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[Applause] so before we start a board meeting for first group was all did a j absolutely take time thank you thank you so much to our students
who performed thank you performers [Applause] all right good evening everybody and welcome to the Lawrence Township Public School board meeting um the New Jersey open public meeting act law was enacted
to ensure the right of the public to have of 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 law adequate notice of this meeting has been provided via email and or fact 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 the public discussion of personnel items and other matters as
defined in the the law of the flag salute flag un States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liy Justice okay first we'll have our student representative
reports welcome hi I'm Sabine I'm a junior this week started signups for class Royale which is being hosted by Project Graduation the event is a powderpuff like tournament where the girls play flag football in the boy's chair all four grades will be participating and
the event will be held the April 25th our annual St baldrick's campaign just wrapped up last weekend both Mr oconor and Dr Adam shaved their head along with many others in support of this worthwhile cause ltps continues to raise money and awareness for cancer research
hi my name is hop Leti I'm a junior I will be talking about NJ GPA testing AP testing and science Testing Juniors just finished their njtpa graduation requirement testing last week AP testing is coming up in May so please have your
high school child start St studying soon also coming up in May is Junior testing for science hi I'm Veronica Edwards and I'm a senior last Friday March 14th the International Alliance Club had a holy Festival which
um it's also the Festival of Colors the bright colors represent Joy love and happiness and the festival is celebrated to overcome evil the club is also having an upcoming culture first in June so we
are all preparing to perform hi um I'm Charlie I'm a senior um spring sports are in full swing um it's been a little over a week since spring Sports have started and a bunch of teams have already started scrimmaging um girls lacrosse won um
yesterday girls softball won today baseball won yesterday and then boys Lacross has a scrimmage tomorrow and then track and field has been practicing so yeah awesome thank you hi I'm Josh kgal I'm a junior the
spring musical Hello Dolly just wrapped up and it was a great success and tickets were even sold out on Saturday the senior production Diary of Anne Frank is currently having auditions and will take place later in the year thank you thank
you okay thank you so much uh student Representatives feel free to stay or leave thank you for all the great updates on our sports teams um next we have recognition and acknowledgement uh we have uh Bonnie Giglio from uh the
executive director of The Lawrence Township education fund coming up to give us some spring updates hello good evening um I apologize in advance I'm the only one here so you have to hear me say all of them this
time um but I am Bonnie Giglio the executive director of The Lawrence Township Education Foundation we just wrapped up our spring Grant cycle um and we were able to fund 22 grants for a total of $23,600 this year so I'm going to go
through all the grants that we funded so we had one multiple School Grant and it was tell a lot of the teachers are here so if I say your name we'll stand up and clap for you um tell it like it is K steam story retelling kits for all elementary schools for
$1,890 that was awarded to Kimo Bole Moren Hayes Terry chrisc Joe Fredericks Lonnie chasser and Amy re Reef sorry I knew that um this grant will provide developmentally appropriate manipulatives for kindergarten students in all four elementary schools to use in
literacy and steam activities um each kit contains materials to support students comprehensive skills and retelling a classic folk tail along with tools to allow students to engage in problem solving and Engineering tasks I don't
know okay um um there was one other Grant out of Ben Franklin and that was the playful Pathways to for $658 that was awarded to Kim ooy Terry krisak Joe Fredericks and Lonnie chasser this grant will provide Mass stacker
blocks for kindergarten students um at Ben Franklin in order to think mathematically while building and manipulating all right we had two grants out of uh Lawrence Elementary School with the bu bucket druming assembly for $985 um granted to Jennifer zaton this
Grant will fund the bucket drumming assembly which will provide a fund and educational program for all students at Lees and then hallways of wisdom was uh $700 for Jeff Barry Ashley Tagan and
Kristen Burke uh this grant will provide additional examples of uniquely worded and school pride educational signage in our hallways and do so so specifically for the prek population which has grown from two classes to six classes in order to help our youngest Learners notice
read and develop important early learning skills in some of the most formative years this is a similar Grant request place last year but this one has more of a focus on the growing prek population um Lawrence Intermediate School had the most grants as they
usually do um the first grant we have is flexible seating for $500 that was awarded to Mary buck and Jessica allenbach and I know that they're here so you can stand and did I say it [Applause]
right uh this grant will provide upright flexible seating on the carpet for fourth graders in allenbach bet books classroom at Lis in order to enhance student engagement collaboration and comfort during learning activities the next Grant is cooking around the world for
$1,000 to Orit Goldstein and she is here uh this grant will provide access to kitchen tools and appliances teach life skills to fourth to sixth grade students in the speech and language program at Lis and encourage cultural diversity through creating recipes from
different cultures it will aim to teach varied speech and language skills creatively teaching secreting vocabulary following directions so social skills and problem solving skills the next Grant is vertical classroom for $700 that's to Katie coaches and Courtney
H they're both here um this grant will provide vertical learning space for multiple grades and classrooms at Lis by providing reusable vertical whiteboards that stick to the walls and surfaces these whiteboards will expand student work surfaces and increase student interaction while
working and also provide more effective teacher observation and make student thinking visible in the form of a gallery presentation uh the next Grant oh was exciting one weekly hoot for $2,729 was awarded to Andrew Sensei and
Sharon re and I know Andrew is here this grant will provide televised morning announcements for the entire school at lasis bringing back the program that ended during covid students will participate in creating producing and broadcasting the weekly morning
announcements uh the next Grant is one we always love which is one that was directed and started by students and this was an anthology book for $1,000 awarded to Mr gersner and his students Julia oh I didn't practice melan
naswiz sorry January white Vivian how do I not know tapara thank you um and Mya con and I know some of the students are here this grant is student L it was written
by Lis sixth grade students Julia January Vivien and Misa uh the Anthology Book will be a collaboration of student stories from students from grades four to six it will be a series of unique essays stories and art the goal of this book is to bring together students
talents and the community it will encourage liter literature by showing different ways to tell a story uh the next Grant is Wellness day for $600 to Sarah yosowitz and Tory Hart um this grant will provide access to Wellness
activities for students in fourth fifth and sixth grade at Lis in order to promote healthy habits during the wellness Day program our next Grant is the great debate at alas $1,287 to Gabrielle ceri I know she is
here this grant will provide access to developmentally appropriate books with varying points of view on topics of interest to students in fourth and fifth grade yeah and I think it's our last Grant out of Lis uh mapping our world for
962 to Kristen Potter Karen forino and Kimberly venio I know that Kristen's here I wasn't supposed to wait all the um this grant will fund the purchase and installation of lar high quality world
and Country maps in the hallways of Lawrence Intermediate School this project aims to strengthen students map skills geography langu knowledge and overall geol literacy by creating an accessible and engaging learning environment beyond the
class okay I know you guys I'm sorry it's still me um Lawrence Middle School um the first grant is enhancing engagement through videot te for $450 to John Eric stamatellos this grant Grant will provide new cameras for all
middle school students at LMS in order to engage students with video production learning both technical Stills skills and fostering teamwork creativity and communication um the next Grant is a student Le grant called banner up for
$34 for Oliver Valentino uh this grant will provide banners for the Lawrence Middle School music programs in order to promote our school and give her music ensembles a more professional look um the next Grant is printing design for all for
$3,275 for John Eric stamatellos he's busy this cycle and he um had this grant will allow LMS to purchase a sublimation printing system in order to provide valuable hands-on experience in printing design and production creation fostering
essential skills for career in colle college readiness um and the last Grant out of LM no second and last is a camera for student council for $521 for Jillian Testa see did I I did oh
y this grant will enhance the Middle School's ability to capture and share events improve security by keeping students phone photos off of their personal devices and strengthening Community engagement through better social media content and the last Grant out of LMS is
Cardinal quest for $45 to Douglas lenhard and um Jeff body and this grant will help establish Cardinal quest which is a tabletop role playing game club for students um at LMS the club will begin its focus with an
easily approachable board gaming board game gaming system heroquest which students can learn and then use as a basis for creating their own gaming experiences during face-to-face Club sessions with peers okay now oh sorry I didn't know you're here stand up stand up come
[Applause] on um all right and our last school is the Lawrence High School we have a few grants out of there the first one is improving TV studio for $443 to Timothy
Williams this grant will provide equipment for 9 to 12th grade students at Lawrence High School in order to enhance the TV studio production class and provide a higher quality show for the school and surrounding Community um cealing and success
$2,250 is to Alexis Edgar and John teas this grant will provide a laminator for all business and deca students at the high school in order to ensure success inside and outside of the classroom students will be able to bring their research to life through creative professional
presentations uh the next one is physics with a thermal camera for 96 $64 to Kevin camp this gr Grant will provide a way of observing physics phenomena that were previously impossible to see via a thermal
camera and two more um the next one out of the high school is the aapi year of the snake for $600 to miss Lynn uh this grant will provide educational and cultural appreciation for all grade levels in order to celebrate and educate attendees about the rich cultural
heritage of Asian-American and Pacific ific Island countries through a variety of engaging Hands-On activities um participants will be able to G gain a deeper understanding of these div diverse cultures and our last one out of the
high school is the robotics club for $1,385 to Shiloh veter and dwit Tess Tessa I know Shiloh is here oh and all right this is another one that was mostly student L this grant will provide
the newly established robotics Club at the high school with supplies like Motors metal beams wheels and more so that they can create engaging and educational projects these projects will allow the students to learn engineering and programming skills that will help them figure out their interest and
undoubtedly prove useful in many of their future careers um so that is all the grants those were 22 it was a it was a you know it was a good cycle we had a lot of request and we're very happy um and honored to be able to um to fund these
the ltf is only able to do all that we do through generous donations of corporate sponsors and individual donors we um have a couple of events throughout the year our next event is Lawrence has talent it's coming up on April 4th um tickets are going fast so get your
tickets and um can we do a picture yeah so if I can have the award recipients and your checks down in the The Well down here with the board we'll take a picture great they e
e e e e bu sorry thank you everybody and Bonnie congratulations congratulations job well done okay um all right can I get a motion to adopt
the executive session and regular session minutes from the 12 from the February 12th 2025 meeting so move second with a motion in a second Tom Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes
Miss Martinez yes Miss pasculli yes Miss Santos yes M van heis obain Miss BOS yes motion carried thank you uh reports to the board superintendent's report okay first I want to thank Miss Giglio and the ltef
for their continued support of our students teachers and the entire District we always benefit from our teachers Innovative and Forward Thinking ideas and dreams really are made a reality here in Lawrence Township with the generous um donation and grant recip
grant Awards this evening so thank you happy youth art month um thank you to all of our art teachers for providing this beautiful artwork and behind you on display um we have artwork representing all seven schools here tonight so to do you know take a minute to pass through
it's pretty exciting and I do want to thank he's not here any longer but Mr Kilgore and his fifth and sixth grade flute players and the eighth grade musicians on the clarinet flute and piano I think the board always appreciates little touch every evening that we meet we like to see the students
and the Arts grow here in our district so before we go any further tonight I really want to thank the voters of the Lawrence Township uh Community for approving the ltps referendum last Tuesday March 11th because of your support we can move forward with our vision for the future of a dist District
of Excellence the projects under the referendum will benefit our students our schools and our entire Community your voices your votes and your belief in all of us made this possible I want to thank you for standing alongside us for believing in our students for helping to shape the future of lence Township
Public Schools for many many years to come I know we have a lot to get through tonight so without further Ado Mr Eldridge and I will join um together at the podium to deliver the draft budget presentation to the board of ed all right so good evening this is your
2526 draft budget presentation special thanks Mr Eldridge for doing the figures you'll see later on in the slideshow um so I just want to remind the public and the board that we do have the Strategic plan goals that are going to be extended out one more year before we engage in a full strategic plan
process with the public um you know those aspirations really involved um the Thematic um you know goals that involve Wellness student achievement and Equity diversity and inclusion um the superintendent goals I haven't developed
next year's goals I'll do a full review um of the board goals during our summer Retreat and then another messaging to the public of course during a September board meeting but I just want the public to understand that this is going to be multi-year goals um for the District Preschool expansion is very near and
dear to the board's heart we're working really hard reaching at 50% capacity for the preschool expansion going into next school year which is no small feat it's really taking a lot of bandwidth and effort from the early childhood team so I really need to give them a shout out you'll see an extension of this goal and
a hybrid of us bringing in some community members um to really form an early childhood advisory Council so that as we expand and meet our full Universe of 500 projected students we'll continue to expand this goal and the and the metrics to go along with the second
really is career and um college readiness and and that's really about enhancing student belonging making sure that the messaging out there to the public is you are career ready whether that looks like a pathway to a training program a vocational experience college
readiness we want all of our students to feel like their strengths are valued and honored here in this district and we will certainly capture all opportunities and experiences for them to continue to expand that the last one we've been working um you know for the last 18 months on truly is the Community
engagement so while that's centered around um you know the referendum and really educating the community our next goal will probably be Central to informing the public on our continu our continued plans around the reconfiguration so just a quick overview
of what you'll see you know you know Mr Aldridge and I are of the belief you really put your money where your mouth is um we've got a lot of initiatives and sometimes we really have to sit together as a team and work with our administrative team to really parse out you know where is it that we're going what's our vision for the district I
mentioned preschool expansion so that will remain um a central sort of you know Community the community site that we're opening is is really going to be important next year because that allows us to open more classrooms for kids the next thing you'll see is Career and Technical um education opportunities for
students we're really proud we've put virtual reality into the hands of kids at Lawrence Elementary School at Lawrence Intermediate School really the idea is to promote college and or career Readiness just any Pathway to really
ignite the excitement around future learning how do we develop Pathways at the high school if we don't understand the kids coming up so that we can receive them to adjust um curriculum and to adjust our electives and that really ties into the third bullet point which
is the public service Community our our students are eager for community service they're eager eager to learn more about what do Public Service um you know EMTs and nurses and police and First Responders and you know the academy is
quite vast but this idea was really born from our students and that's what's really important about this administrative team in this budget is we're going to continue to adjust to the needs of the growing population that we're serving here in Lawrence um next you'll see the deployment of District level and building level data teams that
we're going to kind of hone in on there's going to be you know firmed up dat data protocols that'll feed up to a district level team so the building teams will feed to the district teams really just solidifying you know sort of that data driven decision making and ensuring that the office of instruction
really has a long range plan that matches alongside the data so as we're making adjustments that the teachers are prepared for any pivots or changes that we need to make in the curriculum to ensure that our student growth is On Target maintaining police uh presence I always like to assure the community that
there is a portion of our budget that is dedicated to our class three officers and our SRO at the high school it's important to us to have security and operations running very smoothly and I know that that's an important um topic for our community and then of course engaging families we do plan on
continuing our community conversations we will always adjust the topics to the needs and the requests of our community you can expect more surveys next year so that we can make sure that we're on the mark for addressing concerns and issues that come up from our constituents um and that's really about Building Bridges
you know we've done some really cool things this year we adopted talking points that goes home in family's home language it's so great to get a text message in your home language we're continuing to just expand the bandwidth and the opportunity for our families to engage back with us so that has been
highly successful it's something that has been rolled out we're in the second year um and we're always looking for ways to reach our families whether it's um hybrid you know virtual and inperson sessions you know really just trying to think of ways to to get families in the
very busy life to join us and have conversations with us at the table um and really you know revising programs um positions and instructional practices you know if there's a position that needs to be created um you know to support teachers better we're always at
the table having discussions working with the board you know making sure that we have the bandwidth to support our Educators in the classroom and making sure that they have the resources that they need and then finally you will there'll be no short shortage of communications um as we passed the
referendum last Tuesday I mentioned we'll be building out some phasing working on Project design as we you know sort of formulate how the project timeline will go we will be giving some clear messaging out to the public so you can await all those fun
things all right I'm on a roll economic influences so you know it's always important to remind the public that there are constraints when you're building a budget um I proudly am announcing tonight we're asking for the board's approval on two collective bargaining units success y ratified in
February so that means the board has in front of them two contracts um we Su successfully negotiated the Lawrence Township Education Association contract for the next three years and we have a smaller unit that encompasses um our Board office members and some of our
technology members so we will be asking for the board's um you know approval on that this evening we feel very proud that we have contracts in place before the start of July 1 so um that was a wonderful process and I know Mr Fry is in the audience um and Mr eldr is
standing next to me it is a collective effort when you're going through negotiations so I want to thank you for your support um benefits and insurance costs there's always inflation um utilization of course pension costs there's inflation Associated I don't need to remind everyone that gas prices
are up just imagine now repairs and and gas prices for our buses and the contracts that go out sometimes you know families think it's easy to reroute a student but in this District we have about about 11 school buses and we actually have to sort of uh contract out
for the remaining of the routes here so sometimes it's Rick bus picking up students sometimes it's a Lawrence Township employee so you know our bandwidth is sort of this hybrid model we're not a district that has a full Fleet of buses we don't have a bus yard our bus yard is right in front of the
high school out here um and that encompasses 11 Vehicles why I say that is sometimes you know when you have to go out to bid um you know we're at the the mercy of how the bids come in how we award the contracts that's just an important consideration as prices
increase for us to consider when we're building the budget and then finally tuition um we have some students out of District tuition continues to go up any contracted service whether it's a nursing care some sort of outside provider that we need to bring in for their expertise those prices continue to
increase um and we're also we have a 2% cap so the prices are exceeding the 2% cap so that's always a tricky scenario and then I'll bring up Mr alridge to go through the overview so what we've done is we've reduced the um the budget in
terms of its Appropriations and of course Appropriations are just our spending plan it's what we anticipate spending during the year um and I'll remind the board that we're doing the spending plan now but that's a spending plan that will carry us through not this the end of this summer but the following
summer so things change um but this is where we are today this is a general overview from a probably about a 10,000 ft View and we've got detailed uh data for you as well but what you can see here in Broad Strokes is our entire budget reduced to what you see at the
top um the table at the top shows you the programs that we fund and if you want to think about programs you can think of them to be analogist of products and so where we see the increases happening we see for example regular education increasing by $600,000
and special ed uh by 72,000 and so on as you go down from health and media straight on down to Administration which includes technology Legal Services through our utilities the benefits that Dr clim spoke of transportation and then
we don't have any increase in the uh the capital uh area at this point in time below that for you to look at at a different time you'll see that and I'll see if this uh these laser pointers work they do excellent so what you have is an88 U million almost um $89 million
appropriation overall for our budget but below what we show you is outside of what these are our programs this is another way of presenting the budget it says what we buy within each program so here the top the bottom line is also 88 million of course it would be ties out
but this is broken up to show you that the vast majority of our budget is made up of salaries and benefits as you see here we'll talk about that a little bit more um on the the next slide up top just a pie chart for you if you like your USA Today Graphics here to show you where we are with in terms of these
things but visually for you so special education here gened here and employee benefits actually is outside so you would think that those uh are spread across these cost centers and you would be right you could put them in there in proportion this is what we call our
adverti budget this is similar to what you're going to see in our userfriendly budget um that we post that department requires us to Post online um I think ours is a little bit more easy to understand and what we've done here is I've taken that same reduction that you
saw in the previous slide totaling this amount and I've given you the categories within so that you can see what's happening when we do say regular programs are going up we mean okay this is grades uh kindergarten through uh 12 in typical classroom teachers but we can
swing into here the basic skills right here that's also part of gen Ed and bilingual so we break them up into subcategories to give you a better flavor if you wanted to know exactly where things are changing up and down and all the Appropriations the board and
the public online on our main website you'll find a link to the budget behind this table there are another 10 pages that make up probably upwards of about 300 different lines for example that give you the sub uh the micro level detail of all of
these on on the previous screen I showed you the programs and then translated over here to what we call the objects what it is we buy both of course total out the same and here's your salaries and benefits but this year I thought it was interesting to give this to you and show you that 90% 92% of our budget is
made up of salaries benefits tuition and of course tuition is direct Service as well to our students transportation and energy alone and I thought that was a unique number right there only because it was so high and that tells us something what it tells us is any
changes in our budget of a material nature have to come through program that's the interpretation of that because some of these things are set and are the cost of of doing business transportation for example and energy is just keeping the lights on and keeping the buildings warm for the most
part except for today it's a little chilly in here now so moving over to the next slide just to give you a picture of where we are with Revenue this is again a reduction a 10,000 foot View see our Appropriations are going up by this amount and here's
the corresponding Revenue changes so we have an increase in state aid a slight decrease in some federal funding for the general fund and then an increase in tax levy and what it translates to is the tax calculations that I provide um I try to do this every year if you're
interested um we show it on a school year basis here but of course taxes are calculated on a calendar year and so we calculate those out for you as well overall to the average home it's about $140 and all of this is online and then more detail uh the link is on the main
website and just uh and you can find it right here at www.ltps.org where you'll see all of our budget years budget information you'll find all of our audits here and by the way just um just to tie it back into to what you vote on every board meeting when you vote on the
board secretary's report that's not a report from me in a qualitative sense it's actually a financial document and so you see the balance sheet there and you see the budget uh as it's been expended to date and every month when you get that report that's what that is
that is also online so should anyone ever ask about our finances they're online right to the interim basis on a monthly basis and if there are any questions um next steps we submit to the Mercer County Department of Education and our official budget hearing this is
not what this is this is just our preliminary our official is May 7th I don't expect that there'll be any anything uh in the way of material changes between now and then hi hi hi toist hello I have a
question yes um I and this is something that you've uh done a great job answering for me in the past so I think this is just another version of that but if you go back to the slide that was showing the breakdown and I just this one think um yes okay and you've just
been really helpful and I I wonder if we could go through this for our purposes tonight is thinking about you know when you said the programmatic decisions are driving the budget which is great for us because it's very focused on our students uh and then thinking
about but it also means for instance and just correct me if I'm messing something up but you I think you're explaining the co-curricular and Athletics price um costs have gone up but that's not necessarily because we as a board have
added um added anything it's because the cost of what we've already agreed to has gone up that's that's primary that's true yeah we're not expanding these are just ongoing costs move forward one year inflated for to reflect the given economy that's really helpful so if we
were ever needing to cut down cut things it's not like we're just making arbitrary decisions and getting bigger in in a year where costs are going up it's just the nature of what's going on you said it better than I did that is true well you taught me okay so okay uh
but one thing I did miss um and this came up so much prior to the referendum and and I really am negligent for not mentioning this is the question of where's Pea in this so interestingly enough our local contribution to pea is
about the same even though the program is expanded um by uh multifold um and it's here but guess where else it is it is also right here and that's a negative number that's
negative 5381 the reason it's negative is because this is our general fund that we present here on an annual basis pea is what we call a special Revenue fund it's outside of this budget for the most
part reason this is going down is because pea is now paying some of these costs so this decrease in school administration is be because pea is picking up those costs if pea didn't pick up those costs our tax levy would
be greater and so we had talked about this any number of times uh during the referendum um and the referendum not being About Preschool but it just kept coming up and we would say repeatedly that the Pea the preschool expansion was a benefit to the district not just
because of of how it helped our students but financially this is absolutely proof positive of that assist right here it's creating greater efficiency it's certainly creating greater efficiencies as we uh have here even
though our our administrators are still here they um they are not being fully charged to our general fund into the tax levy of Lawrence Township and this is what we were trying to say it just so happens to be that elegantly one week week later we're
here great thank you so much Tom that was great [Music] um board secretary report anything you want to add so tomorrow we have our kickoff meeting with the architect it's exciting um so we will meet and uh Robin
will be there and I'm sure Mindy will be there and our Architects will be there duthy and Steve shrier um we will have uh herb seberg uh he will be there he's also a Lawrence resident but he's uh he owns the site engineering company and we will begin to
talk about how we're going to proceed and what the the steps are going to be in big strokes and then the following week we meet with our bonding attorneys and our our financial advisors and talk about selling bonds um and so um this is exciting and
we'll be bringing you um I'll need some help from any board members that want to volunteer because we'll be contracting for a construction management firm and I need at least one board member to be on the evaluation team and so um Miss Santos had expressed interest I don't
know if she's still interested uh but that would be fantastic to help us review that specification before it goes out um we're all reviewing it now so we're moving the ball rapidly down the field at this point um and uh I believe
that what you'll have is you'll have regular uh reports from us eventually there'll be pictures in the reports that you get from us as we break ground and undoubtedly if it ever rains again you'll have muddy pictures as we try to pour footings uh because that's what construction is like and it'll be a
bunch of fun also on the agenda tonight we did not forget about um uh any other schools so as promised you will see on the agenda tonight the award of the modular building roof for Eldridge Park that's a metal roof it's a handsome roof that'll look similar to what we have at
slackwood school and the metal roof on Lawrence elementary school you'll see I believe $80,000 $85,000 contract for painting plaster repair at uh Eldridge Park um that'll coincide as we replace all the classroom ceilings on the third
floor as well um you've already approved the uh floor replacement at slackwood elementary school which I believe was also upwards of $80,000 so we will be moving forward with major and minor revisions you'll see those revisions first before
referendum um but we'll certainly break ground on those things so to speak um right through the summer uh there are many more things U that we could talk about but um the board should know that all the things that people brought before you in terms of when they said what about us we remembered them
typically we don't talk about these things we just do them um but I do want to remind that I will send an email out to Eldridge Park staff tomorrow says that you awarded these things last night to remind them that you did not forget about them you had never forgotten about them um these things take 90 days to
plan so when people were concerned about that we were already well underway planning um by that time so on the agenda this evening you will see a uh recommendation to you uh by way of the superintendent that I put before her to
hire Freight Vice Hopkins and duthy as our architect this um the S the um the process we used for this was to go out and I sent out a uh request for assistance my counterparts across the state north south central to
provide me with data regarding the costs for their Architects um and compared them to both what we call the hard cost the brick and mortar for construction and what their cost of their architect was overall in proportion to their contract I chose to
do this for this reason reason um and again I I asked the finance committee about this and I expressed to them why I chose this methodology um and first um let me say that these uh architectural services are Professional Services they are exempt from bidding uh because you
wouldn't want to war a low bid to somebody you want the qualified person or the most qualified person uh to design this for our structures that are going to last 100 plus years um so what we wanted to do was make sure that what we were negotiating
with a contract was in line with what's happening in the market had I gone out for an RFP the problem I I found with that was many times we only get one RFP a single RFP or maybe two um now what we have is a wide sampling across the state
what we brought before you today uh is uh consistent uh with somewhere around the 6% 6.5% of hard costs which is uh significant lower than we've paid in the past for other projects um it's right in
the middle of where we are and it's my belief that we're bringing to you the best professionals that are available to us uh they've served you well in all of the pre-referendum work and uh they have been there for us at every step of the way um and furthermore they're actually
also assisting us with um solutions to previous projects um and they were doing that long before we committed to a referendum and so that talked to not only uh their their efficacy but their character as well that they were going to stand by Lawrence and when we brought
them back in Far long before the referendum I got a call from the principal architect and he said to me I can't believe um that we're back I'm so happy to be in Lawrence Township and so it shows up in his numbers it shows up
in his service it's there for you and I'd love to answer question questions this is a large contract are we okay all right so this contract is being reviewed by our attorney we will also submit it to the Office of the State com controller their review of us um due to the size of the
contract so this is not just something that happens in my office it's happening through legal counsel it's also again going to go to the Office of the State Controller due to its size and they will review the entire process once more um and so tonight however it's uh on the agenda for your
consideration thank you so much Tom thank you for the budget presentation it was really good I love having a little walk through of it um so that everybody in the public can know how you're thinking and how the budget aligns with our goals as a district um
the board president's report um I just really wanted to take a moment to sincerely thank all the Lawrence residents who took the time to show up and vote in support of our referendum on March 11th your participation is a testament to the dedication and the care
you have for the future of our community and our schools the success would not have been possible without the hard work and commitment of many individuals Dr clim our entire central office staff the administration so many teachers leaders and many community members have worked
tirelessly over the past year and a year and a half sorry to ensure the successful passing of this referendum their Collective effort efforts have laid out the foundation for what we're about to accomplish together as we move forward the next
Focus will be on the implementation of the plan I want to assure the community that we will keep you posted every step of the way transparency and communication are key and we as a board are committed to keeping you informed of our progress I'm so proud of the work that
has been done so far but we know this is just the beginning there is so much more to do and I'm confident that together we will build a brighter future for our schools for our students and for the community this referendum is a critical step towards improving achievement for all of our students from our youngest Learners in
prek to all of our graduating seniors thank you once again for your support and Trust let's move forward with excitement and optimism for the future of our district thank you to everyone on this board as well we worked so hard over the past year and a half and um it
was a great honor to serve with you um and I am so incredibly happy over the outcome for our students and our staff so um thank you and then we have um our
liaison reports we have our student board member Edison thank you so good evening everyone over the past month fundraising efforts have continued to support Project Graduation with several successful initiatives contributing to our progress Casino KN raised over
$4,300 exceeding previous uh Year's results despite having fewer attendees thanks to our generous sponsors Project Graduation was able to reduce costs for food and the venue maximizing the funds raised Additionally the lawn signs fundraiser is underway an initial batch of signs excuse me an initial batch of
signs with blank year spaces will be printed with available vinyl date stickers to avoid waste year-over-year we anticipate selling the signs for $25 each though they will be on sale for $20 uh each if purchased before April 30th uh and we are actively promoting them to
senior families to help meet our fundraising goals despite these successes there's still work to be done Project Graduation has currently raised about $88,500 but still needs an additional 9,000 to 11,000 to fully support uh excuse me to fully fund Project Graduation to help to help close
this Gap we're encouraging families to consider making donations including in kind and we're actively exploring new fundraising ideas communication is also our key Focus moving forward Project Graduation has identified a need for better promotion on the school's Instagram page and steps
are being taken to connect uh connect with the student responsible for managing that account uh lastly the Project Graduation event is is scheduled for June 24th with approximately 200 to 250 seniors expected expected to attend ensuring this event is both safe and
successful requires the support of parent volunteers and we need to increase parent volunteer engagement in the weeks ahead in the meantime efforts efforts are also underway to plan class Royale which was previously mentioned by the other student Representatives uh a match uh match of the Powderpuff game
that will now involve students from all grades uh this event scheduled for April 25th aims to match or exceed the $3,000 raised by last year's Powderpuff fundraiser in short while meaningful progress has has been made in fundraising everyone involved in Project Graduation encourages Community Support
to donate and volunteer now to ensure Project Graduation is a memorable and safe celebration for the class of 202 thank you this concludes my report thank you so much Edison um uh Lawrence Township Education Foundation we had our grant cycle tonight so we
have nothing else to add uh New Jersey School Board Association Joanna is not here I don't know if anybody has anything that they would like to share okay uh student services student services meeting was held on March 11th and attendance was
Vanessa carak and myself AR Del Clark items to highlight uh the NJ GPA testing uh that took place from March 10th to the 13th um those tests are fulfilled fulfilling the state requirement for
school graduation uh so that was a busy week and I'm sure everyone is glad that that week is done the transition Fair the transition Fair took place on March 1st in collaboration with car caregivers of New Jersey the fair was a success with 33
vendors registered to attend and approximately 30 families attending many the families that attended were of Lawrence so thank you to all those who attended various vendors such as DVRs DDD gameu Ark of Mercer finan various
financial planning programs respit support music and gaming programs dentists uh MJ tip uh which is uh travel Independence to name a few of those vendors that were there um based on the
feedback we're looking forward to continued growth in in future events of that this month is developmental disability awareness month um through the new internal community board committee mentioned last month's
activities that are being planned in um previous years uh promoted items included fundraising activities within building con um activities building connecting our students with developmental disabilities with their same aged pairs
classroom door displays educate students about various disabilities related Services providers and teachers have also provided informational resources to staff and students we look forward to see what will be available for this month thrive thrive continues their
eighth year with uh three counselors in the district covering lis LMS and LHS serving 52 students 17 of those students have been newly referred to thrive this year Thrive provides therapeutic counseling and consultation to students
families and staff primarily reasons for referrals are depression anxiety School avoidance or refusal emotional emotional disregulation and conduct issues esy and connect planning and preparation for esy
and connect uh for the 2025 summer session continues communicating with parents and putting together staff to help determine the number of classes that are needed this year is the current step uh the special education parents Advisory Group cpad planning for the
upcoming presentations through DDD or children's collabor collaborative is taking place to discuss services and support for families this ends my report great thank you so much helle uh Recon figuration ad
Haw thank you uh A lot's been said but I do just want to give kudos particularly to leadership and and in a lot of reflection of this process I think I it's really been extraordinary and just to hear from folks around the state in the last week to really put in
perspective what our community achieved which is to vote for improvements that were frankly voluntary that were improving our students experience they weren't have to hav they weren't um barebones and that's because of the amazing work of our leadership and
efficacy in past years so um just from my perspective as a liaison every single day that I watched our president our superintendent our ba our communication director deal with the daily um
responsibilities of running districts while also engaging every day on this matter it was really impressive and uh frankly the next steps which I think it's a little tiring to think that more work and hard more difficult work is
ahead um and that will be the the focus I think of us as Liaisons and and making sure that the community is aware and and the community gives input so the other thing uh we've been really reflecting on is just the leadership of all our school
leaders particularly Dr Fischer and Dr milowski I think I think that it's pretty extraordinary that these leaders didn't just you know put up with change they championed it and I thought we saw that a lot of the changes were driven by
our Educators and by all of you so I think that's pretty impressive and that'll be the hard work is figuring out what this is going to look like thank you so much Diana um review of communications done it's our first
opportunity for public input okay just please state your name you can write your address down and limit your comments to three minutes thank um my name is Mark Elliot um I'd rather just say it but I'll write it down all the stuff I'll get get
getting a little bit uh I just wanted to say thank you you guys did a great job on on bringing forward all the information on this referendum uh superintendent Clen uh Mr alridge uh the rest of the board you guys were really I
as a community member forget about me you know being interested in what's going on with our board here I mean just as as as somebody from the outside the way you guys were communica whether it's a you know virtual meeting or it's a meeting in the the auditorium in the
middle school you know all the brochures the things I mean it really helped people get information properly so I just I just I took a lot of work it was quite obvious how much work you guys put into this whole thing and uh you know
just uh I just appreciate that and I I really I I just like the way not all not all not all districts would do that so thank you for the hard work and the informing of the public um that's pretty much it so thanks and Mark I want to say
thank you to you for your support which included many discussions online with people who did not have the facts and you had the facts at your fingertips and set the record straight so we all appreciate appreciate that well if I may reply to that um the uh there was just
so much uh misinformation and lies I would say and so that's it's it's disturbing to me as a community member and somebody who's invested in the school district um some people may not be invested in the school district some you know uh for whatever reasons and uh
I think that's a big mistake in ways that they may not see you know apparently see but they may have some other agenda I don't know thank you Mark thank you mret um I just want to say one thing in response to you know social media and this is just a
general comment I'm putting out to the public um social media is not necessarily a place to go to find information about our schools I encourage people in the community to look at our website contact Dr clim contact myself don't put a question on
Facebook and always expect to get an accurate answer um think we've culturally come to a point where fa you know social media has become a dialogue but it there is a lot of misinformation um that is shared on that and I really want to encourage people in
the public to come to the source um we really want to make sure our community understands what's going on here even if someone does not have a student in the school we will be more than happy to share information you know taxpayer
dollars run our schools so we are uh beholden to our community so thank you for what you've done um and I just put it out to the community to really come to us do not post stuff on social media to get information and I would like to
add to that show up at the board meetings if you really want to know stuff and you don't want to post you know misinformation just because you just didn't attend go to the board meetings go to any kind of referend a meeting or and do your reading do your studying do your homework I mean a lot
of the stuff was you know I'd ask somebody hey did you go to the meeting did you hear you know usually not yes so either way and worst case scenario just you know bother that guy over there Mr ELD so thanks thank you okay any other
questions any other comments no okay um no board discussion and work session items this evening um so we'll go to board uh action items and our first is Personnel committee report and action items which is I'm doing for Joanne who
is out today and I forgot to pull it up while I was sitting here I apologize [Music] um all right but I was presenting Personnel so did you happen to notice that all the kids in the high school reported from
their phone too save sorry save Mr Ryan you were traditional but every you were in good company everybody had their phone out I know I I'm not good with the phone in that way uh Personnel met on 312 and attendance was Dr clim Sean fry
ogga Martinez Diana pasculli arendel Clark and myself um we discussed current specialed assistant vacancies and upcoming leaves uh next year we're projecting vacancies for science um some Specialists ESL and special ed we
reviewed negotiation items and discussed staffing needs for 2526 school year um I also want to just mention again um the uh successful uh contract negotiations with ltaa and
lapta um Dr clim and sea did an outstanding job um and I'm extremely proud and excited um and we'll see that on our next agenda um and with that I'd like to move uh P1 through
p uh 35 second the got it Motion in a second y ready yes ready Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes Miss Martinez yes Miss pasculli yes Miss
Santos yes Mr van heis yes Miss Bose yes motion carried thank you uh CIA APD and student service action items CIA APD met on March 13th at 8:00 a.m. in the board office in attendance were Mr Neil Desai
our new assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction who on his second day on the job passed a $94 million referendum so that's pres oal Dr clim Miss mzy Dr Michelle Kang
Michelle Bose pasi and myself uh we officially welcome Mr deside to the team Miss muy provided updates on the transition of instructional support through the equity coaches and the progress of the comprehensive Equity plan Dr clim shared
an update on the AI Grant and the linkage from Dr King for ongoing consultation with TCNJ the committee also discussed expanding life skills programming with input from the student services and mayor's Community Center
task force as well as Partnerships with Ryder University the committee reviewed two policies for for a first reading and progress updates included successful ordering of virtual reality glasses through ltef for career Pathways a
doubling of votte applications and a successful americ preschool presentation with 130 parents in attendance Mr desai's transition priorities were also noted no items were referred from other
committees C APD will continue to monitor progress toward District goals related to equity wellness and student achievement with updates shared publicly at the board meeting with that I would like to uh go
to the agenda where you see um ois uh for travel log uh professional development field trips and Os SS is uh
nonpublic and out of District so I would like to move ois 1 through 7 and OSS 1 through3 could we uh pull o O7 out I need to recuse on that one so
Kevin understood okay so the second the motion the motion in a second time you're complicating that one now okay so okay here we are uh Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes yes Miss Martinez yes
Miss pasculli yes Miss Santos yes Mr van he yes Miss Bose yes motion carried um I have a motion to move o77 second who was the second M
okay all right Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes Miss Martinez yes Miss pasculli yes Miss Santos yes van he dispose yes motion carry thank you
finance committee report and school business management action items Okay Kevin was absent so I'll get the report Finance met on March 14th from 8 to 9:30
a.m. as if talking about the budget wasn't fun enough we celebrated Tom eldridge's birthday and any meeting that includes cake is fine by so Tom Joel pasoy joined
us Dr Robin clim Amanda Santos Diana pasculli and myself I was filling in for Kevin Tom shared the proposed 2526 budget highlighting preliminary numbers in different formats make it accessible
for all I won't go over that line by line again um we were looking at the architect's contract for the middle school expansion and Tom was able to negotiate and lock in 5.3% of the total cost or 6.7% of
hard cost so if you're going to haggle bring Tomlin construction manager contracts are not Professional Services and don't require bidding and will be determined by a point system so that we acquire the best hires and not the cheap get it all time that's it 16 one
through 16 one through uh yes so yeah we have uh and I'm happy to make the motion for SPM 1 through 16 which includes Transportation payments uh routine budget transfers Financial reports fire drills Grant submissions uh several contracts Tom alluded to
earlier um lease with the YMCA for next year and uh most importantly the uh budget uh approval which will enable Tom to submit this to the county superintendent and we'll be back for our hearing on May 7th so with that I'll move SPM 1 through 16 and my thanks
to Second Tom with a motion in a second Mr clerk yes Miss Evans yes Miss Martinez yes Miss pasculli yes Miss Santos yes Mr van heis yes Miss Bose yes motion carried thank you here our next
opportunity for public input good evening just please state your name your address write it down and limit your comments to 3 minutes yes ma'am thank you Jim cleek uh 7 East
darlan get that but the uh I just a couple comments and questions reference to the to the referendum it was I was I was sorry to see there wasn't a
greater turnout percentage and I was surprised to see that there was that much opposition to the truth and uh and the and to my dismay some people I know who
a buckets of money told me how much my taxes were going to go up and all I voted for it and and uh it's just that kind of thing always discourages me because even though I only have one grandchild left in the system for
and and she's graduating this year I still feel like when I was when my kids and grandchildren were in school other people whose kids were already out of school or who didn't have any kids help pay for mine and you know if you if
you're not you know if you if you're comfortable enough to do it it's it's our it should be our turn now but the uh and this is a question that I'm pretty sure I know the answer to but the
uh I I know that the mailings and all were had to be expensive and the work went into that and I I think my understanding was that that was the Education Association am I right because I'm pretty because of course people want
to think it was the district or the uh teachers union or something and the last thing since I'm running out of time here is uh the uh Tom when you referred to I think you used initials or something that's the
was that the preschool way that helped you were saying helped make it the referendum so was better than it would have been otherwise in terms of keeping it not having
a helping the cost the ref not for the referendum for but offset the administrative costs for that were in the budget two different things but yes it was the paa question how much confidence do we have that that's going to be a continuing answer that
thing do you want answer that I'm just curious you know what I'm saying yes yes yes I mean so two things I just want to say we did engage njaa um you know which has been a huge support to us the office of government Affairs um and they did
all of our Publications um outside of the brochure that was made you know in our office um by Miss B deseri our Communications manager all the mailings that went home were because we have a relationship with the njaa and we engaged them very early on in the
process so I like to kind of correct I wasn't I so thank you I know that I mean I I was pretty sure I knew that and I wasn't being critical I was trying to clarify it clarify and on yeah I was I was referring to page
25 or something here it is where it had the pieces of the budget because you know you nobody from the audience at least not me can ever see those budgets and that's why you need the website in the end when they're on there but the but that yeah I was curious about I'm
talking about the the the uh $3,673 that's that's a grant from preschool Aid that state I'm assuming and that's and I just wondered how because that's another thing you hear
and I wonder if myself if but when just you know when people new Governors come and and so on how much confidence or is it going to be continued I miss Bose gave me the permission Mr click it's always a pleasure to speak
with you but forgive me I have to wait for the board chair to U and so she's so she's indicated that I can respond I have no um concern uh I have no more concern that pea Aid will diminish than
I do for um a categorical Transportation Aid or security Aid or a special education Aid or Debt Service Aid um I so I I don't con I am not concerned with pea being targeted amongst all the other
things that people are looking at um so the state when it balances its budget looks at a great number of things and it's not just um our Aid I know that often times people would like us to uh they they'll Spotlight one thing in
particular um and our our indications whether it was from our County office or through uh different governing agencies um all indicate that the support from the Department of Education uh specifically the governor rather is that
um this is an initiative that the Govern Governor wants to see uh moving forward um and we want to see it too I think it's plain with the benefits are um but we have no reason to believe that that one particular type of of Aid will be
targeted thank you sorry I do have a vested interest I have to admit since both my daughters work in the district thank you thank you Mr CLE any other public input comment okay Michelle could I add
something to that sure people who think it doesn't matter once your kids are out of school you know I took a little trip to the emergency room over the weekend my EMT was Lawrence grad my nurse at the hospital was a Lawrence grad and the
doctor in the emergency room has a kindergartener at Ben Franklin so it extends far beyond just having kids in school yes it's our community I mean I I really feel like one of the things that people take for granted is how big our
reach is how our students go out and do so much in this town and in this in the state and Beyond so um I like you meet and interact with kids all the time who who are now adults who tell me they were
in in our school system so thank you for sharing that pepper and next time it could be Ryan that's right it might be Ryan Mr Ryan rather yeah I'd put my life in his hand yeah of course of course Edison's our guy thank you um a new
business pepper do you want to do um new business has uh personnel and substitut and I would like to pass new business 1 through 11 second Tom with a motion in a second Mr Clark yes Miss Evans yes Miss
Martinez yes Miss pasculli yes Miss Santos yes Mr van he yes dispose yes motion carried thank you um now can I have a motion to adjourn so moved all in favor I
I thank you everybody for coming have a F night e e e e e e e for