##VIDEO ID:V2LKPjHG2eA## good evening I'd like to reconvene tonight's Board of ucation meeting can I get a roll call please Mr Ser here M Wy here Mr P here Mr K here Mrs ainon here Mr mkin here Mrs wingler here Mrs M here please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the of the United States of America repic which it stand Nation [Music] andice thank you for coming out tonight we held our reorganization meeting on January 2nd I would like to thank all those who attended and the board of education for choosing me to represent the board as the president once again congratulations again to Mike and George for winning the election and to Joel for joining us as the lak curse representative because of the snow days our calendars have been updated please check the district we ite for updated information there will be a presentation this Friday night at 6:30 it's the 56th Annual Gospel course to honor um Martin Luther King so hopefully you'll be able to attend that it's a very heartwarming show and in honor of Martin Luther King I leave you with some of his words the function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically intelligence plus character that is the goal of true education thank you joa good evening everyone and welcome Happy New Year I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and you are looking forward to 2025 January is School Board appreciation month in New Jersey and we want to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt thanks to all of our countless volunteers up here on our board your dedication in overseeing and advancing our students education is greatly appreciated a special congratulations to ker and George CAC and Joel Merin on their reappointment to our board thank [Applause] you additionally I would like you to mark your calendars for Friday evening you don't want to miss the show it's a wonderful wonderful celebration at our high school and it will start at 6:30 I don't feel like this is working can you hear me okay the other thing I want to talk about is some exciting news for ntees the NSA of Lakers has chosen to adopt ntees and they'll be presenting a formal proclamation to mark the special partnership this is going to be on February 6th at 10:00 a.m. so thank you and we look forward to that celebration the other thing I want to bring up is due to the snow day utilized on Monday January 6th as Mrs Mount spoke about we did have to make adjustments to our district calendar as a result the re revised calendar is now part of our um board agenda it will also be on our district website um as a result Monday February 17th which is President's Day students and staff will now be coming to school this adjustment ensures flexibility in the event of an additional emergency closing I just want you to understand that probably one of the hardest decisions and the most challenging decisions I have to make in superintendent is school closings not an easy thing um certainly restful and restless nights but I'm always going to air in the side of caution they can't here is that it can you guys hear me now the thing that you have to he the one thing you have to remember is that I'm always going to air on the side of caution so please make sure you're looking at the new calendar you are aware of the fact that there are some changes and that calendar can change again because as you can see the weather has been extremely harsh it's extremely cold and I think they're expecting snow in the forecast again um so please make sure you um are looking at the calendar please understand that adjustments are being made to maximize instruction but also to try to give us a buffer in case we need more more at the end of the the spoiler um the other thing I want to talk about is on the actual board agenda you'll see there's a retirement Miss Sher Boer Kemper has been in our district for 27 years she's going to be retiring all the best to Mrs Boer keer she is a tremendous teacher wonderful math teacher and we wish her the all the best so I'm going back to you to go to our report of our military Ambassador Mr Taylor hello uh as you already mentioned uh NSA Lakers is going to be adopting mte which is awesome uh ceremon is February 6th at 10 uh mtes and Whiting uh continue the reading buddies program I went out there uh yesterday with uh some of my guys and we had a great time we were uh reading and doing activities in some of the classrooms and and it was just awesome uh we're going to continue that on a monthly basis at at the two schools at a minimum and then um uh if the other schools are interested just contact Miss uh Angelica day Seuss and if you don't have anything else that's all that and oh and thanks for the continued support thank you appreciate it thank you for doing that it's great to have military presence and involvement with our students um Jamie would you like to give your student government report please so good evening everyone my name is Jamie Poe and I am at the senior class president at Manchester Township High School I am here today to provide you the board with important information regarding the important events that have been happening at mths since the last meeting we had our winter pep rally where we played saing Santa and basketball it was a resounding success with the students and the faculty in December we had our winter Spirit Meek where the themes were plan over sweater candy cane snow day class colors and holiday Pon the seniors have their Chipotle fundraiser another wonderful success and are looking to organize another fundraisers our Freshman Class hold a pretzel and a cheero fundraiser and our leadership class also held our DEA Halls event which was the first year that we did this where each class decorated a specific hallway with different like the Polar Express gingerbread candy pans cumulating in a final event where we lit up the hawk nest I just want to say thank you thank you for allowing me to represent the MCHS Student Government at the board meeting this evening I am truly honored to be here with all of you and to have the opportunity to fill you in on everything our SGI has been working so hard on thank you again and have a great [Applause] night this time we're going to have Miss Pedroza do our student presentations and awards it's not working [Music] again that better good evening everyone and this is one of our best times of the night so we're going to begin recognizing our wonderful students and athletes throughout the district we'll begin with mtef is Muhammad here this evening come on down meet fifth grader Muhammad yeles Mohammed helps out in the media center every day by cleaning up and straightening up the books he also helps out by getting his classroom ready for his classmates and volunteering to help his teachers in class MTS is proud of the work that muham is doing in school and so are we congratulations Mohamad [Applause] we'll continue with rway is derell here hi congratulations and welcome at Ridgeway we are delighted to celebrate the incredible growth and achievements of one of our shining students derell derell has demonstrated exceptional academic progress and the staff at Ridgeway couldn't be more proud of him he is highly motivated student always eager to dive into Hands-On projects in his free time he's creating amazing new projects like parking garages showcasing his Ingenuity and creativity keep soaring darell you're getting us just started congratulations [Applause] keep we'll continue with liting school and we have Marley Kaitlyn and Claire are they all here this evening I think I saw two of them in the back let's give him a nice round of applause congratulations these lovely young ladies are members of the junior impact team proudly collected ingredients and supplies for lasagna and it's called lasagna love an organization that feeds families that are in need students coordinated collections of pans pasta and sauce the collections were then given to local chefs that will happily prepare and deliver the meals non- perishable items were collected for this important work thank you to these students for taking the lead on this project and for helping those in need thank you so much [Music] here we go Abby congrats Abby come On's up our next smiling face is Abby and she represents Regional Day School Abby comes to school each day smiling sharing her positivity her humor her kindness and enthusiasm with others take your picture Abby continues to follow Direction stays on task and works hard to complete her daily activities we are very very proud of Abby Abby's big smiles big smiles smile always smile she made pizza last night with us pizza this girl is always smiling of course we're talking about pizza lasagna this is a great night here at the board meeting congratulations Abby our next student is from the middle school and I believe I saw Marina here come on [Applause] up Mariana is an eighth grade student who participates in both the student council and the impact Club she's always willing to step up and take charge to help her teachers her classmates and even our mtms parents she's fluent in several languages and has been overly generous generous and ready to help translate her eag eagerness to learn and her op optimistic Outlook Inspire others [Applause] congratulations our next two student athletes are Mitchell and Dallas we are extremely proud to have Mitchell and Dallas represent present the middle school as our student athletes for the month of January Mitchell and Dallas are both a great representation of what it means to be a student athlete they are both eighth grade leaders of our soccer wrestling and soccer basketball teams respectively and serve as an excellent example to our younger student athletes congratulations guys to BR awesome congratulations I'm going to ask Mrs mckernan to come up to speak about these next two and these two students represent our high school we'll also have Mr come up I'm going to ask jam elac and Mato soless to join up here and take your moment these two students are two of 21 in our structured learning experience course that culminates in an internship outside of school as a couple of the last ones that did not have internships yet these two young adults joined me and my partner teacher Maryann Adams at a chamber a greater Chom River Chamber of Commerce meet and greet meeting where they thought they were going to talk to small groups of 10 people at a time and wound up raising their hand as first time participants and getting asked to stand up and introduce themselves to a room of 80 people which we hadn't prepared them for I came in beaming I said Mr Adams these two students shown bre they represented us well they spoke in front of a group of 80 people with no preparation and I was so proud of them he said they deserve to be honored here tonight and that's how we're here Mato is going to act as an interpreter for the fulfill people's Pantry in Tom's River he's going to do an awesome job but here's the Shameless plug for a who's interested in interior design and for some reason is proving to be the most difficult placement so if any of you out there have an interior design business or know someone I'm networking in front of you in front of a please interior designer we need it thank you it's we spoke about it and and certainly it's such a wonderful program and um what they do with these students is simply remarkable but we do want to get her a placement so if you happen to know anybody if you could please let the high school know we would greatly appreciate it and congratulations once again to both of [Music] them our next two students is Jesse and Tyler and they are student athletes from the high school come on up so both Jesse and Tyler have been critical to the early success of their teams this season though only a freshman Jesse is adjusting quickly to the p and intensity of the varsity level thus far she's had multiple 20po games with an 11o average while leading the lady hawks in assist congratulations Jesse that's awesome Tyler has been a critical leader of our team for four years now he currently leads the division in an average with 217 a high game of 267 a High series of 755 is one of the top 20 Bowlers in New Jersey yes in New Jersey and has our boys in control of the be South Division he's been a tremendous asset to our first year coach Mike Sullivan thank you guys great work ethic great job great job Hawks congrats it's just such an honor to celebrate our students they do such a tremendous job here and and really our motto is Excellence by example but what we are what we repeatedly do Excellence then is not an act but a have it and so I thank you for being here this evening I thank you for the partnership and I thank you for supporting us thank [Applause] you congratulations to all those students honor tonight at this time we'd like to invite Mr Robert Kover proos to do our audit presentation good evening everybody uh first just want to say congratulations to all the students that's great certainly switch I like switch sorry about that again congratulations to all the students I think that was fantastic certainly a hard act to follow not sure I can keep the same level of excitement following that with da presentation but I'm going to try my best thank you board for having us again tonight again I'm Ron provos partner in engagement along with M carela she's the leite supervisor in engagement just a a quick remark on a timing the uh the deadline is actually moved to today so January 15th in New Jersey part of education did a I guess a pilot program last year where they said we're going to try January 15th as a new deadline last year and this year kind of see how it works and Manchester Board of Education we filed on December 20th so way ahead of the curve during that time when we checked I think there's only 30 35% of the Board of Education um at first filed so chances are that's probably going to be the new Norm going forward I'd have to say it's January 15th um I haven't heard anything different as of yet I'm sure we'll hear during the year uh so just move on quickly to the AMR uh yeah aitor management report you know where we we follow any kind of findings or corrective action we're pleased once again to say the district had no findings that require corrective action and I think that's a great Testament to Craig and his and his entire team you know you guys actually got the certificate of Excellency again cor remind me how many years in real it was 100 I know it was a lot I think this was the 29th 29 so that's so again that that's really a word testament to um financial reporting and you know that the state looks at and you know it again really Exemplar excellence and you know as Auditors we go we test internal controls we test compliance and we certainly don't test the same things year after year you know we're always rotating GRS looking at different kind of things so I mean the district really really does an excellent job in all facets so Greg you should really be proud of that and your team so moving on to the the financial statement I was going to just keep it kind of brief um with just some high LS but certainly you know we'll answer any questions that you have so just in touch on I guess operating fund so if feel like a food service and I realize you guys all don't have this in front of you but that position increased roughly $160,000 and most of that was you guys had a um a supply chain assistance grant that was 147,000 and correct I think that was the last year of that right J 3 2024 the last year so they had four rounds of it so you know next year you know you take that away you're probably closer to the break even point which you know typically that's kind of where food service is so and then R of V School quite a bit by approximately $800,000 in that position you know that was just driv been on a really really great year with an increas in tuition Revenue that should have been on really you know an increase in students attending the program in addition to that you know it had an increase in needs that that warranted an extra you know Revenue so you know that that fund is really operating well so I guys be proud of those those Enterprise funds uh lastly the the general fund um when you look at the budgetary fund balance it actually decreased quite a bit by 1.6 million which is really common nowadays because you know you look at Transportation costs are just through the roof you know they went up not here necessarily although it is here but I mean just Statewide I mean the transportation is over here I have leave went up $56,000 just from last year and now is at June 30th so you forecast this year I think it's even you know even exponentially greater um health benefits that's no different either you know that that increased $750,000 approximately from from last year know those are two fixed costs that are hard to control and you compound that with contractual salary increases the you know the general increase supplies materials that I think everybody feels um but right now you still have a healthy fund balance of 5,122 3 three but you know I think you're going to need all that kind of moving forward but as of right now I think you guys are in a in a really really healthy position so you know something to be proud of uh that's all I really had I was just trying to keep it brief and and give you some highlights but certainly will entertain you know and answer any questions that you guys have I mean I'll just I'll just say to you know I got to thank Rob and Carmel and you know the rest of their team as well because this is an intens process you know they're they're out with us every day for three three and a half weeks um you know we all have jobs to do as well while they're here and they are very conversent of that uh and work very well with our staff you know they're very understanding that you know we are here working and this is an intensive process we try to do as much of this as possible before they get out here and get them as much as they as we can before they you know before they're physically in our buildings um but you know again nobody likes an it I mean if you do uh I'm not even sure but but these guys These Guys these guys make the process very easy for us like I said we've we've been working with with the firm since I've been here and I believe they were here prior to me coming here so they are very familiar with our district they're very familiar with our staff uh and you know again I want to thank you guys and also you know like Rob said this is not something you know for me this this takes a group effort throughout the district you know all of our administrators our staff in our buildings central office staff you know this is an accomplishment for the whole District so I thank you guys and uh thankfully we won't see you for you know about eight months doly noted thank you thanks just a quick comment too I mean the reason we did file this on December 20th 24 is because our relationship with you know Craig and every you guys are so proficient at getting us what we need and answering questions and it is usually four to six week process it's not a quick thing and uh you know that's I think why a lot of school districts only 30% profiled by December 20th but um you know so that that's a testament to to Craig's team us everything timely and again no findings so I think we we we really look at a lot a lot of volume of trans action so not have any findings and I think that's something really to be proud of thank you than you thank you Rob and Carmelo for working with us and thank you Craig for bringing us to our 29 year um success thank you um at this time we'd like to invite Miss rundo to the microphone so uh thank you for letting us be here I'm going to keep the trend of the previous presenter and try to keep it short um as you guys know we are required to preent to present our results on testing um within 60 days it feels like I'm going to be up here all the time because we do a lot of testing because we have fall testing and spring testing so um what is shared with you um and will also be posted on the website are from the fall and J GPA results those were only 12th graders who had not passed the year before it's a very small sample size compared to our other testing which is why this presentation is much shorter than the other one but we will be back within a month or so because we have the fall njsla results that we'll have to present within 60 days of when um those were put out so um that for the public as well these will be on the website there's also a video I do my best with the video I hope you enjoy the audio on it but um you know that's what that is and I think the main summary of that presentation is we're trying to get kids to be able to graduate and we're trying to provide as many different opportunities as possible the first choices always let's get them through the NJ GPA but we do have some kids on a test like that so what other opportunities are we giving for Pathways two and three for our students to be successful and that's part of why W Strat and his team have such a good graduation rate at the high school which always shows up on our performance reports because they're very good at providing a lot of opportuni so if you guys have any questions I know you've seen the presentation I feel free to ask them but I don't want to eat up your whole meeting going over the dat be provided to you as well so did anybody have any questions that you wanted to ask thank you thank you Mrs R and there were there were some questions that we had obtained over the weekend and you had given some responses and I shared them with the board some of them were related to portfolio p and attendance and um it is a very comprehensive uh presentation and the video is actually excellent but if there are any questions from anybody in the public anybody viewing it later certainly they can email us and we'd be happy to respond as well but thank you to both you and your team for a wonderful presentation that really does give us a lot of information and and things to lookout for moving forward thank you very much have a great thank you thank [Applause] you we would like to invite Mr Adams to the microphone to discuss some new courses that will be offered at Manchester High School next year good evening I also have Mr selli and Mrs Swain going to come up be part of the presentation okay um new courses and a little bit of information that we wanted to give the board right side M on yes okay all right so new this year this is the first time we did uh did this articulation agreement with Stockton right now we currently have an articulation agreement with OC for dual enrollment classes dual enrollment classes mean that students can be in high school and get College um so we wanted to expand our offerings for our students um so we made an agreement with Stockton and now we have some added courses so our intro to multimedia is is considered intro to digital studies at Stockton our AP Computer Science principles is considered a computer science overview and our creative writing is intro to creative writing at stock um so I think it's a great opportunity for our kids to earn college credit is that is that done digitally online no it's right and so what happens is kids in high school if they're taking intro to multimedia at Manchester they can earn college credit while taking classes at Manchester what is the price difference between a child taking a class through OCC versus Stockton that's about probably about $20 but the interesting thing is you can see um that kids who are free prod lunch and get a tuition waiver um so that's also an asset is that just for Stockton or is that for OCC too that's just for Stockton so um two other things that I wanted to were to know that we're trying to do um I'll stocking first there's also some pending courses that we're trying to see if they would approve and that's our video 3 four or French 3 and forensic science so we're trying to get those class is approved as dual enrollment again again it's just advantageous to our students um this year right now we have um email out to OCC and what we're trying to establish is an associate degree pathway so a student coming in high school in ninth grade um they would follow a pathway whereby when they're seniors they can leave with an associates degree um so I think that we can get this done that would be fantastic for our students um we're still in the planning stages we put um a a projection for that pathway to OCC and so they we're going back and forth now so we will let the board know um if we can complete it but that's that's our plan I think that would be fantastic how many students are roughly in these two programs so um right now kids taking um dual enrollment courses over 100 students are taking dual enrollment courses um for OCC pathway it would depend probably be for some high level students who are highly motiv motivated because they would have to follow kind of a strict path um to get all these dual enrollment courses but it' be definitely doable even if they get one semester finished you know or one or one year finished sa save a lot of money absolutely and so um so our new courses the first thing we know we're talking about budget we a lot about budget for Mr Lon lately um so when we looked at adding new courses obviously we wanted to see what kind of uh budgetary constraints we have on our school and so as we're looking to add AP African-American studies and AP seminar we would not need any extra staff that's first and then um we would look to purchase AP seminar textbook um but at a very good cost and Dr sarino was a good person to negotiate she gets the prices pretty low for us so thank you Dr sarino and AP AF American studies we are looking at Tex textbooks but we're also looking at some free materials um so right now there are some free materials that we can use for that cost that would not cost the board any money will these be College credited classes or will they have to take the AP test to get the they they they will be just like a regular AP course so they would have to they can either do two ways you can take the test your college credit so they have the choice to do it okay hi good evening so one of our new um AP courses that we are looking to add for next year is AP African-American studies so this is a unique course in that it PS from two disciplines it's going to pull from our social study standards as well as our English and language art standards um it's going to allow students to examine the diversity of the africanamerican experience through direct encounters with various sources so students are going to have access to multiple literary resources as well as um historical artifacts students will explore key topics that extend from early African kingdoms to ongoing challenges and achievements of the Contemporary movement with an indepth look of black communities in the United States with the broader with within the broader context of AF so some of the goals from the AP college board is that students will apply lenss from wal of disciplines to evaluate key Concepts historical developments and processes that have shaped black experiences and debates within the field of African-American studies okay so just a little bit about this course um it's going to add to the rigor of our programing studies um it's going to provide diversity and academic content for our students it's going to it's reflective of our student population and it's going to prepare our students for multiple career and college Pathways and interests when they leave High School Miss there's a question yes which certification does the teacher need history or English so our plan is to have two teachers teaching um one pulling from our social studies department and one pulling from our English Department so the College Board state allows certification in either field yes yes I think this is great did the kids bring this to you as a desired class so we actually pulled a survey so I have numbers for uh students that are yes or maybe there are some students who need more information about all of our courses uh we gave a survey to our eighth graders and right now we have about 41% of our eighth graders who are a yes or maybe for this course and at the high school level we have about uh 40% of students who are yes or maybe will there be prerequisites to take this or can you take it as a freshman you can no no prerequisits right now for African-American studies though no so it would it be available to students to take yes anytime thank you all right our next course is evening um this course is AP seminar um I'd like to think about the why why this course uh this is a great way for students to prepare for college is uh opportunity for students to continue to um Foster interdisciplinary learning uh so they would learn many ways in which uh many different areas like uh you know they could evaluate artistic works or performances they would be able to listen or view speeches uh broadcast valuate personal accounts uh constantly be reading and analyzing articles uh research studies uh this is a great way for students to uh continue to look or prepare themselves for the college level uh by just an entry level course this would have been a perfect course for me in high school so but um also the goals are to really uh synthesize information uh from multiple sources develop perspectives and and creating essays uh continue to deliver uh oral or visual presentations in the classroom and then to analyze and evaluate information so uh those are our goals for the class what year again any at software level it would be start start and what certification for Teacher English English yes will the kids get to choose the topics that they're researching or will it be something that's assigned to them yeah they'll be able to choose the topics and you know it'll be teacher driven obviously but they'll be able to choose the topics in way thank you and this is not a new course uh this is a a course that is already in our program of studies but we are doing a little change here we're making it a 2.5 credit course we're bringing it back to the students um and this is digital photography and obviously is to pursue creative interests um you know we have a lot of students that have individual artistic voices that we want them to be able to create and expand on so we think this is a per a perfect elective for students to take can I take it absolutely absolutely and thank you if you have any questions thank you for your presentation okay thank you very much Mr Lorenson do you have a report for us yeah just one item um so at this point budgets have been submitted by all of our schools and departments uh I've already done my first you know initial review uh we will be setting up meetings probably the end of January early February with each individual principle and Department had to review their budgets more closely um you know I have nothing really new to update you guys on as far as possible Aid things like that we haven't really got any new information yet um but we are you know we're building this budget as if uh everything stays flat and then we'll have a plan you know just in case it does decrease obviously you know obviously increases are are great that's what you want uh but then you can add stuff back but so we will we kind of operate off two different budgets and go from there uh but otherwise that's that's all I have for now thank thank you are there any residents that would like to come to the microphone to speak about agenda items only is there any board member reports I have board okay um yesterday we had a marvelous group of young students um I believe they part of the leadership I'm I'm assuming because Mrs sta uh was one of the sponsors they came to Leisure Village West to help our residents download an application and figure out how to log in um this application allows us to send a QR code to any of our guests to get them into the gates and it is complicated waed for the senior residents to understand what they're doing and how to do it and the kids were just phenomenal in exchange for their help our residents donated over 100 boxes of cereal thank you are there any other board member reports is there any old business or correspondence no old business no correspond okay we're going to move to the agenda section one a new business numbers 1 through 4 can I get a motion motion second any discussion can I get a roll call please Mrs serman yes Miss Weinstein yes Mr P yes Mr kellerer uh yes to all of them I'm going to abstain number two abstain on number two Mrs ainson yes Mr merkin yes Mr lber and M yes letters b through G can I get a motion sorry motion second any discussion can I get a roll call please Mr serman yes M Weinstein yes Mr P yes Mr kellerer yes Mrs ainson yes Mr merkin Mrs wingler yes and Mrs M yes section two a 1 through five can I get a motion discussion I just want to thank you high school team again for your uh presentation and for creating more opportunities for our students can I get a roll call please Mr seret yes M Weinstein yes Mr P yes Mr kellerer yes Mrs ainson yes Mr mkin Mrs wingler yes and Mr Mountain yes B Personnel numbers 1 to 30 can I get a motion okay discussion like to thank Miss buer for your dedication to our district and I hope you enjoy retirement can I get a roll call please Mrs Ser yes M Weinstein yes Mr P um yes to everyone but 29 Mr Keller yes Mrs ainson yes Mr mkin Mrs wingler yes and Mrs M yes letter c number one student Personnel can I get a motion motion discussion can I get a roll call please Mr Ser yes Miss Weinstein yes Mr P yes Mr kellerer yes Mrs ainson yes Mr mkin yes Mrs wingler yes M yes section three Finance numbers 1 through five can I get a motion motion second any discussion can I get a roll call please Mr Ser M Weinstein yes Mr P yes Mr Kart yes Mrs ainson yes Mr M yes Mrs wingler and miss m yes at this time we would like to invite anybody from the public to come to the microphone for public comment I would like to make a motion to adjourn our meeting all in favor happy New Year have a great night