell you themselves that they have to maintain grades to participate in these
things okay and what about the college applications you're going to strip these kids of being able to get the opportunities that they deserve and all these other schools that have all these things for these kids all right all their kids are going to go to the top of
the list above anybody in Lacy so yes nobody's going to move here nobody's going to raise families here the home values are going to drop the the the town is just going to go to hell okay so yeah I get it we don't want to give into the state we don't want to raise taxes
but in the end if that's the only option we have what other choice is it are you really going to collapse the school system are you are like really because that's the agenda here the people who are fighting all this want the schools
gone they want to go regional okay that is the real agenda here it is it is and and and and I and listen I got sucked into it so I'm telling you from inside talking to them
I know what the deal is here i see the agenda i see the motion that's fine you want to keep taxes down that's fine but we've reached the point now where we're on a deadline we're running out of time we can't ruin the lives of children all right to try to save some
adults and I'm sorry I'm not trying to be mean or blunt but it is a harsh reality of the world we live in and New Jersey is especially one of them all right it's not a good place to retire it's hard to afford things here i get it but forever and ever and ever people
when they reach that point they relocate to a more comfortable environment that they can live in they don't collapse a cool a school system to to just keep the status quo thank you it's getting late guys how much longer
do you think 20 minutes and we'll wrap it up or every you want Okay if you guys don't need your five minutes if you can cut it back okay good evening ladies and gentlemen of the
board uh my speech has probably changed 10 times since before I came up here so I'm just going to start off by congratulating our educators of the year another round of applause for those staff members and I use the word educators because they're more than just teachers
and I use the word educators because we have more than just teachers in this district we have our support staff that is hugely important so my original intent is to talk about my support staff tonight but I'm going to switch gears a little bit and address some misinformation again that's out there
because I'm an educator and that's what we do so first I want to start off with um congratulating Mr pinto the growth that I have seen about educating yourself honestly it makes me very proud you are putting in the time and putting in the research and I thank you for that
so I want to talk about the S2 funding formula and there's a lot of misinformation that people will get up here and say "As a board or as a district you knew these cuts were coming you knew these cuts were coming." That is not true we knew that there were cuts we did not know to what extent and how
much each year that is a fact you can look that up we anticipate every year we do not know until that number comes in from the state it is a guessing game and they try their best based from year to year there have been adjustments made based on that S2 when those numbers come
in we have had staff cuts to the tune of 150 staff cuts over 7 years to adjust for that S2 that is an adjustment okay we have done a reorganization we have switched teachers from buildings mil
Pond is now a preschool okay that was in an effort to bring in more financial stability to our district and enhance the education of our children in this district as a result of loss of funding through S2 these were all adjustments
the district made to address this S2 so stop with that baloney okay now let me get back to my original intent here tonight as of right now I'm unfortunately feeling that we're looking at in the board minutes our first domino of our staff cuts in the board's minutes
tonight there is a proposal to abolish four grounds positions and I have to say I think that is a big mistake mr peter sat up here less two weeks ago and talked about how our referendum not going through we have three maintenance guys in the buildings to run all and
facilitate all of our aging buildings our grounds guys also contribute to that we use our grounds maintenance guys to do all kinds of jobs that are above and beyond than more than just cutting grass okay yes you can subcontract and get some people in to cut the grass and mow
the lawn but there's much more than that there's setup for graduations there's takedowns these people will be inside our interior courtyards and our elementary school will these companies background check fingerprint and criminal check the people that they are
hiring okay our people that are here this is a career this is a lifelong career some of them are alumni of this district okay we have one gentleman who is a month away from being vested in his pension i'm going to say that again one month away from being vested in his
pension okay these are things I know it's an easy look at and easy line item but there's a reason why in the past Lacy was not subcontracting we have never gone that route and there's a reason why because the value that we get out of our people that are here that put
the time and the effort in go above and beyond like I said we are educators here these are career people that's not just a job a company that you're going to bring in this is one job on their schedule today today I'm going to go to Lacy Township cut grass later on I'm
going to go somewhere else and do another job it's a difference between a career and a job and these people that are in this room and talking about the cuts and the give backs and all that kind of stuff i will save that for another time but I have an entire list of compensations that the LTA has made
over the years to benefit the district and our students and I will save that for another time but I just wanted to take the opportunity to say cutting our grounds positions is not a way to go thank you go ahead sean Gerardano Orchid River
so show of hands you guys have heard a lot about S2 right sean you know to uh address the board president you were a board member madam President you're giving it away you're taking away my juice so um everybody knows about S2 and the
dilemma it's put this district in but it's my understanding that the board failed to adopt a tenative budget for the first time in the district's history it's never happened before and then talk about dissension amongst the board and people working
together you can see it that you guys don't get along and can't agree and it's affecting the kids there's three options for tonight and the fact that you didn't pass a tenative budget and correct me if I'm wrong means you're putting all the
control in the state's hands correct correct you've now given away control correct so this board except for one Miss Claus you failed the community you failed this district most importantly you failed
these kids i was an elected official i served two terms on the board you're voted in to make tough decisions to work together you failed to do that here the students deserve better i'm a 53-y year resident of this
town i graduated from the school district you guys are going to cut programs you seriously put that up on the slides last night do you guys know what it takes to get into college sats ACTs GPA course
rigor you're going to cut all the clubs and the athletics they look at the whole student you're putting our children at a serious disadvantage and it's shameful have a question for Mr sinsky people can come up here and attack the
superintendent he's doing the best job that he can is he perfect no but it's my understanding that you put a number in front of this board and they still voted no you guys need to do better you need to do better for your town the community
the school district most importantly to students thank you thank you hold on where did she go she just She came down she came low oh where she moved where oh come i can't wait hold on we have someone behind you that's going to go first you can go next i'm like
where did you go yeah [Music] hello everyone morgan Charterina Sullivan um Forkid River New Jersey i have Angelica who graduated last year lorenzo who is in eighth grade and Amato
who will be in fifth grade next year graduating fourth grade um I say this often i This is hard for us i know it's hard for you all um I apologize in advance again if I offend
anyone that is not my goal my goal is just to get you all to hear me and us and I also feel like after doing this for four long years it gets to a point where you feel like does it even matter anymore does my
voice even count does their voice even count what we say does it hold any credence maybe i feel it might hold some because now we have three really amazing decent people on the board and thank you
for everything that you guys do um I want to really just stay focused i only have five minutes and I'm not even going to use that time four years ago around four years ago a little less than four years ago we were bullied we were bullied
really really badly um bullied to the point where we were threatened some were even threatened that they were going to go to jail some had lawsuits on them for not masking their children um to refusing to wear a
mask in these meetings the bullying was so bad and here we are four years later and I feel like we're being bullied again and that is so sad to me
now there is a very big bullying issue in Lacy Township and I ask myself why i know it's everywhere but it's very very bad here but I'm looking at the front runners of the bullying right here on this board
that's how I feel because we feel bullied so our children are watching bullies bully we got to do better i've proposed this before i'm going to propose it again we don't feel like you guys are
doing enough let's go to Trenton let's go to Trenton let's go to Trenton and be so loud that our roars will make those windows move like they did when we shut down the other thing that they were trying to do many years ago but you guys
have to like show us that you're with us and no more bullying we have to all be on the same I feel like there's division it's like one side like AYF and Pop Warner or AYF and Grit Iron there's always division in Lacy and I'm sick of it we need to just work together and
that's all I have to say thank you thank you hello uh Michael Buenita of River uh proud parent of uh several uh Lacy uh students including uh one who spoke up tonight i wasn't going to speak until
that student spoke up tonight so now I have to um first of all uh actually my my deep respects to the students who who did speak up to those who meant to and then maybe chickened out like I would have um and to the uh the parents and um
educators who spoke and really my my gratitude to the board and the president for everything you do i'm actually going to make the assumption that that this is not a glamorous or or um prestigious or or highpaying highpaying or or currently
pleasurable um role to be in and I think that's important to assume that um we're all here with the same intention and the same uh and and I'm saying this as somebody who actually is an outsider in the sense that uh I haven't been great
about attending these meetings so I I will admit to my ignorance as an outsider i I'm going to make uh ignorant assumptions like we're all here uh with intentions to do the best uh for our students our school our future uh even if those um the way we get there uh
differs so uh I'm starting out very slowly and I'm mindful of the time but um something I annoy my Lacy High School student with uh many times is that um if you give me five hours to cut down a tree I will spend the first four
sharpening my axe when we get to a point where we have a metaphorical acts as sharp as a baseball bat and we keep hitting a tree against it we have to take a moment
uh withdraw listen i actually had every intention of just listening and not talking tonight um and I'm just nerdy enough to take notes and um I guess I bent to peer pressure because I saw a lot of brave
people speak tonight so I'd like to take the next two minutes and 46 seconds to um bring up what I've uh what I've noticed actually so a lot of people brought up a lot of good points i will not bring emotionality or or any sort of
um non-productive discourse into this uh but I would like to reiterate some of the best things that were spoken to tonight and I think um if I can synthesize one thing is that we need a
um uh unified solution unified messaging we'll want to develop a toolkit if we don't already have one i'm ignorant maybe there is is there a toolkit so far as to um that identifies uh uh our lowhanging fruits of what is actionable
now and how do we go about actually leveraging the resources we have on hand as well as the momentum of everybody in this um uh in this room today and their friends and families and the families of their friends in order to do so so I
actually um I am a um again very ignorant i actually let u let my student convince me to today was bring your child to work day this is how I accidentally ended up here uh apparently it's next Thursday didn't
know that uh this child spent the majority of today watching me work part of what I do is actually I am not a subject matter expert we have plenty of that in this room i'm not a leader we have presumably great leaders in this room actually so what I actually do is I
I show them how to come together and and do things so um couple of things and I'm running out of time let's start uh with um uh a bucket toolkit that we'll we'll bring together we need to make sure that
you have a mechanism in place for accountability um once upon a time I taught people CPR if you yell "Somebody call 911." Research and case studies have shown that no one will call 911 if you say you over there the guy
with a face you call 911 that guy will call 911 you bring me an AED you You with a tie bring me an AD you will we can't speak out into the ether
and say somebody needs to do this metaphorically you over there needs to actually set up a 503C and this gentleman over here I have it on record said that he's going to do whatever he can to make sure that that happens i would like to propose that we
actually get the ball rolling here getting some of these best practices which I will now email instead of speak out uh over to you i'll find out how to do that and um we'll all come together and make this happen we can do it thank you thank you i was joking when I said we're high paid
just we're volunteer just so you know okay oh wait you're You've already spoken go ahead Jen hi my name is Jen Bentley i am a third grade teacher and the vice president of the LTA my comment is a little different and I look forward to doing this every month so I want to share with the board
and our community the things that our staff is doing for our students and what we do in our schools so first of all I just want to start by saying the Mil Pond School hosted an art show and career day for their students students shared their original artwork with family and friends and they got to dress like a teacher for the day the Fork
River School is proud to announce that they will be giving $500 in scholar scholarships to seniors in June they are very excited to present the graduates with these checks so tune in to find out who the recipients are the Proud Plaza at Lenoka Harbor School sponsored a lucky pets photo contest to benefit the
popcorn pock students and staff submitted photos for $5 which were entered in a random drawing for a handpainted photo of their pet the winner was Weskin Riker and his chicken Sunny sunny will be painted by our very talented Brianna Mendes a teacher at
Cedar Creek and a donation of $517 was given to the zoo both Cedar Creek and Lenoka Harbor School enjoyed career day they would like to thank the parents grandparents and special friends that made this event so successful a huge shout out to NJ News Channel 12 and Jim Murdoch for attending the event at
Cedar Creek School and to the Hackinac Meridian Healthcare Medevac team helicopter piloted by Mr russell Martin and crew who landed and gave the students a tour today at Lenoka Harbor School in addition all of our elementary school drama clubs and beginner band performed their spring shows and please
be sure to check them out on our Lacy YouTube channel during the month of March uh in the middle school Mrs barker and Mrs kang's seventh grade math classes participated in Math March Madness the contest was formatted like the NCAA March Madness brackets and
students advanced each week by mastering the most math topics in EXL in this context students focused on completing their personalized recommendations from EXL so that each student was able to practice at their own pace and level in targeted areas where they needed help
over last month these 159 students answered 95,000 math questions spent over 727 hours working and made progress in over 1,156 skills wow that's a lot of math
thanks to the generous donations by the PTC students won a variety of prizes the top performers were David Isham Sydney Pulos Matalie Maddie Dolo Clara Hess Giovana and Leah Roth the student who won the grand prize and completed 175
skills during March Madness was Clare Hess lacy Township Middle School Student Council sponsored a PIB B in celebration of Pi Day they had two winning students from sixth seventh and eighth grade the grand prize winners were Julia Sedoric
and Victoria Brick who joined the 200 club and recited 200 digits of pi i don't know that third grade math is much easier the students at the middle school also did an outstanding job participating in their American Heart Challenge 89 students registered and 35
learned how to use life-saving hands-on CPR additionally 24 students completed Finn's mission which is gaining important knowledge about the warning signs of stroke and dangers of vaping they raised $4,89 for the American Heart Association
they would also like to thank the Lacy Elks for their most generous donation and hosting the MD and autism classes on an unforgettable trip to New York City to see The Lion King if you missed out on the late T LTHs drama production of the Adams family well you missed a great
show congratulations to the cast and crew and many are still here on a job well done thank you to all the parents and local businesses for their donations and support of the production spring sports are in full swing and we would like them to wish the best of luck congratulations to all the seniors as
they continue to commit to colleges and continue to make their secondary plans upon graduation just a heads up in the community the seniors have begun their annual senior assassination challenge so if you see a lot of water guns or k kids dressed in wigs floaties or even camouflage suits in our local businesses
that might be why sue Penna and Karen Hopson ran an Earth Day event today at Lacy Township High School with the help of many local organizations science teachers and students thank you to Clover Day Farms Reclaim the Bay Save the Whales Save the Bay Mary May a local
local basket weaver and the Surf Rider Club for their participation students enjoyed a trivia wheel coloring contest poster contest tattoo station a propagation table and planted egg carton gardens a variety of giveaways and prizes were given out including a trip
on a local whale watching boat the LTA is proud to have submitted proposals for numerous PEP and FAST projects which Karen Hopson explained at our last meeting for the spring to date we have received a total of $2,28.36 for PEP events and
$1,21511 for FAST projects this spring this money is provide I'm almost done okay this money is provided by the NJA to help strengthen the relationship between schools and the community these funds provide giveaways and literature to share with our Lacy community in conclusion we hope everybody enjoys
their muchdeserved spring break and we will be focused on our state testing when we return to school April 28th thank you thank you someone's gone you can go next allison Hollister for Fork and River um I wasn't going to get up and say anything tonight but um after hearing
everybody's comments I felt like I needed to kind of put like my two cents in um I am two weeks away from graduating with my degree in K6 and elementary with my special education certificate i cannot get a job in Ocean County we were told at our recent job
fair that we had at Kane University that there was a hiring freeze in Ocean County i would love to work in Ocean County to be close to my kids i can't jersey City was there new Work Charter School was there as well as
Newark District Schools were there howell was there barnagget Brick Lacy um Southern Stafford Manchester you name it ocean County was not there
some of my cohorts and I stood there and we're like "Well why would we want to travel all the way to Newark spend time money and gas when we can make less money down here and be happier and healthier?" We can't it's just not feasible now I'm in debt to the tune of
probably I think it is $30,000 and can't get a job and I would probably be the best damn educator that you would ever see i probably would be Some of these people who are sitting in this room know me as a parent and I am
not one of those laid-back parents i am on top of my kids 247 i would be that way with other people's kids as well i would not let them fail i would want them to succeed i want the sports in the school we've already had so much mental anguish
last year for what we went through with the loss of five lives in this district and I fear and I fear that that will happen again if these cuts are made nobody wants their taxes increased
i don't want my taxes increased because as of right now I'm not working i'm student teaching i'm living off my husband's income my husband's job just told him "Don't think about having an increase next year we can't afford it." Oh and by the way your health insurance is going up 33%
plus the electric bills plus your gas bills where's that money coming from are we just picking it out of the thin air off of trees like I tell my kids money doesn't grow on trees yeah go outside and go pick some more money off a tree they can't do it something that really hit me with
Miss uh Mrs mendes said was that there's two things in Trenton why wasn't this community notified that there are two events going on in Trenton that us as a community can come together and go and put notes and send letters and do stuff
about crickets until tonight crickets that's wrong we've mentioned buses we mentioned about going to the media we were told we don't want any of that jackson couldn't even get a loan from the state they were told to go kick
rocks and now they have to sell schools middle Sex I believe it is has to go and sell three schools what is like it's not I don't think it's an agenda to regionalize like some people said i think it's a political agenda brought on by our state our
Democrats i think it is an agenda to make us feel the pinch give more back for less for what so we could have 33 kids in the room i work in a classroom where I'm really lucky that I could get 12 kids after I have my special ed kids
taken out of the room to go to the LLD 12 kids these teachers in this room don't even have that but the LLD is also pushing the limit too kids who have disabilities cannot learn under that type of pressure hence why my daughter had to move in
with my sister to go to a different school i don't have my daughter living in my residence how pathetic is that she goes to a different school and is flourishing why aren't we looking at what different our other districts are doing or are we and we're just not told
that you guys are we need to do better for these kids or else something else like the tragedies that we had last year is going to happen if we decide to cut the stuff that they want thank you [Applause]
good one hello my name is Jackson Conland first off I do not envy any one of you on the board i'm sure that being in your position is not an easy one i know that no matter what decision you are forced to make it is not an easy one and you know that is impossible to make
everybody happy at the same time you have to be able to look around and when half the school district shows up it's clearly the wrong objectively wrong decision i'm going to try and keep this brief because I know what I have to say has mostly been covered by other students and teachers and parents alike
you claim to put students first but overlook and undervalue us at every turn speaking only for the arts as I'm not currently an athlete as Eric Stroin so beautifully put we had a packed jazz show we sold out the Adams family for the past three years our choir has gone
state ranked our digital media team has come out first at almost every single competition the same digital media team that's responsible for this very meeting being recorded cutting out the extracurriculars in sports would destroy not only these kids' lives but it would take away everything that makes us special look up
Lacy Township High School on Google and select the news tab there are two types of stories the successes of the artists and the athletes like Lacy wrestling sending six kids through to the state finals the LTHs choir comes out on top at Ocean County Teen Arts lacy students
win big at a state film festival you want to know what the other type of news that pops up is financial crisis like this one we're in right now or when Coach V was sued for $150,000 for harassment and bullying or last year when we cut all those teachers if you take away the sports and clubs what
happens to the news about our school i don't think I need to spell it out what exactly do you value here because clearly it's not the arts it's not the athlet athletics and it that leaves the academics which is really not something we should be proud of cuz they're terrible we're academically
ranked 329th out of 426 public schools in New Jersey and that's not because of our teachers because they are some of the most incredible parts of this district and it's not the kids' fault either i know that you were all dealt a bad hand from the state but nothing you have done here has made it better every
situation that has come your way has been mishandled if not completely ignored stop complaining about things like "We've been here since 4." Stop saying things like "How long is this going to take?" It'll take until it's done i'm so sorry that you all had to come up here and do your jobs and I'm not
directing this towards all members of the board i know many of you are trying your hardest i'm directing this at people like unfortunately Superintendent Zalinsky who has been staring off into space this entire meeting and not staring at the people trying to direct these messages at
you stop complaining and figure out these things because incredible students like the one who's spoken up here today and students like Logan Edworth they're not here to bail you out they're here to try and help you i'm not here to provide a solution i'm a 17-year-old i'm not telling you i'm just here to tell you
that this isn't correct figure it out i leave here today with the words of Ocean County Commissioner Virginia Haynes she once said "Oh County is a gem take advantage of it do not make Lacy Township a blemish on that gem." Thank you thank you
we're gonna Is there anybody else because we're going to start second round um for We have a student that would like to speak again still two more on two more okay you can go and then one one more and then we'll be done okay good evening i'm Nick Skavvagas i live
in Fork River um well first congratulations to the teachers of the month students of the month that's uh that's pretty cool so I'm not from Lacy um as a matter of fact if you ever told me that I would live in the 609 15 years
ago I'd call you crazy and say you were probably missing some teeth so my wife graduated from Lacy High School and we chose to move here because when we started hanging out with friends who lived here we started seeing the
community saw how things came together love Gilly Park i have a 2-year-old actually she's got about never mind she's about to be four-year-old who was climbing that wall at the new park when she was one up the climb wall and everyone's like "Oh my god the kid." I was like "Don't worry she's got it she
loves this park so we decided to plant roots here in Lacy everybody knows JT's we buy their bagels pork roll bacon egg and cheese let's go i have my oldest daughters in school here i worked part-time at Cafri
here i'm a coach in this town for four years for Lacy Girls softball i went to career day last Friday at my oldest daughter's school my wife took our oldest daughter to go and see the Adams family show i heard it was fantastic sorry i was
working i worked three jobs for three kids i work at a body shop United States Air Force Reserve and at Caffries locally i already don't have a lot of time with my children and to have to come here tonight to something else
where I cannot be home to put them to bed is ridiculous i don't like the idea of knowing that if I go on a TDY or I go somewhere for the Air Force this is the town I have to come back to that we don't have a budget we don't have people working together we
don't have enough adults in the room to make the decisions to keep the eye contact to listen to the residents i grew up in Tom's River and we all know the corruption that goes on up there if I wanted that kind of crap I'll move back up there if I wanted the
crazy taxes I'll move back up there all right we all order from the multitude of pizza places and everything that Lacy has to offer everywhere you go right you got all the I'm not going to name places to plug anybody on on that but everybody's
here who's here seems to really enjoy being here except recently i can tell you residents like myself will leave if this is the if this becomes the norm
accurate you probably didn't know exactly how much SB2 would affect and all that but what I didn't see moving into this town was an attempt to try and cushion the hurt some sort of attempt at a plan i might be wrong i might be
ignorant to that but I didn't see it i don't like moving personally i hate it so I want to stay in this town i want to come to these meetings and see the wonderful teachers of the year i want to see and hear the stories about the wonderful students of the
month youngest of four boys all my brothers and I at some point earned student of the month by doing different things activities sports clubs and it was awesome and I think from this point forward you guys are at a very critical point that
you will lose your wonderful teachers you will lose your wonderful students and the only place that you'll be able to see anything and celebrate is in the mediocrity reign i heard a very uh uh pertinent quote the
other day where it said "A wise man will plant a tree for the um shade he will never enjoy." So whatever seed you're planting today you see the students that are here
they are willing to cultivate that seed to enjoy that shade for not only them but for the future so let's get it together tell us how we can help you and let's solve the
problem ego's out of it the kids are going to be affected and that's the the the heartstring that everybody pulls the kids the kids the kids but you've got real kids you've got a real opportunity to show them how adults act show them or get off the board
all right we had one more up one more up top where oh she moved that's the last one and then we're going to uh start this one student and then we'll be done these are my
notes but don't panic i'm not going to read them i'm only here to defend the seniors because I am a senior i have lived in Lacy since I was 26 years old can I have your name please your name your name linda Miller thank you and
I'll be living here 52 years this summer i love Lacy i don't want to move but I don't want to hear anything else said about "Oh well if you can't afford to live here just move." I moved 25 times when I was a
child and it was it was devastating for me i don't ever want to leave Lacy but I am a senior and I already have uh the uh senior freeze i'm not fighting for me
because I have the senior freeze but there's a lot of people in this town that are a little bit younger than me and they haven't gotten the senior freeze yet and raising our taxes is going to it's just it's going to ruin
our town because people are going to have to leave it but please you need to know that the seniors are grandmothers grandfathers they spend a lot of time helping the young people with their
their their kids with their grandchildren they babysit them they take them where they need to go we older generation is very valuable as valuable as our wonderful students and children
thank you thank you um hi again i will make this quick but I just want to point out just so you know who you are affecting just as a personal level my father was an veteran in Iraq and Afghanistan my mother was a
single mother up until I was the age of eight she struggled to make an income just to provide for me and my little brother who is a freshman at this school i have moved across the country multiple times just to find a safe place to live an affordable place to live we moved to
Lacy recently because we presented with a new opportunity for me and my family to start over my father is currently a cop in Jackson Township he has worked excuse my language his ass off to provide for us i am luckily enough to
live off of a single income for my family but that does not mean that I am inept to the emotions and the struggles of everyone else in this town who I know are not as for fortunate i want to speak again because I feel as though maybe
some of our words are not going through to you i want you to know that eventually if you're Let me just ask you this do you guys live in town correct do you have children that go to these school districts or go to these schools if you
can just make your statement we're listening why would you then push these schools into the ground if your children go here why would you do that you're jeopardizing their future as well not just other people's and I understand if
you don't have children you're not as empathetic to that tune but everyone else in this room is struggling because there was not more steps to prevent this and I understand everyone's p perspective of
you guys are not solely to blame but when we have fingers to point to we will point to you because you are also the head of the community you guys represent the schools so I'm just begging you as for my father for my mother for my
little sister who just turned three and who will be going into preschool here for my brother who is a freshman and is trying to make himself a better person here please please please do better i am begging you on behalf of the entire town
please thank you thank All right we're going to move on to superintendent comment if you have anything left to talk about oh sure okay um it's it's an interesting job where uh you know the public can come and uh talk
about you once a month so the financial reality of our school district is clear according to the state of New Jersey calculations we operate with a significant deficit below the determined adequacy level it's over $17 million this underfunding is further evident in
our local contribution which falls below the fair share as defined by the state this persistent situation exists despite a decade of responsible fiscal management characterized by consistent adherence to the 2% maximum tax levy
increase all along the while making severe cuts in services and staffing therefore I presented to the board of education at a special board meeting on April 9th a resolution that represented a strategic measure to explore viable budgetary solutions
specifically the submission of an application to exceed the mandated 2% tax levy cap this action was rejected by the board the current funding gap is in the amount of 6 over 6.6 million the minimum required to provide what I
believe to be a legally mandated thorough and efficient education for the students of Lacy i presented that despite what was said tonight i presented that i continue to have an open line of communication with Miss Susan Naples the executive county
superintendent we also have an open line with Miss Cindy Bar Reag the executive county business administrator as we try to solve this problem I don't want to remind you okay that we operate efficiently we've eliminated 150 staff positions including sports and co-curriculars we've
consolidated them to make sure we are spending your money appropriately we've reduced supply and technology budgets and as a result our pure pupil expenditure is one of the lowest in the state of New Jersey right now 10-year average increases are very
low our general fund expenditures okay are 1.58% we we do better than inflation here in Lacy despite what some people are going to say tonight or have said tonight okay during this time if you
took the average including if we went up the 14.24 that I proposed over a 10-year average it would only be a 4% general tax levy increase which would make us whole it would include all the sports and curriculars all the transportation
all the things okay that have been talked about that have to be talked about because that's reality that brought the newspaper to us because we're talking about reality of not having a budget addressing the immediate $6.6
million gap will still leave our district operating $10 million below what the state says we should be operating at that's pretty efficient if I can do all those things or we can do all those things and still be $10 million below what the state says we
should be at failing to approve the tenative budget has jeopardized local control over our educational system and will still potentially have a tax increase my last thought is this it's the same as it was last month investing
in our schools is a calculated investment in our future it drives economic growth property values and the development of a skilled workforce supporting the very population okay that would pay for these educations the assertion that our students academic perform performance doesn't warrant
financial support is a disservice to their potential and the broader societal benefits of education reducing investment at any level risk creating a self-fulfilling prophecy hindering improvement and limiting opportunities for our students to
succeed so please when you make comments about how we're working and how hard we're working just make sure you're informed thank you President CL thank you now we're going to move on to board member comments mr armano do you have anything
tonight uh just a few things um keeping into this in the spirit of of last night and tonight um we promised last night that we would reach out to a couple people this morning tonight and get you some information and I thought I had it
all lined up perfectly um but I have it here oh so uh today I spoke to the following people senator Armato credit uh Congressman Chris Smith i actually reached out to Linda McMahon our
Secretary of Department of Education i actually reached out to JD Vance um they're accessible these people um and they want to hear from you i got a response from Chris Mitt's office i got a response from Senator Dato senator Amato shared with me
um that they have uh on the uh legislative actions I've taken along with my ninth district colleagues Assemblyman Brian Rump and Assemblyman Gregory Meyer with respect to the broken state school funding formula this is the list of links to press release that I believe that I that I believe that you
will find interesting and informative so I will ask Mr zalinsky to if he could post these on the website these links for you to get more information i have some up there now i'll add to them just send that to me okay on on what they're doing um but they can't do anything
right now that's the sad part all right so what he said to me was keep rope doping keep fighting and when he gets a bill number then we can really go after it until there's a bill number there's
just a lot of talk so that was some of the feedback I got from Senator Armato he was very very very um very good to talk to um as for this young man who impresses me every year Logan Edgeworth
um this is not a kid who just gets up to the podium and says stuff he actually follows through um the gentleman who spent the day with his father at career day um I think you made a great comment
and let's not have a meeting about um what we're going to cut but let's have a meeting about how we're going to fix it all i think that was the most mature thing I heard tonight so congratulations to you uh it's tough and I'm not making any
excuses because I don't have any excuses i'm I'm a face of this board i'm one of seven on this board um I know there are times where it looks like we don't get along but I can tell you we have open dialogue there is respect for one
another do we agree all the time no but that what's makes for a strong board do we vote on everything that we're supposed to vote on uh unanimously no but I think that's a good thing not a bad thing um are there ideas that we sit in in
committee with and and we talk about and we go "What are you crazy?" Yes but we continue to talk we can continue to whiteboard we continue to throw ideas out there and me personally I think that
we have the wherewithal the knowledge the commitment to fix this thing as I said last night I don't think we need to cut sports i don't anticipate cutting sports extracurricular anything like that i
expect us to move forward i expect us to get to work i expect us to roll up our sleeves and all because of the inspiration and confidence I got from the people who spoke last two nights um I have four kids that went to school
here uh three of them graduated from here the three that graduated from here are doing amazing um I have another one who left to go to high school somewhere else he's doing amazing but let me share something
you foundation that led him to do amazing at another high school came from here so as much credit as the other school gets a lot of credit goes to the eight years he spent here preparing on taking a new journey and starting a new chapter
in his life we have amazing people in this district um and some of them say things you don't like too bad and some of them say things you do like that's life um but listen don't react respect it may not be the idea you
want but if you take your emotion out of it it may just be a good idea something that you could work with something that may be an aha moment for you because you took your emotion out of it you took your hate out of it you took who the person was that saying it out of it and
you actually listen to the content a lot of good things were shared here tonight by our students we understand how much this means to you speaking for myself I'm still involved in athletics all right i can't play anymore but I'm still
involved so I ask you to and and I'll echo what Mr zillinsky said is keep bringing your ideas he is responsive he does listen he does respond and I think we just got to keep working at it
i know as one person on this deis who is um not afraid to roll up his sleeve and get to work i I'm I'll do whatever it takes i'll I'll stand on any committee that you want me to sit on but uh that's what happened
today um congratulations to everyone that was recognized tonight the teachers of the year the seniors of the month our sixth grade elementary band um a lot of good stuff it goes to the credit of the people who educate our children every day uh teachers right i think Mr brew
said it best not instructors teachers and because they teach our kids more than what's 2 plus two is i mean I I mean I've seen it for my own self i got four people at home that I see the results
so it's an emotional time it's a time where everybody thinks that we're talking about each other and that we're targeting our comments at you directly but it's just someone sharing an idea and if you don't like
it go on to the next conversation find yourself in a conversation that you do like but if you really want change you have to be willing to accept the comment that you don't like and try to work through that comment and see where when you take the emotion at it where where
the actual result is your comment tonight if you give someone a cut uh an opportunity to cut down a tree and you give them five hours they'll spend four hours sharpening on the blade bingo you said it so those are my comments tonight i'm sorry I was a
little all over the place um but uh I thought I was a little bit more organized here tonight but that's that's that's my two cents and and uh happy Easter to everyone enjoy the time off and uh that's it thank you uh Mr bell do
you have any comments yeah just really quick um recently I got a text after one of the board meetings um that I didn't talk much from the deis and so I thought well let it rip um talking is my specialty i'm a pastor uh and so I can
talk but um I think we got to look at the whole situation um I know as a a husband and a father um my my boys did not go to Lacy um because of my personal convictions um I funded their education
at a private school while paying taxes to Lacy because I believe in the education that the rest of the students in Lacy needed uh I believe education begins at home there's a lot of time the pressure is put on the board um we're not the
ones in the classroom uh that's the teachers and they do a great job um it's not my job to educate your children it's your job i took that full responsibility and like I said while I
was paying my taxes uh not complaining about it uh just stating facts and funded my kids' education um they did not have all the sports opportunities because they went to a smaller school they did play baseball they did play some football they did play some basketball um and somebody who grew up
playing basketball I understand the motive uh to keep grades up uh if it hadn't been for basketball I probably would have dropped out of school but the the reality is we need to rethink how we educate our kids it starts at home um if
kids come in from a good home foundation teachers have much more to work with and so uh if if nobody else hears this if there's one individual that gets a hold of the idea you have got to take responsibility of your
home begin there and then consider what's best for you for my family uh public education was not an option so we had to fund it um I work a lot i'm a pastor i own a
business some of you know I move sheds um I work three jobs i come here uh not because my kids are in here but because I care about the community um we all work a lot that's
understandable uh but let's rethink the education uh back in the 1800s education was defined as parents disciplining and instructing their children in
2024 it was defined as an institution departing information to young people how is it that we let the very education system work parents out
of what education originally was um I think one of the things we need to do is get uh parents back involved volunteering um I know it takes a lot of time takes a lot of work uh but volunteering being in the
classroom what if we have to go to 35 kids in a classroom put a couple of parents in there to help it would work it used to um but we've changed that uh and so my encouragement is uh rethink your
education um as parents it's your responsibility and because I'm a pastor I'm going to say this in all the chaos and all of the upheaval in the community don't forget what we celebrate this
weekend uh Jesus Christ came died on the cross to pay for our sins i love that all of our mistakes he nailed to the cross so we could be forgiven that's what unites us cameron you want to say and we can celebrate that you all have a
good Easter weekend okay do you want to speak no um I just I just just want to reiterate you know each board member this is a time for each one to express their views and you know these are the views of the
individual members and not necessarily you know those on behalf of this public entity so again I just want to make that clear not that anybody's disagreeing with any of the views i just want to make sure that you know there's that separation thank you Miss Armano yes Dan thank you for that um just good
evening and thank you all for being here tonight i want to say to the students um very impressed with you getting up and speaking when I was your age and believe it or not we were all in high school i didn't even know what a board of education was i don't even I never went
to a board of education meeting um we didn't I will say in the in the in the 80s we didn't have to worry about this type of stuff so for you guys to come here on a night it's almost 10:00 at night and you're sitting here at a board meeting i'm very impressed with you all of you it was I will speak for myself
only i never had sports on the chopping block i just want to get that out there um I do Somebody else came up here and talked about a little bit of a firestorm and I think a lot of that was put out there to get people here which may be a good thing because the media did come um but I don't want
to turn this into something negative i want to I want to congratulate our students of the month for their outstanding dedication both in and out of the classroom and our teachers of the year for inspiring excellence and kindness every day your achievements make our district stronger and we are
truly grateful for everything you do somebody else came up i took so many notes and my my brain's kind of all over the place and I'm going to look at everything I took down um but somebody talked about small increments and I know we have a huge deficit that we have to
cover but in regards to small increments last night I talked about donations and after the meeting some gentleman did come up to me and he said that he would want to donate $1,000 so whether that's I don't know if the man's here or not tonight if that still stands if he listens to this um if anybody wants to
donate simply bring your donation to Sharon sitting down here or Teresa at the board office that's Am I allowed to say that you know I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of trying to flood the budget gap with donations yeah I let's hold off on Why is that any
donation can be um accept emailed and then on the um Yeah you can certainly accept donations but you know okay so we can accept donations though correct yeah yeah so we're not soliciting but if any No we're not soliciting but that's we we have to have small increments so if somebody Okay we were talking about taxes and some people don't want them
some people want them so if somebody has is fortunate enough to have extra put the information out there yes just you can you know if you have extra money and you you want to donate you can actually um designate how it's used whether it's for athletics curriculum or a priority that's close to your heart just putting
that out there um and I know donations aren't the solution but they are a small start and there's many other things the board we're going to discuss and I know everyone talked about being united tonight and yeah we definitely have differing opinions on this board and I think that's a good thing because if we all thought alike we wouldn't need
everybody sitting here on the board you don't want everyone thinking alike um but I do ask that we we do our best to stay united and even as a community no more fear-mongering no more neighbor versus neighbor no more people asking people who lived here for years to move
we all love Lacy or we wouldn't be here that's it we all have to work together we have to live together and we have to find solutions and resist proposals that will saddle down our taxes and plague us year after year and and with things we can't afford so I just ask as a
community that we come together like you want us to come together as a board i ask you please stop ripping ripping each other apart in social media it is not good for anybody it's not healthy and it's a horrible example for our children we talk about bullying let's stop bullying other adults adults stop
bullying adults and that's it i I just ask that um we work together and we cherish everybody in this room that's good thank you Mr cony yep still here um congratulations to the students and
teachers of the year uh to everybody that's come up between last night today the emails texts phone calls um we hear you all sides of it um don't think that just because we're not
answering that we don't um we're kind of in a holding pattern now yet we're still working uh behind the scenes um I was mentioning about uh
the township employees out they took a 12 and a half uh% pay cut approximately 10 years ago through furlow and that teachers need to take a 10% pay cut um because
we raised the taxes what wasn't stated is that the township employees uh unions filed a grievance hacked after the township and
the township had to pay back all that money because what they did was illegal so just if we're going to tell a story let's tell the entire story um and then had everybody uh
decided there was a home that spoke towards the beginning of yesterday in regards to the power plant and to Alloway Creek um power plant the township still gets the 11
million uh dollars the same today had they got 10 years ago 20 years ago 30 years ago so that honey has not been taken um hopefully she hears it cannot plug into her uh numbers um pretty much
everything else been said already um happy Easter thank you very much and uh have a safe break thank you tonight started out with uh applause
appreciation um you know we love our teachers we love our students um it's such a great environment to be in these are the nights that we want to be on the board um it was pure joy to see everybody get um acknowledged tonight um
of course it turns when we go to public comment but we do hear both sides we hear the students um what you're saying we don't want to cut anything um unfortunately it's a reality and um we
have been cutting athletics we you know cut 150 uh staff members we are at a situation right now where the tenative budget was not passed so we have no control as of today the control is in the state's hands so the
meeting yesterday was for the board to sit and talk and that was our communication line we don't want to do it in public trust me we want to do it in private but we're not allowed so you know this that's why we had that meeting
yesterday um emotions were high on my my end some of the board members the community and we understand why um in I'm in finance um Mr con is the chair he can uh vouch for this conversation but we talk about all options that need to
be cut if we have to cut and unfortunately more athletics more clubs just like the past years are on the table so it's not a scared tactic it's it is reality we don't want to cut anything we we know the year we had last year we know the impact these groups
make in children's lives we know how it takes you to the next level um and what it does for you we understand that but we are sitting here tonight with waiting for the state so when we find out you'll find out and we'll go from there i hope the board comes
together because that's what we need to do and comes up with a compromise if they give us that next opportunity and I'm hoping they will i'm hoping they don't come in here and tell us what we have to do that was also last night's what what I wanted from last night and that's how we ended up to go home think
about it what can we do to compromise this is where we are um we want everyone to have a successful year we don't want our taxes raises raised we we understand but I want the community to understand that we don't have control at this moment so we're we're hoping
that the state will allow us to do it again and vote and then we can come together just like everyone's asking and make a compromise and that's that's all I have to say um so I didn't do board committee reports i don't know if we want to skip on it tonight because it is late we can
post our our Okay um and now add one thing Kim real quick um just want to let you know that the the links from Senator Amato's office that I was mentioning uh they're already up on our website um so Mr zins you go to our website it's on
it's on the popup please please email please call whatever you can do all right now we're going to go on to new business okay page two A1 meaning minutes can I have a motion please motion second roll call please
mr armato yes yes mr i Mr bell yes but I have to recuse myself on special meeting uh on the 27th of March thank you mrs armato yes mr
conny yes yes but I need to uh recuse the executive session number two on 318 due to conflict thank you and Mrs claus yes thank you page two um A2 list of bills can I have a motion motion second
roll call please mr armato yes mr bell yes mrs armato yes mr connelly yes but I need to abstain on Mr arms be uh 955339 and Verizon because I'm looking at the wrong person
that's right uh and then 289 299 and 283300 is my employer thank you Mrs claus yes page 2 A3 to 4 transfers can I have a um motion please motion second roll call please
mr armada yes mr bell yes mrs armato yes mr cony yes mrs clause yes page 3 to 5 um A5 to 11 finance and Facilities motion motion second roll call please
mr armato yes mr bell yes mrs armato yes mr conny yes mrs claus yes page 5 A12 Student Tuition and Transportation motion please motion second roll call please
mr armato yes mr bell yes mrs armato yes mr conny yes mrs claus yes page 5 a 13 to 14 uh motion please motion second roll call
please mr armato yes mr bell yes mrs armato yes mr conny yes mrs claus yes page 6 8:15 policy and regulation i have a motion motion second roll call please mr armato yes mr
bell yes mrs armato yes mr conny yes mrs claus yes page 6 A16 to 17 Hibs motion please motion second roll call please mr armato yes mr bell yes mrs armato yes mr
connelly yes mrs claus yes does that say page five page six oh page six donations uh motion please motion can I have a second second roll call please mr armato thank you very much and
yes Mr bell yes and thank you Mrs armato yes thank you Mr connelly yes thank you Mrs claus yes and thank you page seven programs and curriculum can I have a motion motion second roll call please
mr armato yes mr bell yes mrs armato yes mr conny yes mrs claus yes page seven professional days and workshop travel can I have a motion motion second roll call mr armato yes mr bell
yes mrs armato yes mr connity yes mrs claus yes page 7 to 9 E1 to 8 uh certificated personnel motion please motion second roll call please
mr armato yes mr bell yes mrs armato yes mr connelly yes mrs claus yes do you need to read something before or we keep going page after you call okay page 9 to 13 non-certificated personnel can I have a motion please is this uh this is So we
have um an addendum for number three uh Renee Ayello uh rescended the position okay okay motion motion second roll call please
mr armato yes mr bell yes mrs armato yes mr conny yes mrs claus um yes but no to number four and page 14 resolution of censure can I have a motion please
motion can I have a second second roll call please mr armato yes mr bell yes mrs armato yes mr conny yes mr uh Mrs claus
yes i have to read the sanction okay we have a censure for Miss Regina Desenza whereas the above caption matter arises from a complaint that was filed with the school ethics commission on
December 26th 2019 by Sha Gardano Frank Pino Linda Downing Harold Peters Nicholas Morandi and Donna Makavoy complaintants alleging that Regina Desenza respondent violated multiple provisions of the School Ethics Act and
whereas as it at its meeting on July 21st 2020 the commission adopted a decision finding probable cause for the alleged violations of NJSA18A 12-24B NJSA18A
12-241E and NJSA18A 12-241F in count 3 an NJSA18-24B and NJSA 18A 12-241E in account 4 and transmitting the above caption matter to the office
of administrative law for a hearing and whereas the administrative law judge issued an order on partial summary decision dated February 27th 2023 an initial decision dated August 22nd 2024 concluding that respondent violated
NJSA1a 18A 12-24B NJSA18A12-241E and NJSA18A 12-24.1F in count 3 but did not violate NJSA 18A 12-24B b and
NJSA182-241E in count 4 and recommending a penalty of rep reprimand and whereas petitioner filed exceptions in the initial decision and respondent filed a reply there too and whereas it is at its meeting on December 17 2024 and after thoroughly reviewing and considering the
full record the commission voted to adopt the ALJ's findings of fact and legal conclusions that respondent violated NJSA18A 12-24b NJSA A 18A 12-241E and NJSA
18A12-24.1F in count 3 but did not violate NJSA 18A 12-24B and/or NJSA 18A- sorry 12-24.1E in count 4 and voted to modify the recommended penalty of reprimand in favor of a censure and whereas pursuant
to NJSA18A12-29C the commission's decision was forwarded to the commissioner of education for final determination on the recommended penalty and whereas respondent filed exceptions with the commissioner of education as to the commission's recommended penalty of censure and the petitioner filed a reply
there too and whereas the commissioner of education issued a final decision on March 3rd 2025 concurring with the commission's recommend recommended penalty of censure and whereas NJAC 6A28-9.11d provides that for a penalty
of censure suspension or removal a resolution shall be adopted at the commission's next meeting following the commissioner's imposition of the sanction and the resolution shall be read at the board's next public meeting following adoption by the commission shall be posted in such places as the
board's board posts its public notices for no less than 30 days shall be published online at the district's website if available for no less than 30 days and the reading of the resolution shall be memorialized in the board's minute meeting minutes and once approved a copy of the minutes shall be forwarded
to the commission now the board be resolved the commission adopts this resolution stating the respondant is hereby censured as a penalty of having violated the act as set forth herein okay and if you felt like the wording of that resolution was cumbersome I promise
you I didn't write it that came from the school ethics commission um and if anybody is curious or doesn't know what censure means a reprimand is a private slap on the wrist a censure is a public slap on the wrist motion to adjurnn motion motion i have a
second second all in favor i have it every season