e e e e e e e e e e e
good evening everyone Welcome to our board meeting we'll have a uh roll calls Tom Miss POS here Mr Clark here Miss Evans here miss groger here Dr King here
Miss Martinez here miss pasculli here miss Santos here Mr van heis is absent and Mr Ryan is absent but you have a quarum great thank you so much Tom um welcome everybody uh the open public meeting act authorizes the board of
Education to meet an executive session under certain circumstances uh this evening uh the open public meeting act requires the board to adopt a resolution at a public meeting to go into private session and the Lawrence Township Board of Education
um will be going into executive session this evening to discuss discuss certain items specifically matters which if publicly disclosed would constitute an unwarranted invasion of individual privacy and specifically this evening Hib formal action will not be taken and
executive session should last about 20 minutes so moov second second all in favor okay we'll go into an executive session and we should be out in about 20 minutes so enjoy yourselves thank you e
e e e e e e e e e e
e e to invite up U Mr scholman and the Lees third graders to sing a song we thought might be nice if you guys want to come in the center you're welcome to come up front the front um board members we're going to move to the side to give you
your space so if our little friends want to join us up front here parents feel feel free to come join us on the sides if you want to take pictures we're hoping our little friends can come here in the center I don't see Mr
S I don't see Mr oh there they are they're the back come on up little [Applause] friends hi guys Mr s you can either fill in in the center here wherever you're comfortable
sure that's I see this all right good evening um thank you guys so much for your patience and for having us here at the uh Board of Education meeting tonight we are super duper excited to um give you a little
bit of a musical presentation tonight this is couple members from our third our three third grade classes um and they're here to sing two songs from our upcoming uh third grade musical which is called Go Fish it's a Under the Sea story about a tiger shark who just wants
to make friends with everybody and he's having a little bit of a hard time because he's a tiger shark so um we're very excited about that that's going to be March 13th um so we still got a little bit of time but we have two songs for you our first song is called commotion in the ocean and it's a little
bit silly um under the sea Caper and then our last song that we'll do is called Oceans of Fun which is actually our opening song of the show so thank you guys so much for um your patience and thank you for having us [Music]
and's ation [Music] [Music] such MO [Music] hey B yo what sits at the bottom of the sea and shakes what I don't know what
sits at the bottom of the Sheen and shake a nervous [Music] R hey B yo where do fish keep their money I don't know where do fish keep their money in the
riverbank it's [Music] underwater there's ation in the and it's of fun in the for everyone
[Music] [Music] perpet motion it's [Music] under yeah [Music]
we're playing in the Sun [Music] [Music]
one little SP [Music] [Music]
all and [Music] [Applause]
[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]
and [Music] all right so that's our little preview of fish again that's going to be um early March um but one more round of
applause for our amazing third [Applause] graders and a big thank you to Dr clim and our whole board of education for having us here tonight and being such great supporters of uh the Arts in our schools it's really um a privilege to work here and and do music here so thank
you guys so much and thank you and um I think we have another performance unless we missed it in that background Y is Dr Clark here with the gospel choir I think we're going to do a little Switcheroo right friends thank you so
much job good evening everyone thank you to Dr Clen to the board of education for allowing us to have this opportunity to sing for you tonight this is the Lawrence High School well half of the Lawrence High School
Gospel Choir presenting to you I open my mouth to the Lord [Music] [Music]
[Music] will I won't turn back I will go I shall go
[Music] [Applause] end will end [Music] and I [Music]
will end [Music] I open my M I open my
[Music] [Applause] [Music]
[Music] I [Applause] [Music]
[Applause] [Music] and I W back I open my mouth to and I I
open won't back I will go I shall go I will go I shall go I will I shall I will I shall go I will go I
shall go I will go I shall go I will go I shall go I will I shall I [Music] will what the end going
[Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you so much to the Le third graders that was an incredible presentation we look forward to seeing the play um and thank you of course to
the gospel choir and Dr Clark um if we could have entertainment at every board meeting I would certainly love it I know it's so much work for you guys but we really appreciate it and it's such a great opportunity for our public to see all the good things that are going on in
our schools so thank you everybody and to the parents who brought their kids um going to do the announcement of the open public meeting statement the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend
meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon as required under the law adequate notice of this meeting has been provided via email and our facts to the times the Lawrence Ledger the public library and has been filed with the municipal clerk this
notice was provided prior to the 48 Hours required by the open public meeting act the board reserves the right to limit public discussion of personnel items and other matters as defined in the law and do the flag salute I pledge allegiance to to the
flag the United States of America to the repu which it stands one nation under godible liy and justice for all I see we have our student Representatives here for a
report yeah okay sorry let me start hello hello everyone we are all part of peer leadership and are here to update members about what is happening in our school my name is Sophie trasis and I'm a senior here at Lawrence High School Aiden and I are here to update you on the winner Sports this season the winter
track team performed very well this year qualifying for States Easterns and beat multiple school records including the PV VA 300 meter and the distance medley event the wrestling team has done very well this season with a record of 18 wins and 10 losses as well as a swim team P have a record of 10 wins and 10
losses last year the Lawrence cheer team recently flew to Florida for Nationals and qualified for semi-finals for the first time in years wow oh uh as you all know the boys basketball team has just won their semi-final match against no Dame 30 minutes
[Applause] ago sure as you all know is incredibly hard to find parking yes jimm was packed to Max Capacity to see the final seconds of the game boys will be advancing to Colonial Valley Conference Finals on Saturday they currently have a record of
19 and five overall Lawrence Athletics have been excelling and we're excited to see what the spring season will hold awesome thank you great thank you hi I'm Raina I'm a junior um the LHS black student union is hosting their 12th annual black history celebration
this year's theme is Overcoming By Faith fortitude and resistance it's on Saturday February 22nd venders start at 3M and the program start at 5: this year's keynote speaker is Raj day Bara and it's a free admission and it should
be a super duper fun night great thank [Applause] you uh hello my name is Carter Edwards I'm a junor um the high school has multiple fundraisers going on uh for Valentine's Day right now uh some examples include student sing honduras's
um Teddy Bear Graham sale uh as well as um the class of 2026 is flower sale they're selling flowers for uh $2 during uh lunch and uh lunch one and lunch two um and these are just a few examples of the many clubs and organizations that
are using Valentine's Day as a sort of theme for fundraising money beautiful thank you H hi I'm Riley Evans I'm a senior here um The Freshman Junior and sophomore classes have started the scheduling process for next school year year um students have been selecting
their classes through our Genesis portal um that includes um a bunch of descriptions of every class that we offer here at LHS um and then they've been meeting with their guidance counselors during resource periods um to discuss discuss graduation requirements and the rest of the scheduling process
the freshman classes also had a visit from us on Monday during their resource periods to get guidance and advice from upper classman about scheduling and classes great thank you so much thank you student representatives and
good evening to everyone and welcome um I would like to thank everyone for joining us tonight this evening is extra special as we have students who are here and we would like to recognize and celebrate their participation in our art contest this event was held in support
of sharing information about the upcoming referendum vote as a reminder our community can vote on March 11th in person at your normal poly location or by mail the primary focus of the referendum is the reconfiguration of the Lawrence Middle School from the current
6 to 8th grade model to a 678 grade structure this change is designed to enhance student achievement create improved opportunities for students moving to high school and maximize District resources we are grateful for all the input from our community our
staff our administrators and students in the process over the past year and a half as we as a reminder the board is um the board of education is a group of unpaid elected taxpayers we are committed to academic Excellence for Lawrence
Township and being financially responsible Dr clim will briefly speak about the main points of the referendum I want to encourage everyone to go to the Lawrence Township Public School website at ltp do ltps.org and click on
the referendum tab to get further information we're also hosting a virtual webinar on February 26 we're working hard to answer all the questions presented to us and to assure that all the voters are informed thank you Dr clim all right so I'm just going to give
a brief overview um many of you in the audience have have seen our reconfiguration plan um some of you have reached the point of saturation and some of you are just hearing sort of the this idea and and this Vision that the board and the district has been working toward
um so I just want to provide a a brief overview tonight um this is really focused on academic success and academic achievement um when we reconfigure our grade level bands and the the pictures behind me we really focus on the expertise of what it means to have an
early childhood education building and that's really Central around our prek to two grade levels that's the the impetus of of those grade levels really is about the numeracy skills and early literacy skills Central and the build building
blocks that'll eventually become a part of the smaller group targeted instruction that they will receive in an upper elementary model the idea of this plan is to really kind of bump the grade levels forward so that by the time they get to Middle School um Dr milowski and
Dr wer lean's building they're truly functioning at a six to eight grade level band coming out of covid I'm sure many of you parents um you know and Educators have recognized our children need more as they matriculate through the District we have half of our
population in need of at some point some small group targeted instruction the footprint at the middle school is 75 years old it is absolutely in need of some repair um it is in need of some revitalization and we need the addition
for the sixth grade to come up so some of the plans that you can view online we didn't bring the boards tonight we're taking a break from some some of the big the big ticket boards that typically sit behind us um but I wanted to emphasize really the importance of this project
you know our young um kiddos in the audience tonight you know sent in art projects to really emphasize the academic Excellence that we would like to continue here in the district um our idea of this reconfiguration behind me
is to set the footprint up for the next 75 years in this project there's really something for everyone um we have built out spaces so that we can have some flex flexible Target targeted um intentional instruction groups um for students that
might be struggling we've got a large percentage of our students matriculating through the district that need special education supports um we have some medically impacted students that unfortunately at this moment we can't Service as they come through the district because we simply don't have
the facilities um you know the middle school was designed with you know the face uh facing Princeton Pike um it causes quite a bit of traffic on Gainesboro part of the project was inviting in a traffic engineer to really
study and make sure that our secondary campus not only is safe it's secure but it runs efficiently along that along with this project comes you know some core spaces that are absolutely needed and necessary when you bring up another grade level we need an extra gym the
great thing about this gym in the project design is that it is really built with a community in mind it's really built as a separate infrastructure with a lockout so that the community members can absolutely begin to consider renting our spaces and
running events and we would finally have a gymnasium and I know that Dr milowski is back there somewhere smiling to fit all of her grade levels together imagine the instructional time we can add back into the schedule because she won't have to run four lunches for two grade levels
perhaps we can run one lunch per grade level there's so many things academically minded throughout this project that has been um sort of put into the plan not to mention the steam Courtyard and you know the the life skills classroom so that we can make
sure that we're building out rooms and spaces where our students and and our kiddos belong um this is really the timeline you know we're we're here you know we're sitting here today year two in the next couple of years after the
referendum vote on March 11th we would be looking to really you know kind of procure some of those bids make decisions on Project timelines um the impact for the taxpayer probably won't come into play until 2027 we've been pretty transparent with the tax
calculator on the website please make sure you're putting in your assessed value not your Zillow value I think everybody would love to have that be our real value right now um it's the assessed value so if you've gotten the green cards in the mail make sure you're plugging that into your calculator so
that you're an informed voter when it comes down to March 11th um we do have some mail-in ballots believe it or not if you would like to be a mail-in uh voter this year if you get your mail-in registration in by March 3rd that is absolutely um there's applications on
the back table um trying to see what other points the this project really about modernizing our facilities is is keeping current with what's happening in Mercer County I feel very proud to sit here to say that our academic scores are the best in Mercer County we were
all over the newspaper in the fall why would we want not want to continue that footprint and put our kiddos in the same grade level bands of success um maximizing our financial Readiness um you know Mr Eldridge you know has been
here for almost upwards of three decades two decades two and a half maybe decades um he's really planned for this opportunity when we're contributing $4 million in in um Capital reserves that is something that that has been well planned and well thought out we want the
community to know our timeline we are here to be transparent as Miss Bose our board president said we've got another virtual Town Hall coming up on February 26 that does require a registration there's going to be Flyers going home through talking points you can register
through the uh the website but please you know join that ask your questions be an informed voter for March 11th and again this is a once- in a-lifetime opportunity to reshape the footprint we get the state aid back when the referendum passes and it allows us to
tie in the older piece of the building into the newer piece making it look more aesthetically appealing Better Learning spaces for kids and opportunities for our teachers to have great spaces to teach in so thank you for your time on that um and I'd actually like to bring
up Miss Bal deseri who is our operations manager to talk a little bit about the art contest [Music] all right now for the fun stuff how many student artists do we have in the audience raise your hand if you've submitted artwork to our art
contest welcome right I want to extend a warm welcome to all of you thank you for coming out tonight um all of our talented student artists and your families welcome thank you for being here tonight and for taking part in the referendum art contest takes a lot of courage to submit your original artwork
into a cont contest and we are all so incredibly proud of all of you we were thrilled to see so many students participate in this initiative every piece of art that was submitted was special and unique in its own way honestly we kept wishing we didn't have to choose winners because in
one way or another every single piece that came in was a winning piece of art and we'll showcase them all for you here tonight so in total we received 77 entries from students ranging from kindergarten to 11th grade
I'll break that down we had age categories the kindergarten to second grade age category had 33 entries third to fifth grade had 35 entries with fourth grade being the winning grade they had the most entries fourth graders sixth to e8th grade had six entries and
nine to 12th grade had three entries so just a little bit about the judging the first round of judging focused on identifying pieces that truly captured the theme of the referendum so supporting our schools addressing the growing Middle School investing in our future things like that from there about
25 pieces really stood out as really nailing those themes so then in the second round a panel that included our art teachers and art supervisors they reviewed and the some members of the board reviewed those pieces um for creativity and artistic ability while staying true to the theme it was
extremely difficult to narrow it down but they ultimately selected a few finalists um given the high number of submissions from our K to2 and our 3 to five grade age groups more than one winner was chosen for those categories with so many entries couldn't couldn't
narrow it down um so without further Ado at this time I'd like to invite our superintendent Dr Robin clim and our board president Michelle Bose to join us and presenting the certificates and celebrating our talented artists so they'll be up here to take a picture with your young artists as they receive
their certificate um our board vice president Amanda Santos and pepper Evans are going to read the names please give them some Grace as they read the names um of our winners and and then our and then the
rest of the participants I want to say a special thank you to Lena Le Rodriguez for helping to put together the beautiful slideshow and the certificates and to really make this night possible so congratulations again to all of our amazing artists I'm now
going to jump behind the camera and pictures all right our first participant um so as I call your name if you can just stand up and come take a picture up here um so and if I don't see you stand up I'm going to keep going so
our first participant is AIA [Applause] Kura these are the so the first ones are the winners so you'll say that it's winner this is the winner of the K2 category the winner of the [Applause]
K2 so sweet [Applause] gorgeous our next winner of the K through2 category is Gabriel [Applause] DeFalco love the cardal our next winner K through two c
category William lebano [Applause] Tran all right our next winner this is in the grade three through five category is nerva chori look how beautiful oh my
gosh so talented all right our next winner again grade three through five category is Alice lebano Tran [Applause]
right our next winner grade three through five category Arya yalen [Music] [Applause] our next winner grade three through five Malia [Applause]
bassford our next winner grade six through eight category cavia shrivastava [Applause] all right our next winner Grade 9
through 12 category Cheryl small all right now these are our participants who were just as excited about uh Angelo stoo Angelo coming that's all right oh my God
next is Anna shank next is daa Shri tanguturi [Applause] [Applause] next we have enia agall all right next we have jamim shareif next we have Olympia caulin
[Applause] [Music] [Applause] next we have Sasha bich Shrea [Applause] [Music] [Applause]
Gupta next we have AIA saan Amna munawar next is Charlie [Applause] pner next we have Elanor Jinx next we have jran thota Joey
[Music] [Applause] Lynn Margarita [Applause] Brie Matan baswani
[Applause] s Garcia rattana Stella [Applause] Greenspan B Singh Zub [Applause] zahed ashita man
[Applause] Amir [Applause] Sato Kai Murphy oh I'm sorry oh
have is that [Applause] and just in case Kai Murphy Mato Alcantara Vestal [Applause]
[Applause] Neeve vadan [Applause] Olivia [Applause]
gorich UI [Applause] mccummings cute Adeline price Alice [Applause] Peron areli
Serrano here we [Applause] [Applause] Ariana Dila Cardona Anne MAA [Applause]
Mahir [Applause] Desai Bina [Applause] brail pton Flores [Applause] Kelsey [Applause]
yaros oh Sarah mushak [Applause] [Applause] Theodore Parr Lulu [Applause]
Lyn Moa karot [Applause] Peter kooki Maxwell [Applause] sang Sharon Gomez
[Applause] Chism [Applause] on Victoria Dash [Applause] kovitz siia simha
[Applause] Adia Gupta isan Waller [Applause] Harden [Applause]
Brown ariela [Applause] Sakaya Alexander Torres [Applause]
oh move [Laughter] up Addison carestia oh I love that ardan Harley [Applause]
kadya [Applause] malagi Bo child [Applause] dream wow look at that Scarlet Linton
[Applause] [Applause] martinia [Applause] cordek VHA Patel [Applause]
January [Applause] Giglio SAR a [Applause] special guest Jaden Clark
[Applause] Ava s Ava de Leo [Applause]
sh [Applause] Vita siia Jasper [Applause] Garner Isa ikram
[Applause] congratulations don't leave yet can we get a group picture of all the participants that have not left yet do one group picture um we're going to meet down here in the well is and
please help yourself to cookies coffee and juice that sounds good never I really that's what e e e e e
e e e e make sure to grab some treats our friends on the way out plenty of food in the back e e e
okay now we have to get back to our board meeting thank you everybody thank you all of our artists we loved everything thank you for coming and supporting um miss pasi Mr Clark will you be joining
us I didn't know there was coffee back there you want one okay that's what she had enough h spark okay um all right any more recognitions and
acknowledgements okay um may I have a motion to adopt the executive session and regular session minutes from the 122 meeting so move second Tom with a the motion in a second please groger uh sorry Miss groger and
seconded by Miss Evans and Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes Miss groger yes Dr King yes Miss Martinez yes Miss pasculli yes Miss Santos yes Miss Bose yes motion carried okay thank you um can I have a
motion to adopt the regular session minutes from the 24 2025 meeting so move second second with a motion in a second time Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes Miss
groger yes Dr King yes Miss Martinez yes Miss pasculli yes Miss Santos yes Miss Bose yes motion carried thank you okay reports to the board um superintendent report I'll be brief um thank you so
much again for those that participated in the art contest and award ceremony we have such talented participants taking uh part in this initiative the the winners are to you know separate and apart from all of the contestants that we plan to display their artwork across
the district website you may see their artwork now hanging in our schools all these pieces were just too good so thank you again to the parents uh for supporting that initiative um I also am just in constant all of Arts in our district and you'll notice that on your
way in there was actually Lees art uh on display so we feel super proud of that make sure you take a peek on your way out also February is love the bus month this month we will take time to appreciate our student transportation many of our um constituents across the
district were wearing yellow today I miss the memo I apologize but it truly was to say thank you to our bus drivers again door to-door threshold they are the first person to greet our students every morning so we want to say uh thank you again for all of their hard work and
that is all I have for this evening thank you great um board uh president report um board secretary report did we have anything Tom briefly I'd like to extend an invitation to anyone who's interested to ask questions and get
original information about the referendum if you're interested in the referendum and you want to get Source documents I would be happy to share them so please extend the invitation to anyone all they have to do is give a call and I'll make myself available um pretty much whatever I'm doing that day
I'll move on to them uh I've seen a number of things that are out in social media that are false um from its headline to the information within and it's important to me that the people who are going to consider voting do so and be informed how they vote of course is
their business but we'd like to extend extend the same um courtesy to them uh and respect their right to vote and for them to be an informed voter in the same manner that we we try to have our kids research original information and so whether that's about tax impact or what
we intend on building or why we intend on building it um what I'll do is extend exactly what I've done in the past and that is if you come into the office and ask me a question not even ahead of time I'll bring up the source document for you and let you make your own decision as you look through audits or whatever
the case may be um and that's for anyone who's interested and uh after hours before work whenever is convenient for them thank you so much Tom y um board president report I don't really have a report tonight I just would like
to reate reiterate that we're we are hosting a virtual town hall on February 26th um you can sign up for it on our referendum website um at ltps.org uh you can submit questions in advance we
expect to really be answering a lot of questions we are really keeping track of what the community wants to know whether it is information about the fin cial picture what's going to happen after the referendum if it doesn't pass what are we going to do we really want to be able to um ensure the public that anything
that they want to know we are willing to answer that question um we can't foresee the future but we are planning for different um circumstances as we do every day in our district we don't know what tomorrow is going to bring but I feel very confident in Tom and Robin and
the rest of our Administration in thinking about um what the future holds for for our district and I just would like the public to feel the same level of comfort that I have um and the only way they're going to get there is by asking us the questions um coming to the
source of information um uh you could remind people that they can zoom in any language the language of their choice yeah yes we just wanted to remind the public we are hosting a virtual Town Hall but we've discovered that if we're
we're using a Google meet so if you're setting up to get into the link you can actually choose the language um and miss baldari and I will talk and maybe we'll get those directions out to our constituents so that you know how to adjust your settings
accordingly information is power and it's really important that our community has all of the information going into this vote on March 11th um thank you okay uh committee reports community relations and legislative
affairs no no report uh liaison reports student board member report no student board member this evening so no report from Edison tonight uh New Jersey School Board Association okay and I will put in some legislative pieces with that um January 23rd Mercer County school
board's virtual County meeting was held topic was AI opportunities obstacles and path forward discussion was Lively Focus on how we can harness the power to ensure our students understand fact CH checking and sourcing when they are
using AI um it's here we all need to learn how to use and how to engage with it and be responsible when using it uh many questions were brought up and the conclusion was a lot more legislation and policies need to be enacted to
protect all of us students teachers everyone uh many thanks to Pepper for attending I saw your face in one of the squares um the upcoming meeting for our County will be March 20th unsung hero ceremony held at West Windsor Plainsboro
south beginning at 6:00 pm a light dinner will be served uh please consider attending you gain appreciation for the hard work and dedication of our staff members counselors school counselors Administration um supporting our ver
vulnerable students they are um they exemplify a can do attitude and this is an opportunity for us to celebrate their accomplishments uh Board of director reporting the uh board of directors unan
unanimously approved the 2526 budget 2.5 increase it's got a scale going so not every district will U do that the reason they did this was to take advantage of more training for school board members
for their staff um and I fully encourage us to make use of these trainings because we are paying for it as a district and if we're not providing what you need let us know and I'll make that happen because it's for us so throw it
my way thank you um you're welcome and then a new quarterly newsletter is starting it's called watch and it has legislative impact on students schools communities uh Team will be tracking all
pieces of legislation it's called Capital watch excuse me I forgot the beginning and uh Bill 5117a 5117 did pass this is increasing the number of signatures needed for candidates that are running for the
upcoming election from 10 to 25 so it passed so make sure you're aware of that um February 4th I attended Mammoth County virtual meeting and uh Senator Vin copal spoke he is more than open to
any questions any concerns I really appreciate the time he spent with all of us no question was left um and if he didn't have an answer he took names email addresses and got back so there's lots going on basically it's hold your
hold yourself in place we're trying to stay on top of everything um we talked a little bit about deportation we talked about the task force for career f focused Learners uh there's a 97 page report from the task force so please
take a look at that and the second annual leadership's women conference will be Friday March 21st all day event at Mercer County and that's my report for New Jersey school boards great thank you Joan you bet student
services student services meeting took place on Tuesday February 11th in attendance was Vanessa Barak and myself AR Clark highlights from the meeting included our transition Fair we you pleased to announce the return of our transition Fair scheduled for March 1st
at the LHS Commons the transition fair is a day filled with various vendors where families can learn about postsecondary Services resources and information is available for their child beyond their High School career as of the end of January we have
uh 25 vendors slated with more potentially to be added this year we also be welcoming vendors geared toward all families regardless of this child's stage of their school schooling career that address parental resources that include but are not limited to financial
planning and independent life skills of the student uh esy and connect planning and Staffing for the 2025 esy and connect programs are in progress these programs will be running from July 7th to August
7th on Monday through through Thursday this year more more information to come inclusive spring track and field special education high school students a letter will be sent soon with sign up information for those wanting to
participate in inclusive spring track and field four meets have been scheduled with districts throughout Mercer County uh community board committee a new internal committee has been established to build awareness set up
events to celebrate and promote special needs and include it throughout all of the district buildings this ends our report thank you um reconfiguration at hoc uh as has been stated we've been
meeting a lot with a lot of different groups um and it's been really informative so as always want to thank uh the folks the parents at PTO meetings and the community meetings and the folks who came with questions at town hall or the ones who are reaching out to get more information so a lot of the
concentration of the ad hoc committee is making sure that we're responding to questions um you know there's a lot of misinformation as uh Mr eldris mentioned so for instance one thing that we want to remind folks is that while we could have we did not opt to have a PR firm so
as a district we are um very much trying to handle the questions in the communication and we're very grateful to folks who have been um sharing our website and making sure that that gets out there and then uh the team an
amazing District team has not been sleeping but has been finding responses um to the many questions to make sure that they're posted and you know we know it's a lot um but you really can find those answers and we encourage everyone to uh reach out if one of their
questions is not there so the dates have already been mentioned we had a successful to town hall um and again all of the effort um thanks to everyone bringing the questions has been to be as transparent and clear and communicative of the facts as possible so I think that's been our
focus and we'll we have 26 days starting tomorrow to um keep keep an eye on those areas of misinformation one of the things can I chime in on that for just a second one of the things that we talked about uh Miss pascoli and I were questions of whether or not operating
costs and as someone had quoted that our operating costs are 2.5% of the capital invest that doesn't make any sense um and here's why it doesn't make any sense if you look at our capital investment and you estimated at the uh 999998 U million
Mark within that and included in the estimates that we have online are capital maintenance so why would you apply 2.5% to Capital maintenance it's already baked in so if you're going to go into the classrooms and you're going to use
the renovation cost and put 2.5% against that well isn't that already in our existing maintenance budget well of course it is so there's a number of things that you have to look at the other thing that's kind of interesting with these things and the reason we did an FAQ and you can find our FAQ online
is that if you looked at it from a different angle from a cost accounting angle as opposed to an estimate based on a set of assumptions instead you could look at our audit and I have three pages from our audit two pages uh from last year's audit and the audit with me uh excuse me
the audit before and the current year and if you look at all three years you see we spend about $7.5 million on maintenance total if you use what was published in white papers online and social media the district by square footage should be
spending 20 million that's how far off these are they're in magnitudes of 300% off of reality so the idea um and and we don't want people to be afraid we don't want people to be scared um of these things and that's why we say we'd open up
anything we teach our kids to use Source information if you go to the library at Lis and students are writing research papers they go and they find source information as opposed to things on social media we offer that same uh uh open uh page to anyone who'd be
interested all of our audits are online you can find that information yourself our our cost per square foot so if you look at what our cost cost per square foot is and and you want to take a rough estimate you'd be about um well I believe you're looking at somewhere in
a rate area of $700,000 or less because if you have a brand new building and I use that as just taking the cost per square foot Times 83,000 Square ft of the the addition but your question to me would be Tom if you just
bought a brand new car why would you spend that M much in maintenance I had a car so it would be maintenance-free brand new the other thing that's kind of misleading here is it'll be five years before we even begin with maintenance
it's not next year right um so there's lots of things that we can talk about and and Miss pascy uncovered quite a lot of those and that's just the tip of the iceberg yes okay so it's there for you I think it's important you know that the board and the public understands that I
mean first of all Tom's job is to manage our budgets this is what he does all day every day and has done it for more than 20 years for our district it is hard to share and explain all of the things that are involved in the running of this District sure um but we are all invested
in the future of lawrenville this board this Administration we understand there's fear out there but we want to alleviate some of the concerns around the operation of the future of this District um there's nothing in this for us other
than making this District better everyone who sits here is only desire is to improve Lawrence Township Public School District um and we work tirelessly as a board to do that Tom has has always been a great resource in
terms of giving us factual information about what it costs to run this district and we also are not a business we're a school we do not operate like a business operates we have um guidelines that we have to follow from the state so I
encourage people who are interested to know what these guidelines are to ask us the question and not make assumptions based on how businesses run because we are not a business we are a school district thank you Tom you're welcome sorry madam president um I just did I
forgot one other clarification and again as as a reminder what's been great about the community meetings is there's really a shared ownership and so we were told for instance that it's very confusing about assessment value versus your Zillow price so superintendent CL
clarified that today another clarification that we've been asked to share is about preschool and as well as operating costs and so again you know our vision for making sure that all students have high quality preschool is a plan that's separate and apart in
resources funding and process from the referendum the referendums about our Middle School our grounds and our upgrade and our expansion we're very very excited about that and all that funding goes to that Middle School plan there's no secret there's no secret
mixing sauce it's it's the ballot we'll talk about the middle school expansion and so I just want to reiterate as we as a community are really rising up and supporting this the in when we hear about the information and what needs to be clarified that's when we can address
it and we're really grateful to the folks who have been trying to explain that to their neighbors or directing people to the website you know one of the things that I saw tonight and thinking about what we were talked about was this notion of some there's misleading things out there that that somehow this referendum is conflated
with preschool what's interesting when I looked at it was well the the the propaganda had said something uh the online propaganda that we're going to have 400 students in the preschool I thought well how interesting because by next year if that were true we already
have 255 in next year so no the preschool isn't contingent on the middle school which we just said wouldn't be done until for 5 years uh when the referendum is approved and I take it for granted that it will be I hope it will be but
the the idea that it's conflated with it well we'll be better than halfway to our tar target audience next year and by the time the middle school is done we'll already be there or close to it um so I don't know that you can logically link those two but I don't know that people
know that so it's something to share thank you thank you Diana um Michelle just before you move on to review of communications um I did attend Lawrence Sor growth and Redevelopment last night
um the primary topic was uh a networking event that they're planning a business networking event that their planning date to be determined still probably in April but one thing that came up that I'd like to share with the board um is that there was an expression of some
interest in some expression of some interest in um including uh our Deca students and our Deca Club in that networking event uh so some things that are on the table for discussion there is to have a member of deca sit on the
Lawrence growth and Redevelopment uh committee uh akin to our student on the school board um as well when the networking event is determined uh they'd like to have some Deca members involved in sort of
marketing and awareness and as execution so uh let me know where to take that to when we had DEA um at their last networking event and it was really good we had all of our Deca kids there Dave went um Mr teas went um it was really
successful so I think it was a a good partnership for our students as well as for the um growth and Redevelopment committee yes so we'll continue that for sure and um uh this week uh Mercer County votech had their they run about a
quarterly community meeting uh Michelle Bose Joanne groger myself attended um as always when we're there we're impressed with uh the variety of what the
votch um system can offer our students um it is available to each and every Lawrence student with it of interest um our eighth graders learn about the full-time programs that they would enroll in in ninth grade our 10th graders learn about the shared time
programs they would enroll in in junior year uh dual enrollment programs exist over there as well as at our own high school so that as students are taking courses at Mercer County B Tech they're
also dually enrolled in Mercer County Community College and receiving college credit for the work in high school um additionally beyond the dual enroll enrollment some benefits of the vote Tech um they receive industry
certification uh in the area career area that they've expressed interest um along with work experience and employment support um so the big message of votech is uh that it does not that it is not an
either or decision regarding college um it is a both and uh so many of the votech students will pursue College um and this culinary arts program was was putting on the lunch and and there's a
culinary arts student heading to Brown next year um so the sky kind of the limit for what the vot tech kids can do is available to that so yes it was great thank you so much Dr King um
review of communications we've communicated a lot already going to zip it um this is our first opportunity for public input okay seeing none we move on uh we have no board discussion and work items um board discussion and action
items uh Personnel committee report and Personnel action items okay I have a quick addendum I forgot ltef um I attended an 8:00 meeting on Monday morning February 3rd and uh we reported out on topics that are relevant
to school board in our district um updates grants are due February 18th and March 7th will be Grant day April 4th Lawrence has talent event it looks like we have some pretty amazing talented people that have tried out for this
event so I think we're in for quite a great show and the other thing Project Graduation mark your calendars February 22nd 700 p.m. to 11: for casino night um things are looking Bleak and and I thank
you Michelle for your um contribution they reached out to me saying that um they need support things are not looking real great for us so we can plug along our kids deserve that experience of all being together in a drug and alcohol
free event okay Personnel back on topic sorry we met February 5th 8:15 in attendance Dr Robin clim Sean fry Arend Del Clark Kevin Van heis Olga Martinez and Joanne krer at this meeting we
currently had a bus driver and a job coach vacancy which you'll see under new business have been filled um thank you Sean and your department we continue to review Staffing and budgeting for the next school year our New Jersey stride job fair will be taking place on March
20th we're excited to participate in this recruiting opportunity alongside our partnership districts we discuss contract negotiations for lapta and ltaa and there were no changes to our four
policies on tonight's agenda you'll find just put in a plug lapa successfully ratified this evening whoa awesome news Well Done what a good team effort okay back to
on tonight's agenda you'll find adjustments for start dates end dates leave Replacements approvals for unpaid sick leave substitute teachers and subbus drivers you'll see appointments for Destination positions eagles's
position sustainability representative sub assistant unused sick days due to retirement along with vacation days also due to retirement sick leave replacement staff members pending background check clearances behind the wheel staff and
sub secretaries and confirmation for appointments of staff and sub members due to clearance background checks and an amendment for p27 on 1211 Agenda One resignation and with all of that I'd
like to move P1 through p21 please I'll move second the motion and a second time who's the second M okay got it thank you Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes Miss groger
yes Dr King yes Miss Martinez yes Miss pasculli yes Miss Santos yes Miss Bose yes motion carried thank you CIA APD report and student service action items uh CIA APD met on February 10th at
8 a.m. in attendance were Mr zanar Mr Desai Nicole sass Nessa carak Dr clim Dr King Miss Bose Miss pasi and Miss Evans the big guns were out um Amanda the meeting agenda covered
a large range of topics including an overview of the student services secondary curriculum discussions on the district's strategic plan and updates on metametrics and updates on our current
dat data warehouse as well as proposals for AP research and dual enrollment courses additional updates were shared as the preschool Lottery application being now open summer programming and progress toward district and
superintendent goals the key focus of the meeting was the review of secondary special education courses being developed and approved through the curriculum committee at the middle school level new courses in the MD lld programs were proposed including 21st
century skills set for 2526 school years year and social communication skills planned for 2627 these courses aim to enhance students real world abilities at the
high school level proposed additions include work-based learning a two to four credit course offering communitybased work experience adaptive health for students remaining in school until age 21 and team exploration a peer
buddy elective promoting collaborative engagement between General Ed and special ed students furthermore specialized electives for the core program the self-contained program were discussed
including future forward uh focusing on Career awareness professional writing and financial planning Pathways integrates direct instruction with independent study opportunities such as internships and volunteer experience
these curriculum additions align with District's strategic plan by prioritizing support prioritizing uh support students with diverse educational needs the committee underscored the importance of these new courses providing students
with the skills and experiences necessary for postsecondary Success whether in college vocational training or in the workforce got to hand it to Vanessa varc for bringing all this new uh energy to those um special
needs um on the agenda on the agenda you'll see uh professional development and field trips uh you'll see esy extended school year Hib non-public uh which is just when we
transfer money from the state that we're required to give to the non-public schools and the out of District placements m with that I would like to move ois1 through 7 and OSS 1-5 so moved
second okay with a from Amanda and Olga second okay Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes Miss groger yes Dr King yes Miss Martinez yes Miss pasculli yes Miss
Santos yes Miss Bose yes yes motion carried thank you finance committee report and school business management action items Uh Kevin asked me to fill in on his behalf uh he sent out a very
comprehensive a set of minutes so I won't go into all that but um on the agenda you'll see bills list transfers fire drills srex solar renewable energy certificates staff laptops and some
policies uh with that I would like to move that's BM 1 through 11 11 12 11 11 second Tom with a motion in a second Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes Miss Kroger yes
Dr King yes Miss Martinez yes Miss pascoli yes Miss Santos yes iose yes thank you uh so our next opportunity for public input okay seeing none we move on to new
business pepper that's the pepper Evans show tonight yeah we're showcasing her auditory abilities all right new business we have leave Replacements Staffing Equity coaches uh substitute appointments
curricula for study skills and work-based learning at Lawrence Middle School and Lawrence high school and with that I'd like to move new business 1 through 16 second for the motion in a second time Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes
Miss groger yes Dr King yes Miss Martinez yes Miss pascoli yes Miss Santos yes Miss Bose yes motion carried thank you um um can I have a motion to adjourn so moved um can I oh yes of course because I didn't get to say
enough no you didn't so this is our last board meeting before the vote and I just wanted to say that I am for the referendum and um I'm I'm for it not because of my own kids because they're grown but because of what my
children got when they're here and it's my belief that you pay it forward and my children are thriving today because of Lawrence Township Public public schools and for referendums other people voted yes on that's right and I want to do
that for the children who are coming through our schools I'll be voting yes thank you okay motion to adjourn all in favor I I okay have a good night everybody thank you so
much e e e e e e for